Moments later, Alaric sat inside the Tempering Chamber in Sariah’s basement, trying his best to shake off the chills his recent partner-in-crime had given him. Scarlett was a mystery; one he wasn’t sure he was ready to unravel.
He’d gone through the Dance of the Sword in Sariah’s backyard, tasking his body more than anything had through the whole day. Unfortunately, the finesse of the Dance of the Sword required more than just strength.
It required focus and the precision of a thread through the eye of a needle. Alia demanded only perfection if he was to get done with training. After the arduous routine, he’d eaten food and taken a shower. Even as the water washed off the day’s struggles, he felt the dangerous gaze of the red-haired girl, long after they’d parted ways.
She was scary but not enough for him to lose control of himself. A few shivers were all he could spare her chilling memory.
Now, he had something more important to deal with. It was time to figure out how the Tempering Chamber worked.
“Take in a deep breath and circulate the aether through your body,” Sariah told him.
Alaric furrowed his brows but followed her instructions. What was so special about circulating aether through his body? That didn’t make any sense…
“You said your guardian was battle-oriented. I’m not sure if this will work, but if you keep up the training I saw you doing outside and come here for at least four hours at night, you should make some progress,” she continued.
“I don’t get how circulating my aether is going to…” Alaric’s words stopped halfway.
Suddenly, his skin's pores itched, and the aether moving through his body began to rumble and spiral, growing harder to control.
This had never happened to him before, and yet it felt different. Sariah sounded surprised when she said, “You caught on fast!”
Before Alaric could talk, he grimaced. His head was now spinning and every cell in his body was starting to buzz with an uncomfortable sizzle. Was it supposed to feel like this?
“You should feel your body getting hotter the more you circulate aether. It’s something that happens when someone circulates aether through their whole body… though normally it happens slower.
The Rune Circle we’re sitting in speeds up that process. After some time, aether outside your body is going to seep in. This aether is mostly wild aether and you’ll need to purify it by smashing it with your own aether and circulating it even faster. The impurities will gather into a core while you carry out this process and when you’re done, that core will be dispelled,” she explained.
“And if the core is not dispelled?” he wondered.
“Should come out normally in a day or two. Your guardian will take care of it,” she shrugged, “Now stop talking and focus. You’ll need every ounce of focus for the best result.”
With that, everything went silent. Except Alaric’s mind was a mess.
Circulating Aether in the Tempering Chamber was a hundred times harder than he was used to. He could feel his Aether Channels or Meridians—as Alchemists called them—burning with a calamitous amount of aether going through them. It felt like they were stretching and hardening, getting stronger yet breaking under the immense pressure of the voluminous flow of aether.
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[ What’s happening? ] Alaric sent a message to his guardian.
[ You’re improving the quality of your Meridians. ]
[ And that’s all that’s needed for me to improve my Temper Rank ] he thought to himself.
[ There are many factors that contribute to improving your Temper Rank. As you increase your Temper Rank, your aether improves in quality and becomes far more lethal and unruly. You need stronger Meridians to contain that kind of aether. You will also realise that it gets harder to improve the quality of your meridians as you grow stronger. The difference in power between ranks grows larger the higher up you go.
So you’ll have to cater for all these factors required for you to rank up. I taught you to circulate aether through your body even when you were performing the most basic of things. And that made your meridians stronger. At the same time, you had a good grasp on the Basics of the Dance of the Sword so you were more than ready to clear the Glass Rank. The Wood Rank, however, is going to be a lot harder.
Here, you’re going to have to strengthen your body even more, both inside and out. Next, you’ll need to find yourself an Evo-Sword if you want to advance to the next step of the Dance of the Sword.”
Alaric let his thoughts roam around his mind for a bit before he asked, [ What’s an Evo-Sword? ]
[ It’s a weapon that changes its form according to your will ]
Alaric wasn't sure what an Evo-Sword was but the mention of it reminded him a lot of his guardian's sword. Was there perhaps a connection between Alia's sword and the one she wanted him to get? Then again, he'd never seen his guardian's sword change form. He sighed and tossed the thoughts away. This was too exhausting for him to think about.
With this, Alaric went silent and shifted his focus to letting his aether circulate through his body. The chaotic mess going through his body was getting more and more painful as time swept by. Still, he endured it. The only reason the pain kept increasing was because of the aether flowing into his system from outside. That aether was not pure and needed to be purified once it reached inside his system.
Slowly, he worked on this, feeling the cosmic energies clashing within his body. It wasn’t long before he felt the impurities coalescing into a small orb-like ethereal form in his core. His aim now was to make sure the impurities gathered created an orb that felt roughly the size of a normal Awakening Pill.
Four hours down the line, a small implosion of aether shook the house as the impurities were dispelled from Alaric’s body. He dropped to the floor, sweat covering him like a glossy film.
Alaric looked around and sighed with exhaustion. ‘I better bathe and go to sleep.’
About an hour after sunrise, Alaric found himself staring at a large board, with a Bronze card in his hand on which the details of his rank and former exploits had been written along with his rating. For now, most of those fields were empty… but depending on how well he performed on his quests, Alaric would start to build the reputation of the adventurer Alistair.
His eyes, however, were stuck on a particular quest hung up on the board. It read:
RESOURCE HUNT
Resource required: Storm Orb
Description: Traverse the steep cliffs of the Barren Mountains and collect the Storm Orbs of the Heaven Crested Eagles.
Quest Rating: Gold. This quest requires the presence of at least one Gold-ranked adventurer and two Silver-ranked or two Gold-ranked adventurers.
Alaric read the description and clenched his fist. It was higher than his rank… Way higher, in fact. He was supposed to go out adventuring but the first quest that could allow him this opportunity was two whole ranks above him.
[ Isn’t it interesting? ] Alia spoke out.
[ Isn’t... what interesting? ]
[ That the quest happens to require a gold and two silver-ranked adventurers and that happens to be the exact number of highly-ranked adventurers you’ve met so far ] the guardian responded.
His mind went still…
‘Scarlett is Silver ranked… Sariah is gold-ranked… and Lucy was also awarded the Silver rank,’ he thought to himself.
“Trying to shoot above your station, I see?” a voice interrupted his train of thought.
Alaric turned to see a familiar face towering above him and bowed in respect, “Guild Master Schiller. It’s good to see you. Lovely morning, isn’t it?”
“Stay away from the Gold-ranked quests. I heard about your little stunt in the exam. A slayer without a guardian is just an overconfident fool… Don’t get too smart, kid,” the man warned.