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. 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 went to show how powerful a session of cycling they must have had. This was what shocked Jerome.

Was the vital aura so powerful that it could even purify their bodies? he thought. He 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. He also felt like he’d gained some more weight back.

He had also been examining himself during his meditation. And the words of the Sovereign rang true once again in his mind. He found out that vital aura didn’t function like normal essence. He couldn’t make it a part of his core, so to speak. Guess he’d ask Rihal later.

Seventeen walked up to him smiling.

“What happened here?” Jerome asked.

“We don’t know what you did, young master Jerome, but everyone benefited from it,” she stated happily. Why was she calling him ‘young master’ all of a sudden? Was this what pandering looked like?

He tilted his head at her. “Really?”

“Hmm. The whole Palace was covered in a dense fog of earth-attributed essence and vitality. Who would want to miss out on that?” She spoke with awe and reverence in her voice. Seventeen laughed out loud in joy but seeing Jerome smiling at her, she quickly composed herself. Jerome had never seen her so happy before.

“Your scars have reduced,” she muttered, gesturing to her face and smiling again — a lot more restrained this time though.

Jerome touched his face to confirm and smiled. The hard, ugly lines he used to feel there were not as prominent as they used to be. He reached down to touch his chest and felt the scars there too. They too had receded, although not by a lot. He flexed his right leg next to test his knee and was almost overcome by emotion. The little pain he used to still feel in the knee was gone. He didn’t even notice it when he walked out of the training hall.

The palace guards came up to him next to thank him as well. Abbott was smiling from ear to ear and praising him 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, hahahaha! Excuse us Jerome so we could go wash up,” Abbott said, eyeing his men to excuse Jerome and the maid beside him.

But Seventeen definitely noticed his signals and glared at him shouting, “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,” he said after a while. Seventeen looked down at herself and ran off with her face bright red from embarrassment.

~~~

Ash

Jerome and Rihal discussed his insights on earth-attribute essence as she sat on his desk, swinging her legs back and forth. They were throwing a lot of foreign words around that she didn’t understand so she just locked them out of her musings. She was very happy for Jerome though. 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,” Uncle Rihal corrected him. Whatever this ‘Epos’ was, she’d make sure to squeeze every detail of it out of Jerome before she went to Pilgrims’ Keep.

“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…” Uncle Rihal started to say.

“Epos?” Jerome finished the sentence for him with a smile. Ash observed them both as they sparred, unable to hold back her smile.

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“Whatever,” Uncle Rihal said, his tone one of defeat.

She couldn’t help but giggle out loud, making the mighty Spirit Realm expert feel even more awkward. She had never seen Uncle Rihal so out of his element; so unsure of himself. Who knew Jerome could turn him into a mouse on a sinking boat at sea. He glared at her, but his glare didn’t faze her.

“We’ve been spending an awful lot of free time together,” he announced. “We’ll be training more often from now on.”

“Urgh!” she grumbled. “I have a master who trains me already. I don’t need a second one.”

Rihal smirked but ignored her. “So?” he gestured toward Jerome.

Jerome smiled at their antics. Standing up from his bed, he sat down cross-legged on the floor to begin adjusting his breathing. From Rihal’s explanations, Ash thought she had a vague idea of how this…Epos worked. Something to do with words; one of the things her master had yet to explain to her. All she knew about it was that giving something natural a name would siphon vitality and essence from her.

And apparently, one could swear an oath and the world would hold you to your words. Ash sighed, feeling the weight of the oath she took in this very room a few moons ago in her heart.

She turned her attention back to Jerome as she watched him move slightly in discomfort, maybe? She couldn’t tell but as a sacred artist, her eyes were sharp enough to track even the tiniest movement. She had always had great eyesight — maybe even more than most. And now she could tell that whatever Jerome was doing, he wasn’t succeeding at it at all.

Jerome breathed out a sigh, solidifying her conclusion. It wasn’t working as it did before. “What is it?” she asked.

“It’s… There’s no spark of inspiration.” He went back into thought and stopped talking for a while, furrowing his brows.

“What?” Uncle Rihal asked with a smugness Ash had come to know very well. “Can’t seem to do it like before?”

“For some reason, no,” Jerome responded. He was taking his failure in stride. That made Ash even more attracted to him. Where did that come from? she blushed and hid her face behind her dark cloud of curls.

Uncle Rihal chuckled, not noticing the change in her emotions to which she was grateful. “Don’t be discouraged. The reason you were able to create that…” he didn’t want to say Epos.

“Mantra,” Jerome said. Now that’s a new one, though it sounded familiar to her.

Uncle 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 said, thoughtfully.

“Makes sense,” Ash said. When she thought about this mantra of the earth attribute essence Jerome created, it made sense. “That…er, mantra was like a Eulogy to Mother Nature. So, he has to create something similar for the fire-attribute essence. Is there a chance I can create something like that?”

The two men turned to look at her as if they were seeing her for the first time. Ash huffed, folding her arms under her bust in defense, and glaring at them in contempt. Did they think she was less intelligent than they were?

Jerome’s eyes moved down from her face to focus on her bust and she saw his pupils dilate. Ash lost her train of thoughts in elation after that, blushing profusely. She was so happy, she wanted to run screaming out of the room. Yet she also wanted to be acknowledged by Jerome.

Of all the times she had blushed when she thought or heard about Jerome, Uncle Rihal picked this time to notice, giving her a knowing smirk. All at once, she wished the earth would open up and swallow her. She felt like her heart was bared to all the world to see.

“Should I… leave the room for you both?” Uncle Rihal asked and she picked up Jerome’s inkwell and hurled it at him. Not that it did any good. The fart-face burst into laughter and the spilled ink froze mid-air, reversing back into the little jar that once held it.

Jerome coughed, saving her from more embarrassment. “I believe you can too, Ash,” he said looking her in the eyes.

Ash had to catch herself from falling as she gazed into the beautiful, black orbs that were his eyes. Her stomach fluttered with what felt like butterflies and she felt a little light-headed. She had to swallow hard to concentrate on the now.

Jerome blushed still watching her, but refused to take his eyes off her. For once, she was grateful she wasn’t the only one affected by the growing attraction between them.

“If you two lovebirds are done staring…”

Jerome cleared his throat and looked back at Rihal. Ash suddenly felt the loss of the warmth his eyes kindled in her when they gazed upon her.

“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 as Uncle Rihal smiled.

“In my head, it sounded way more awesome,” Jerome said, quite embarrassed. Uncle Rihal began to laugh lightly but he suddenly looked up. His eyes turned that deep unnatural green and she could see runic patterns swirling in them.

She tried to get a read on them, to understand what she was seeing but it eluded her. She felt she could understand them; like the knowledge was there within her, just waiting to surface. It felt like she had the words on the tip of her tongue but couldn’t say it.

“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. Once you become a Spirit Realm artist, it’ll awaken. However, you’d still need to get the ajanai. 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 vanished on the spot, making her jump a little. “I hate it when he does that,” she complained.

Jerome chortled. “Like he’s saying, ‘I can go anywhere but you can’t’, right?”

~~~

Damien Vorthe

Mantra…now that’s a word I haven’t heard in a long time, he thought as he hovered in the air above Kilian’s palace. He had been listening 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 had long been wiped out.

Damien’s gaze pierced through the physical barriers between him and Jerome, to scrutinize the child. “He looks very 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 his father when he was a boy. 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.

He would be sorting out how the Fated Dark One knew the word ‘mantra’ later.