POV Aron Brightcloud

Anna took her loss like a champ. Although she needled me for my games at the beginning of the bet, she didn’t try to slink out of our agreement.

As discussed beforehand, we visited the attunement-Building. Located far off from all the other buildings on the campus, it didn’t look like much. Sixty feet long and wide with a height of thirty feet, its appearance a natural jagged rock that broke out of the earth. The only thing pointing to its different purpose was the gate that lead into its belly. Without seeing that, I would have passed right by, not realizing I had missed a critical facility.

Anna led me down through the gate. Entering the natural rock, we arrived in an entrance hall. In the back, several counters were set up to purchase the slots needed to use an attunement-chamber.

My new friend walked straight towards one, initiating a conversation with the attendant.

“Hello, we would like to buy two slots for an attunement-chamber, one for the arcane element and one for lightning.”

The attendant nodded in understanding. He wrote down some information and handed us two keys.

“Go down the left corridor and turn right. For the arcane chamber use the left corridor from there and for the lightning the third from the right. The number on your key corresponds with the room you are assigned to. You will have two hours from insertion of the key until the chamber shuts down. Enjoy your stay.”

Following his instruction, we walked down the corridor. At the end of it, we separated.

“Good luck, Aron.” Anna winked at me and went down her own corridor.

I took the left as told by the attendant. The grey stone corridor was plunged into a bluish hue from the blue magical lights. They hung in consistent intervals throughout the corridor.

Doors appeared on both sides. Having read the number on my key, I arrived in front of door number seven. The key fit perfectly and it opened, letting me enter the chamber.

The room itself had exactly space for one person sitting comfortable on a large pillow in the middle of the formation. Looking at it in more detail, the formation encompassed the entire room. Five turquoise crystals were inserted into the ceiling. They seemed to be the heart of the formation. As the formation spun up, their color strengthened as well, plunging the room into a more powerful turquoise glow.

I felt the connection to my element intensify. The “bridge” between my arcane core and its origin in the ether broadened. I quickly sat down. No time to gawk and loose the precious time. I quickly set a mental alarm for one hour and forty-five minutes, I didn’t want to be surprised by the stop of the formation. Finished with it, I prepared myself for the attunement.

Closing my eyes, I focused on my connection. The formation had built a force-field around my connection to the arcane origin. It alleviated a part of the pressure that normally existed. My willpower pushed into my connection, forcing the walls outward, enlarging the bridge I used to feed my core with energy.

As arduous as the work was, it bore fruit. The connection widened marginally and my core grew. It would take many sessions to reach the next level. Yet the fact that I had even the possibility to do so was phenomenal.

I concentrated on improving my base, growing my core marginally. The time flew. I single-mindedly reconstructed my connection, pushing the walls outward, reinforcing the widened bridge. The passage had to be prepared for the inevitable pressure that would return once the formation stopped working. Otherwise, I risked my bridge crumbling below the sudden pressure spike. This would cripple me.

After the first enhancement, I tried to start a second one. Yet the force-field didn’t give me enough room to do so. Its help had diminished as I had reached the boundary of its support. The memory sphere had talked about different graded arrays, but hadn’t given a specific explanation. Could this be the difference? Did A low grade array support the user with smaller force-field than a higher grade array? It seemed to be the case.

Before I could stop my meditation, the force-field suddenly intensified. Not wanting to miss the lucky chance, I quickly concentrated once more and worked on my bridge, widening it even more. And it was good to do so. One second after I finished enhancing it, the whole force-field broke apart.

I woke up and scanned the room. What had happened?! The formation had stopped working. Was my time up? A weak sense of triumph flowed through the bond from Olivia. Checking my shoulder, I couldn’t find her.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Where had she gone to?

Following my intuition, I looked up. I was greeted by Olivia and Bones hanging directly below the crystals.

What?!

Obviously Olivia had helped my little brother climbing the ceiling. She had built supporting webs around his body to keep him there. The skeleton had grabbed four of the five crystals with its arms. They were luckily still fused with the wall.

The fifth couldn’t be seen. The greedy child had its head pushed against the ceiling, the crystal stuck in his mouth. Sucking noises sounded down to my ears. Was he sucking it dry?!

‘Bones! What are you doing?!’

The four armed mini terminator stopped sucking and turned his head to me. His face resembled a young child that had gotten caught stealing candy.

‘Ohh, äähh… big brother, already finished? I thought you still had thirty minutes?’

I looked at him dryly. ‘I would have, but somebody decided to suck all the energy out of the formation.’

My little brother tried to find a believable excuse but couldn’t find any.

