Chapter 74 – Metal

"How do you feel, Eli?" I ask a few minutes after my stunt with her soul when her eyes flutter open as she is laying on the stone I laid her on.

She turns to me and stares at me blankly for a while. "...Strange." She mutters finally, attempting to sit up but failing for some reason, instead only flailing her arms and legs before she gives up... and all of a sudden takes a deep breath as her eyes open wide and she looks at her hand in consternation.

"What did you do to me?" She turns to me with a weird expression, more of awe and incomprehension than accusation.

"I said I'd speed the development of your soul? That's almost correct." I smile lightly as she nods her head slowly. "I didn't realize what your soul was before I saw it, so I did something slightly different. Your soul... bloomed. Or that's how I put it, and that's a close enough mental image, but it cannot be conveyed properly in this language."

Eli looks at me with a thoughtful expression and I notice as she hesitantly tries moving the mana in her body, sucking in a deep breath again as soon as she does, with her eyes almost shining in what I assume is excitement and amazement.

Her eyes... didn't she have red eyes before? They definitely changed. They are still white, but the irises are black with tiny, reddish nets, a little resemblant of the crust on the surface of magma or of a piece of metal with black flakes created as it cools down. And they are a little larger, I think?

I giggle a little when I watch Eli getting lost in moving her mana around, both through her body and in her surroundings, creating intricate shapes and creating waves with growing amazement on her face. She jolts a little as she hears the sound, turning to me in surprise and smiling so brightly it's contagious.

"You like it?" I ask.

She opens her mouth to say something, and closes it a moment later with a shake of her head and a weird expression, before she bows her head and stays in that position.

"I... more than like it." She says quietly with her voice shaking from the barely suppressed emotions. "I don't know what you did, but my mana control is so much easier and smoother I don't even know how to explain it."

I smile wryly as I recall the memory of what her soul became; it's a little fuzzy, like a dream I just woke up from where I do recall what it was about, but can't remember any details. I know the gist of what happened back then. "Mana control... is the littlest thing, Eli." I whisper and she looks at me in shock and confusion at the same time, but doesn't manage to ask anything before I stand up and continue. "Get yourself in order, learn who and what you are. Try to stay away from humans, because you're not exactly one right now. I'll find you when I need you."

I turn around, about to leave, but Eli shouts behind me. "Wait!" I turn around to her anxious face and raise my eyebrows questioningly. "I... Thank you." She says with a quiver in her voice. "Thank you, really. I'll definitely help you when you need me."

"See you then." I smile and teleport away, concealing myself again.

I'm thinking what to do next, contemplating whether I should drop by Vulcan unnoticed since he hasn't replied yet, when I notice something peculiar in the space close to me. It is... not quite a spatial distortion, but more like a purposeful twist of space, like a rotating facet on a wall. Just that it's much larger than any facet has the right to be, at about ten meters in each dimension.

It rotates a couple more times in quick succession, each showing a different piece of fabric, and the last brings a massive metallic being to this world... oh.

"Mom!" I shout happily as I shoot forward, crashing into Shiva's massive, slender waist - her torso is something of an hourglass made out of two long, flat tetrahedrons - with enough force to stagger her.

"Hello, Helia." She greets me in a very peculiar voice, quiet like a whisper and yet carried further than any voice should be, almost reverberating in my ears. Her words are slow and deliberate, without a hint of emotion in her tone, and yet I can somehow feel her happiness as she wraps her arms... woah. Woah.

What's up with her arms?

She wraps around eight different overlapping limbs around me, and I feel all of them on my skin, but my magic sense tells me she has only one pair of arms, each made out of two long polyhedrons and... three much smaller that make up a single finger. They aren't attached to the rest of her body like bones - neither the digits nor arms themselves - but are floating in the air seemingly without any support and in dynamically changing configurations, each additionally somehow existing in different states at once, giving the effect of a multitude of arms with multiple fingers splayed in all directions from the corners of the upper tetrahedron in her torso.

Either way, she wraps her arms around me, as much as she can wrap them when her single hand is about the size of my torso, and gently peels me off her metallic surface as she sits on the ground, then sits me on her left thigh - or what would be left thigh if it wasn't a polyhedron with six sides and sharp edges.

"...Wow." I say quietly, impressed at the massive form as I take a good look with my perception and see the incredible precision in the shapes making up her body. As well as their strength, which is way higher than any natural material I've ever seen. "You look good, mom."

I look at Shiva's face with those words, which is a completely unmoving polyhedron vaguely in the shape of human skull, though made up only of ten or so faces, with two white, shining orbs more or less where human eyes would be, and yet I can read amusement from her expression.

"Thank you. I'm glad you think so." She pauses for a while. "The higher Rings told me to come here. Am I correct in assuming you have some questions to ask?"

