Fifty-One

"I don't know about this," Kon hedged as he looked at the gray stone bath filled with bubbling liquid. The alchemist that Benny had hired sat to the side, face blank as they watched over them. Diur had explained how the more advanced treatments required skills she didn't have. There was an art form to these baths and she hadn't mastered it. Benny assured them the alchemist was not only legitimate, but would keep their secret.

"If you don't enter now, then the treatment will begin degrading and losing efficiency in three minutes," the alchemist said. Their voice was like the faintest whisper, but still it rang in his ears like a shout. Benny had said that the race had minor talents in telepathic communications. Looking like a vat of ooze given human shape, a thousand colors swirled around through its transparent, bioluminescent skin. Kon could see thin tendrils of something deeper inside where the ooze grew opaque, something that would have been a nervous system for a more traditional sentient creature.

"Alright, no time like the present," Kon groused, stripping quickly down to a pair of tight compression shorts.

"Remember that this is the first step to building your aspect which will shape as you breach the divide from E to D grade," Diur said, making her presence known as she pushed off the wall to stand next to him.

"You've told me, I got this," Kon said in reassurance as he looked at the deep pool of acidic green liquid. Steam rose up acrid enough to burn his nostrils, but he kept himself steady as he prepared to enter.

"It would be better without the cloth. The liquid will destroy it anyways," the alchemist said right before Kon entered. Kon stared at the creature for a moment before stripping and hopping in without a word.

He screamed.

It was instant. Primal. Throat tearing as his body rejected the pain that assaulted him from every angle. Fire burned as ice froze, electricity ravaged while skin melted under the caustic liquid. Blood poured out of deteriorating skin as his hands slipped off the sides and he slid under completely.

Before his eyes melted, he had a blurry image of Benny and Diur's faces as they leaned over. Then darkness claimed him, seizing his eyes as he touched the bottom of the deep basin.

In the space between moments as his body broke down under the elixir, he found his metaphysical self just as when he implanted his runes. His glowing silver body was filling fast, the empty space where skin or meat should have been flowing with a muddy brown tinged with the dull silver of steel. His runes pulsed in wild abandon as they drew in energy as fast as they could, drinking it down until they were burning infernos. It was hardly a drop in the bucket to the flood of power entering him.

More and more of him melted until all that was left in his sight were the runes and his beating, silver heart.

THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP

Each beat was the shadow of the last, ugly brown energy flowing into the heart and being shot out. Kon struggled to remember what he had to do under the pain. It was a mountain on his back, crushing everything under its weight.

"Hit me" the words came back to him again. Of fighting when there was no chance of victory, of never yielding, of never breaking. Kon bent his will toward controlling his racing heart, slowing down the beat to a manageable level as he looked at the energy pouring into him.

He needed the thin veins of steel mixed in with the muddy earth energy. Diur had told him that his heart would be perfect for this, already filled with power, stronger than any normal organ, and a good representation of his intent. Just as with building his runes, intent mattered here.

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With every pulse more of the power was drawn through his heart but this time Kon willed it to split apart. Of the muddy energy being consumed by his runes, by the hungry cells of his body, dragged and ripped apart in moments till it was as silver as the rest of his body.

Thin slivers of steel emerged and he held his gluttonous nature at bay as he wove that thin tendril of metal into his foot. He pictured the bones there and he slowly started to rebuild his skeleton inside the outline of his body. All two hundred and six of them. Slowly, painstakingly, he formed them, all the while his body ate to bursting.

Hours, days, weeks, months, Kon couldn't tell. All that existed was the pain and the thin needle of energy as he wove a skeleton bone by bone. As he finished with the skull, his image burned bright silver, glowing as bright as a star while inside of his metaphysical self there was the hard glint of steel with incandescent runes burning around them.

Absence was nearly as harmful as the pain that had nearly destroyed him. Without the pain wreaking havoc through him he drifted away, relief nearly as painful as the elixir had been. His eyes fluttered open and he saw nothing.

Panic gripped him as he opened his mouth and foul liquid sluiced in, choking and gagging him. Kon surged upright as adrenaline dumped into his body. He surged out of the stone bath, falling half out of it as he spewed the contents that had found their way to his stomach.

Brown liquid splattered across the ground as Kon coughed over and over, sending more and more liquid free as he finally could see again. Air poured in as he cough and spat, sweet and icy, burning fresh as Kon gaped and looked around the room.

Benny was standing to the side, face impassive as he waited. Diur had lowered her head, hair covering her face, while the alchemist sat in the same spot as before. Kon looked down and realized he was still nude, but he was too tired to be embarrassed. He crawled out of the tub and Benny pointed him toward the small shower in the corner of the room.

Cool water fell like rain on him and Kon absently scrubbed at his skin, pushing a coarse cloth covered in grainy soap over his body. It was like he was disconnected from reality, dissociated as he watched layers of skin fall off to slap against the rocky ground. He gagged and another wave of brown liquid fell over his feet, washed away in seconds under the pounding water.

"You okay, boyo?" Benny's voice was far away, a thin reedy sound that Kon blinked stupidly at as he finally lifted his gaze away from his own feet and looked over to see Benny staring at him with a hint of worry.

"Never better," Kon croaked as he leaned against the wall and continued to scrub. His skin was like strands of wadded, wet, paper that broke apart to reveal new layers beneath.

"I knew it was gross, but this is a little further than I thought it'd be," Benny admitted, keeping the conversation going even as all Kon wanted was the silence and cold water. It helped ground him though, bring his mind back to the here and now instead of wandering away.

"I think I know the real reason people don't do this often," Kon said with a shaky laugh. Benny chuckled, but it sounded forced. Kon tried to finish scrubbing, but his limbs were shaky, failing him as his shoulders drooped and he leaned hard against the wall. Benny was there in a moment, his strength needed as he helped prop Kon up.

"You are clean," Benny whispered and a tendril of power rolled over him, the leftover flesh falling away as well as the remnants of the elixir, dead hair, and any other assortment of foul excess.

"That's gross," Kon said, his eyes locked on the thick layer of detritus on the shower floor. Benny grunted and helped him out of the shower, grabbing a robe and wrapping it around him. Kon didn't try to fight it, nor did he try to help, his mind kept fading away for a moment as he blinked as he realized he was sitting down again.

"It's just exhaustion. The willpower needed for these steps is high and it shows. He just needs rest and time. I have a match to go to now," Diur's voice was a distant echo as Kon sat there, bundled up in clothes he didn't remember putting on. Benny's face filled his view as he looked him over, concern apparent now.

"It's okay, boyo. Just need a bit of sleep is all. Try not to fight me here, I'm trying to be discreet," Benny said with a faint smile. Kon nodded his head as Benny looked him in the eyes, grandfatherly in his appearance even as reality warping power roiled around him.

"Sleep for a few hours," Benny's voice hadn't even fully registered before Kon was falling backward, blissful non-existence awaiting him.

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