As soon as the new card had dried and cooled, Jace socketed it. Like the previous card, it had a concise description with a quick activation frequency:
[Technique Card: Extract Aes (Common) (Utility) (Compatible Class: All) (Compatible Aspects: Pure)]
[Technique description: Once every one (1) second, allows the user to draw in Aes from the feeder channel.]
As soon as he had it slotted in his core, he grabbed hold of an accumulator node and located the Aes, then triggered the card. The Aes, previously reluctant, poured through the channels within the orb and flowed into his hand.
When the second was up, though, the Aes fell back into the core. Like sucking liquid up a straw, and he’d just run out of breath.
Not good enough.
However, the card had a low cooldown period. It didn’t need anything longer, with how simple the effect of the card was, but it would require constant activation.
So he did.
Instead of just activating the card once, he cycled his Aes in the rapid, quick manner he’d practiced many times before, maintaining a second-long interval between each pulse of energy that passed through his core.
Still, while with each pulse, the energy within refused to budge any farther than an invisible nozzle on the pole of the accumulator node. There was something within him. Either the card still wasn’t strong enough, or there was something restricting him.
“At first, I was going to tell you that wouldn’t work,” Kinfild said, approaching from the cockpit. “The nodes are too resistant to cards. You would need a higher level of will, cultivated over time to do it.”
“So then why did you let me go after the nodes at all?”
“Because it would be good practice.”
Jace let his shoulders deflate. He was so close, but…he just needed weeks to draw out the power of the cores? That felt so long, now that he was so close.
But…
“But you said ‘at first’,” Jace said.
“Correct. I think there's a chance you could make it work.”
“How?” Jace scrunched his eyebrows, then thought back to his earlier attempts at emptying the accumulator nodes.
He’d made the Aes within them push and pull, sway, with the fluctuations of his core.
He didn’t need the will of a Wielder with months’ more practice than him. He just needed better timing with his own imperfect core.
“I see that look in your eyes,” said Kinfild. “Something’s clicking. Tell me, see if we reached the same conclusion.”
“The fluctuations of my core?”
“Precisely.”
When Jace’s Aes peaked, it latched onto the pure Aes in the accumulator node, and when it pulled back in, it drew out Aes with it.
First, he tried activating his card and timing the one second interval with the peak of his own core fluctuation, but it had the same effect. He needed to improve his process to reduce how much the Aes dropped back into the core. If he could make it so long as he took two steps forward, and only one backward, he could effectively draw out the Aes from the core, not matter how long it took him.
So instead, in the interval that the card was inactive, he timed the dip of his core fluctuation, and the Aes only retreated about a quarter of the distance the card pulled it.
Progress.
He continued the process until the Aes illuminated the surface of the sphere, lighting up golden runic patterns and swooping, arcing lines that divided it up into segments. Almost there…just one more pull…
The Aes bled out of the core.
Pure Aes, shining gold, poured into his hand, and swirled around in lines of dust. A sheet leaked out of his chest and swirled in the air in front of him, reading: [Warning: You are about to draw in two hundred and fifty (250) units of foreign Aes from an unknown object. Please ensure you trust the object you are harvesting from and have checked for Splitlings. Do you wish to proceed?]
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
More respectful than it had been before. Perhaps because he’d gotten closer to it, using his quest-making hunting technique. And he appreciated the warning; he hadn’t even thought to check.
“Any…any problems with the accumulator nodes?” Jace asked. “I can take that amount of Aes, but it’s warning me…”
“Oh, Split’s just being grouchy.” Kinfild shook his head. “A channel parasite couldn’t survive inside an accumulator node.”
So there wasn’t any reason to distrust the accumulator nodes. Perfect.
He smiled at the sheet, then said with intent, “Yes.”
The sheet dispersed, and the Aes flowed into his channels. Once inside, it was like a clot of debris had just been pulled out of a gutter. The Aes moved freely, obeying his will, and he integrated it with the other Aes within him. He still needed the card to drain the node, but once the Aes was inside him, he could move it like any other source of power.
He integrated it and let it merge with his own power in his channels, all while using the card repeatedly to draw every last dribble of Aes out from the core. His chest heated up, and the channels in his hand bulged as more energy flowed in.
