Maybe Dorian was right, it’s just that he was arguing in the least efficient way possible. It's not that I should stop doing research and practice in the dorm because it's bad for our overall living quality. I should find another place because I’d be stuck in the same room as Dorian for more than 2 hours, Cain thought.
Cain picked himself up, grabbed a black outer coat, and finally broke the awkward silence as he opened the door to leave the room.
“I think I’m going to take a break real quick.”
“Yeah,” Dorian awkwardly replied, “that sounds good.”
As soon as Cain shut the door behind him, he could hear a slightly muffled celebration from Dorian. Clearly, he was more than a little excited at the prospect of being able to have the room to himself.
Cain internally rolled his eyes and thought, Well fuck you too I guess. Man, if only Dorian wasn’t a genius I would...
Startled by his own thoughts, Cain pinched the bridge of his nose.
What am I thinking? Letting my emotions get in the way of the bigger picture? Maybe these ‘teenage hormones’ are a lot more relevant than I thought. This kind of decision-making and thought process doesn’t feel like myself... Regardless, finding a replacement for my dorm takes priority now.
There were many places on campus to go to. Most of said places were usually filled to the brim with other students who had a similar distaste for their roommate, like Cain.
The campus very clearly reflected the ideals of the school itself. It wasn’t the social life that students were here for, it was the education. Constructed like a home made by someone with Ichor deficiency, it was a mess. It was clear that the school had massively overspent on the first half of construction, with the other half of campus lacking severely in almost everything.
Then again, most students would have chosen to stay closer to the origin regardless of how well or poorly the outer edge of the school was constructed. After all, who didn’t like staying young?
Cain, apparently was one of the few who didn’t enjoy staying young. Around halfway through his walk toward the outer edge of the campus, Cain could feel himself growing slightly older.
His once clean-shaven face began to grow a little stubble, and he felt his height increase by a couple of inches. It wasn’t just a feeling, Cain was quite literally growing older as he got further and further away from the origin. Not that it was any surprise to Cain.
Ah, finally. Back to some semblance of normality now.
Cain hadn’t had a reason to go back to the outer edge since the first semester’s orientation. Although Cain felt significantly more comfortable in a slightly older body, there was a good reason why he rarely left the inner edge. The facilities on the outer edge were just... well lacking, failing to even meet the lowest of standards anyone would have.
As a researcher, the last thing that Cain could tolerate was a lack of adequate research labs. The outer edge was infamous, in many ways. There were countless stories of students leaving to explore the area, only to return with third and fourth-degree frostbite. So it was a foregone conclusion that Cain wouldn’t be getting any research done at the outer edge. But desperate times called for desperate measures. Moreover, it wasn’t as if Cain was purely a researcher. Sure, he did prefer to spend his time researching and learning about the intricacies of the heart, but he wasn’t against training his own Ichor control. And so Cain continued to walk towards the outer edge of campus.
As Cain continued walking, he could see the quality of the buildings drop with every 30 steps. The buildings on the inner edge were well maintained, created with stone, and molded to be insular against the cold.
The buildings on the outer edge, couldn’t have been further from the lowest standards. At a first glance, they appeared decrepit. They clearly hadn’t been maintained since they were last constructed. Despite the fact that the cold was a problem for all continents year-round, whoever constructed or ordered the construction of the buildings failed to include proper insulation in the buildings.
The average person would have perhaps caught frostbite from staying in these conditions for too long. But for Cain, this was the second best place to pause his research and start his own training. Because he couldn’t bring any live hearts to the outer edge, as they’d all freeze, it was perfect for testing and training his Ichor consistency.
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It was a classical side effect of channeling Ichor at a Rank 1 level. By channeling Ichor throughout his entire body, not only would he improve in every way physically, but he would also heat up his body. While this would have been a problem indoors, as he ran the risk of burning himself alive, Cain didn’t have to worry about it at all while training in the harsh cold. Instead, he had to worry that he wouldn’t be able to heat his body enough by channeling his Ichor.
After all, the fear of frostbite was quite possibly one of the greatest motivators he could get on campus. If Cain were to fail in maintaining his Ichor control to heat his body, he’d surely have to spend another few weeks healing up from the frostbite.
Moreover, Cain was almost certain that the nurses at Inovasi, the rarely used name of his school, would not be willing to waste their Ichor on healing him just for him to end back up in their care within a few days.
Hmmm, that is indeed strange. When was the last time I heard someone reference the name of the school again? Ohhhh, that’s right. How could I forget about that grand scandal.
The thought of said scandal brought a smile to Cain’s face. His mood was lifted to the point where he began humming while walking and channeling his Ichor to keep himself warm.
Eventually, Cain found a spot in a particularly poorly insulated building. The classroom he sat in had little to no protection against the harsh weather, requiring Cain to keep a strong focus on channeling his Ichor.
