I said, "It means I am not human like you…"
Immediately, Orla showed a terrified face to me, not just to Lilith. She glanced towards me and Lilith a few times.
She pointed her finger at me, "You mean… You are like her… a demon?"
"No… I am not a demon; I am a human…"
"But… but… You just said, You are not a human like me."
Lilith showed a small giggle. "Interesting… Two humans… Don't know each other of their kind…"
I tried to keep my voice calm. "Orla, listen to me. I am a human. My race is human, as you have seen my status screen. However, you and I… we are different kinds of human."
Orla just stared, her mind clearly not comprehending. "Different… kinds?"
Lilith chuckled, "Interesting."
"Yeah…Our organs behind our skin are mostly the same… But…" I said while glancing at everyone, "There is one different thing… Does one of you know what the difference is?"
Orla looked at me with her confusion clearly visible in her eyes. "You…you do not have the fire?" she whispered. "But…how? Without the fire, the body is cold. It is dead."
Lilith just pulled her shoulder and shook her head, while Varania just stared emptily at me.
I looked at Orla, as her answer was the closest one. "If a body doesn't have fire, will the body really become cold and dead?"
Orla hesitated, with her eyes darting between my chest and my face as if trying to see the invisible furnace of me.
"Yes," she said. "The fire is the heat. It is life. If the fire goes out… the heat fades. The body becomes cold like stone. That is… that is death. Everyone knows this."
I breathe in and out so slowly…Let's begin
"I don't have the fire you had told…" I said.
Orla was shocked and confused, as she knew every human must have this fire of life. "It's impossible."
"The fire and the furnace inside your body isn't the essence of life…But the essence of mana…"
"Essence of mana?" Lilith repeated with her head tilting sharply.
"What do you mean by the essence of mana?" Orla replied with her head tilting the same as Lilith's.
"Your body, Orla, had two systems that made you alive… Your heart had a different system than mine. Let's talk about the same system between you and me!" I explained. "A human body has a lot of blood flow that travels through veins and arteries to every corner of the body… We both have that… The heart is the one who pumps this blood…"
I could see Orla was so confused…I knew Orla's knowledge about the heart was based on Galen's theory.
She spoke, "What do you mean by pump? The heart is the suction for the blood, as the blood comes from the liver. We eat food; surely, liver is the source of blood."
"What do you think if I say this blood is circulating in our body continuously, as there is a pump in our body?
Her face became more surprised. "There is no knowledge and evidence in this world about your words… The blood isn't circulating continuously."
I pulled my hand and tried to shake it a little bit. "Do you see this? This is the evidence, as the blood is circulating continuously. If the blood isn't flowing, I won't be able to use my hand at all."
"You shake your hand," Orla said, her voice trembling but defiant, "because your will commands the vital spirits in your sinews. What does blood have to do with it? Blood is food, made in the liver. It feeds the flesh; it does not... drive it."
Let's play a little game…
"You say blood is food," I said, stepping closer to her. "And that's 'spirits' drive the hand. Alright, let's test that." I reached out. "Give me your arm."
Orla hesitated, trembling; she extended her arm to me. I rolled up her sleeve to the elbow.
"If your heart is a furnace and your arteries carry 'spirits'," I said, "then squeezing your arm shouldn't stop them. Spirits are invisible, right? Or at least, they flow like air. But blood… blood is liquid. It can be stopped."
I wrapped my hands tightly around her upper arm, trying to clamp down on the shoulder artery and the nerves. I squeezed hard.
"Now," I said, "keep moving your fingers."
Orla glared at me, opening and closing her hand. "I feel nothing but your grip. My will is strong. The spirits obey."
"Just wait," I said.
We stood there for a minute. Then two. Orla's hand began to change. The colour drained away, leaving it pale and white compared to her other hand.
"It's getting cold," Orla whispered.
"No fire…No fuel…Keep moving it." I said.
She tried, but her movements were getting stiff. Her fingers twitched, responding More slowly and slowly to her command. A look of genuine panic started to rise in her eyes.
"Why…" she mumbled. "Why does it not obey?"
"I haven't touched your heart," I said. "I haven't touched your brain. Your 'will' is fine. But the fuel line is cut."
I took out both my hands. In an instant, the colour rushed back into her hand. Orla cried out and grabbed her wrist.
"Ow! It burns! It… it tingles!" She rubbed her hand frantically, her face twisting in confusion and pain. "It feels like a thousand ants are biting me!"
