Once they are separated and I have stopped their movement, I study the connections. After I am done studying them, I go ahead and cut them to see what will happen. The two colors separate into shapeless blobs only held in place by my mana, there is no movement to them.

  I shape them back into a ball and recreate the connections between them, but it doesn’t work. As soon as I stop holding them in place, they separate into blobs again and there is no movement. My best guess is that whatever energy was fueling the movement was lost when I separated them.

  That means that there is something about essence that I am still not seeing, but that isn’t a surprise. I didn’t expect to be able to learn everything about essence from just a couple of experiments. At least there haven’t been any explosions or anything to get me into trouble.

  I am so intent on my experimenting that Brightfire touching my shoulder actually makes me jump. Luckily I don’t lose control of the blobs, but my reaction gets a laugh out of Brightfire. It seems that the sun has been up for a bit, but I was so focused that I didn’t notice.

  I quickly put the blobs into containers for later, clean up my mess, and then punish Brightfire for startling me. Me tickling her in retaliation soon leads to some morning fun before we head out to have breakfast. Asuna is already awake and waiting for us, but Kirito is still sound asleep.

  The three of us have a nice breakfast and then head outside to see if the caravan is ready. It isn’t ready yet, but it is getting there, so I head over to where Lizzy is waiting. I take out the corpses of the giants that she killed and strip their armor and weapons.

  Once I am out of the way, she stores two of them and starts eating part of the third. Watching her eat is a little disturbing, so I turn to talk to Asuna about riding with Leylisha. I explain that she wants to figure out how to work on her core, but doesn’t have mana.

  Asuna says “Are you this isn’t just so that you and Brightfire can do disgusting things in the carriage?!”

  “Of course it isn’t! And what do you mean disgusting?!”

  Asuna starts teasing me about the things I do with my wives, but luckily she doesn’t have many details. For a second, I was worried that she might have seen things that she shouldn’t have. However, it seems that is just a normal child’s reaction to adults showing each other affection.

  I quickly change the subject and get her to focus on the task of helping Leylisha. Lizzy doesn’t take any convincing at all, so once Asuna agrees, I leave it to them and forget about it. Soon the caravan is ready to get moving and I board the carriage with Brightfire.

  Asuna’s suggestion tempts me, but we end up just cuddling and chatting as we ride together. Brightfire manages to get me to tell her about our fight in the mountains and my experiments. We are about to stop for lunch and have exhausted that topic when I suddenly get a message from Mercy.

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  Mercy says “Ash, I need to talk to you in the soulscape right now!”

  Before I can answer her, I get a soulscape invitation and I immediately hit accept. This is the first time I am entering a soulscape created by one of my wives, but I don’t have time to enjoy it. This is important, but later I want to visit each of their soulscapes at some point.

  Mercy says “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

  “Of course. What is going on?”

  Mercy says “I just got a report from my kingdom that there was an earthquake at the mine. It wasn’t very strong, but it lasted a long time. Considering that is where your friend is supposed to be sleeping, I figured that you would want to know about it right away!”

  “Oh crap! Did some idiot sneak in and attack him? Yes, this is very important! I need to go check on him right away! If someone disturbed him, maybe I can calm him down before he does anything rash!”

  Mercy says “The report didn’t mention anything else, just the earthquake. Please, prevent him from burning down my kingdom! I know it is part of the empire now, but I still care about it a little more.”

  “It’s alright, I completely understand. I will head there and check on him right away! I will do whatever I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  Mercy says “Thank you! Just be careful!”

  “I will. He is a friend, I shouldn’t be in danger.”

  Mercy gives me a fierce hug and I give her a long kiss before I exit the soulscape. I quickly have Brightfire exit the carriage with me so that I only have to explain things once. I quickly fill them in on what Mercy told me and then get Lizzy to protect the caravan while I am gone.

  I drop shapeshift so that I am recognizable, take out a crystal, and open a gate to Everburn’s cavern. I hesitate for a minute, I don’t want him to think this is some kind of surprise attack. Then I step through and the first thing I see is a set of claws almost as big as I am.

  Luckily, the claws stop, but it is still a few minutes before I can make myself take a breath. By then, the claws have retracted and I can finally see a bit more of what’s going on. Everburn is covered in wounds, most of them still bleeding, and he looks to be in horrible shape.

  He certainly isn’t in any condition to go on a rampage, but this might actually be worse. I immediately start blasting him with Holy Word, casting it just as fast as I can until I run out of Divine Power. By then the bleeding of his wounds has slowed down, but he is far from being healed.

  “Seronia! I need a refill please and I am probably going to need several!”

  Seronia says “Alright, done. What’s going on?!”

  “Can’t talk right now, healing a dragon!”

  I quickly drop the corpses of the giants that I killed out of my ring right in front of Everburn. I command him to eat and go straight back to casting my healing spell repeatedly. In the end, it takes me several refills and ten straight minutes of constantly casting my heal.

  That is just enough to get all of the wounds to stop bleeding and at least close. Everburn is obviously still not in very good shape, but at least he isn’t getting any worse. After casting the same spell so many times, my body is definitely feeling raw.

  “Alright, that should hold you for a minute. I need a break before I cast anymore heals. So, what happened? From the claw and bite wounds, I’m guessing something big attacked you. I just can’t imagine anything that could do that to a dragon. To be honest, I had started to think of you as indestructible.”