The sound of sweat dripping to the ground echoed in my ears, but it was not a nuisance. Rather, the sound was pleasant, almost rhythmic. It helped me to focus more intently as I wove ether into one of the larger golden particles swirling through my World.
I had much more ether at my disposal than usual and tried to ignore the strain and pain as I infused more ether into the weave of ether and soul energy. The particle of soul energy I was working with bulged and would have long since erupted and dispersed if not for my willpower holding everything together.
A headache started to creep up in the back of my mind, and I took it as a sign to use the nourished soul energy particle. It seeped into the core, refining my World ever so slightly. The core did not expand right away, but it was only a matter of hours before the soul energy particle would be naturally digested.
Focusing on Blastor Refinery down to the faintest detail, I pushed onward and infused more ether into the next soul energy particle. It felt like an eternity had passed, although no more than half an hour could have gone by, when my willpower failed me. The sixth nourished soul energy particle resisted my will and erupted, expelling me from my World.
“The sixth again,” I grumbled weakly, not even bothering to wipe my sweat-drenched face. My shirt, soaked in cold sweat, pressed against my back as I lay on the cold, metallic floor, but I couldn’t even think about standing up, let alone resuming work.
I only barely managed to push my upper body upright after I finished the breathing exercise Daniel’s mother had taught me. Aureus was coiled up on the cold floor beside me, but the little glutton didn’t seem bothered. If anything, I knew Aureus was happy with the ether mist swirling around us.
The barriers containing the ether mist were still intact, yet only Aureus kept working. I knew it was stupid, but whenever I compared my work ethic with Aureus’, I felt… lackluster. Two weeks had passed since our training started, and it worked – somewhat. It was a challenge to stay ahead of Aureus, to expand my World just enough to keep up with its ever-growing demands.
“Keep going. You have 30 minutes left.” Footsteps resounded to my left and I turned to face the same inquisitive smile I’ve gotten used to in the last two weeks. “Push a little bit further and you will complete the 4th level.”
Bert walked past the machinery, carrying a stash of serums. He looked like he didn’t have a particular interest in our growth, but that was a farce – I knew that much at this point. Beaster Bert was… unique, to say the least. When I first met him, I was surprised to see such an average man. After everything Daniel shared about ‘Teach’, I’d expected something else: a unique man, maybe a little crazy. Maybe some odd antics, a white coat, or something along those lines. However, Bert was nothing like that. He was neither tall nor short. His face was not handsome, but he was not ugly either. He was not skinny, well-built, or chubby either. He was just… average, in every possible aspect.
Except for his expertise as a renowned Beaster.
“That’s easier said than done,” I grunted quietly, my eyes lingering on the serums as Bert placed them on the table near the ethermist cube.
Beaster Bert had been responsible for myriad tests Daniel’s parents wanted administered. They wanted to know everything about me and wasted no money to ensure my deficits were taken care of. My diet had been changed thoroughly, and my training schedule had been scrapped.
The only constant was Selene’s daily beating. Beaster Bert examined me after every training session and administered a reddish-purple potion and put me into the ethermist cube to train with Aureus for two hours. As to whether I tempered my body or refined my World in those two hours, nobody seemed to care.
The first few days of training had been confusing. It felt like I was resting more than I was training, yet neither Daniel, his parents, nor even Bert wanted me to spend more time training. They went as far as to stop me from doing more when I proceeded to temper my body in my ‘resting period’ on the sixth day.
Chloe and Peter Zerog lectured me and bombarded me with another drive containing everything I had to know by the time the Camp started. I liked studying, I really did, but I felt weak and lackluster. Why couldn’t we focus on fixing my strength first?
I was a Novice, and my competition was well-trained Journeymen. To reach the rank of a Journeyman officially, one needed a large enough World that could either contain two powerful Awakened beasts or an Evolved beast. Most, as far as I could tell, would only register as Journeymen once they had an Evolved Soulkin and full control over it. I, on the other hand, had a small World and thus small ether reserves, and my Soulkin was a 3-Star Wild.
It was hard to fathom how much stronger I would be once I advanced to become an Adept, but most records stated that it didn’t feel much different. The same was supposed to be the case once I made it to the Journeyman Rank. The only differences were the gains. For one, as an Adept or Journeyman, one would have one or multiple Soulkins of the equivalent rank. An Adept would have at least one Awakened beast, and a Journeyman would have at least one Evolved beast.
The greatest difference between a Novice and an Adept was the existence of racial traits. Most, not all, Awakened beasts had a racial trait, most often called ‘Trait’ or ‘ability’ to utilize. Many of those abilities were passive and would augment the Blessed passively as well as their bond reached the required firmness, which elevated the Adept to a level most Novices would never attain.
I tried not to think about the other cadets and how much stronger they were, but it was hard to do so when I had almost eight hours to spend however I pleased. Chloe and Peter Zerog tested me weekly on my improvements. Beaster Bert informed them of Aureus’ and my progress, and I was half-certain Selene was connected to them as well. If not for that, my sparring sessions with her wouldn’t have continued, and they would have taught me to fight long ago.
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At the end of the day, all the Zerogs did was test my knowledge. The tests were fierce, and my grades were low, but neither Chloe nor Peter looked particularly unpleasant. I, on the other hand, was far from happy with my results. I felt inadequate and started to resent myself for being so weak.
“Don’t waste too much ether,” Bert smirked my way and said. “I may have a present for you… for Aureus, if you push further.”
That was all it took to discard all the thoughts bothering me. The possibility that one of the serums was for Aureus to consume flashed through my mind, and I shifted into a proper stance. My mind reached for the World and the semi-condensed ether around me, and my pores opened naturally. Ether seeped into my body and World with a faint push, replenishing my used-up reserves rapidly. It was incredibly fast, although that was mostly owed to my core’s size. If it had been larger, my reserves wouldn’t have refilled this fast.
