Recent reports have confirmed the destruction of factories and industrial facilities in the eighth sector. According to a reliable source, the incurred damage is estimated to be valued at millions of Lutian credits. Despite the successful expulsion of the Sunstonian army from the sector’s capital, significant looting and destruction have occurred, prompting concerns about the potential impact on the kingdom’s economy.
The Vanguard newspaper.
Ragnarok, 2275.
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Aodhán’s consciousness dove back into his core, eagerly observing as he extracted another strand of willpower, but this time he placed it beside a dozen strands of energy. The first and second strands of energy merged into his willpower with ease, and the color of the will strand began to change, turning from a lustrous black hue to a bronze-like sheen.
Mesmerized, he imbued the third strand of energy, and the strand of willpower flashed brighter, turning to a more coppery hue. Aodhán also noticed that its viscosity had reduced, and it felt much more eager to do his bidding, as if the barest intent would set it off.
Excited, he imbued the fourth strand of energy, and this time he felt resistance from the strand of willpower, as if it were full and couldn’t take anymore. Aodhán wanted to stop there, but true power could only be gained by exceeding limits, and this was a limit he wanted to overcome.
With a gentler touch, he imbued the fifth strand of energy. The coppery strand of will resisted, but after a few seconds, it flashed, turning a bright gold color that shone with splendor to his senses, and just as he thought of summoning a bolt of lightning, the golden strand disappeared.
Pain ripped through him as the strand zipped through his pathways, moving at the speed of light, and a spear of jagged lightning, several times thicker than his arms, shot out of his palm without his input, and a massive explosion occurred.
Aodhán was forcefully thrown back, and he smashed against the walls behind him. A din filled his mind as runes appeared all over the room, shining like suns as they tore the skills apart.
His right arm was broken and bleeding, but just as his consciousness began to fade, he summoned one of the rugwort cores into his palm and immediately willed the energy into himself.
Energy surged through his damaged pathways, stinging like needless. Pain ripped through him, but he held on to it. Pain kept him awake, and he needed to stay awake right now.
His consciousness faded in and out as his core filled slowly. He pulled more on the rugwort core, trying to trigger an advancement before his consciousness faded. The core fell limply from his hands a minute later, and energy surged out of his core into his damaged pathways, causing him to scream as the pathways were magically redrawn.
After his pathways healed, the energy surged into his arms and tissue, healing his wounds and filling him with strength. Still, even after the energy returned to his core, Aodhán remained on the floor, gasping in shock at how close he’d come to dying.
He’d been careless and overly arrogant. What would have happened if he hadn’t had the rugwort core? He would have died. Plain and simple. Barely a few months into this world of magic, and he would have died, from his own skills no less.
He remained on the floor for a few more moments, but sat up immediately. The ding of a notification resounded in his mind, and a blinking system message appeared before him.
{ALERT: YOU HAVE MASTERED THE PERFECT WILL IMBUEMENT TECHNIQUE.}
Due to the dangerous nature of this technique, the number of strands you can imbue a skill with has been forcefully restricted to 3. Each tier of advancement will unlock a single strand.
Aodhán read the alert and sighed. It was probably for the best anyway. He dismissed the message and opened his status screen to find a new addition.
….
[STATUS]
Name: Aodhán Ashoka Brystion
Title: Neophyte, Stormborn, Bronze.
Class: Evolved storm awakened: 99.9% (PENDING)
Tier: 16-18%
Bloodline: Nil
Glimpse: increases elemental control by 1%
Techniques: Perfect will imbue (3).
…
He wondered what the difference between techniques and skills was, and although he was sure he knew it, he couldn’t really pinpoint it at the moment. He stood from the wooden floor a moment later and was surprised to see the bloodstains on the floor disappear before his eyes; even his clothes had returned to a pristine condition.
“This self cleaning boon is truly a blessing.” He muttered to himself, but before subjecting himself to another round of meditation, he decided to text Daruk and figure out if he’d found anything.
Daruk replied almost immediately.
—Yes, I found my patron, and her name is Nzinga Al’ Arish, also known as the Frozen Death, and she was the 17th awakened to ascend from Unoros.
—17th? How many ascendants have they produced?
—I’m not sure; the book’s records only date back to 1487, which is about 800 years ago.
—Okay, how many within that time frame?
—32, although Unoros has the lowest number of ascendants. Ragnarok has 43, which is only 5 ascendants higher than that of Calodan.
—What about Sunstone?
—Raol, they’re strong. They’ve had 51 ascendants in the last 750 years. Why are we fighting a war with these people? We should just roll over and hope they go away.
