Jerome sat down in Ajax’s tent to meditate for the night. He was quite curious about how much his core must have grown. And he was pleasantly surprised by the level of transformation. He quickly brought out the Sunfire stone and placed it inside a storage bag. It wouldn’t be right to place it in the center of the room as it would take up the little space in the tent.
As he started to absorb the Sunfire stone, Selene called out to him from outside the tent.
“Jerome, are you decent?”
“Yes. You can come in,” Jerome said as he put the pouch away.
Selene smiled at him as she came into the tent, followed by Ajax and Trudhorn. She handed him a spatial ring as she sat down opposite him on the ground, flanked by both teammates.
“What are they?” Jerome asked as he scanned its contents.
“They’re called essence crystals. They’re used to store essence so we can absorb from them whenever we are running low,” she said.
“Would have been useful a while back,” Jerome said with a smile. He remembered discussing with the Sovereign about something like this. And unlike his Sunfire stone, these ones are smaller and can fit in the palm of one's hand.
“I actually have my own resources,” he said and handed the spatial ring back to her.
“You did a lot for us back there, Jerome. Please accept it,” Ajax said, his playful demeanor was nowhere to be seen.
“Thanks a lot. But trust me, you’ll need it more than I do,” Jerome said. “I’m not refusing because I don’t wanna be indebted to you. I’m refusing because it's gonna be more useful to you than me.
“I have resources that…” he trailed off not wanting to reveal the Sunfire stone.
The look on his face though, told the other three that he did have resources that rivaled theirs.
“If you say so, Jerome. If there’s anything you need, just let me know,” Selene said.
“Hedon’s armor is an artifact,” Ajax said. “All our armors are artifacts.”
“True,” Trudhorn said, nodding.
“Interesting,” Jerome said with curiosity in his eyes. “I never thought about it.”
“We’ve been fighting to survive ever since entering Terra Praeta, there wasn’t time to even think of such,” Selene added.
“The armors we wear, especially those of us from Great families, were specially crafted from Hroth’s Tannery,” Ajax said. “Our armors are powered by world essence, but the essence cores can be used, as well as our own essence.”
“House Hroth, the House of Textile,” Jerome muttered as he remembered. House Hroth were known for their skill in clothing. They also excelled in making some of the best leather armor in the kingdom. Now that he thought about it, he noticed he had seen very few injuries on the Itakars.
Nia and Ajax had the worst of it. Which showed that their armor wasn’t one hundred percent secure.
“Don’t let your guard down, Jerome,” Trudhorn said.
“Hedon is an attention-seeker. He’d love to have an audience when we face each other,” Jerome said. “People like him have very deep psychological issues.
“He needs validation. I, on the other hand, don’t care…and that’s why I’m going to beat him.”
“Noir’s Blackflame take him,” Ajax cursed, his face twisted in anger as if he had suffered from Hedon’s hand in front of an audience.
Selene placed a hand on her brother’s clenched fist to calm him down. Jerome watched all this as he wondered how many people Hedon had offended. But he was also curious about something.
“I heard you curse like that when we first met,” he said. “What does it mean?”
“Huh?” Ajax was a bit stunned. He wondered how someone would’ve never heard anyone curse out loud before. “It’s…” he didn’t know where to start.
“Jerome is from the slums of Farryn, Ajax,” Selene said and Ajax looked at Jerome, even more stunned than he was before.
“I grew up in an orphanage. We were only taught the legend of the Sovereign in the slums,” Jerome said with a shrug, not feeling offended.
“Noir is a legend of old,” Trudhorn said. “They say he followed the Path of Blackflame: a Path of Fire, darkness, and destruction. He perpetrated genocide in his time, influenced by his uncontrollable power.”
“Influenced?” Jerome asked.
“We know little of him,” Selene said. “He was lured to the frozen earth and assaulted by a host of powerful foes. He killed a lot of them before going down himself.”
“Interesting. So, that’s how the cursing came about,” Jerome said.
“Hedon has two very powerful Sprouts with him: Murray and Arkesha,” Selene warned.
“Are they as powerful as Fei Lin’s…protector?” Jerome asked. He didn’t know what to call the older Sprout.
“Lang is his name,” Selene said. “They’re not as powerful as Lang. It is rumored that Lang will advance to the Spirit Realm anytime soon. They’re nowhere close to advancing.”
Jerome nodded absently. Power was what mattered in this world. He was quite pleased to know that even the Scions of the Great families, with all their pride, still deferred to Lang’s opinion.
