Nathan woke up in the middle of the night, aura screaming that he there was a problem. He laid still and pretended to be asleep while having his aura survey the apartment. It billowed out stretching far beyond what the average person’s aura could. He found nothing unusual and after several long minutes of searching he shook it off as a false alarm. When he woke up in the morning he found that nothing was out of place, aside from some dirty dishes having been washed by his aura and some loose articles organized. ‘I should probably make some cash so I have some spare funds.’ Nathan sat down on a comfy pile of blankets, tossed every pillow he owned into the pile and then dived in wrapping himself in blankets and positioning himself as comfortable as possible. All that remained after that point was having his aura produce tera crystals. Nathan nearly drifted to sleep once more as the pile of perfectly measured rectangles of condensed energy grew. Rather than letting himself go back to sleep he decided to some training.

Nathan spread his aura out as far as possible before whipping up a powerful air current. A whirlwind of wind moving air to swirl around him before sending the depleted air out of the apartment. Nathan felt as mass quantities of ather filled his body, slowly and steadily poisoning him. Once he felt like he was properly dying Nathan moved a torrent of essence from his skin inwards, flushing the ather to his soul where it belonged and strengthening his body. Rinse wash and repeat ad infinitum. Hours of self inflicted agony later he felt that he had gotten a good bit of training in. It had become exceptionally difficult to reach the maximum amount of training he could do with the Steel Body technique. As he got stronger, the more he could improve in one sitting increased, quite contradictory compared to most techniques. And it was a public technique which was astonishing. One day he would have to check out who had invented.

A long morning of training behind him, he headed out to pick up some lunch. While he was munching on a fast food burger he considered going to some other arenas just for some regular fighting. So some more walking around checking out arenas later he found himself with a membership for the Glass Soul arena. He mopped up some of the casuals before kindly being redirected to a more intense section upstairs. Hours of fighting had become one of Nathan's favorite past times. Walking out with little more than a few bruises and scrapes he felt confident and powerful. Logically he knew there were people who could wipe him from existence without even trying, but every once in a while he liked to get drunk on the power he now had. He thought back to Reggie telling about his awesome new job, and the terrors within.

He couldn’t imagine how he would fight someone on that level. From what he understood about Eternals, all of them had the ability to subvert natural laws. Even with his aura, he didn’t have a plan for dealing with someone who could manipulate the world around him. In fact, given that the only thing his aura could do is manipulate the world around him, he would be at a massive disadvantage. Nathan let his thoughts run wild as he walked around the city looking through shops and checking out the scenery. Not too much had changed since he left, but it all felt new and familiar at the same time. ‘Wonder what I should do next? Soonest tournament was that one at the… Heavens Glory Stage? Something like that.’

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Not finding any better way to spend his time he headed back to his apartment to get some training done. ‘Huh’ was the peak of higher consciousness response that he could figure out as he swerved to face the man behind him. A black hoodie cloaked a large figure, the sun being in just the wrong position making the features under the hood almost impossible to see. The world seemed to distort as he looked, and the man swaggered forward before brushing past Nathan without a care. It felt like a tsunami had just crashed over him. Complete and utter destruction of his self esteem came as he glanced at the figure a final time before bolting, fear at the power he had just sensed filling him.

Nathan got home and sat down sweat from the sprint covering him. Not even a second later it was whisked away along with every other piece of evidence he had just ran for his life from someone who hadn’t even noticed him. He had no clue if it was just his aura jumping at shadows or if that man was simply terrifying. He formed a couple of small cylinders out of his aura, squeezing over and over while trying to slow his breath. Gathering up his aura he once again started training before faltering. He would never be able to compare to that. He couldn’t possibly be so strong that he could survive a fight with him. It was simply a gap too far to bridge.

Rather than continue trying he headed to the kitchen, whipping up a batch of cookies to hopefully stop the shaking. A short binge later he was sat stuffed silly watching a child's cartoon shame and regret souring the taste of cookies. A bead of sweat rolled down his face as he fidgeted and jittered. A knock at the door stole his breath before rational thinking reminded him that it was probably just Reggie come to talk.

“What’s up man, how you liking the new job?” He asked the man who was very much not Reggie. A cold rage written on the mans face caused the negativity in his stomach to rise, suffocating him. As he choked on fear the man walked up to him, closing the space between them.

“Please take a seat.” Was all that was said, and Nathan hurried to obey. Finding a seat on his couch he watched as the man that felt like a monster to his aura locked his door and closed every blind in his house before standing across from Nathan.

“Now, I am sure you are mildly concerned at the fact that I have barged into your home and suppressed you. You should be. I do not plan on killing you however. I will merely be holding you hostage until your brother meets my demands. Once that is finished, I will let you go, and you will not be harmed. Now if you could be so kind as to call him.” Came an endearing tone that made him dizzy. Why was he afraid earlier? Clearly this man just needed to talk to his brother. Nodding to the gentleman he pulled out his phone to call Reggie.

“Whatta ya want ya dipstick! Nah im just playing, what’s up?”

“Hey Reggie, can you come over? There is this really nice guy who wants to talk to you about some ‘demands’ or something.” He had apparently said something wrong as the gentleman gently snatched the phone from Nathan's grasp.

“You have one hour to send me all the personal information of the God Slayers. Just send a text to this phone. Incase you need some motivation, every ten minutes I will be ripping a limb off your brother. After forty minutes I will begin taking non-vital organs. If you try to attack me, your brother will commit suicide. If I die, your brother will commit suicide. If I don't repair the damage to his soul within a day, he will die. That is all. Have a nice hour.” Said the man before hanging up the phone and roaming Nathan's apartment. His aura screeched at him about something but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was complaining about. Eventually he simply decided it was nothing, right until the man came back and ripped his right arm off. Then he realized something was considerably off about this whole situation. He hadn’t offered the kind man any tea!