Jerome entered his room, feeling invigorated and ready to tackle a mental challenge. He had a theory that trained assassins, like Rihal, were capable of masking their essence with mental energy. If he could learn how to do the same, it would give him an edge in battles.
Rihal had debunked his previous theory of using the mental barrier or a replica to mask his essence so he figured he’d go for the next best thing — mental energy. Upon entering his room, Jerome noticed that everything had been repaired and replaced after the previous night’s damage.
Well, almost everything…
Kilian hadn’t replaced his door, leaving his room exposed like a monster with a gaping mouth, devouring air. Undeterred, he sat down cross-legged and began to cycle, absorbing vast amounts of ambient essence with each rotation of his core, cycling at an incredible speed. After a long while, he achieved a state of perfect calm and summoned a cocoon of pure mental energy, enveloping his body in an invisible shield.
He started to emit pulses of essence from his core, causing the temperature in the room to rise, and beads of sweat to form on his forehead. Not satisfied with the outcome, Jerome increased the output of his mental energy and expanded the diameter of the cocoon. However, this only served to further heat up his room.
He persisted in his efforts until the early hours of the morning, only managing to give himself a mental pat on the back for not burning the place down. Although he had yet to achieve his goal, he was determined to master the technique of masking his essence as he cycled.
~~~
Rihal
“Ignite your blue flame and throw it at the target,” Rihal commanded as he paced behind Jerome observing his every move.
He had found a new training ground for Jerome, one that would have cost him had the Sovereign not intervened. But he was quite angry today. His disciple didn’t follow his instructions and he could sense his weariness. Jerome had overused his mental energy and this would influence his training for many days to come.
They were in an open arena surrounded by boulders, some of which were carved into seats. The soil on the ground had witnessed a lot of fights and Rihal could smell the blood, sweat, and tears that had mixed with the soil as he scrutinized his surroundings.
He watched as Jerome took a deep breath, ignited a blue flame on his palm, and threw it at a boulder in the middle of the training ground. Or at least he tried to. The flame didn’t leave his palm. He tried again, and then again, but the flame only changed shape as it breezed through the air on his palm.
“It’s stuck to my palm — the core that is,” the little devil said but then he muttered. “This feels ridiculous.” Rihal almost lost it.
“The flame is a product of your essence. Hence, you can’t just throw it like a physical material that’s not a part of you,” Rihal explained, doing his best to calm his anger.
“How do I throw it, then?”
“With mental energy,” Rihal said as he came to stand beside Jerome, his voice cold and unfeeling. “A little mental energy to shoot it at your proposed target. This means you don’t need the throwing motion to increase momentum, you just take aim, use your mental energy to pull it like a bow… and shoot.”
“Are you angry at me Rihal?” Jerome asked. Rihal could hear the hesitation in his voice. He knew what he did wrong and now he was playing the innocent.
Rihal glanced his way. “Do you have any idea how weak your mental energy is right now?” he said through gritted teeth. Rihal wasn’t angry because Jerome had overused his mental energy. He was angry because Jerome didn’t listen to him, he just went ahead and did whatever it was he put his mind to!
Jerome looked away, embarrassment coloring his cheeks.
“I told you not to juggle multiple things but to concentrate on one to perfection. Why didn’t you listen to me?” Rihal asked, not to ask but to state a fact — Jerome was being an unfilial disciple.
“I was just a bit curious,” Jerome admitted.
“Well, you won’t be able to perform at your best thanks to your curiosity,” Rihal pointed out. “Go ahead and give it a try. And no stopping until you can shoot the flame at least ten paces away.”
“Ten paces, that should be easy,” Jerome said excitedly, ready to crush the goal that was set.
“We’ll see,” was all Rihal said.
~~~
Castle Alvric, Farryn. Secret Chamber of the Alvric Council.
Filip Alvric
“I need to see the Ancient One, Filip,” Nolan Alvric said as he walked into the Council room. The other Elders were already waiting for him, having received his message early that morning. What would it be this time around?
“And what might this be about, Patriarch?” Filip Alvric asked. Whatever would lead Nolan Alvric to call for a meeting so early after a banquet at the Royal Estate must truly be important.
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“Vorthe has a new Saint — well, I don’t know if he just advanced. I only know he’s a lot more powerful than ours!” Nolan said as he sat down in his high-backed chair on the raised dais, only noticing the deathly silence that engulfed the room a moment later.
Every Elder had their jaw hanging in shock, unable to process what he just said completely. Filip Alvric was the first to recover. “They mock us!” he said, his face twisted in a combination of fury and fear. This was not what he had expected to hear from Nolan’s mouth so early in the morning. The man was a herald of bad tidings!
“Aye. It came as much a surprise to me and every other Head of the other Great families. Well…” Nolan said contemplatively. What could it be again?
The other Elders looked at him, waiting for him to continue. The tension in the air was so thick, Filip felt he was grasping at the information he was yet to receive with desperation.
“Well?” Filip finally blurted out in frustration. He couldn’t stand the tension of not knowing more. The more information they had the better. Because if Vorthe knew what they were planning, they could execute them all on the grounds of conspiring against the throne.
“It seems Arwen Itakar was not surprised at the sight of a new Saint in the Royal family, which means we know who not to join forces with when the time is ripe for it,” Nolan Alvric continued. “Probably Igor Baelor too. He’s too… Ah! The man wears his heart on his sleeves.”