—If only that were possible. What about the other stuff you wanted to research?
—Nothing, not even hints or clues, and it’s frustrating.
Aodhán sighed in relief at Daruk’s response. He wouldn’t stop Daruk from searching for answers, but he hoped he wouldn’t find them, at least not until he was strong enough to at least protect himself.
He dismissed the chat window and returned his attention to his core. After he’d imbued the first strand of molten will, he’d gotten carried away with the power boosts it gave his skills, but that hadn’t been the main reason he’d learned the skill in the first place.
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He wanted to increase his control, and to do so, he needed to increase the number of weaves—or, in his case, energized strands—he could simultaneously create. So, instead of a single strand of will, he started with two and tried to simultaneously imbue each one with a strand of energy.
The process was seamless, barely even taking a second, so he dismissed the energized strands and increased the number of will strands to 4. The process was a little slower as he had to focus on all four strands at once, but it still only took a second.
He increased the number to six and then to eight before he started having troubles. To be fair, he’d started having troubles at six strands as it had taken him about fifteen seconds to get it right, but eight strands was almost impossible for him.
Imbuing each will strand with energy at the same time was giving him a headache, but this was the price he had to pay in order to win the tournament, and he couldn’t give up. He spent hours trying to get it right, and in this manner, time passed. Minutes became hours, and hours blurred into days.
Before long, three days had passed, but his efforts had yielded results, and with a thought, he imbued 12 strands at once. He let out a sigh of relief as he dismissed the strands. His control had increased by leaps and bounds, which only made each subsequent will strand much easier to imbue.
His training with the strands had also helped him tame more will flames, and the amount of tamed will currently floating in his core was so dense that it gave off a sense of heaviness.
His stomach growled, and he slowly got up to his feet. He’d skipped a lot of meals in the past few days, but Daruk had made sure that there was always something for him to eat anytime he crawled out of the training room.
Daruk had also started living in his room, as there was no one in their house yet, but he still spent most of his time in his own training room and had even mastered the perfect imbuement technique. Fortunately for him, he hadn’t gone overboard with the technique, and the system hadn’t been forced to restrict him.
The sun had barely even risen when Aodhán stepped out of the training room. Daruk was sprawled on his bed, and Aodhán sighed when he found small amounts of frost and frozen moisture scattered around his sheets.
“We have got to get this bloodline under control.” Aodhán muttered before stepping into the bathroom to freshen up. He intended to sleep the day away, but he needed to eat something first. After a short shower, he changed into the second pair of black pants but kept his t-shirt on.
Immediately, he stepped into the living room. He rushed towards a foil wrapped tray on the kitchen cabinet and opened it to reveal a stack of cold sandwiches, and he dug into it with vigor.
He was eating the last sandwich when the front door suddenly cracked open, and a boy dressed in ripped black jeans and a leather jacket walked into the living room. A bulging duffel bag hung from his broad shoulders, and he took in the room with a sneer and an expression of distaste.
The boy was beautiful in the way evolved beings usually were, but something about him evoked a predatory feeling. The boy had an unseemly appearance and looked more like a thug than a student. His eyes swept past Aodhán without acknowledgement, and the next moment, he flashed across the room and made his way into 14-B.
“And then there were three.” Aodhán muttered as he finished his breakfast, after which he returned to his room. Daruk was still asleep, so he took the couch and, before long, was snoring peacefully.
….
It was a few hours past noon when Aodhán awoke, and he groaned as his body ached with every movement. Slowly, he sat up and massaged his stiff neck to enable blood flow. He sat there for a while, drowsily staring at the gray walls, before making his way to the bathroom for a shower.
A quarter hour later, he was dressed in gray jean pants and a white t-shirt. He was in no mood to cultivate or meditate; in fact, he was in no mood for any sort of training, but he couldn’t just sit idly, so after a few minutes of contemplation, he decided to go to the library.
There were many things he was still clueless about, and the academy’s library was sure to offer a broader range of knowledge. After a few more arrangements, he made his way out of the room and climbed down the stairs.
Immediately he arrived in the living room, he found the new boy seated on a couch with muddy boots propped up on the center table. The boy raised an eyebrow in an impudent manner, as if challenging him to make a comment, but Aodhán had learned from his time as a coordinator in the monastery and simply ignored the matter.
Imani will deal with it. He thought to himself as he walked towards the front door, but the moment he clasped the handle, the boy spoke.
“You’re not a noble.” It was more like he spat the words, as if they left a sour taste on his lips.
“No, I’m not.” Aodhán replied, hoping to quickly end the conversation, but the boy stood to his feet, glaring at him as he walked closer.