“Thank you for the warning,” he said.
“It was the least we could do,” Selene said. “I’d take it you didn’t come with a tent to Terra Praeta?”
Jerome shook his head smiling. He had never thought he’d need a tent, if not he’d have asked for one.
“You can stay here for the night,” Ajax said. “I’ll bunk with Trudhorn.”
“Thanks,” Jerome said. He really needed privacy for his meditation.
Selene left with her teammates to go rest and prepare for their assault on the blockade the next day, leaving Jerome to meditate. After they left, Jerome took his time to nurture his core with the Sunfire stone, absorbing it at a faster rate than he normally would. This continued for a long time before he decided to practice.
Leaving the tent, Jerome walked toward the back of their camp. The night was cold and the air was fresh with the scent of earth and of the forest. He made sure not to walk too far away from camp. Jerome came to a stop a few hundred paces away from their camp and decided to practice here for the night.
He brought out his spear and began practicing, multitasking with five three-foot-long blades made out of Suzie. His goal was to practice how to hold off multiple offenders at once. With his mental energy having gone through a significant improvement, it was quite easy to control the blades.
Jerome worked on his form, his footing, and balance. Rihal never took the time to teach him these but there were books available in Kilian’s Palace that were self-explanatory. He flowed through the different forms as he wielded his spear deftly, controlling the five blades hovering midair to defend and attack invisible foes.
Jerome practiced for the better part of the night. But soon, he stopped and looked at a certain spot a few paces away.
“Are you just gonna sit there and stare all night?”
The grasses at the spot where he was staring moved in the opposite direction of the wind as though something was there.
“How did you notice me?” Jerome heard the voice before the speaker materialized at the spot. She was a full head shorter than him, which was tall for a lady. She was also quite a sight for sore eyes. Her long auburn hair swayed in the wind as she walked toward him.
“What do you want?” Jerome asked, and she paused a few feet away from him. Jerome’s voice was curt and unfriendly, making her hesitate to come nearer.
The girl searched his eyes as though trying to look inside him. Jerome could tell from scanning her core that she was a lot stronger than she looked. He could tell she was one of Hedon’s teammates just by the color of her hair but she was putting on long black loose robes without any crest.
“I’m here to give you a chance to save your life,” she said. “Hedon wouldn’t stop until you’re dead. You can leave after we break through the blockade and never face him.”
“Are you done?” Jerome said.
The girl was taken aback by Jerome’s lack of fear. This was the heir of a Great family that wanted him dead and he was able to act as though he was being threatened by a commoner.
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“Your bravery will not save you, Jerome. Only prudence will,” she said.
“You can take those words back to Hedon, Arkesha,” Jerome said. “Tell him to get ready for the afterlife.”
Jerome started to walk away after saying his piece, leaving the Alvric Sprout in the cold wind alone.
“How about a spar?” she said, causing him to stop.
“I could use a training partner,” Jerome said, turning around. “Though, I might end up killing you…if you’re up for it, no problem.”
“Or I might end up killing you,” Arkesha said with a raised eyebrow. Jerome shrugged at that.
They both knew what the other was trying to do, even though Arkesha had initiated it. This was a very good place to test the strength of the other party.
Arkesha produced her sword from her spatial ring. The blade sang with signs of essence flowing through it as she spread her legs to take an offensive stance.
Jerome still had his spear in hand and he could tell from one look at her sword that his spear would crumble from their fight. He quickly stored it away and used Suzie instead to form a spear. Arkesha almost grimaced from seeing that and Jerome smiled.
They rushed each other the next moment, the sounds of their weapons breaking the silence of the atmosphere. They moved around the field of grass as they battled, neither gaining the upper hand. Arkesha was lithe and able to maneuver around with her smaller frame. Jerome on the other hand, was bigger and not as flexible as she was.
However, Jerome’s spear had better reach and could knock away Arkesha’s blade, yet still reach her at the least expected moments. Her saving grace was her flexibility and grace. They parried blow after blow, neither using too much strength, they only wanted to test the waters.
Jerome aimed at Arkesha’s left thigh, wanting to test the limits of her agility and strength. Arkesha knocked the spear away with her sword and spun it in her hand deftly as she took two steps back, her footing sure. She switched hands even as Jerome spun his spear around moving to assault her again. He aimed at her head, his spear piercing through the air and almost stabbing her between the eyes.
