Jerome got home quite early as he didn’t spend much time at the training grounds. He would have loved to stay and use some of their training equipment, but he knew he’d never be accepted among Vorthe’s Royal Elites.
Acceptance brings status and they are unwilling to give it. He thought.
He sat down in a meditative posture and went through the battle with the fast youth in his mind. The youth was surprisingly, almost as fast as him, which told of his potential. He chuckled. He wouldn’t dare underestimate anyone again after Hedon. He just had to keep training until he reached the peak of the sacred arts!
He visited the training ground beneath the Palace to train. Looking around, he couldn’t help but compare it with the Royals' training ground. It was a lot smaller than theirs.
“And the crab is the only training equipment here,” he muttered as he took off his leather armor, baring his upper body. Wonder what those strange apparatuses are used for, he thought.
With a spear formed from Suzzie, he started training his grip strength and speed. All at the same time, using his mind to control five metal blades, the length of his forearm. This multitasking put a lot of strain on his mind which in turn helped him to improve his mental strength.
Jerome practiced for a long time. And by the time he was done, the sun was already setting. He sat down crossed-legged in the middle of the training grounds to recover his strength.
As he cycled, the aches in his joints and head subsided rapidly. He remembered what it was like after Mhen Agrh’ur. After absorbing so much essence his body had begun to transform, his senses became sharper, his limbs became stronger, and he experienced increased agility and speed.
A thought came to him at this moment, If essence can improve my body to this level, what can my mental energy do for my mind? Jerome was so excited about the possibilities that he became jittery where he sat. He had to force himself to calm down.
After recovering completely, he began stirring his mental energy once more but this time, he channeled it inwards, he kept swirling it around his brain, eyes, and ears but nothing happened. This went on for quite a while before he stopped. He felt rather disappointed.
“What a waste of mental energy,” he chided himself.
Jerome became quite restless. He didn’t know what to do, yet he had a lot of time on his hands. It was late night already and he normally trained under Rihal’s instructions for a lot longer than this. But today, there was no Rihal.
Jerome felt like he had to be doing something to improve his abilities, but he didn’t know what it was he should be doing. Without Rihal directing his training, he was like a lost cub.
He decided to take the reins on his training. Practicing with fire attribute essence was quite easy. He’d never had a problem doing whatever he wanted with fire—except for shooting it.
Should I learn to use another attribute? Maybe earth-attribute essence? If I could learn to wield nature like that Harun… he sighed, that’s just wishful thinking.
Jerome scolded himself as he sat down on the dirt floor of the training ground and began adjusting his breathing as he cycled. Now that he was Sprout, he could directly absorb attributed essence, as long as he had a comprehensive understanding of the attribute.
A sacred artist doesn’t necessarily have to have a deep comprehension of a foreign attribute, but having a deep comprehension creates a connection between the sacred artist and the nature of that element.
He had learned a lot from the Sovereign during the Royal banquet and had been brooding over it for a few days now.
If the planet is sentient, then nature is sentient.
‘Mother Nature provides life…’ Jerome recited in his mind.
‘She provides vitality and protection…
‘To wield the power of the earth is to be a protector…
‘To become a shield…
‘To stand in the way of the oppressor and shield the weak…’
~~~
Jerome felt the earth move beneath him, like tiny vibrations in the earth moving towards him. The earth-attribute essence became thick in the air all of a sudden and Jerome breathed it into his lungs.
Not only was the essence filled with earth aura, but it was also filled with an abundance of vital aura—the aura of vitality. Jerome felt his blood quicken. He felt like his blood had become a potent medicine at that moment.
The vitality and essence that filled his lungs were quickly absorbed into his muscles…his bones, and core. His core began spinning faster and faster as it absorbed more and more earth attribute essence.
Jerome felt the urge to recite his thoughts out loud. Those words were just his musings from what the Sovereign had said concerning the sentience of the planet.
“Mother Nature provides life…” Jerome recited out loud.
“She provides vitality and protection…
“To wield the power of the earth is to be a protector…
“To become a shield…
“To stand in the way of the oppressor and shield the weak…”
Jerome recited it like a mantra. This time, the earth-essence in the air became denser than before!
Bright green and golden-brown motes of light began circling around him. And with every breath he took, those motes of light were sucked into his body.
Jerome kept repeating the words again and again, and the essence in the air kept getting denser and denser. His core was like a black hole. As the vitality and earth aura was absorbed into his body, his core kept swallowing it up with no evidence of ever stopping. He felt that if Mother Earth could speak, she would have cursed out at him already but he made up his mind to see how much his core could take.