That's what I called in my country, "Kesemutan", a word from "semut", similar to the sensation of many small ants crawling or biting the skin.
"That," I said, "is the blood rushing back in. It was dammed up behind my hand, waiting. And now that the dam is open, it is forcing it back through the pipes. That 'tingles'? That's your body restarting. That's the nerves waking up because they finally have the blood again."
I looked at Orla, "With that, our biological system is still the same… despite you having a thing that I don't have, the essence of mana."
Lilith asked, "Ere now, thou saidst ye two were divers…" She focused between Orla and me, "And now thou sayest ye art the same? What is betiding?"
"The shape is the same," I said, gesturing between myself and Orla. "The flesh, the bones, the veins… the vessel is identical. That's why stopping her blood caused the same reaction it would in me. Her flesh needed the flow like my blood flow."
I turned to face Lilith. "But the spark… the thing that drives the vessel… that's where we divide."
I pointed to Orla. "She runs on a magical fire. Her 'Innate Heat'. Her blood flows to cool that fire and distribute the mana-infused 'vital spirits'. Her life is dependent on that second, magical layer."
I tapped my own chest. "I run like a…forge…"
"A forge?" Lilith repeated.
"Yes. I start cold. I have to create the heat. Every second, my body demands fuel that 'oksigen' to burn." I explained. "I don't breathe to cool a fire that's already there. I breathe to feed one. My blood circulates to carry that fuel to every part of my body, like workers carrying coal to a fire."
"We are the same vessel, Lilith," I said, holding her gaze. "But she runs on magic. And I run on… different matter…Maybe that's why I don't have attributes, as I don't have the mana core inside my body, the absence of the mana inside of me making me invulnerable to your mana."
Lilith raised a single question, "On what dost thou run, then?"
"My heart then…" I started, then corrected myself. "No. The heart is just the bellows. But a forge needs coal to burn."
I looked at Lilith. "You asked what I run on. I run on Matter. Pure matter."
"Matter?" she repeated as her eyes narrowed in fascination.
"Food," I said simply. "Water. And that 'oksigen'. Orla eats to create blood, which she thinks feeds the spirit. I eat to break down the matter itself. Imagine you are eating the cake, and in your mouth, you chew the cake into small pieces. Those pieces travel down your throat and into your stomach, where they are broken down even further. My body strips the power out of the cake or the food and converts it into energy that fuels my body. To spark the mind. To move the limbs."
I leaned back and spread my hands. "I am a self-contained vessel, Lilith. I don't draw from the realm's mana. I don't have an 'innate heat' given by the goddess, maybe in this world. I consume matter, I burn it with 'oksigen', and I create my own fire. I am a living forge that fuels itself."
Orla looked at me with a mixture of horror and awe, holding her wrist where the blood was now flowing freely again.
The shop went utterly silent.
Lilith just stared. Her smile didn't falter, yet her eyes burnt with an intensity that made the air feel heavy, even without her aura.
"A vessel of pure Matter…" she whispered. "Self-sustaining. Untethered. A 'void' that consumes the physical world to fuel its own existence."
She let out a low, delighted laugh. "Darya… Thou art not just an anomaly. Thou art a heresy against the very nature of this world."
She clapped her hands together. "And that is why I shall accept thy deal."
Suddenly, her ears moved by their own. "Twould seem the third party cometh hither with their mother… For that…" Varania and Lilith stood up, "We must take our leave… ere they arrive."
She summoned her gate and seemed to take something from it, a… a ring… Seeing that ring, it made me shiver. She threw the ring towards me.
"Touching upon every race in this shop, I grant thee this ring. Thou must know of the ring and what lies within. Thou must know how to bring forth the thing inside. Yet, 'tis up to thee to decide whether thou desirest her to remain within, or if thou desirest her to come forth"
They walked to the front door. Opened it. Immediately, Varania jumped out of the balcony and transformed into a red dragon. "Ah, ay, Darya, I forgot… If thou desirest to reach me, thou mayst simply speak to the thing within the ring. Thus… thou needest to bring that thing forth."
She stepped off the balcony, landing gracefully on the back of the massive Varania. With a powerful beat of wings that sent a gust of wind rattling the shop's windows. However, no sonic boom was the thing that I was curious about in Varania. Varania ascended, carrying Lilith into the sky.