"I always have questions I could ask you." I mumble and shake my head with a smile. "Um, seriously though, yeah. Two things. I did something just a few minutes ago..." I trail off, unsure how I should even explain that. "Kinda pushed my mind to a higher level? I've no idea how to explain it better."

"I believe you subconsciously recognized the task before you was too difficult to do as you were and you instinctively touched upon your true power, dear." Shiva replies and I look at her questioningly. "I do not know much about it, because I am a different being in essence, but what little I know and can tell you is that your mind can exist at different stages of complexity and... existence at the same time and switch between them seamlessly. It is fundamentally impossible for all but select few entities to do what you just did. But I am afraid that if you want more information, you will need to discover that knowledge yourself. Unfortunately, I do not know any more than that." I nod my head and notice that she somehow seems apologetic.

"Um, don't worry about it." I reassure her with a smile. "It's nothing dangerous, right?"

"No, it is not... or, to be clear, it is not more dangerous than any of your newfound powers." I sense amusement in her expression again. "It can be dangerous, there are few things that cannot be, but as long as you are careful, nothing about this part of you should endanger or negatively affect yourself or others close to you."

"Mhm, that's most of what I was worried about." I nod. "When I did it, it felt... really different." I shiver a little despite myself, actually not sure why I do in the first place. "It was like being a whole different person for a moment. So... yeah. I was worried it would be dangerous, but if it isn't, then that's all I need to know."

We stay for a while in silence, with neither me nor my mom saying anything, till Shiva speaks up.

"That second question you said you had. What is it?"

I stay silent for a moment, thinking how I should put it, before I give up. "Basically I wanna know what the heck I've been doing all this time and what's up with Vulcan and Eli and all." I blurt out and pause for a moment. "That's a lot more than a single question, isn't it?"

"It is." My mom giggles and look up at her head in amazement at the sound. It's kind of... melodic... "Starting with you, your confusion is entirely understandable, I dare say it is even expected. You are playing with powers far beyond your current understanding, and it is your instinct that allows you to make use of them correctly, but that might bring unintended effects to your actions. As you have surely noticed."

"Yeah." I nod. "Definitely." Just my transformations, my Stellar Flame, and what I did to Eli are things I can't properly explain how I do and what they might do apart from the obvious.

"As for Vulcan, he is simply a Hellcarver, with good potential looking at the average. There is not much more to say about it, apart from the fact that normally becoming a Hellvarver should be entirely impossible for a human. If you are asking what you did to him... it is not wrong to say you did nothing. There is certainly no danger to him, although he is probably shaken feeling a Primordial as powerful as you for the first time in his life."

"What is a Hellcarver even? You said before that it was an attempt at creating a race that would maintain Hell Realms, right?" I see her nod. "Then, what's up with Vulcan? He certainly has no Hell Realm to work at, has he?"

"He does not." Shiva shakes her head ever so slightly. "You can see it as a test, I believe. Hellcarvers were originally designed as a race of servants. Not being one can be said to be the point of his existence - there is, of course, much more than that, most of which I would need to ask higher Rings about and I doubt I would get the answer, but that is the gist."

"...Alright." I nod. "What about Eli then?" I ask and Shiva nods her head with what I recognize as a smile.

"A personal interest of mine. Hiding a soul inside another. You opened her soul and developed it in a way I did not anticipate, but will surely develop into an interesting power." Shiva answers simply and I blink in confusion.

"That simple?"

I feel amusement from my mom at that. "It is much more complicated than that, but if you wanted me to explain it all, we would be sitting here for days."

"Alright, but... what I did to Eli was... easy. Why would you say earlier... that Hellcarvers were only an attempt? Is it really not simple? Or is it simple just for me for some reason?" I ask in confusion.

"That's a good question, and I am happy to hear you are thinking about it. The problem, little Helia, lies in time, scale, and involvement." Shiva starts explaining. "If you want to give a gift to a single person you keep a close eye on, it is very easy to shape it properly and quickly adjust if any issues arise. Just like with your Eli. Even if something went catastrophically wrong and she started, for instance, killing everyone on sight in a mad pursuit for more power, or if her abilities turned out to be too much for the world to bear, you could reach her and fix the problem easily, and she would be unable to resist you." I nod as she pauses for a while, and I think I can already guess the gist of what she intends to say next, but I let her speak without interruptions.

"Significant problems start to appear when you want to give a similar gift - we will consider only this case for simplicity, but it will be analogous with other things you might do - to a large number of people, and let them naturally develop, mature, birth, and die for a long period of time while interacting with outside factors." She tilts her head ever so slightly and pauses for a moment. "It is in many ways similar to butterfly effect you are surely familiar with." She raises her eyebrows and I nod.

