John glanced at his core, filled with solid, liquid, and gaseous essence in a twenty-seventy-ten split. He rarely used gaseous anymore, but he still feared getting caught off guard and being unable to act on anything but instincts.
‘If I sent the enchantment in now, it might go to waste expanding my core. I think the enchantment will give me more essence than I can fit, so I should use most of it first.’
He moved the shield closer to the core to make the process easier. Then, he gently guided the solid essence toward it, waiting in anticipation to see the results.
The solid clumps of cloudy essence touched the shield’s surface and molded with it, infusing it with essence. John didn’t see any way to do this without first filling the shield with essence, hoping it would expand once he reached the maximum amount.
The shield eventually stopped accepting more essence, now filled to the brim. But John continued trying, focusing on receiving and infusing the essence simultaneously. The shield was part of him, so he also needed to let the essence do as it wanted.
‘This is not as easy as it sounds… But now I’m wondering if I can infuse Larang or the lucky sword before summoning them. That would make it easier to use them in a hurry…’
Shaking off the distracting thoughts, he renewed his focus, clearly seeing the shield accepting the essence in his mind's eye.
Finally, it started. The marbles of essence began spreading across the shield, melding with it and giving off a faint glow. The process wasn’t swift, but it would only take a minute for John to empty his storage of solid essence.
John felt the shield become malleable in his mind, letting him alter its shape if he wanted. But he couldn’t think of any particularly useful improvements at the moment.
‘Wait! If the shield retains its velocity while teleporting… Then, I could attack anything within a fifty-meter radius if I fly at high speeds! But… that feels almost like cheating. Can it really be that useful?’
He was afraid of testing it right now, fearing he would lose his opportunity to mold the shield like he wanted. So, to be safe, he tried envisioning the shield’s upper edge becoming sharper, sacrificing a bit of defense for the chance to attack more efficiently.
It molded to his exact vision, but he felt the power of alteration waning in his mind. He would likely need more essence to continue changing it.
The final bit of solid essence was spent now, so he had to take a break. And that was the perfect excuse to test the shield properly.
But once his attention turned to the outside, he felt his hand gently held in Rain's hands. She had crawled up next to him and pulled his hand to her stomach, lying on her side. And now she was sleeping peacefully, looking ever so content.
‘... Mmh, I guess… I can postpone the testing till tomorrow. It’s the first time we both get to rest during the night since Dennis is keeping watch. But I still want to finish this infusing process, though.’
Deciding to take the risk that the teleporting would not work as he hoped, John continued the process. First, he had to transmute the liquid essence into solid, leaving him dangerously low on essence.
The process took another couple of minutes, but soon, he had thirty percent solid essence in his core. He chose to leave ten percent of liquid, just in case.
‘I didn’t feel close to reaching a limit during the infusion… This might take more effort than I thought. But the shield is also my largest piece of equipment, both in weight and size. The others should be quicker.’
He started the process again, watching the shield greedily consume the small marbles of essence around it. The sense of malleability returned, and he used it to sharpen the upper edge. He also tried making it slightly taller in the middle so it would pierce objects more easily.
Ever so slowly, he also felt that the shield started to seem more robust in his mind. The weight of it seemed to increase, even if the size remained the same.
‘... Don’t tell me it’s actually increasing in weight due to the solid essence? Well, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but still. I really shouldn’t be doing this without testing it at all.’
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Soon, the essence was exhausted again, without any noticeable glow to signal it was completed. But John didn’t see it as a bad thing. That only meant the opportunity to alter his equipment was more significant than he thought.
‘Okay, time to see what happens once the enchantment is destroyed. I might have to convert it to liquid essence quickly to avoid wasting any on my core growing.’
The green ball of light sank into the translucent sphere in the middle of the space in his mind. It seemed to fade slowly, expanding in all directions, slowly filling the core with glowing white essence.
The essence seemed to be of a higher quality than what he had used earlier, but it was hard to tell since it gradually degraded once it stayed in his core. John could not keep it pure, which he assumed was due to his breaker status.
He immediately converted it to liquid essence, bringing it out of his core and imagining the heavy rain clouds from his training sessions. The stream of new essence was high, but he managed to keep up with it without any essence going to waste.
However, his core quickly seemed to fill, while the enchantment showed no sign of stopping.
‘Damn, this thing has more essence than I thought. But I guess it makes sense, given the fact that a demon can fill my essence with ease. I’ll have to convert it to solid as well, and then try to send it to the shield while it’s converting…’
Unbeknownst to him, a sigh escaped his lips as he converted the essence again. Instead of stopping the first process, he simply let the liquid essence stay in his chest and tried to solidify it while the gaseous essence was converting to liquid essence.
The challenge of keeping the image of heavy rain and molten metal turning solid in his mind at once was nearly impossible, but he managed to keep up with the enchantment’s release, if just barely.
Sensing that the core was filling with the solid essence he was creating, John tried to send it to the shield without spending any brainpower. He managed, but he had no time to alter its shape any further.
‘Whatever, I don’t care! God damn, this is straining!’
Sweat had started dripping from his temples due to the focus required, but he managed to keep up the pace. The shield kept getting more robust as he strived to continue the process. Then, finally, the enchantment stopped, losing its final spark of light and disintegrating into nothing.
Relieved, John could stop the tedious process and only focus on turning the gaseous essence into liquid. He kept sending some solid essence to the shield, trying to reduce the amount in his core to twenty percent again.
But then his shield stopped accepting any more essence and instead gained a soft glow. Like a final puzzle piece, the essence had utterly transformed it, not in shape or appearance, but in some other way that John couldn’t quite explain.
‘It finished! Great! Then I can go to sleep!’
Even with his superhuman body, John felt his mind longing for sleep. The process had been way more draining on his mental stamina than expected.
Opening his eyes, he again saw Rain at his side, in the same position as before. Her antlers forced her face to be half-buried in the sand, but she didn’t seem to mind. His arm was still held between her hands, tucked against her stomach like a teddy bear.
Seeing her like that, John felt he had to confront something he had tried to avoid so far. He hoped it wasn’t the case, but the possibility was clearly there.
‘... Does she have romantic feelings for me? It doesn’t seem like it, but I can’t really say I know how it would look if she did… Nah, she feels more like a very close friend, right? And she doesn’t know what’s normal, given her lack of knowledge. This is just her being close to me.’
He felt confident, having seen how people in love look at their object of desire. Rain had shown no such signs, even when he had taken baths.
Thinking further about their time together, John eventually fell asleep, dreaming of his shield working exactly as he hoped it would.
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The morning was as mild as ever, slowly illuminating their surroundings without any sharp sunlight to disturb their sleep. John felt well-rested as his eyes opened, looking at the rest of the planet hovering above him.
Their goal was still farther away than he liked to think about, but they were making steady progress. John also had a slight hope that they could speed up once he became an aspecter, with him bringing Rain on Larang again.
Rain had gotten up already, sitting next to Dennis, who was preparing a meal for her from the remaining bird meat. She seemed more eager than usual, which John understood well. The bird was delicious.
“Morning,” John said, sitting up from the sand and tussling the back of his head.
Rain turned to him and waved. “Good morning!”
Dennis also looked over at him and greeted him with a nod. “Morning, John. No demons came close to us tonight, but I had to chase a few monsters off. Sleep well?”
“Yeah, like a rock. Thanks for keeping watch!”
“Any time! You want some bird as well?” Dennis asked, holding up a piece of the purple meat.
“Of course!” John replied, getting up and heading over to the others. It promised to be another day of travel and fighting, and John was more than excited.