The group of friends kept up with their training. The Professor's life-threatening aura and push were enough that their instincts had taken over and let them use their skills. It almost felt like a dam had broken within them. Skills were coming easier to them now. Day after day, they refined their abilities.

Finally, nearly two weeks after the bout with the Professor, Blossom was the first to project an aura.

"This feels so surreal." Looking down at her hands, the entire group could feel waves of energy coming off of her. The Professor appeared and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Careful. You've successfully tapped into the Aether. You are safe here, in my realm. But when you utilize this technique elsewhere, you will be vulnerable to attack. There is something all of you need to know since you will soon all have managed this much."

The group turned to the Professor and listened.

"Your realms protect you from most of the dangers of the eldritch. However, when you expose yourself in the Aetherian realms, there are more dangers than just the eldritch. Gazing too long and closely, even after all my mental training, at a deity can crush you. Staring into the souls of other mortals can be harrowing as well. You are all here for a good reason. You will return to your homelands at some point, able to see into the Aether. Do so with caution. It is very easy to inflict great harm on yourself if you aren't careful."

They nodded collectively.

"I will be teaching you how to temper your own minds and souls against incursion over the coming weeks. One last thing - not everything you meet in the Aether is going to be hostile. You've read parts of a journal kept by Zymeth. The Echos he speaks of in what you've read are what I now refer to. Echos happen whenever something catastrophic happens to the soul. It shatters a piece of your soul and leaves it in the Aether, where it wanders eternally, waiting to be called back."

Titan raised a hand, after receiving a nod from the Professor, he spoke. "Wouldn't there just be an endless sea of echos? There's been countless lives lost in war."

"No. When the tether to someone's origin is severed, for whatever reason. The echos are collected by the deity in charge of that entity's soul. However, some things have been around for eons. Their souls have had hundreds of thousands of shards dropped into the Aether."

Blossom tilted her head curiously. "Why bring this up specifically?"

"Because. The auras you are all working on will feel familiar to them. A glimpse of mortality found in eternity. Just as the Aether and the eldritch will notice you, so too will these shards. You must be wary just because they are not hostile does not mean they are not dangerous." She motioned to the two deities. "If you were to run into the echos of any of your parents, they could quite easily snuff the life out of you. Your respective realms will not safeguard you against an angry echo. Because the echo isn't seen as a hostile force and cannot directly impact the realm itself."

Trillia pondered for a moment, as did the others. Slowly, she raised a hand. "When an echo happens, what happens to the host?"

The Professor motioned for the group to follow her. As she left the arena, they fell in line behind her. A short walk later, they were in the common room again, and a half dozen books floated into the Professor's waiting hands. She set one in front of each student and left the other two off to the side. "These are just some of the people in your lives who have echos in the Aether. Deities of Knowledge do our best to categorize them when we can. To answer your question, it depends on your system."

The group paused flipping through pages, and looked at her. "Three of you hail from the second axle. Your system is radically different than the one Blossom is used to. In your system, a huge chunk of your levels are put into a stasis of sorts and lost. You don't lose stats or mastered skills. But the penalty for gaining more experience is gone. It's a soft reset. To the point that some mortals who have learned of this have tried to forcibly create an echo to gain more power."

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"And me?" Blossom seemed nervous, perhaps because she was going to be sent off to face the eldritch herself.

"For you, it creates a replica of your energy. Your status won't change, but during life and death situations, echos will often be pulled back into a person. This is why, so often, there are tales of people having heroic levels of strength in their final moments. A Hero's stand, as it were. For the others, their levels and status would drastically improve for a few minutes, leaving them exhausted, crippled, or dead when the echoes were sent back to the Aether. For you, Blossom, it would feel as if there were an equal number of you casting spells in sync."

They each nodded, Tempest motioned to the two books off to the side. "Those?"

The Professor smiled and lifted the first one. "This entire book, is the [1st Axle]'s echos."

The group stared at the book, mouths slightly agape.

"In the first quarter of her life."

Trillia's face twisted up in confusion. "So many? How?"

The Professor ignored her and lifted the second book. "This is a list of all of the deities the [2nd Axle] killed before he ascended to that position. Each represents an echo created of him."

Chills ran down their spines. They all had a loose and vague understanding of the power imbalance an axle held. But to see the difference in a physical form was unnerving. The book Trillia held was seemingly every single mortal echo from Alirast for the life of the realm. It was certainly a thick book but only half the size of either of the axles. It seemed the others were in a similar way.

Titan paused as he flipped through the pages. "Why don't the eldritch go after the echos? Or vice versa?"

"A very good question, Titan. The eldritch can't see echoes. We still aren't entirely sure why. We think it's because they show up as part of a whole, at least as far as the universe is concerned. So the eldritch only sees the origin of an echo, not the echo itself. Likewise, echos see the universe as it was the moment they were created. They perceive things differently. All of you will show up as foreign to them because your origin is there. But the origins of an eldritch could be scattered far and wide."

Tempest nodded as she reasoned it out. "In other words, they are mostly blind to one another. But neither is blind to our presence because we are weak and will have to project most of our actual being into the Aether."

The Professor offered her another nod. "Correct. I am telling you all of this because you need to be very wary of how you approach an echo. They are not mindless beasts. They are every bit as cunning as their origin at the time they were created. I will familiarize you with them as we proceed. For now, keep working on your aura and studying."

The group gave her various nods and sat down to flip through the long list of echoes of their own realm. "Oh, and Blossom."

The woman perked up at the sound of her name. "You will be moving onto a harder stage of training starting next week. I have faith in you." With that, the Professor left them to discuss things amongst themselves.

Trillia ran a finger along the cover of her book. "My mom is in here."

The others paused in their conversations to look over at her. "She's a hero you said, right? You've told us before she is a mighty warrior from your realm."

Trillia nodded as she bit her bottom lip. She had found all of the beast generals. In fact, most of the names in the book seemed to be from people who fought the [Primordials].

"She's in here six times. Six times that her soul has been shattered. Uncle Cordaos has eight entries. I just..." Tears began to well up in her eyes as she opened the book back to the page of their names. "I guess I didn't ever really get how bad things were. How much they sacrificed for the realm."

Tempest placed a hand on her shoulder and spoke somberly. "You will be in that book as well, Trillia. Make no mistake, you are destined to be a hero and save your realm. The very same as Blossom. Take heart in knowing that you will never be forgotten and will forever be etched in the history of your realm."

Trillia squeezed her eyes shut. The weight of her choices rested heavily on her shoulders.

Blossom's whisper barely reached them. "What if I fail? All these heroes and villains. All of these people who sacrificed so much for their beliefs. What if I'm not strong enough to face the eldritch threat? What if they devour my realm?"

Trillia sniffled as she walked over to Blossom and pulled the woman into a tight hug.

The two deities sat to the side, watching them. Titan mumbled something and shook his head. Tempest was happy to voice his complaint louder. "A failing of our duties as deities. That two young mortals are faced with this. I wish we could do more to help the two of you. I really do."

Trillia offered them a bitter chuckle. "Yes. I'm aware there are rules you must follow."

Both winced at her words. Tempest stood and gave them a little bow of the head before she took the book and left.

Blossom was happy to stay in the hug and ponder the fate of her realm. Titan finally stood and patted both of them on the head. "I'm sorry. That we aren't able to bend the rules. I will pray that both of you succeed."

As the two left, Trillia felt a little guilty. She knew they didn't make the rules. She knew they were young compared to their parents and the ones who did make them. It still felt shitty to know that she might lose Blossom because gods weren't allowed to interfere for whatever stupid reason the universe had decided.