Another fruitless day passed by, but only by means of hunting. The night bore the chains of bonds which this group never knew they would have. The fire pit was smoking from the night before, evidence of their new friendship. They went to sleep with their bellies full on the unique dish of a Tri-Horn Boar. Damien’s taste buds were stimulated to an extreme, reminding the rest he was not raised the same way they were. That night around the campfire they talked about their earliest memories to their current self. They finally realized the circumstances Damien was put through, but he kept some vital information out, like his unusual eye power. A wall was torn down between all of them, proving this mission was already a success for these young children.
This time around everyone awoke at the crack of dawn. They were ready to end their mission in the next two days so it was time to get to work. They hunted together as a unit and took more careful precautions at every turn. Before attacking any beasts they made sure what exactly they were dealing with and if it was a part of a pack. This way their past mistakes would not be remade. For these two days they were quick and efficient with their kills. Damien was now used to the feeling of taking a life and being intimately connected with it. It bothered him internally, but his actions spoke otherwise. By the end of their hunting mission they had racked enough beasts to land them 495 credits when they returned.
They were ready to set out on the morning of the 5th day. Yuki packed everything back into the Storage Ring and with that they left back toward the City of Gats. Damien looked back at the base camp for a moment and felt a sense of sadness wave through his body.
‘I’ve never had so much fun in my life. These are my friends now, who would’ve thought.’
Damien left his sentiments behind to catch up with the group. With their speed they would reach the city in a couple of hours. By the time they arrived the lines to enter the gates of Gats were insanely long, but due to their status shown by their uniform, they were able to walk past everybody without complaint. They quickly made their way to the Student Outpost where the Keeper laid in his usual spot. Yuki came to him and bowed very respectfully with the rest following suit.
“Keeper, we have returned with our results of the mission. I can present my evidence here.”
She laid out the mission post on top of the Keeper’s desk as he nodded his approval to commence. She unloaded the corpses onto the floor where it created a mound of flesh and bone. The unusual sight was witnessed by all the other students in the outpost, which were all filled with even a time envy. Before the students got too nosey with their mishaps, the Keeper sniffed the pile of corpses. After one good whiff he opened his large snout with his tongue hanging out. His long tongue extended out and easily picked the entire pile into his mouth.
‘He just ate… our entire spoils in one go?’
Just like that, it was gone and Damien was the only one reeling in shock. The Keeper nodded his head satisfiedly before he lay back down in a comfortable position. It was then that the Keeper spoke into the minds of everyone in the group.
‘A satisfying meal, indeed. Quite shocking to find an Upper Sky Realm King Fiery Ape coming from this group. Nevertheless, I sensed no foul play. I have deposited 495 Credits evenly throughout, with the leftover being given to the leader.’
They bowed deeply and exited the outpost with a sense of accomplishment. They survived terror together, advancing their friendship. Cal called for a celebration once more, but Damien was itching to get back to cultivating. He also needed to experiment deeply into the attributes of his abilities.
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‘I can’t go on not knowing what I am capable of. I can already think of many ways that I could hurt somebody if I made a mistake.’
Damien left behind a sad-stricken Cal who just wanted to continue having fun. Although it was something Damien longed to do as well, his will to become stronger was more important. With his newfound investment of credits along with what he had left over, he was looking at 223 Credits. From what he had learned among the many conversations on their excursion, StarPoint offered cultivation chambers where the Mana energies were dense and rampant. The only downfall was that they charged 100 credits for a day's use.
‘I’ll dedicate one day to my abilities and another to cultivating in the chamber. Zurat is going to be shocked when he loses to me!’
Damien made it to his room where he immediately went into a meditative pose. He dug deep into himself to try to understand more about his abilities. He looked at his Flame Core and decided to try to hear its profound Dao. He heard words come through one ear but once they went out, it became gibberish. It was like he understood exactly what was happening only to find out he knew nothing.
‘I’m getting nowhere with this right now. Maybe I’m not in the right frame of mind, I am too impatient!’
He decided to take a break from that and tried his hand at understanding his technique. He produced a small white ember of a flame, but he made it so it would not devour any energy or heat. Instead he powered it directly with his own Mana Mist. He controlled his mana adeptly and only let it grow by a few centimeters. This time he decided to make it explode on his command. He held it in his hand and repeatedly gave it the intention to explode. Damien got exactly what he wanted when it exploded creating a small shockwave tipping nearly everything over inside the room.
“I did it! So it does work that way. Now I just need to keep going at it.”
He continued to cause the same explosion over and over again until he was used to the feeling and command it took to execute it. Now they felt satisfied with that, he went on to his other experiments. He went over control, manipulation, the ability to devour energies, and anything else he could think of. Damien spent the entire rest of the day and night to get a good grasp of what he could do. He learned that his Fire Dao allowed him three base abilities of devour, explode, and manipulation.
It appeared to be simple techniques, but the way it accomplishes it and how they synergize together made it completely unique. Beginning with devour, due to being a unique Fire Dao, it got its power from any and all energies. From Mana, to a heat source, to unknown energies, or all of them together, it used it as fuel. This ability itself could accomplish widespread damage or single out a source to speed up the process. He could even use his own Mana which is useful if he did not want to alert anyone.
Then the devour ability supports the two other uses he had found so far. To make an explosion stronger he needed to devour more energy to fuel it. It was a simple process but out in the field, just like what had happened to the Fiery Apes along with their king, the results were evident. The only restraint was the amount of power Damien was able to control. He found this out when he kept feeding it his Mana Mist until he was bone dry. The flame’s strength got to the point where he could not contain it, and it almost went out of control. He was able to quickly absorb all of his energy back, which then also gave him the idea that he could replenish his Mana Mist by devouring others. In the end he proved that theory to be a success.
Finally this leads us to his last successful finding. With his newfound control of his Mana Mist, he tried applying it toward his white flame that was powered by his Mana. This led me to Damien discovering he could manipulate the flame to become any shape and form he could imagine. It could be compared to the Queen Fiery Ape’s own technique that formed her pole, but the mastery of their usage was too vast. Her’s were corporeal like the real thing, unlike Damien’s whose were just a flame imitating the form. He tried small objects at first like knives, short poles, and such. After a few hours here, he discovered two limitations to this method. If the object he wanted to imitate was too small like a needle, it would dissipate into a flash due to it requiring Mana Control that he did not possess. Next were forms that were too large could not be accomplished for the same reason, it required too much control. Damien attempted to form a full body armor, but after enough Dao Flame was formed, it no longer held its shape.
“It looks like full-sized weapons is the best I can do. A sword I don’t need to copy, but a spear could be useful! I need more battle experience to use it better in action. Cal did also mention a training facility where you could face Dolls of any class and strength, but it also costs credits! I need credits for everything! I shouldn’t have destroyed all those apes, the credits just vanished from my hands, but I didn’t mean to!”
Damien only sulked for a little while more until he realized the sun was already rising. He had already planned to use a Cultivation Chamber and he didn’t want to waste any time.