"Since you have no troubles with other women sleeping with your spouse, can I borrow him from time to time? He's beyond delicious and Mom has taught me how I can feed on a man while we both experience the same amount of pleasure." Nyka asked.
Blood was the most abundant source of life force, but it was not the only one a vampire could draw sustenance from.
"He is not my spouse and like heck I'm fine with it!" Solus blurted out.
"I'm jealous, okay? I admit it! Are you happy now?"
"Actually, yes." Nyka said while giving the flabbergasted Solus a big hug.
"I would never touch your man, I just wanted you to express your feelings out loud."
Nyka was usually tactless and so direct when she wanted something that she bordered on being rude. Solus had completely fallen for her act and so did Tista, who had become beet red at the image the Nyka's words had painted in her head.
"What about your memory?" Tista asked, eager to change the topic.
"I did everything I could like it happens in my visions, but nothing. The cloaking ring is a masterpiece, but the attempt to retrieve my memories was a failure. It seems I can afford to keep my secret for a bit longer before…"
Solus choked on her words as she noticed that Tista was deadly pale.
The prolonged effort had triggered the body refinement process. Tista was soon in spasms as her body expelled the accumulated impurities by turning her inside out like a sock. Tista's bones cracked and reformed, causing her such an intense pain that Solus had to use her Immortal Body array to ensure her survival.
"Worst girl's night ever." Tista said once the process was over, right before losing consciousness.
***
In the days before the procedure, Kamila used all of her free time to stay with her sister while Lith alternated between experimenting on Forgemastering and on Origin Flames. Even his second attempt at crafting a Bloom Skinwalker Armor ended up in failure.
Its pseudo core was too complex and the amount of mana it required too big for Lith's current abilities, even with Solus's help. In the meantime, Zekell had finished smelting the first two batches of Orichalcum into metal ingots.
He was working on a way to make chausses, hauberks, and coifs with a decent shape since Lith had yet to send him the blueprint for the hammers. After thinking about it for a while, Lith gave him two different images for two different hammers.
One was shaped like a proper blacksmith tool, consisting of a shaft and a head with two hammers. The second was more similar to an ice ax, featuring on its head a hammer and a small pick.
"Why two hammers? No matter the Forgemastering technique we use, they'll have the exact same properties. It's a waste of Orichalcum and mana crystals!" Solus couldn't understand Lith's decision.
For someone as stingy as he was, such a thing was like throwing money in the gutter.
"I have my reasons." Was the only reply he would give her.
Lith and Solus Forgemastered both hammers and then practiced with the amount of extra mana the Forgemastering tools could hold before attempting to craft a Skinwalker Armor again. Also, they learned a few new things about Origin Flames.
Even though there was a huge difference between how they interacted with physical materials and magical energy, they could burn them both. Things like stone or metal would seemingly be destroyed and reformed several times.
It would cause them to change their shape and physical properties. Both the quality and the quantity of Origin Flames employed influenced the outcome. A little amount would act almost as if it was a common flame, too much would destroy anything.
"During our first attempt, we didn't really purify the Adamant. More like we incinerated everything else. Adamant is incredibly resistant, even to Origin Flames. It's the only reason it survived the blast" Lith pondered.
Magic, instead, would be simply consumed by the flames, but the process had a limit. Origin Flames could only destroy an amount of mana equivalent to the world energy they held.
It meant that a delicate structure like an ongoing spell or a temporary array could be easily affected, whereas a permanent array or a magical artifact required much more effort.
Lith tried using them on some of his oldest works, who had now become too weak to be useful, to put to the test his theory about Origin Flames being capable of breaking the imprint of the owner on a magical item.
He obtained conflicting results. The flames would eat at the magical aura, forcing the item's pseudo core to consume its energy to survive. After a certain point, however, the pseudo core would rather break than bend.
Lith even tried using the Clean Slate spell on a weakened pseudo core, but the only result was making the item crumble.
"So far Origin Flames act more like some kind of anti matter for magic rather than a fine controlled tool. They can attack the structure of a spell, but not its energy signature." Lith said while one of his old daggers turned into a puff of smoke.
"I'm not so sure of it. Maybe the problem lies in your hybrid form." Solus said.
"After all, if we compare it with the complete one you assumed in the past, you still have a long way to go. Another possibility is that just like true magic, they might be affected by your will."
"I don't use mana to create her, only a tiny spark of life force." Lith objected. "I have no idea how to imbue my will inside my own life force. Even if I did, how the heck can I command it to burn something and ignore the rest?"
Solus had no answers as well, so their days passed quickly. Between family, friends, and experiments, Lith resumed sleeping only when strictly necessary, like the day before Zinya's procedure.
Kamila had managed to obtain a sick leave for medical reasons. She was Zinya closest of kin, making her optic nerve the closest thing to a compatible blueprint. Without her Lith couldn't operate.
After a whole week of proper feeding, safety, and constant care, Zinya had flourished to the point of being almost unrecognizable. Yet that day she was pale again, twitching at the smallest noise.
"How do you feel today?" Lith asked.
"Scared to death." Both sisters replied.
"Are you sure you want to proceed with the treatment?" It was an obligatory question before a Body Sculpting procedure.
Zinya held Kamila's hand tightly before replying:
"Yes, please. I can't wait for this to be over."
Unlike normal magical treatments, for tier five healing spells, the patient's head and limbs had to be strapped to their bed.
"Is this really necessary?" Zinya asked.
"Yes. It could be painful, or it could affect your personality. You might even become violent. If that happens while I'm growing the optic nerve inside your head and you move abruptly, it could result in a fatal hemorrhage." Lith replied.
"Now I really wish I didn't ask you any explanation." She was now even more nervous.
Lith, Quylla, and Vastor all double cast their Scanner spell on both sisters, to check their conditions. Lith and Vastor also activated the Chisel spell. Lith needed it to perform the procedure, whereas Vastor would keep it at the ready in case his intervention was required.
