“So you’re telling me that these boots can help me fly better than my sail?” Layla asked, talking to no one present. She was probably speaking out loud into her transmission bracelet.

  “It’s nice to see you, Layla,” Jerome said, smiling behind her.

  She turned around and reared back in surprise. “How did you get so tall? And your eyes!”

  Jerome dumped a cardboard box in her hands, feeling relaxed. He had been so wound up for days and was looking at more days ahead of being cooked up inside his little workshop, working on his projects. His time with Csala had improved his mood, which, if he was sincere with himself, he didn’t want it to stop. They had gone all night into the morning and afternoon, pleasuring each other and discovering each other’s ‘pleasure points’ all over again. She was a squirming and excited mess when he left her. And this time, she had spilled copious amounts of his load, unable to hold it all inside herself.

  Jerome had marveled at how much he could release. He took a whiff of his clothes, hoping he wasn’t smelling like sex. He had bathed thoroughly just before coming. It would be awkward if the Matron checked in on them and smelled sex on him. That wasn’t very professional.

  “Is this paper?” Layla asked.

  “It’s thicker than paper, but made from the same material as paper. I call it cardboard so that’s a cardboard box. Open it.”

  She dropped the box, squatted, and proceeded to open it, bringing out the giant steel boots encased in foam. She caressed the foam for a moment, raising a questioning eyebrow at him. “This is very nice padding. Too bad you’re wasting it on ‘cardboard’.”

  Jerome shrugged.

  “Okay, the Sage told me I’d be testing these but, what for?”

  “Skysails can only take you so high when flying—”

  “Layla!” Ash called out as she landed on her friend hugging her tightly.

  Layla groaned in pain. “Ash, your grip is too strong! Damn it! When did you become so strong?”

  “You’re here to test out the flying boots, right? Come!” Ash said, not hearing her friend’s question.

  Jerome scanned the field to check if anyone followed his overly enthusiastic friend. They were alone.

  “Sheela and Ms. Tara got theirs a day ago,” Ash said. She was a bundle of nerves and excitement. “They love it! I’m sure you’d love it too!”

  She pulled up her friend. “Just bond with it and say, ‘Fly as fuck!’”

  Layla looked at him in horror and he shook his head.

  “Hers doesn’t need voice activation, Ash,” he said. “She only needs to bond with it. And I have to run maintenance on yours so take them off.”

  “No!” She flew off.

  “Huh?” Layla muttered, gaping at the retreating form of her friend in stupor.

  “It’s the only way to get her to leave,” he said with a shrug.

  Layla turned to him. “How can she fly? And how is it, she’s so strong? She’s only Blank!”

  Ash had adapted better to the computation ring than he expected. It had increased her strength in leaps and bounds putting her on par with a Sprout when it came to physical prowess. Her senses were also sharper than that of a normal Blank, but perhaps her sight had always been that way. And it seemed to rival even Trudhorn’s of the Itakar — Selene’s spotter. The ring just improved her all round.

  “Let’s get started, shall we?” Jerome gestured. “Put on the boots and bond with them. Has the Sovereign’s aura worn off?”

  “A while back, yes. Why do you ask?”

  “I need you to use your own strength to power the boots.”

  “What are they called?” She asked stomping her feet after wearing them. “You’re not going to call them ‘flying boots’, are you? Sounds lame.”

  Jerome smiled sheepishly. “Well, do you have a better name?”

  “Heavens, Jerome! Come up with something. It’s your creation!” The boots lit up and began to hum slightly as she bound them to herself. “What’s happening?”

  “Give it a moment.”

  After the shaft extended up her thigh the humming leveled out and quietened.

  “Oh,” she muttered. “It’s beautiful! The runes and lights add to its beauty, making it look exotic.”

  “Well, I appreciate that.” Jerome smiled. “It seems you have a good eye for art. Ash and the others didn’t give two fucks about how it looked as long as it could fly… don’t tell them I said that though.”

  She laughed. “So I just send essence into it and fly?”

  “Slowly…” Jerome cautioned.

  She rose a foot into the air and flew around him. The thrust of air pushed back against the foliage of the field beneath her. “This is nice; different from a skysail, but nice. For some reason, I expected it to be noisy but it’s not. So I just push more essence into it and I can fly higher?”

  “Yes.”

  Layla was able to fly around for three hours and forty minutes before she exhausted the essence she could spare. She was able to reach heights well beyond a thousand feet without any challenges. In fact, her highest altitude was ten thousand feet. Beyond that, it became unbearable to breathe and to shrug off the cold.

  It was a very successful test from his observation.

  “Take this,” he said, handing her another package after she had rested and recovered. “It’s an artifact that can help you pull in more essence and regulate the amount you use. It would also help to create barriers and improve sensory details to things otherwise vague to your sight and senses.”