I brushed aside the heavy pressure weighing on my shoulders as the mist around me gathered. Blastor Refinery was a great technique, and I continued to use it at the Zerogs’ recommendation, but everyone had too high expectations of me. Bert and Daniel’s parents pushed me to wield a lot more ether than my core could hold at a time. That, for one, was difficult and taxing. And considering how meticulous I had to be when infusing ether into a single soul energy particle, it was a disaster. Or had been.
Multitasking was not something I excelled at. Unfortunately, it had become a basic requirement since my training with the Zerogs started. I worked hard, splitting my mind to separate the soul energy particles from each other, opening my World to the atmospheric ether, and slowly infusing it into the separated soul energy particle. It worked. However, I also had to maintain the soul energy particle as it grew more resistant to my control, and that turned into my greatest nemesis.
Even after two weeks had passed, I could only create and infuse five nourished soul energy particles into my World.
My achievements were great, as a World like mine shouldn’t have started with the 3rd Level of Blastor Refinery, yet here I was, pushing myself to do the 4th just because everyone else thought I could do it. Then again, it worked. I might not have been able to finish the 4th Level and had to backpedal to refine the remaining soul energy using the 2nd or 3rd Level, but it worked, miraculously so. I would have loved to say everyone was wrong, but the results spoke volumes. I created a lot of space for Aureus to grow as his growth period slowed—until he decided to join my training regimen to absorb a great amount of ether, which seemed to spur his growth once again.
Are they finally going to fix Aureus’ physique? I wondered momentarily before I resumed work.
Half an hour later, I felt like shit. That shouldn’t have surprised me, but I felt a lot worse than I’d feared. My mind was mush, my core didn’t want to absorb any more ether for the time being, and my entire body felt like it had been ravaged by the atmospheric ether circulating through it.
A series of mechanical sounds rang in my ears, and I felt a suctioning force around me, but I was too familiar with it to be surprised. The last wisps of ether mist around me were pulled into the ground as the cube’s isolation barriers dispersed.
Light footsteps resounded on the cold floor as Bert stepped closer, while holding two small glass vials. I would have loved to jump up in excitement, maybe even snatch the vials out of the Beaster’s hands before he could change his mind, but my body was pained and sore all over.
Beaster Bert snickered at my suffering and handed me one of the vials, which I emptied without a second thought. It was viscous and tasted terrible—really terrible. I doubted I had ever consumed anything worse, which was probably why it was so good that my mind and tastebuds didn’t even register what I had consumed until it was in my stomach.
My stomach tightened and writhed, yet I didn’t throw up. Though I couldn’t tell whether it was due to my willpower or Bert’s glare.
I was not going to vomit in his basement… not again, at least.
“Did he vomit again?” Another familiar voice—Bert’s wife—rang out from behind as she stepped inside the basement.
“Not yet.” Bert chuckled.
I glared at them, but they only smiled and turned to Aureus.
My experience with the serum seemed to scare the mutant Soilback, and the intense sour smell hanging in the air did little to convince Aureus otherwise. Aureus glared at me as if it was my fault the serums smelled like that, but he approached Bert and emptied the tiny vial. The Soulkin made sure to share everything he felt with me, though I was unsure how helpful that was.
Shared pain is half the pain, huh? I laughed, even as Aureus hurled a barrage of vicious images and emotions at me.
“I brewed this to fix your detrimental physique. You will feel sore for a few days, and it may even develop into dull pain as you consume more of the Pith Potency serum, but you will have to digest every drop of the serum if you want a seamless advance to 4-Star,” Bert explained to Aureus, though he looked at me as he continued. “Aureus will break if we stimulate his evolution with such a pathetic physique.”
Aureus did not seem to agree with the Beaster’s statement—whether about his detrimental physique or the evolution. In the Soulkin’s opinion, he was perfect as he was. I refrained from commenting on that.
Bert said a few more things to me, but his words were not for me. Not really. Aureus listened as I pushed through the pain and soreness that seemed to worsen as my stomach worked through the potion. He could hear everything, which was rare, apparently. Wilds rarely understood the human tongue, and most who could were old and had been with their Blessed for years—decades, even. Aureus was different. He was a smartass, a picky glutton, and petty.
His physique was a problem—yet it wasn’t. All his growth had been pushed into Aureus’ mind and trait. His mind had been forced to develop rapidly to provide enough sustenance for the paralyze trait, or so everyone said. The trait was too strong for a beast like a Soilback, yet Aureus prevailed. He was thriving, which was extraordinary, according to Bert.
The Beaster was certain that Aureus would have been one of the strongest Soilbacks, with a high likelihood of evolving into a Cragling naturally, if not for the mutation.
Once Bert was done talking, Aureus sent me a few images of him emptying his bladder into the Beaster’s boots. A moment later, he disappeared into my World, where he continued to complain tirelessly.
The golden particles I failed to use until my time in the ether mist cube ended flooded toward Aureus and clung to him the moment he returned to the World. I watched them turn muddy brown as they seeped into my companion. Aureus’ tirade ended after a few minutes, and he curled up and fell asleep in no time.
I heard Bert and his wife as they talked to each other—or were they talking to me?—but I focused on my World as faint traces of soul energy reformed. It was not much, barely a fragment of soul energy, but it flowed toward Aureus the moment it formed in the World, and it strengthened my Soulkin.
If a few serums are all it takes to push you to 4-Star in the next few weeks… I cursed the workload ahead, yet a bright smile bloomed on my lips long before the curses fully formed in my mind.
After all, it looked like I would have to push my World to fit a 4-Star Soilback.