Jerome entered a semi-meditative state, so he could still be somewhat aware of his surroundings. Surprisingly, because of the resonance between him and the earth at the moment, he could sense everything within eight hundred paces around him without using his senses.
Jerome was awed at this. He quickly suppressed his excitement so he could concentrate better.
~~~
Rihal got back quite late from his mission. Unexpected things happened but they were quickly taken care of. He wanted to check on Kilian to ask how Jerome’s training was going.
Half a mile away from Kilian’s palace, Rihal felt that the earth-attribute essence in the air was abnormally heavier.
Normally, earth attribute essence could be sensed in the air, only about a foot off the ground. But now, the earth-attribute essence was more than ten times denser than it should be.
Rihal activated his Sight, a supernatural ability only those with the blood of Vorthe possessed. He looked down at his feet and what he saw made his heart skip, not from fear, but from astonishment!
The concentration of earth attribute essence under the earth was so dense, he had to squint a little at the brightness of the green and gold lights he was seeing. He quickly adjusted his Sight like how a cat adjusts the amount of light that enters its eyes.
Rihal noticed that the essence was flowing toward Kilian’s palace. For some reason, he thought of Jerome and felt that this was his doing.
“That little twerp!” He muttered out loud.
Rihal launched himself into the air flying at top speed. He slowed down when he got closer to Kilian’s palace and almost fell out of the sky!
Kilian’s palace was covered in a dense fog of gold and green essence! Rihal understood that for someone to pull this much essence out of the ground, they had to be very powerful,
“…or very insightful,” He muttered to himself. He stood hovering in the sky as he looked down at the dense fog of essence spinning round and round like a cyclone. Rihal unleashed his perception like a wave as he scanned the Palace for Jerome.
“As expected,” he said. Jerome was sitting cross-legged in the eye of the storm. He was in the exact epicenter of the fog. Rihal shook his head lightly and chuckled. When did he learn to do this?
Just then, Kilian came flying out of the palace and joined him in the sky.
“How long ago?” Rihal asked.
Kilian smiled, “Since last night.”
Rihal looked at him with pleasant surprise.
“You were not joking when you said he was beginning to learn on his own,”
~~~
Jerome awoke from his meditation. He could sense that his core had grown larger than it was before he started absorbing essence from the earth.
Stolen novel; please report.
He walked out of the training hall and was greeted with cheers by a lot of people standing outside the hall. Jerome was shocked.
He knew they were sitting outside the hall while he was cycling which meant they were also cycling as well. However, they were all covered in impurities and smelled awful, which goes to show how powerful a session of cycling they must have had. This was what shocked Jerome.
Was the earth-attribute essence so powerful that it could even purify their bodies? He thought.
Jerome looked down at himself expectantly but there were no impurities and no awful smell on him, which made him somewhat disheartened. But it was a good thing because it meant his body had little to no impurities in it.
Still. After all the meals I ate…no impurities? …that’s incredible, he thought. But he also felt a lot stronger than he’d been in days. His muscles felt like they contained explosive strength as he flexed them.
Seventeen walked up to Jerome smiling.
“What happened here?” He asked.
“We don’t know what you did young master Jerome, but everyone benefited from it.” she stated happily.
“Really?”
“Hmm. The whole Palace was covered in a dense fog of earth-attribute essence and vitality. Who would want to miss out on that?” She spoke with awe and reverence in her voice. Seventeen laughed out loud but seeing Jerome smiling at her, she quickly composed herself. Jerome had never seen her so happy before. It was a good look on her.
The palace guards came up to him and thanked him as well. Abbott was smiling from ear to ear and praising Jerome as a young genius, the likes the world never sees but once in ten thousand years.
“Jerome—I can call you Jerome, right?” Abbott laughed as he spoke.
“Sure,” Jerome answered with an amiable smile.
“It seems you’re the one who will be giving me pointers when we meet, ha, ha, ha, ha! Excuse us Jerome so we could go wash up,” Abbott said while eyeing his men to excuse Jerome and the maid beside him.
But Seventeen definitely noticed his signals and glared at him shouting, “You pervert! Young master Jerome is nothing like you!”
Jerome chuckled as he watched Abbott, and his men scurry away with their tails between their legs from a tiny woman who was half their size.
“You should go wash up too,” Jerome said after a while.