  She tore the package open excitedly. “It’s a gem.” She smiled, holding the tiny pebble-sized gem between her fingers.

  “This small white-blue gem is called a ‘computation gem’, similar to my ring” — he showed her the ring on his right middle finger which glittered in the late afternoon sun — “it helps to analyze essence and empower it in the user. Before you bond with it though, you should know that it will be implanted on your body. The best place should be on the little dip of skin behind your clavicle… it’ll hurt…”

  “I’m not a stranger to pain, Jerome. But why didn’t you make it into a ring? Or a necklace.”

  “Mine is way expensive,” he said with a smile.

  “How expensive?”

  “I can’t quantify its value. Suffice it to say that it’ll buy a small nation.”

  “That is not true!”

  Jerome smiled at her. “Come on! Bond the gem and put it in position.”

  She did as he said, but when it came time to place the gem in its position, she stopped. And looked at it for a long while.

  “Why do I have the feeling you can do this for me and it wouldn’t hurt like you said?” she asked.

  “That wouldn’t change anything.” He shook his head at her. “It’ll still hurt. Don’t be a coward and do it.”

  She frowned, pouting at him. “It’s not cowardice; it’s a feeling I can’t explain.”

  Jerome observed her again. Maybe she was telling the truth. Achilleia? He called.

  “There might be something we must have overlooked while creating the gem.”

  And what about the rings?

  She gave him a mental shrug.

  Jerome took the gem from Layla to examine it. Nothing felt out of place. This gem was grown from an ancient rune using quartz crystals that were created in Terra Praeta as a seed crystal. And because the quartz was empowered by the melon-sized gem keys he took out of the void world, this new gem had a hint of its power.

  What was going on?

  Layla had taken off her leather cuirass and opened her shirt for him. Her skin glistened from sweat from her exertion and she was breathing hard. “Ahem! Eyes up, Jerome.”

  Jerome smiled at her. Since she was trusting him, he decided to trust her. “Hold still, then,” he said, closing the gap between them and gripping her behind the neck, “so you don’t flinch too much from the pain.”

  He placed the gem in the dip behind her left collarbone and pressed down a little. The gem glowed mutely as it sunk a quarter of an inch into the skin. Layla took in a sharp breath, but didn’t react the way he had expected. In fact, she reacted with the opposite emotion. Pleasure. Her arousal hit him the next moment and she moaned as her arms went around him.

  Jerome felt her heartbeat speed up and his blood became excited. He pushed down his urges and scanned her body. He sensed as ambient essence was sucked through the gem and flooded her channels. Her core began to cycle, taking in more. He held her close, still examining her.

  The craziest thing happened next. His core began to spin as well and essence began leaving him… forcing its way into her.

  Achilleia!

  “It’s like you just bonded with her; binding her to you to be precise. It’s amazing!”

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  She’s siphoning essence from me, Achilleia, what’s amazing about that!?

  “You’re the one that said you’d hack the world. Well, congratulations! You’ve taken your first step as a world hacker. You’ve hacked a sacred artist, by binding her to you like an artifact.”

  What!? How can we reverse this?

  Even as he asked, he began slowing down his core but he sensed he’d damage hers if he completely did that so he sped it up, and made it faster, wanting to see how much she could absorb. He lit up his ring and began drawing essence from it. They stood there for hours and it was already dark when she finally stopped siphoning essence from him. She took a deep breath and exhaled.

  “Wow! That was amazing!” She left his embrace and turned around looking at the sky. “I feel so light; like I’ve been carrying a heavy weight all my life.”

  “Funny, Ash used those same words.”

  “Really? I didn’t see a gem on her.”

  “What more do you feel?” he asked, brushing aside her question.

  “My senses are stronger. My core is denser as well.”

  Jerome examined her and couldn’t help but notice the change in her aura as well. She felt different. More. His ladies whom he gave rings didn’t go through such a transformation, at least not so quickly. His ladies were most likely among the most powerful sacred artists in their respective Realms.

  “Why don’t you try flying again… see how different it feels.”

  She shot into the air with a lot more force than before. Her movements were a lot more powerful and graceful. And the gem behind her clavicle was twinkling like a star in the night sky.

  “This is so amazing, Jerome!” she screamed.

  Jerome sighed as he sensed Nyx shooting towards him. She dropped out of the sky and crossed her arms in front of him as she glared at him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You just bound her to you, didn’t you? I felt a new bond snap into place — a different kind. It’s weak, very weak, but it could take a toll on you, Jerome. What were you thinking?!”

  “Thanks for looking out for me, Nyx. But this was unintended. I don’t understand it either, but it has something to do with…” He wasn’t even sure this was factually correct but it felt correct. “It has something to do with me being the Chosen of Ilyrrah.”