‘I am sorry, big brother. It looked so delicious! So I asked Olivia to help me. At first when I started sucking only a trickle came, but when I increased my pull, suddenly something broke and much more came out! It tasted delicious!’

Okay, I knew now why I suddenly got more energy. He must have broken through the safety barriers and the formation reacted to the increased drain with spinning up, providing more energy to offset the drain. In essence he rerouted the formation, forcefully elevating it to a middle tier array until it couldn’t withstand the strain and broke.

Luckily I finished my improvement quick enough, otherwise it would have ended badly. Looking at the result, I didn’t feel that upset. His shenanigans had helped. Now we had only to get out without being found out.

‘Let’s go. Bones, Olivia, go into hiding. Keep the knowledge of what has happened to yourselves. The official version will be that the formation broke down under mysterious circumstances. Maybe we can even push it on lacking maintenance. It is essential that they don’t see us as the culprits. I don’t even wanna know how much we would have to pay if they thought we were the perpetrators of this accident.’

Following the plan, I walked the way back into the front hall. My two friends had gone invisible, Olivia camouflaged herself on my shoulder and Bones had stowed his skeletal frame. The attendant observed me in surprise, I should still be meditating.

“Is everything okay, has something happened?”

I put on a serious face. I wanted him on the back foot.

“You could say so. The formation suddenly broke down! Luckily I was able to mitigate the pressure increase, otherwise I would have been crippled! Don’t you do any maintenance on the formations?!”

The attendant blanched. He quickly informed his superior and profusely apologized for the mishap. At first I wondered why he so quickly caved, but the return of the older man enlightened me to what was going on. The attendant had indeed skipped maintenance circles on the low array formations. That made it much easier. I had planned to claim maintenance faults without any base to support it. With that, it would be a breeze.

“I am really sorry for what has happened.” The superior told me.

“As an incentive we would like to offer a session in a middle grade array to ease the emotional pain you had to go through.”

Naturally I accepted. I didn’t want for the incident to be examined in more detail. At some point they’d find and question why the safety barriers had been broken from the wrong side.

With that over, I seated myself on one of the benches located in the background. Anna still had a bit of time until her formation shut down.

That fit perfectly into my plans. My little brother needed a rebuke.

‘Bones, we have to talk. You can’t do stuff like this. If the formation had broken a few seconds earlier, my cultivation would have been crippled. I know that you are fighting your urges, but that’s no excuse for irresponsible decisions. If you really shouldn’t be able to control yourself, tell me beforehand. At least I am prepared and can try to help you.’

I felt the remorse through our connection.

‘I am sorry, big brother, I didn’t think clearly. Next time I will tell you earlier, I promise.’

Good, at least I would get a warning. Bones’s new body had its own problems. After he fused with it, his hunger rose significantly. He described it as a black hole in his stomach that constantly churned. His body needed nourishment. I had laughingly titled him a mini devourer once in the past. It seemed I hadn’t been far off from the truth.

Anna’s voice woke me up from my musings.

“Already out? How went your first attunement with you element? Were you able to improve your connection and core?”

I replied, “Yes, although my formation broke down towards the end. Luckily I had finished a circle of improvement and nothing bad happened. On the bright side, they gifted me a free slot for a medium array formation as compensation.”

Anna’s face changed while she listened to me. From neutral to shock and back to happiness when I told her about the compensation.

“Great, medium array slots are expensive! In the end this is a lucky-strike in disguise! I am happy for you.”

I nodded along. Lucky-strike in disguise, eh? Bones smiling, skeletal frame popped up in my mind. Not so much. More like a disaster in the making. He was such a troublemaker. Yet I had to stop myself from grinning. His antiques were quite amusing.

Walking out of the building, the sun had arrived directly above us.

Lunchtime!

As usual during this time, the canteen was packed with people. We made our way towards the food. A lot of people queued already, so we lined up behind them.

I turned to my companion.

“Ready for tomorrow? It’s time we finish the first floor.”

“Yes, I am looking forward to the fight. Hopefully, this time we get some loot.”

Naturally I nodded, not showing a change in my face at her comment. When we got our next loot I had to be prepared. It was imperative that I restrained my little brother. If Anna found out that he could eat equipment, she’d get suspicious about the earlier failings as well.

Thanks to the intelligent planned food delivery system, we didn’t have to wait long. Soon we sat at one of the few free tables and enjoyed our lunch.

It promised to be a great day.

Thinking that, I suddenly had a bad premonition. I looked up and scanned the surroundings. And for sure, a well-known group of troublemakers walked in our direction.