Ch.9 Presents
The sun peaking over an opposite mountain shined in Jean’s eyes. He had always enjoyed mornings. The sun felt different, gradually warming cold skin and evaporating morning dew producing a soft scent. The quiet was the most impactful though. Jean’s house was always a bit of a madhouse at all hours, but it was just Jean and his mom before the sun rose. He often helped cook, went on walks, or he did homework in the quiet.
This morning as Jean woke up, he saw the sun peaking over to his side, a quiet city below, and above through the opaque solid cloud, he saw a butt.
Gabe poked his head over his body looking straight down onto Jean. With a huge smile, he said, “Good morning! I’ve got presents.” A moment later, he blinked down into the cell.
Jean sat up rubbing his eyes. He pulled out his water bottle from his inventory and downed the last of the bottle. “Could you get me some water, that was the last of mine?”
Gabe’s smile turned sneaky. “You, m’boy, have a storage space. Forgot to leave that one out last night, didn’t you? Good. You should keep that secret if you can. And no. I won’t get you water, because, in a few minutes, you won’t need to drink water anymore.”
“Wait, did I hear you right? I won’t have to drink water anymore? Why? Are you going to cast a spell on me?.” Jean said with excitement.
“Even better lad. I’ve got your Essence of cloud.” Gabe pulled the orb out of a bag slung over his shoulder. Blue and white, the orb seemed like it wasn’t affected by gravity as Gabe tossed it over. “Absorb it now. You can do that without a ritual, right? I’ve been looking into outworlder studies all right.”
Jean took the orb, “Are you sure? Want me to pay you? I’ve got some spirit coins if you want them.”
Gabe said, “if you’ve got any generated spirit coins from your looting ability, I’d like one of those.”
Jean popped out a lesser, an iron, and a bronze spirit coin. Noting that only the lesser had his face on a side, he passed it to Gabe. Gabe examined it, smelled it, then popped it into his mouth. “Hmm, fresh coins. Tasty.”
“What are you doing? Did you just swallow that?” Jean asked in shock.
“Haha, you are really new to this world. Essence users survive off of spirit coins. That’s why you won’t be needing any water, or food for that matter. Now, absorb the Cloud Essence.”
Eager for the change, Jean absorbed the Cloud Essence.
Essence of Cloud absorbed. Essence of cloud merged with speed attribute. Absorb four awakening stones to complete evolving speed attribute.
Absorbed four out of four essences. 100% towards Iron Rank.
Essence ability awakened. Cloud Conjuration. This is an active ability. You may conjure clouds. You may increase and decrease the density of clouds. You may shape and telekinetically move clouds within your aura range.
You have reached Iron rank 0%. You can now be sustained with spirit coins. Reach Iron 100% on every of essence ability to progress to bronze rank.
Jean felt a rush of energy. He jumped up, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I feel really good!”
Gabe looked at him with a realization in his eyes and then said, “I should have planned for this. Can you go stand in the corner of the room over there?”
“Sure,” jumping over with a spring in his step. “My Cloud Essence ability is cool…”
Jean put his hand over his mouth and another hand on his gut. “What’s going on?” Jean asked with panic in his eyes. Turning, putting his head in the corner of the room Jean started to puke a grey gooey substance. Meanwhile, that same grayish brown junk started seeping out of his pores. Gagging and thrashing on the cell floor, Jean passed out while puss continued to ebb out of his whole body.
“I… should clean him up,” Gabe said while covering his face with his shirt. “Cumulon, can you get me some buckets and bleaching solution?”
_______
Jean woke up still in a cell with a sheet over him. Gabe was on the other side, sitting on a bench with a cloud fire pit burning in front of him. He was roasting a large chunk of meat on a spit. Turning, Gabe said,
“Sorry about that, Tike. I should have warned you. Rank-ups are always messy, but that was…Woah. As an apology, I got you some wyvern meat! There was also just a big monster attack, so it was kind of just good timing.”
“Thanks.” Jean got up, using the sheet as a toga. “So, everyone spews pure nastiness when they rank up?”
“Yup. Your body is just purging impurities as it’s getting closer to its ideal form. Come and eat some food. It’ll be done in a second. Also, keep in mind that this is meat from a gold-ranked monster, so you’ll experience quite a rush for a while, but you’ll pass out after. We can try to train a bit while you have some extra magic in your system.” Gabe informed.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Interested, Jean walked over a sat by the fire pit awaiting the meat.
“So I can conjure and move clouds now,” Jean said with a grin.
Gabe’s eyebrows rose, “That’s pretty interesting. Conjuring stuff is pretty powerful down the line, even if there aren’t many direct combat applications with clouds. Try it out!”
Jean focused on the new feeling in his body with the instinctual understanding of what was about to happen. A puff of cloud formed from nothing a foot in front of Jean to the side of the fire pit. As he focused the cloud grew and grew until it started to spread and fill the space. The clouds felt more real than the cloud he was sitting on. It felt cool and damp, restricting some visibility.
Gabe poked at the meat while talking, “Try condensing it into the shape of a person or something.”
Jean focused and pushed the clouds together, bringing them away from the walls of the room. He kept trying as sweat beaded on his brow, but the best he could do was to condense the cloud into a thick pillar five feet wide. His concentration breaking, with a pant, Jean wiped the sweat off of his face.