As he neared the end of the accumulator node’s supply, it slowed down. The golden runes faded, then finally, the last of the Aes poured into Jace’s hand. He pulled it into his body, then cycled it down to his core and stored it. He could convert more to a hyperspace aspect later.
But it made his core swell with power. In his perception, the two orbs—the original core and the foundation pillar—hovered amidst a cloud of blue and gold Aes. They bunched together, deforming as they pressed up against each other. They were too large, now, and they needed to split.
He was ready to make another foundation pillar. He’d been practicing his Aes movements, practicing his compression and willpower exertion, he hoped he could compress a pillar of higher quality.
Nothing less than legendary-grade would do.
He concentrated his Aes into a wedge, then drove it straight through the center of both orbs. They split in two, giving off a stream of loose Aes and core material both. Jace gathered it up with his will and pressed it together, then, like how he’d disintegrated his original core seed, pressed it back into a pillar-sized orb.
His hands trembled, but he kept his breaths steady, and pressed the Aes together until a boom of force rattled off his body, shaking the floorboards and rattling the folded-up kitchenette at the side of the main hold.
The new pillar itself only had a few tiny cracks around the outside, but they didn’t even penetrate a tenth of the way through the pillar-orb. It shifted into place, slotting nicely next to the other two pillars at the edge of the cloud.
Just for confirmation, he opened his eyes and requested, “Assess foundation pillars.”
The Split swirled up in front of him, forming a message in golden dust: [Pillars Formed: 3/5. Pillar 1 quality: common-grade. Pillar 2 quality: rare-grade. Pillar 3 quality: legendary-grade.]
Not perfect, but he still had time to improve. He’d have two more chances to hit five pillars, but clearly, it was possible to gain more than five—Stenol had six pillars.
Jace wasn’t going to settle for any less than six, and certainly no more low-grade pillars. He needed at least three mythic-grade pillars to match Stenol.
“How do I form more pillars, beyond the original five?” Jace asked.
“You will need to resist the advancement to the Soul-Circle Opening tiers as long as you can,” Kinfild said. “It requires constant maintenance of willpower, and for you, you’ll have to resist the Split’s nagging.”
“I should be able to do that,” Jace said. “Been doing it this far.”
Still, he drew in his third main technique card—his cooldown resetting card—and activated his main status sheet.
At first it warned him [6 Attribute Shards to distribute], then displayed the full sheet.
[Gathered Analytics]
Name: Jace Scott Baldwin
Worldjumper #: 5
Class: Core Hunter
Advancement Progress: Foundation 2 (55.2%)
Standard Level Rating: 24
[Attributes]
Strength: 14
Vital: 44
Resistance: 36
Agility: 16
Potency: 1
[Technique Cards]
Trigger Hyperjump
Wanderer’s Banishment
Cleanse Buildups
[Significant Items]
Unnamed Whistling Blade, spirit-enhanced clothing, spirit-enhanced vambraces, spirit-enhanced plastoid cuirass.
[Titles]
Worldjumper #5 (no effect) (cannot be removed)
Witness of the Ancients (+1 Agility) (cannot be removed)
Before absorbing the accumulator node’s Aes, he’d had about thirty-five percent advancement progress, but now, it had jumped about twenty percent. If each node awarded him a similar amount of Aes—two hundred and fifty units—then he’d have more than enough right here to form up more pillars.
He’d make his fourth pillar (third if he didn’t count the original core) at seventy-five percent, and the fifth at a hundred percent. Any more, and he’d be going over.
Holding up the Aes extraction card, he waved it in the air. The runes were glowing red-hot and the plastic around them smoked.
“You were pushing the triggering interval slightly too close together,” Kinfild warned. “And with how stripped-down that card is, it doesn’t have timing safeguards. Use it too quickly, and you’ll destroy it.”
“I’ll let it cool off before using it again.”
“Let your channels rest, too,” Kinfild suggested. We have all-flight. I suggest pushing yourself as close to the brink as you can before you advance, however, and then trying to absorb all the Aes at once.”
Jace nodded. If his reasoning was correct, he’d have just enough Aes to get himself seven pillars, if all held steady.
And he had ten more hours. Plenty of time.
But while he was letting his channels rest, he could always distribute attribute shards.