Seventeen looked down at herself and ran off with her face bright red from embarrassment.
~~~
Ash sat on Jerome’s desk swinging her legs back and forth as Jerome and Rihal discussed his insights on earth-attribute essence. They were throwing a lot of big words around that she didn’t understand.
She was very happy for Jerome. He had added a new element to his arsenal which meant he was a better fighter than he was before.
She felt a little jealous if she were to admit the truth to herself. But it was best not to dwell on it. Like Jerome said once to her,
“You have a Path to follow and to grow in. That Path is unique to you, and you alone. You just have to stay on your Path and not be distracted by someone else’s Path,”
She focused on their discussion once again.
“If I create an Epos to cultivate fire-attribute essence, my advancement will increase by leaps and bounds!”
“That wasn’t an Epos,” Rihal corrected him.
“Yes, yes. It’s like an Epos but not an Epos. They’re not the same. I heard you the first time.” Jerome responded, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“I want to see you create this…” Rihal started to say.
“Epos.” Jerome finished the sentence for him with a smile.
“Whatever.”
Ash giggled making the mighty Spirit Realm expert feel even more awkward. He glared at her, but his glare didn’t faze her.
“We’ve been spending an awful lot of free time together,” Rihal announced. “We’ll be training more often from now on.”
“Urgh!” Ash grumbled.
“So?” he gestured toward Jerome.
Jerome stood up from his bed and sat down cross-legged on the floor to begin adjusting his breathing.
From Rihal’s explanations, he had a good idea of how this…mantra worked.
Let’s just call it a mantra, shall we? He thought. What is fire? What is heat? Fire is produced by combustion. Heat is produced by faster vibration of the molecules of a substance.
Jerome breathed out loud. This wasn’t working as it did before. There was no inspiration. Rather he was just recalling knowledge from his previous life. He opened his eyes and furrowed his brows.
“What?” Rihal asked with a smile, “Can’t seem to do it like before?”
“For some reason, no,” Jerome responded.
Rihal chuckled. He expected this would happen. “Don’t be discouraged. The reason you were able to create that…” He didn’t want to say Epos.
“Mantra,” Jerome said.
Rihal shrugged, “…mantra. The reason you were able to create it was because of your precepts over a long period of time. To create a…mantra, for your fire essence, you’d need to brood over the nature of a flame. Why and how it came into existence. What its purpose is to mankind…and to you.”
“Its nature?” Jerome asked thoughtfully.
When he thought about the mantra of the earth attribute essence he created, it made sense. That mantra was like a Eulogy to Mother Nature. So, he had to create something similar for the fire-attribute essence.
Jerome snapped his fingers and said, “Nice! I’ll call these mantras: earth mantra and fire mantra.”
He declared but scratched his head in embarrassment a moment later. Now it was his turn to be laughed at. Ash giggled uncontrollably and Rihal smiled.
“In my head, it sounded way more awesome,” Jerome said, quite embarrassed.
Rihal laughed lightly but suddenly looked up. His eyes turned that deep unnatural green and Jerome could see runic patterns swirling in them.
“How does one get eyes like that?” Jerome asked.
Rihal smiled at him for a moment before answering, “It’s inherent in every child born with the blood of Vorthe flowing in their veins. I have to leave now. Keep practicing. I’ll meet you before the opening of Terra Praeta so we can head to the portal together.” Rihal said before vanishing on the spot.
“I hate it when he does that,” Ash complained.
“Like he’s saying, ‘I can go anywhere but you can’t’” Jerome chortled as he spoke.
~~~
Mantra…now that’s a word I haven’t heard in a long time. Damien Vorthe, Rihal’s master, and Sage Realm expert hovered in the air above Kilian’s palace as he listened to Jerome’s and Rihal’s discussion. When he heard the word ‘mantra’, his eyes lit up in recognition.
Many didn’t know of the races that walked the earth long ago. Those who were called gods.
The Forgotten. A civilization of different races of old who used that word, mantra. They were gods in times past, but they have long been wiped out.
Damien’s gaze pierced through the physical barriers between him and Jerome, to scrutinize the kid.
“He looks pretty human to me…doesn’t sound like Fae either.”
The Fae. One of the most feared races in the world in ancient times.
Damien thought back to the stories told by the Patriarch when he was a kid. No one would want to live in those times as a human. He sent out a message to Rihal through his communications rune, an ancient and long-lost means of communication that was only used by the Royal Family in this time period.
