Leaving the safety of the Bastion was scary. Fighting beasts outside was even worse. It scared the living hell out of me. Just thinking about it made me sweat and tighten my throat. My stomach lurched, but the idea of fighting beasts didn’t sound entirely bad.
At least, the part about earning a fortune for my parents. To give them back everything they had sacrificed for me.
And, of course, the thought of being able to do something for myself, to grow stronger, and to have the means to protect those I held dear was enticing. Though I doubted I would ever gain the strength needed to protect my parents from anything powerful enough to pierce the Bastion’s dome.
Still, every bit of power counts for something. It may not mean a lot, but it could be a deciding factor between life and death.
Even if mankind wasn’t pushed back further… didn’t lose another Bastion like the Collapse seven years ago, I could always earn a fortune for my parents and give them everything they deserved. And that was already quite a lot.
In the best-case scenario, the Soilback would evolve to an Awakened beast, which would improve my chances at a high-paying job—especially if I were to acquire the Earth Manipulation trait. Or I could apply to a university and continue my path as a researcher… maybe even become a Beaster?
My heart stirred at the possibilities. No matter what happened, I…I had options. And that, for the first time since I could remember.
My body wouldn’t hold me back any longer, nor would my World.
Even though my family’s exact financial situation was unclear, we should be able to survive for another month or two, and that was more than enough.
“I’m ready.” I stared determinedly at Daniel. “How do I do this?”
“That’s the spirit!” Daniel exclaimed, pumping his fists cheerfully into the air.
It took him a good minute to calm down, and even longer to explain what I had to do. But once that was done, I formed a cusp around the Soilback egg with both hands and closed my eyes.
My World unfolded before me. It was as tiny as ever but trembled in anticipation. And so did I.
My concentration threatened to slip away multiple times, and I was forced to halt the binding process even before it had begun.
I took a deep breath. Then a second. A third.
My racing heart calmed a little, and I redoubled my effort to focus on the task ahead. The World continued to tremble and ripple, releasing golden particles of soul energy into the surroundings. I felt my heart clench and my body tense, but I remained unmoving as the soul energy swirled through my body. It didn’t take much to guide the energy to its destination. My World knew what it wanted, and so did the soul energy.
It reached out to the beast egg, seeped into the muddy shell, and circulated through the Soilback without any resistance before returning to the World. I followed every step with suppressed excitement, trying to focus on the task ahead, though in truth, there was little I could do other than watch the golden particles move around and return to my World.
Once back in my World, I waited expectantly for something to happen. Either the soul energy would return to the Soilback egg and circulate through it a few times to create a connecting link between the beast and my World, or the connection had already been created and ether would soon seep into the core of my World.
But nothing happened. I waited as long as my increasing impatience could handle and opened my eyes to turn to Daniel.
“Did it work?” Daniel asked. “Of course it worked. There won’t be any resistance from the kin, and then there’s the synergy.”
As excited as my old friend sounded for my fortune, I couldn’t help but stare at him.
“Is that… it?” I asked.
Seeing the confused look on my old friend’s face, I explained what I had done, while trying to suppress the rising anxiety that found its way into my voice. But Daniel only laughed at my desperation, and the desire to punch and kick him rose to new heights alongside my anxiety.
“Aah, you are the victim of a common misunderstanding,” he said, waving dismissively—trying, and failing, to wipe the mischief from his face. “The ‘mythical’ process of binding a beast to your World is not all that special. If anything, it feels so mundane you barely notice anything at first. That’s even more true in your case. You’re binding a Wild egg, which has no natural resistance to the bond, and it is in sync with your World. Therefore, you feel nothing.”
Daniel patted my shoulder, the mischief in his face replaced by a tinge of seriousness. “But it is surprising that one circulation of soul energy was enough to bind it. Can you already feel the life within the egg? Try to sense the Soilback.”
Even though the desire to punch my friend was still there, nagging me in the back of my mind, I closed my eyes again and focused on the beast within the egg. The Soilback. My Soulkin.