“Yet you think you’re somehow better than us commoners.” The boy scowled. “I saw you at the rift station, you know, with your noble friends, cuddling up to them like a lost puppy.”
Aodhán didn’t bother correcting the boy’s misguided assumption about Daruk; however, something else needed to be corrected, and he fixed the boy with a threatening glare as anger coursed through him and arcs of lightning crackled around his fingers.
“I do not cuddle.” Aodhán growled, and in a lower tone, he added. “It would be wise for you to step out of my personal space.”
The boy glared at him for a moment before taking a single step back. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Aodhán had learned from the monastery that violence was the only language boys like this understood. Back then, he didn’t have the abilities he had now, so he’d resorted to using his fist once or twice, even though he’d hated it.
Without another word, he stepped out of the room, and with the map function of the academy chip, he made his way to the library.
The library was a tower-like structure located at the center of the academy. It occupied a space roughly 240 feet in diameter and was made of polished white stone covered in glowing black runes. A large wooden door stood at its entrance, as did a man dressed in the same uniform as the guard in the residential quadrant.
He presented his ID, which was scanned for a moment before he was allowed in. The moment he stepped into the library, though, the gentle scent of aged paper and pungent ink filled his nostrils, instantly easing his tension and lingering anger.
The library had about six floors, but they were restricted except for the bottom floor, which stretched out like a labyrinth filled with rows and columns of shelves, their antique woods holding a countless number of books and scrolls.
Light filtered in through stained glass windows, casting colorful patterns across the polished marble floors. Surprisingly, there were a few people moving around, searching and browsing the shelves for one book or another.
Most of them didn’t look like first-year students, but Aodhán still recognized a few people from the rift station walking around. He turned toward the librarian’s desk located at the center of the floor.
The librarian was a slightly old woman with graying hair and an advanced class. Her eyes were as sharp as an eagle, and even though she was only half his height, she had an aura that made sure no one took her for granted. As he walked towards her, she fixed those piercing eyes on him.
“How can I help you, young man?” She asked as she neatly arranged a stack of files on her desk before placing a huge stamp on them.
“I’m looking for a book on the ascendants; I want to read them for literary purposes.”
“Well, almost everything we have on ascendants is on the 6th row by my right.”
“Thank you.” Aodhán replied before turning to leave. It didn’t take him long to locate the 6th row of shelves, and he browsed through it to find books on the life histories of all the Ascendants from Ragnarok. There were other less factual books, and Aodhán chuckled at the thought of reading a fantasy novel while living a fantasy.
He spent a few minutes browsing before he found what he was looking for: The Biography of the Catastrophe, by Az’marthon Ranok.
Aodhán pulled the book out slowly before turning it to stare at the image of a man he was well familiar with. The picture must have been taken in his younger years, because even though his hair was still as white as snow, his expression was friendlier, less indifferent, and less mass-murder.
He took the book to a reading table near the window and sat down. For a while now, he’d begun craving more information about his patron, but now that he had an entire biography in his hands, he hesitated, scared of what he might find or confirm.
Az had claimed to be a simple soldier, and although he hadn’t seemed to take joy in the destruction of an entire sector, he’d done it too perfectly. In a manner that spoke of experience and efficiency.
He’d reaped the lives of thousands like it was routine, and since Aodhán had inherited the man’s legacy, he needed to know what he had gotten himself into.
“Are you going to read that or stare at it all day?”
Aodhán turned to see a short girl with silvery-white hair standing beside him, and he smiled when he recognized her. She was the last person to make it into the top hundred.
“Hi, I’m Aodhán.”
“Lupin Cavanaugh.” The girl replied as she accepted his extended hands and gestured to the person opposite him. “Do you mind if I join you?”
“No, not at all.” He replied, and the girl moved to sit opposite him. He glanced at the book she was reading and chuckled to see that it was a fantasy novel, which brought back his earlier thoughts about fantasy books in a fantastical world.
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those who think novels are stupid.” Lupin asked with an amused expression, and Aodhán shook his head.
“Not at all; I just thought of something funny.”
“Good.” She replied, her eyes flicking back and forth between him and the book. “Because your choice of reading material isn’t any better; I mean, that guy is a psychopath.”
“Who? Az’marthon ?”
“Yeah, duhh. Some people refer to him as The Slaughterer, but I think The Catastrophe is more appropriate. Real mental case that one.”
She turned back to her novel after that, and Aodhán turned to look at the smiling image of his patron on the book cover. Just how insane had Az been to earn a name like the slaughterer.