Arkesha tilted her head sideways and moved forward—an action she knew a spear-wielder would dread. She closed the gap between them with her sword aimed at Jerome’s heart, expecting him to back away. Jerome spun his spear with one hand, bringing the butt racing toward her head from above and at the same time, he caught the blade of her sword with his left hand coated in living steel. This stunned the female Sprout for a moment too long.
Arkesha noticed too late. The butt of the spear hit her on the head so fast, she wasn’t able to react. The impact left her seeing stars for a moment and Jerome spat a tiny ball of blue flame at her. At such a close range, it was impossible to dodge.
Flames engulfed her the next moment and she rolled around on the ground screaming and trying to put out the flames. Jerome held her sword and backed away from her, observing the result of his flames. He knew that wasn’t enough to kill her. Her armor had been revealed underneath the loose robe she wore when they started fighting. And it was armor that was designed to protect her.
After a while, the flames died down and she stood up glaring at him with hate-filled eyes. Her loose robe had been burnt away fully revealing her armor and her hair had been reduced to a frizzy, tangled mess with a distinct smell of burnt hair that permeated the air around her. Smoke drifted upwards from her head making for a comical scene.
Jerome shrugged, “At least you’re not dead.”
A stifled sound like that of laughter could be heard the next moment and they both turned their heads to look in the direction of the sound. A small crowd had gathered a ways away from them, watching the fight.
Arkesha seethed. This was the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to her in her entire life.
“Hand it over!” she said through gritted teeth.
“This?” Jerome held up the sword, “Sorry…battle trophy,” he said and stored the sword away in his spatial ring.
Arkesha screamed. She rushed Jerome and launched a series of compressed air at him. Jerome’s only warning was the sudden change of the aura in the air. Wind aura spiked and he quickly dropped to the floor before rolling out of the way. The air balls hit the ground where he was in succession, blasting the soil apart and scattering dirt everywhere. There was no color to the wind aura that spiked, and neither did the air balls have any.
“Calm down, Arkesha,” someone said, causing Jerome to look up.
Another female Sprout was holding back Arkesha, trying to prevent her from embarrassing herself more. She was doing a rather poor job of it though and only Arkesha’s self-control was keeping her from injuring her junior.
Jerome watched not too far away. He intentionally kept himself open to attacks. He assumed a relaxed posture as he smiled lightly. But he was waiting for the slightest mistake, the littlest slip up and Arkesha would become a corpse this night.
Arkesha turned away from him and let her teammate guide her away from the battle, defeated and shamed.
“Ye just couldn’t hold yerself back, could ye?” Bram spoke as he walked toward Jerome. His voice was filled with mirth, showing that he had had a good time watching the fight.
“She’ll be sure to reassess trying to mess with you some other time,” Selene said, “Hedon would become more vengeful with this, Jerome. We should go.”
“That’s part of the plan,” Jerome said. “I need him emotional and raging. More emotions mean less thinking. Less thinking means he’s prone to make mistakes.”
Selene and Truhdorn turned to look at Jerome.
“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” Selene said and the rest of the team laughed.
~~~
Jerome looked up at the rising sun and was amazed by what he saw. Patches of dark clouds loomed in the sky, billowing like a cloud of smoke from time to time, trying to fight the sunlight for dominance.
“This is very…eerie wouldn’t even begin to describe it,” he said to Selene who was standing beside him.
“When you’re done sightseeing, meet me in the tent for the tactical plan,” she said and began walking away.
“That was no tactical plan last night. Just a bunch of privileged kids throwing their weight around,”
“You know I’m one of those privileged kids, right?” Selene turned to face him.
“You know I wasn’t talking about you,” Jerome stood up to join her. “Someone better hold the big guy this time around or I might end up knocking a few teeth off his face. Should make him look a little prettier,”
Selene laughed, “I’ll tell him you said that.”
“Are you sure about that? Your war room wouldn’t be able to contain the both of us if we fought. And just so you know, I never lose a fight.”
“Yea, yea. Tell that to him when you meet him. He’s not Arkesha, just so you know. You’re gonna have to work to knock off those teeth.”
They both laughed as they walked toward the large tent.
“Welcome, Jerome. Are you ready to execute the plan?” Lang asked from his position at the table.
Jerome didn’t answer at first. His features were already schooled and he looked around for a place to sit. All the chairs were taken except for the one meant for Selene. His eyes met Hedon’s briefly and he could see the rage burning in them. He was also burning with rage but he calmed himself and smiled at Hedon.
