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"The Candle is many things, but a chef isn't one," said Abbas.

"But wasn't it you who told me that practice makes perfect?" The childish figure looked at him, but not with a face that was in any way human. Rather, the head was entirely mechanical, with only a speaker box for a mouth and luminous round lenses for eyes.

"I'd rather have my granddaughter whip something up," said Abbas, bringing the young woman's mansaf immediately to mind. It had been too long since he'd last enjoyed that.

"Which granddaughter would that be?"

"Majida."

"Ah. Would I be able to meet her?"

Abbas allowed a beat to pass. "Not as of yet, Dyna."

"Why not?"

"Frankly? Because you're still a bit too terrifying. I don't want you scaring the poor girl."

For a moment, Dyna made no response. Her glowing lenses twisted and focused briefly, which Abbas had come to recognize as a sign that she was thinking. "Surely, you are far more terrifying than I am."

Abbas chortled. "Not to her." And honestly, he wasn't even sure that much could be said, either, but he decided to keep that thought to himself.

Dyna was a technological leap beyond anything he had ever achieved before, and it was all thanks to that accidental breakthrough that had nearly killed him.

The same breakthrough that had created the Living Core.

The inheritance of such sophisticated sentience from the Candle had been all the proof that Abbas needed to pursue the idea even further.

Unlike the Core, Dyna here had inherited far more than just whatever random nonsense the Candle felt like passing along.

Abbas had harnessed his own consciousness as a blueprint for the mapping and creation of what he was dubbing the "Neural Current."

A truly independent, free-thinking mind. Woven together with ardor but unbound from the Candle--and even himself.

And most importantly, adaptable.

Or in other words, highly upgradeable.

Already, Dyna was quite impressive. He'd been working on improvements for her mechanical frame around the clock, fine tuning its ability to sync with the Neural Current, and the results had been surprising even to Abbas.

He eyed the connecting rods that she'd been toying with while she talked. She'd created a small tower out of them, balancing them perfectly end-to-end in such a way that even a breeze would probably knock them all over.

Then another shock wave arrived from the Candle, making the whole room rattle again, yet somehow, the little tower of rods did not collapse.

Dyna was holding her tiny hand out toward her creation as she glanced at the great glass orb. "That won't work again," she said in her electronic voice.