“What was he like, this…Saint of the Royal family?” Anders Alvric, asked curiously. He was the youngest Sage in the room, and as such he had never met the Ancient One, their own Saint Realm expert — something that always seemed to escape Filip’s mind.
“Well, he’s young and vibrant, compared to the Ancient One. Thorlin Vorthe, he is named,” Nolan said, and exhaled loudly. Nolan Alvric seemed to age a hundred years at that moment in Filip’s eyes. The weight and pressure of the oath he swore to break their family free from Vorthe’s leash weighed down on him almost visibly. He didn’t envy his position… not one bit.
“Being in close proximity with him was far different from being with the Ancient One,” Nolan continued. “You know how it feels being around the Ancient One, no?” he glanced at the Elders and some of them nodded.
“I don’t know how it feels since I’ve…” Anders Alvric almost stuttered out and everyone turned to Eskan to explain. The 3rd Elder seemed to catch himself as he noticed everyone was looking at him.
“Oh, ahem. It feels like being a Sprout in the presence of a Sage, hmm,” Eskan Alvric explained, nodding as he caressed his red-brown beard.
“But it is not the same with this Saint,” Nolan Alvric said. “When he mounted the stage to announce the opening of Terra Praeta—”
“They’re opening Terra Praeta?!” Filip shot to his feet and the 2nd Elder, Fredrick, followed suit.
“Aye, but allow me the leeway to speak,” Nolan said, gesturing to them to sit down. “I too was shocked when I heard of this, but the shock has long worn off.” He adjusted himself on his dais. “When he mounted the stage and unveiled his aura, it was controlled. There were lots of Sprouts and Spirit Realm artists but none of them felt it. The level of control it’ll take to pull that off!”
“He has complete control over the latent power of his Spirit?!” Filip Alvric said. “We have to stop the expedition. This is not someone we want to cross!” he had been around enough to know how Vorthe played the power game — which was not knowing anything at all until they hit you where it hurt the most. But there were always signs.
“Now hold on, Filip,” the Patriarch tried to take back control of the discussion. “What we need to do is hear from the Ancient One.”
Filip Alvric was beginning to get frustrated by this. He had to seek the counsel of the Ancient One. “The Ancient One would not leave his meditation to see you, Nolan. He only needs to advance to Transcendence and then all our problems would be solved, no?”
If the clan knew how far gone their Ancient One was, they’d lose faith in the Alvric, in their bloodline which had withstood thousands of years of oppression. If Nolan knew, he’d start exercising authority that wasn’t his to exercise, knowing there’d be no one to hold him accountable. At which point, he, the 1st Elder, would lose his leverage over the council. Worse if the outside world found out… Filip didn’t even want to think of the repercussions of that.
“Then, I say we stay on track, and finish the course we started,” Nolan Alvric declared. “What say the council?”
“Aye,” The 2nd Elder said, as did the 3rd and 4th.
“I think this is a mistake, Nolan,” Filip Alvric said gravely. He placed both hands on the table top, tapping on it with his fingertips. “Everything we’ve managed to build here may come crumbling down with just one mistake. Think on this carefully before going against the Royals.”
The council chamber went silent for a few more breaths of time as tension hung in the air.
Nolan Alvric exhaled audibly before saying, “I swore an oath, Filip, and I would see it through. When do the men begin to arrive, Eskan?”
“In less than a moon, Patriarch,” Eskan said.
“Split them up, and take them around Farryn,” Nolan Alvric said. “We begin searching for Vorthe’s monster as soon as they arrive the mountain range.”
~~~
The Royal Estate.
The sun was already high in the sky and Jerome was down on one knee. He was sweating profusely…and breathing hard. The flame on his palm was also tinier than when he started. Albeit, he hadn’t been able to ‘shoot’ the flame.
You should have told me this was a lot harder than it sounds, he complained in frustration, but unwilling to give up, he kept at it. In theory, using his mental energy like a bow to pull the flame and release it was easy to imagine, but putting it to work was a different matter altogether.
“Ready to give up yet?” Rihal stood over him smiling.
Jerome scowled at him and looked away, not ready to admit defeat. Rihal only chuckled and knelt beside him. He had already gotten a kick out of Jerome’s struggles, but his disciple was really stubborn. There was just one problem with what he was doing.
“You should stop,” Rihal said. “There’s only so much strain your mind can take. Any more and you’d injure your soul.”
“You should have said this was a lot harder than it sounds,” Jerome complained.
“And you should have done as I told you,” Rihal retorted, clearly in a good mood.
“Fair enough.” Jerome took a deep breath and exhaled, and all the tension left him. “So is there a way to do this or do I just keep groping in the dark here?”
“Go get some rest, Jerome. We’ll resume in the evening,” Rihal said, rising from the ground and lifting Jerome up with his mental energy.
“That’s … that’s incredible!” Jerome exclaimed. He could almost feel the strength and depth of the force that lifted him. It was thick and dense and powerful. Rihal’s mental energy was so powerful compared to his; like a mountain to an egg. But like his essence, Jerome could sense nothing of it. Only that it was powerful.
Rihal chuckled and they both walked toward Kilian’s Palace. “That should keep you motivated,” he said.
And he was right about that. Jerome felt himself fired up and ready to do the impossible. But he lacked control. Yes. Control. That was a good place to start.