While this wasn’t the research that he loved to do; Cain much preferred to be studying in the comforts of a nice warm room with cushions, he wasn’t necessarily against using the brutal environment to practice his own Ichor control and mental fortitude. After all, he understood that from a researcher’s perspective on just how efficient it would be to train here.
He sat on the floor alone, in a room full of dusty old wooden chairs, and began his training.
***
Sitting alone in his dorm, Dorian was beginning to lose his mind while studying. He just simply wasn’t built to read a textbook to understand topics, much less in his own free time. Paradoxically, the more that Dorian read, the less he felt he was learning. He would read the first page of a chapter, move on to the next page, and then completely forget what he had just read.
It’s a damn miracle that I managed to get a scholarship here, Dorian thought as he stuck a bookmark into his textbook and lay on his bed.
Dorian had two options. Either study to make the academic comeback of a century for his ethics class, or simply take whatever abysmal grade he would have in his Ethics class and lose his scholarship along with everything he worked for.
And when he thought about it in that way, the decision was easy for Dorian to make. He picked back up his textbook and began reading yet again. It was a tedious process, one that wasn’t helped by the combination of how little the textbook interested him and his pitifully short attention span. For some inconceivable reason, Dorian just wasn’t interested in understanding the intricacies of how the Southern Empire’s conquests in the late 2nd century indirectly shaped the culture and norms of the Eastern Empire for centuries to come.
Dorian paused reading, suddenly lost in a deep thought. Perhaps he could mimic the techniques of his professors to help himself study.
Although I only just recently broke through to Rank 2, I guess it’s worth a shot, Dorian thought to himself, I’ve seen professors do this all the time. They channel their Ichor to their brain and then supposedly get enhanced mental processing power.
Although that seemed a bit far-fetched for Dorian, he had done similar things before. Like enhancing his vision to cheat... Being able to strongly enhance a single part of his body rather than weakly enhancing his overall body was what separated Rank 1 and 2 Ichor Manipulator. As a Lower Rank 2 Ichor Manipulator, Dorian still struggled with enhancing any singular part of his body, significantly more so for something a bit more abstract like his brain.
He had made attempts in the past, but they had never worked out too well. It was hard enough for normal people to get a grasp on feeling their Ichor in the first place. So to be able to direct the flow of Ichor to enhance a singular body part was leaps and bounds more difficult.
Enhancing a singular muscle group? Easy. All students were forced to learn about human anatomy, specifically all the major muscle groups so that body enhancement would be easier. Something like enhancing one’s creativity or learning ability was significantly more difficult due to the lack of understanding of how the brain worked.
There weren’t any special rituals or rank-ups to help people move from Rank 1 to Rank 2. Instead, a difference in understanding one’s own heart and technical knowledge was what elevated people from Rank 1 and Rank 2. All of which results in one’s heart becoming more and more efficient. There were a couple of tests and indicators for others to determine what Rank someone else was, but realistically only one person could know for sure what Rank they were, and that was themselves. By counting their heartbeats. The average person lived for around 2.5 billion heartbeats.
Dorian’s heart rate was at around 1 beat every 1.3 seconds, placing him nicely at Lower Rank 2. So in theory, he should technically be able to enhance his brain to become ‘smarter’.
A lot easier said than done though, Dorian thought to himself.
Dorian focused his Ichor towards his head, feeling his thought process become significantly sharper. However, just a few minutes into enhancing his brain, the heat from his Ichor concentration was too much to bear.
God damn... That shit hurts like hell. How the fuck do professors do this shit?
It felt as though Dorian was giving himself the worst self-induced headache of a century. He felt as though his mind was splitting in half from the pain and heat. Dorian tried mimicking what Cain had done. Channeling his Ichor for 5 minutes, then resting another 5 while his head cooled down. After repeating the process for half an hour, Dorian decided that he had enough.
There has to be a better way to practice my Ichor control. What would Cain have done in this situation?
Despite Dorian’s distaste for Cain as a roommate, he had to admit that his peer was wise beyond his years. He seemed to already know everything that was going to be taught in class and that he had already lived through all the problems Dorian had.
It’s probably cause of all the experimenting and studying he does... I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually finds a way to enhance the concentration of Ichor in his blood. I’m sure this genius has a solution to this simple overheating problem.
As he finally figured out his supposed solution to his overheating problem, Dorian did what he was the best at. He decided to find and eventually pester Cain for the solution to his problems.
Cain channeled his Ichor to enhance his legs, as he had done many times before, and jumped down from his bunk bed. It wasn’t something that really required an Ichor enhancement to do, but it was always a fun way to practice his Ichor control.
But as soon as Dorian opened the door, he was greeted by a cold gust of wind. One that convinced him to shut the door immediately again, and to find a suitable coat to prevent him from getting frostbite.
Finally ready to embark on the latest adventure to distract himself from the looming threat of crippling debt and not maintaining a high GPA, Dorian left to go follow the traces that Cain had left.