“That was way harder than it looked,” Jean said defensively as Gabe just smiled and poked the cooking meat. “It felt like I was pushing on an iron wall at the end there. Just making the cloud wasn’t nearly as hard.”
“That sounds about right. Most conjuration abilities don’t include the manipulation element, so it would be a challenge. And besides, you were trying to condense and shape. You could probably shape easier if there was less material.”
With a pause, Gabe continued, while turning at the meat on the spit. “What are your essence abilities other than your auras?”
“Bone spear, bone claws, and bone manipulation,” Jean replied.
Gabe looked away from the meat to look at Jean. “I would have expected bone spear. It’s a different conjuration ability. You’ll hopefully get a conjuration affinity with different types of conjuration under your belt. But you should know that your other two are body-altering abilities. Those are looked down on around here, but you still need to learn to control them and use them well.” The mood fell for a moment until Gabe shouted, “Hey! The food’s done!”
Getting a large wooden slab and a cooking knife out of the small satchel, Gabe took the meat off the spit and laid it on the wood. Carefully he sliced it as the knife shimmered. “You’re going to love this.”
Gabe handed Jean a fork and said, “dig in!” As he grabbed a piece with his fork and shoved a large bite into his mouth.
Jean stabbed a small piece, impressed with the softness. Putting it in his mouth was a euphoric experience. The meat was juicy and soft, with a rich fattiness. And as Jean took a bite he felt energy oozing into his mouth through his teeth. A shiver went through his body. “Woah!”
“Conjure and condense as much as you can as you chew and swallow! This is what I call amped training.”
Jean took the chance to jump up and started to create and condense way more clouds than before. Once he condensed a room full of clouds into the size of a bowling ball, he kept adding more and more clouds into the condensed space. With his intense focus on the task, he didn’t realize that he had finished eating the lump of meat, and the energy it was giving him was emptied. All of a sudden the condensed cloud burst open. The force slapped Jean and knocked him against the wall. Jean rubbed his eyes, before realizing that the space was still full of thick clouds, dampening everything. The cloud was slowly disappearing. Once it was gone enough to see he looked over to see a dry, offended-looking Gabe.
“If I hadn’t thrown my meat into my bag of holding, you would have gotten it wet and cooled it down! No more condensing training for you, not until you’ve got your own space.” Gabe said while pulling the food out of his bag.
Jean felt residual energy leaving him, making him feel even hungrier for the wyvern meat. “Can I have more?” Jean asked.
With a sidelong glare, Gabe moved out of a defensive position over the meat. “Yeah, but only a few more bites.” I can't have you be too wiped out later. “Just summon spears this time.”
Jean did as he was asked, taking another decadent bite of meat, he started to summon spear after spear. He felt like his new iron rank mana pool could conjure up to 10 spears, but with the meat, he was able to make more than he could count. He filled the opposite side of the cell with spears coming out of the floor and ceiling.
“Wow, that’s pretty scary. There are almost a hundred spears there. Once you are about bronze rank, you’ll be able to do that without assistance. But, you’ll always have mana issues with conjuration abilities, especially ones without cooldowns.
Jean sat with exhaustion. “I’m feeling pretty drained.”
Gabe consoled, “Yup, that’s expected. It’s similar to consuming a bronze rank spirit coin when you are an iron ranker. Except, a coin will be more of a single burst, where meat several ranks higher will energize and boost your mana and stamina for a minute. Your body will still ache from the over-output.”
“Go ahead and try continuous bone spears again with another bite of meat.” Then Gabe said in a quieter voice, “Then you should probably only work on your aura control. Almost all of your other abilities will get you kicked out of the city, or at the least, you won’t be allowed to leave the prison cell. Speaking of which, when Tigris comes in, don’t tell him of your abilities. Especially that you absorbed the Cloud Essence.”
Jean eyed him, “You know that you looked suspicious while saying that, right?”
Gabe’s eyes went back and forth rapidly. “How can you tell?” A big grin crossed his face.
Jean replied, “You know, the normal ways. When someone tells you to keep a secret without telling you why and then just seems shifty. It’s normally a sign of something underhanded going on.”
Jean stared at Gabe for another few seconds before Gabe said, “so about working on those spears…maybe try to make fewer but longer ones, or pick a focus spot to pierce.”
Jean shook his head before grabbing another bite of food and with energy flowing through him, he worked on another rapid succession of bone spears, this time more focused on making spears go floor to ceiling, hitting a single point on the ceiling. Soon after Jean sat hard leaning against the wall. The wave of exhaustion poured over him far worse than before.
“After about thirty minutes you can eat an iron spirit coin, and it will balance out your system a bit.” Gabe said, “You should start on your aura control.”
“Where do I start?” Jean asked with intrigue.
“Meditation is the main thing. Try to focus on feeling the essence abilities in you, and try to feel your aura extending out of you. For more than that you’ll have to wait for Tigris. He’s better at the words than I am. And with that, I’m off!” Standing and putting the spit and left-over meat in his bag, he saluted, “Take care. I'll be back in three days to take you out of here. You can use them whenever, but don’t show Tigris or anyone else. Peace!”
“Thanks!” Jean barely eked out before heading out of the door.
Now, it's time I start to get a handle on my aura.