  She looked from the excited Layla and back to him. “She doesn’t know what you did, does she?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Can it be reversed?”

  She gave him a look that said, ‘you think?’ or was that a ‘are you stupid’ look?

  “You have to let her know… before she starts to sense it. Can you sense it?”

  “No, Achilleia told me. The only indication I have is that she siphoned essence off of me when I planted the gem on her.”

  “What gem?” Nyx asked.

  “Okay, so I created a lesser version of our computation rings for Sprouts who would use the flying boots. I made them as gems that would be positioned behind the collarbone and sunk a little into the skin to make contact with the nerves and therefore the brain, but it was gonna hurt… a lot. After she bonded with the gem she said she ‘felt’ if I did the procedure myself, it wouldn’t hurt. Well, I did it and she felt nothing—”

  “That’s a lie,” Achilleia chipped in. “She felt something.”

  Nyx glared at him.

  “She became aroused,” Jerome admitted. “And then she started cycling, uncontrollably, I believe. And then I started cycling — uncontrollably if I might add — I had to draw on essence from my ring so she didn’t drain me.”

  “Your essence is a mutated one, Jerome. Did you check to see if hers is now?”

  “Fuck!”

  They flew after Layla and dragged her back to the ground. Nyx scanned her more carefully and confirmed her core was filled with dense pure essence, which was a relief. But it was going to be a pain to explain this to the Matron.

  “Wait until her mother hears about it.”