“I’ll do the necessary,” he said, moving to stand by a wall behind Selene.
Everyone caught the meaning of his words. He would not do more to help if anyone was in a bind; they were on their own. Many eyes shifted to look at him and then, at one another.
Selene took her seat and asked, “So how do we go about breaking through the blockade?”
“The cur doesn’t need to be here to hear that,” Hedon remarked, intent on angering Jerome.
“Unlike you, Hedon. I don’t need to be spiteful to communicate my intentions. Your end is near,” The voices in the room deadened instantly and everyone focused on Jerome’s words. “Pray to whatever ancestor you have to make it quick and painless, for I would not be merciful,” Jerome said with neither anger nor malice in his words.
Every one of the Sprouts in the tent was extremely shocked by those words. The audacity of the Royal disciple in front of them was staggering; his words carried with them a promise of overwhelming pain and suffering.
Hedon stood up slowly, drawing himself taller. He willed as much strength into his words as Jerome’s if not more.
“Do you know who you mess with, you lowlife? I will make sure you never see the light of Terra Praeta!” He spat.
His words, however, didn’t carry as much weight as Jerome’s.
“We’ll see about that, Hedon. We’ll see,” Jerome replied as he folded his hands in front of him looking at Hedon without any fear in his eyes.
Hedon seethed in anger. He looked around the table and saw that no one was moving to kick Jerome out. He knew he couldn’t do it himself and his right-hand man, Murray—who was signaling him to calm down—wouldn’t do it as well, so as not to jeopardize their plan. He swore in his heart to make Jerome suffer thoroughly before he died as he sat back down.
“Ahem. As we all know, we don’t have a lot in terms of numbers,” Lang stated. “We will best make an impact if we break through their defenses from one point.”
“That would mean concentrating all offense on one spot,” Selene said. “The Children would pick us off one by one, especially those on the outskirts of the group.”
“We don’t have much to cover up that end. All we can do is have those from lower-tier families defend our flanks and backs,”
Selene frowned at that. She knew what it was like to lose a teammate. It wouldn’t be nice seeing it happen even though the people who were going to be sacrificed were not her teammates.
“Is there no other way to do this? Some artifacts we could gift them to help protect them as we rush through?” she asked.
“There won’t be enough to go around,” Fei Lin said, feeling the other woman’s turmoil of emotions.
Jerome listened to what they were discussing and an idea came to him. He had noticed something about Suzie the night before as he trained to control five blades hovering in the air. It was almost as if he wasn’t consciously controlling the blades, only giving them mental commands from time to time.
Jerome had been distracted by the fight with Arkesha, he had pushed this development to the back of his mind. Now that he remembered, he couldn’t help but want to try it out. He put his hands behind his back, earning him a glance from Hedon’s right-hand man.
Jerome chuckled. The older Sprout had been watching his every move since he entered the tent. He was a lot more alert than every other Sprout in the tent. Jerome waved his fingers and a chunk of metal appeared in his palm as if from thin air. All the Sprouts around the table turned to look at him as they perceived the tangy smell of the metal.
“What, can’t I train in here?” he asked innocently.
Lang eyed him for a second and cleared his throat to get the attention of the other Sprouts. With a thought, the metal transformed into a thin snake-like form and slithered away out of the tent.
Jerome was elated. It was like the living steel had actually become what its name implied—living steel—it functioned on its own without needing Jerome to help move it around. Jerome closed his eyes to monitor the sliver of steel as it slithered through their camp.
He could sense and feel everything around the sliver as though it were him, although his senses with it were a lot duller compared to his real self. Jerome wondered how this was possible. He let his mind wander around with the sliver for a while, taking it as far as half a mile away from him. The sliver didn’t lose its strength and his connection to it didn’t dim one bit.
Jerome felt there was more to this though. It wasn’t possible to just control living steel like this without repercussions. Even when they were in the illusion, fighting the vines, he felt the side effects of using Suzie for prolonged amounts of time: it began sapping the iron in his own blood after a while. That was the major reason why he had lost consciousness.
The Sprouts seated around the table began standing up, bringing Jerome out of his reverie.
“Can I speak with you for a bit, Selene,” Jerome told her quietly, and they both walked out of the tent.
He had something in mind that could help her team when breaking through the blockade and by extension, it’ll help the other Sprouts as well.
It was time to join the battle and every advantage he had gained after the Tower of Solon would be tested here today.