After a while, Rihal appeared by his side and they both flew off in the direction of the city.
~~~
Jerome walked out of Kilian’s Palace the next day ready to join the Royal elites at their training ground for another sparring session. He was also looking to use some of their equipment.
The moment he walked out, he was immediately drawn to the courtyard and the changes that had occurred since he last saw it. The vibrant greenery seemed to have come to life in a way he hadn’t seen before. The bushes and shrubs were bursting with dense vitality, and he could almost feel the energy emanating from them.
A gardener was already hard at work pruning the shrubs. It was clear that his cycling session the day before had remarkably transformed the courtyard into a breathtaking display of nature’s beauty.
Jerome rushed off to the training ground. Today, he was also putting on sparring robes, but his was gray. When he got to the training ground, there was no one there.
Perfect, he thought. Now I can train with their equipment to my heart's content.
Taking a closer look, there were apparatuses of various shapes and sizes. Some of them even looked like huge rocks someone moved to the training ground.
Why put rocks here? he thought to himself confused.
He decided to deadlift an anvil-looking chunk of metal. Nothing in the training ground looked anything close to barbells or dumbbells. Positioning his legs on either side of the anvil, he grabbed hold of two handle-type things sticking out on both sides of the top and lifted. Or he tried to… The anvil didn’t even budge.
He heard someone burst out in laughter at that moment. Turning around, he found that some of the Sprouts had arrived.
Jerome glared at the boy who just laughed. There was a girl beside him holding back her laughter but after a while, she couldn’t hold it back anymore and erupted.
“What? Come give it a try yourself, let’s see if you can!” Jerome exclaimed.
The two kids didn’t answer him immediately as they couldn’t hold back their laughter. Jerome cursed them under his breath and continued trying to lift the anvil.
“Ahem,” One of the kids walked up to him and cleared his throat to get Jerome’s attention.
“What?” he asked in irritation.
“That’s not for lifting,” the kid said.
Jerome quickly stopped what he was doing. The fact that this kid came to speak with him showed he probably wasn’t egotistical like the leader the day before.
“How do you use it then?” He asked.
“You use that,” the kid pointed to a huge maul, “to hit the top. The anvil measures the force of your hit.”
“Thanks. But is there nothing to lift that can help improve muscle strength?” Jerome asked.
The two young Sprouts looked at Jerome inquisitively. They never expected him to be educated enough to use terms like improving muscle strength.
“The boulders to your left are useful for that,” Hyde answered, “There are special cores inside them that can make them heavier the more essence you transmit into them.”
“Thanks,”
“You’re welcome. I’m Hyde by the way.” the boy said, “This is Alana,” he gestured towards her and she waved.
“Jerome,” Jerome nodded curtly to both of them and walked up to the huge boulders. The boulders were almost half as tall as him, and Jerome was over six feet. They were also wide enough that it’ll take two people as tall as him to wrap their arms around them.
The boulders were separated by a conspicuous circular area away from the other apparatus. He carefully hefted two of the boulders to see how heavy they were. To his disappointment though, they were not very heavy.
Jerome quickly transmitted his essence into the boulders making them twice as heavy as they were before. The boulders weren’t so big, and he could comfortably lift them up and down.
Hyde and Alana watched him heft the boulders up and down. They had never seen anyone do that. The normal thing to do was hold them up for as long as possible.
They looked at each other and Hyde shrugged his shoulders. It was not their training, so what do they care?
~~~
It seems five times the original weight is my limit right now, Jerome mused. He had increased the weight of the boulders five times the original weight. He formed a bench made of earth using his earth-attribute essence so he could bench press the boulders.
Jerome got up from his bench after five hundred breaths to take a rest. Looking around, he noticed that all the Sprouts from yesterday had arrived and many of them were busy working out or sparring with each other.
Forester walked up to him looking at him with a smirk on his face.
“Do you have a good challenger for me?” Jerome asked as he rubbed off the little sweat from his body.
This made everybody stop what they were doing to focus on them.
“Fight me,” Forester said.
“Are you sure?” Jerome said, “I won’t hold back,”
That angered the teenager more than anything Jerome had ever said.
“Sorry,” Jerome said. Best not to have a repeat of Hedon.
Forester drew his sword, “The rules are the same as yesterday. No killing,”
Jerome responded by forming a spear with Suzzie as he walked toward the center of the training ground. Everyone around moved far away from both of them.
Without a word, they both attacked.