  One problem at a time, Achilleia. What could she do, kill me?

  ~~~

  “How do you feel?” Jerome asked Layla after her adrenaline-fueled mind had calmed down.

  “I feel great,” she said, smiling. “Honestly, I feel very good. Renewed, really.”

  Jerome looked to his teammates hovering around them and cleared his throat. “Could you give us some privacy, please?”

  They shuffled out of the lounge but hovered around the door. He quickly put up an aural barrier with his ring.

  “Layla, something happened to you when I placed the gem on you…” he said hesitantly. “It was unexpected and I had no idea such a thing could happen.”

  “And what is this thing that happened to me?” she asked. “You sound like it’s a bad thing.”

  “Well, it’s not a good thing either.”

  “Spit it out, Jerome.”

  “I… err, accidentally created a bond with you.”

  “What? What does that mean?”

  “It means you’re bound to him!” Nyx’s voice broke through his aural barrier.

  “This is an uncomfortable topic to discuss, ladies; we need privacy!” He glared behind him.

  He couldn’t hear them because of his aural barrier but they shouldn’t have been able to hear him either.

  Damn you, Nyx!

  He sensed them, the turmoil of their emotions; it was all over the place. They felt fear, love, betrayal… all at once. And all of it was toward him. Except for Nyx whose emotions were as calm as a still pond — though there was an underlying worry and anger beneath the surface of the calm.

  Csala’s emotions were the most intense. He was reminded of her deep-seated fear of being bound to a male forever, with no will of her own; a slave whose desires would be to please her master. His blood boiled in anger as he processed all that was happening, and the consequences they presented. He hated the fact that his teammates and lovers were now afraid of him. It made him want to punch something but he focused on Layla. She was the victim in all of this.

  Layla punched him on the nose. But instead of hurting him, she hurt her hand in the process.

  “What the fuck are you made of?!” she screamed, rubbing at her knuckles.

  “Calm down, Layla. I’m searching for a way to reverse it.”

  “Well, then what are you doing sitting here?! Go away!” She tried removing the gem from her shoulder but it was stuck to her.

  “You can’t remove it like that. There’s a process, and I’ve tried initiating it but it’s not working. Just calm down and let me figure something out.”

  “Urgh!” she grumbled, standing up to walk out of the room. “I’ll go inform the Matron Sheela. She should know something.”

  His teammates walked in before she could step out and blocked the entrance. All except for Csala. She stood at the entrance, looking at him in horror.

  Jerome’s heart broke.

  “I will never take away your will, Csala,” he whispered to her with his psychic energy. “Your will is yours to do as you please. I won’t hold you bound like some slave, because you’re so much more to me than that.”

  Csala shook where she stood for a moment and receded into the shadows. One second she was there, the next she was gone. Jerome wanted to go after her, but held himself still. Nyx put a hand on his shoulder.

  Trust that she’ll be back, she transmitted to him through their telepathic connection.

  Ash took hold of her friend and hugged her tightly.

  Jerome nodded and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. “The Matron can’t help. Trust me.”

  But then, both Sages, Sheela and Ivar Vorthe, popped out of thin air. “We have company,” they both said.

  Nyx and Jerome looked to the south, sensing the incoming threat.

  “You sensed that,” Rihal’s father said, looking at him curiously. Jerome shrugged at him.

  Even the First Matron frowned at him but her senses weren’t as sharp as the Sage’s, who was an assassin. If Ivar Vorthe hadn’t noticed he sensed the threat, no one else besides Nyx would have noticed. Rihal and his partner also teleported into the room. But they noticed the tenseness of the atmosphere and said nothing.

  “We should head out, then,” Ivar Vorthe said.

  They walked out of the room and headed for the roof.

  “How many floors are in this tower anyway?” Jerome asked.

  “Twenty five,” Rihal said from beside him. He put his hand on his shoulder and pulled him close for a side hug. “It’s good to have you back, Jerome. Even though you’re somehow taller than I am now.”

  Jerome smiled.

  “Seriously, how did you get so tall? And how did you get eyes like that?”

  “It’s funny I’ve been back for over twenty days and we haven’t got the chance to speak. But it’s good to be back, Rihal. And my growth spurt isn’t natural, just so you know… as are my eyes. But they didn’t come cheap.”

  “I can tell.”

  “And sorry about my outrage over Ash before,” he said. “I just… don’t wanna see her in danger.”

  “I’m right here, you know?” Ash called from behind. He smiled back at her apologetically. And looked around for Csala. Her absence felt deep. But he knew she was still in the tower since her ring was still active.

  They climbed up a few flights of stairs from the twenty-third floor, where they were, to the top of the tower.

  “You can see the whole of the city from up here,” Ash said in excitement. “I’ve been instructing the people manning the cannons” — she pointed up to the side at an extension of the tower they were on and a large cannon placed on it — “on where to shoot!”

  The night sky was a beautiful sight to behold. The moon and the stars lit up the world with as much light as needed for even a mere mortal to see clearly. Alvion was alive this night, ignorant of the danger heading this way. Many tiny golden lights filled his vision from the city below. He turned to see what Ash was talking about.

  “Cannons?” Jerome could only see one. But it meant there were more. He was, in fact, surprised to see one. “I never knew Vorthe had these.”

  The cannon, unlike those of the Church, was a simple affair and functioned with the use of fire-essence. A group of people had to pour essence into it which would then be compressed by the scripts on them, and then beamed towards a target.

  “Vorthe has a lot of them,” Layla ground out, glaring at him. “And they can take out as much as a dozen Messengers in one shot!”

  “Well, you should see Jerome’s rifle when he uses it,” Nyx said, giving Layla an intense look. Everyone seemed to quiet down as she spoke and focused on her. “It is way more advanced than that… thing!”

  You could hear a pin drop on the battlement as the silence grew deafening, and the air thick with tension. The only sound that could be heard was the wind blowing from the east. Layla shifted from foot to foot, looking at the Sages to say something. Nyx just folded her arms under her massive bust, staring intensely at her as if waiting for her to refute her claims. Ivar Vorthe cleared his throat and looked at Jerome, as if asking him to rein in his pet.

  Nyx did not like that.

  Her glare turned on the Sages and the weight of her presence increased exponentially in magnitude. Everyone took a step back away from her. Except for Jerome, who had been studying the cannon. He had a feeling Nyx would demand that they submit to her if he didn’t do something.

  “The bore is barely holding itself together,” he said, diffusing the tension in the air. Nyx turned to him and he felt the aura of her presence relax its grip on the air around them.

  “True,” Rihal said hesitantly to get a feel of the situation. “But steel is hard to replace. We’re not the Church that has unlimited supply to metal. And I hear you’ve been collecting.”

  Jerome leaped high into the air and landed near the cannon. He placed his hand on the cannon, merging some of his metals with it and reinforcing its structural integrity. In seconds, it looked brand new and tougher than it did before.

  “Of course, you can just do that,” Rihal muttered. Crystal elbowed him in the ribs.

  “The cannon should last longer now.” Jerome dusted rust off his hands and jumped down. “Time to kill some Judges.”

  “Just so you know, the whole world is watching — and by that I mean, the powers that be,” Ivar Vorthe said. He pointed in the direction of Alva. “The approaching Messengers are riding on pegasi, a new form of flight contraptions that possibly rivals our skysails.”

  With his pod of Hezvar, Jerome zoomed in on the approaching Messengers. Thankfully, there was only a platoon of them — twenty-five, including an Elite Judge. He could also see a few maintenance clones behind them but they were inconsequential. The pegasi really did look like horses, but without limbs extending out of their torso, which was larger than that of a normal horse’s. Instead, the mechanisms of the contraption could be seen, or at least a part of it.

  He scanned one of the pegasus with his x-ray vision and felt Achilleia go to work analyzing it.

  “There’s a Judge among them,” he said. “An Elite.”

  Ivar and the First Matron looked at him as if he had grown two heads.

  “Now how the flying fuck do you know that?” a new voice said. One Jerome wasn’t expecting to hear at all. One he loathed with all his being.