And there it was, among the golden particles that had been aspected, standing testament to the sacred bonding ritual. A faint, insignificant pulse that didn’t belong to me. I focused on it and tuned out everything else to hear it again. A thump, like the beat of a heart, rang through my World. It reverberated through me and filled everything, soothing my aching heart.
All tension escaped my body, and my legs would have caved in if I hadn’t reacted in time, pressing my feet firmly into the ground.
The beat was weak, and so was the connection. Nonetheless, I could feel it. It was there, and growing.
“I can feel it,” I muttered, breaking into a vibrant smile.
“Good. I was worried for a moment,” Daniel laughed haughtily.
Ignoring his comment, I asked, “What now? How can I strengthen our connection, and how long does it take until my World absorbs ether?”
Daniel grimaced at the questions and didn’t answer right away. He looked a little uncomfortable and averted his eyes.
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“Well, you see… normally, a newly awakened Blessed would store their Soulkin in their World. To get used to the connection and to nourish it. Both Blessed and Soulkin will have to get used to the bond. To have someone else in their head. To feel the other’s emotions and to communicate with one another through intents, images, and so forth. But…”
I understood now why Daniel’s demeanor changed so suddenly. “But my World is too small to fit the Soilback egg.”
“You will have to refine your World like a Blessed as quickly as possible to expand it, and maybe you will be able to strengthen your bond with the Soilback before it hatches. If you can do that, your soulshare should grow considerably.”
That was the last issue. If the Soilback hatched too early and required too much soul energy, my World wouldn’t be able to endure the strain. It was already bloated and barely fit the unhatched Soilback, which meant one thing: I had to refine my World like a proper Blessed.
It was exactly like Daniel said.
But to do so, I needed ether, which had started to trickle into the core of my World. It was hard to perceive at first, but something entered the World and nestled in its core. I recalled the sensation from the time I’d used etherstones to fill my body with ether.
However, the ether gathering in my core didn’t prevail for long. It stayed no longer than a second before it was consumed—drained by none other than my very own body.
The soreness of my worn muscles faded slowly, and as the minutes trickled by, I felt the exhaustion that had accumulated over the day diminishing.
At last, my body was improving.
This time, hopefully, for good.
***
“N-Nine…” I groaned, cold sweat drenching my back as I pushed upward.
My arms trembled, but they continued to carry my weight as I lowered my body once again. I groaned louder, sweat pouring down my temples. My muscles screamed, and I nearly did too, as my nose was only millimeters away from touching the ground before I pushed upward once again.
I tried to breathe in as I pressed my palms deep into the ground to finish the tenth push-up, yet my body didn’t listen to me. It let me struggle until I was done, until my arms caved in, before I was allowed to take in some fresh air.
No matter how I looked at it, my condition was still far from perfect. I was frail and physically lacking, but it would have been weird if the ether entering my body had solved that as well.
Several days had passed since I bound the Soilback egg to my World, and a lot had changed. First and foremost, I was now a Blessed. Ether filled the core of my World, and I had a beast to call my companion. My Soulkin.
The Soilback had yet to hatch, and my World had yet to expand to carry a Wild Soulkin with the potential to advance to a 3-Star, but the problems with my constitution were no longer a bother. My body had consumed ether for days, draining every trace that entered my World before I could access it. While that had slowed my plans to refine my World with a method that required ether, the long-term gains were apparent.
My body was no longer a mess. It was weak, lacking sustenance and a lifetime of training, but training—building up muscles—was something I could do. At last, I could be like everyone else!
The problems caused by my physical issues were no more. It was almost like… like my condition had never existed. But I remembered the years of suffering, and I doubt I would ever forget about them.
I took a deep breath on the ground and shifted until I sat upright, legs crossed and eyes closed.
My World was as beautiful as ever, and it was no longer as tiny as it once had been. It had grown, albeit not as much as I would have preferred. Regardless, a growth worth a few percent transformed the grain-sized World into a… World the size of a larger grain.