"Mhm, yeah." I nod my head. "A seemingly insignificant change in the past can lead to drastically different future."

"Exactly. The problem here is very similar. Increasing the speed of growth of a race by just a percent might make them grow strong faster, consequently live exponentially longer and stagnate as a civilization because of their longevity and - as it is in the case of Hellcarvers - little external stimulation. Doing so the other way around might make them unable to reach the level required for longevity quickly enough, live short lives, multiply too fast and overcrowd the Hell realms with mass of workers too weak and underdeveloped to do what's expected of them. It is very similar with the light mental compulsion implanted in their minds, or with a multitude of other factors, including all the outside influences." Shiva sits up straighter and gives me an impression of a sigh, even though she barely moves in this peculiar form of hers.

"This whole issue, while important, pales in comparison to the incredible precision and care needed if one wants to achieve specific results without interfering after the initial creation, for example of a race, where you cannot predict the results while you work, but can only judge the finished work millennia after you finalize it. My experience in that matter is... " She hesitates for a moment. "Immense. What I've experienced and what humans have experienced is akin to comparing the lives of humans to those of bacteria, and I do not mean it in any derogatory way, but as the closest comparison I can make in familiar terms. That is how much more I know, and yet I am not omniscient, and many matters escape my grasp, my predictions, till I see and experience them. The intricacies of souls is one of those; it is not the most notable of them, but important enough to devote large number of my minds to studying them."

My mom turns to me with a light smile at that, and I surprise myself as I recognize the gesture as amused and mischievous.

"Your little world, dear, is one of those I am studying in that regard, and you, Violet, your friends, and many of your acquaintances - most notably including Catherine, Vulcan, Eli with her now blooming soul, Maala, and Jake - are the greatest points of my interest, because those were who I personally tampered with." She says as she stands up slowly, gently letting me down to the ground, waiting till I stand on my own two legs as I stare in shock at her, suddenly hit by the...

Shit. I don't even know how to describe it.

I only asked her about Vulcan and Eli! All I wanted to know was to understand what Hellcarvers are and what the deal is with Eli's soul from their creator herself, with all the important information and context I'm unable to get to know by myself.

And she told me... I don't even know what. It was certainly not an answer to my question.

But... it helped, I guess? Yeah, it definitely did. She didn't specifically answer any question I had, but it's like listening to a lecture on some topic and ending up thoughtful and satisfied enough to have no questions left about the initial topic afterwards.

"Um, thanks for telling me all that." I say, looking up to meet her shining eyes. "What did you do to Catherine and Jake though?"

"Ah. Don't worry, it was more of arranging the correct circumstances than interfering into their lives in any way." Shiva explains. "Both of their souls were slightly changed by me yet before their birth, it is only that their effects will be showing only now. In Catherine's case it is... a kind of flexibility and malleability of her soul, and in Jake's it is a morally... questionable talent put together with a good person - objectively in comparison to other humans, because a good person, as you surely know, is a slippery term - and you have to know normally it is virtually impossible for people like him to receive talents similar to what he did."

"So they are like... experiments." I say blankly.

"Are they?" Shiva asks with what my mind recognizes as a chuckle. "I would not say so. If they are, then you are one too, even more so. I am aware I cannot deny the fact that one can call them experiments, but from the very moment they were born, their souls were as they are. I am sure you will agree with me that any discussion if I should or should not have done that to them - not even touching the topic if they would still be the same people if I did not - is as pointless as asking why you were born on Gaia. It simply is for us at this point in time, and if you wish, you can change that in the present."

"Yeah." I nod my head slowly. "Not that it makes me like it any more, but yeah. I understand." I smile lightly. "Will you be going now?"

"Not just now, but such was my plan, yes. I was pulled away from my work a little abruptly, and I need to be back in... an hour at most." She gives me impression of... a questioning... state. Gah, it's so hard to put into words. She is generally asking me with her being why did I ask what I just asked, as an impression of sorts instead of any specific gesture.

I don't say anything and instead reach for my Flame, changing my body to one massively larger, basically just scaling it up to seven or so meters of height since I have no time for anything more substantial, and I wrap my arms around my mom's peculiar metallic body, nuzzling my head into her shoulder - or what would be a shoulder if it wasn't a flat surface - with a smile and a... satisfied feeling in my chest, I guess.

I sense a bit of hesitation from her, but after a moment she wraps her sets of arms around me, one even somehow wandering to the top of my head, between my horns.

"Let's stay like this for a while?" I ask quietly. "I don't need to talk about anything, just wanna spend some time with you."

"Sure." Shiva replies, giving me something of a kiss to my forehead, and I feel happiness in these words just as well as I do in my own chest. "It's a joy to be with you, dear."

"Mhm~."