That, as unfortunate as it was, didn’t change the World’s bloated state. Even after all those days had passed, my World was still and strained beyond… well, beyond anything I’d experienced. Daniel tried to keep my doubts and pessimistic thoughts at bay, and he called me daily to inquire about the Soilback egg, my World, and my condition. However, my friend couldn’t solve all the problems for me. He’d already done more than most would have done by helping me with the Analyzor, by offering to hunt with me once I was ready, and by offering to help me out if all of my plans failed miserably.
That, and teaching me a relatively secure method to refine a bloated World, was all he could do—but it was a lot more than I had been hoping for.
Accessing the World within me was still as easy as before. Due to the growth spurt of my World, I had a little bit more soul energy at my disposal, but that didn’t make the following process much more difficult—at least not yet. However, expelling the ether within the core into the World and infusing the soul energy into ether, without losing control of either energy, proved somewhat more complex.
Controlling ether was still new to me, limiting me to simpler tasks for now. Still, fusing and intertwining soul energy and ether within the World was within my means. A bad headache threatened to shatter my focus, but I moved slowly and patiently, fusing the energies within a few minutes.
That step completed, I took a deep breath and reintroduced the soul energy-ether mixture into the World’s core. This second phase was even slower, but the strain weighing on the World demanded caution. One mistake and irreversible harm could be inflicted on the World.
It took me a full hour to complete the exhausting process, but the improvement was worth it. Changing to a refinement method that utilized ether was like night and day. It was incomparable, and I had yet to upgrade from the basic refinement method used by most Blessed to a more specialized technique that focused on the World’s properties and unique characteristics.
But I was nowhere close to creating a technique like that. If anything, I was more than satisfied with what I’d already accomplished, and a smile played on my lips as a golden twinkle shimmered to life.
The rewards of hard work, I mused, waiting a little bit longer until my core had replenished some of the used-up ether.
The ambient ether was thin in the ninth sector, but it was enough to replenish my reserves. No more time wasted, I intertwined the golden particles with replenished ether and guided it toward the World’s core, completing the refinement session for the day.
Now that I was done, I got up and went inside to take a shower. I never left the Soilback egg alone. I kept it near the mirror in the bathroom, where I could see it from the shower. My attention flicked back to the egg whenever I looked away, but nothing changed no matter how long I stared at it. The Soilback did not want to hatch just yet.
The longer it takes, the better. It’s healthy, so get your act together and keep working hard, or you won’t be able to store the egg before your Soulkin hatches! I cursed myself when I was done.
I toweled off and stepped out of the shower, only to wince as my eyes flicked from the mirror to the egg and back to the mirror.
“As scrawny as ever,” I grimaced, looking at my mirror image.
A small, skinny teenager with a sickly pale complexion. Freckles sprinkled across my face, and bright green eyes greeted me.
“I’m improving. Slowly but steadily. Patience is what I need the most right now… and more time maybe.” I released a chuckle and ruffled through my shoulder-long hair before pulling it into a short ponytail.
Putting on the best clothes I could find, I finished the last preparations for returning to the hospital. It hadn’t been long since I last saw my parents, definitely no more than 24 hours, but I wanted to see them again. Mom was still not back at work and continued to tend to my father even though he was treated well in the hospital. Though I couldn’t hold that against her. We nearly lost Dad to the beasts outside, and I could only imagine how Mom was feeling about it.
Recalling how my parents had reacted to the news brought a smile to my lips. It wasn’t enough to quench the guilt entirely, but I found myself more relieved than anything when my parents congratulated me. My parents’ reaction had me worried the most, but they had been happy if anything. Mom cried happy tears, and I could still feel her tight hug even though it had been days since I broke the news. Dad, on the other hand, had looked proud—somehow both of what he had accomplished and of the fact that I’d bound the Soilback.
It almost felt like my father didn’t care about the wounds, and the scars he would carry from now on didn’t matter. As if his pain had been worth it all.
But to me, it did matter. My parents had sacrificed a lot for my well-being, and they deserved no less than the best.
Their smiles, vibrant and genuine, were still etched in my mind.