The cafeteria was noisy with the sounds of chattering inmates as Owen and Grace wandered into the hall. As they made their way towards the food vendor, they were greeted by the smiling faces of many of the inmates as they passed by. Owen and Grace smiled back at them. With the daily training going on, they had made a positive impression with most of the lower floor inmates.

As they lined up, Will came from the front of the line carrying a tray of food. He smiled as he saw them and came up to them.

"Hello! Are we going to start sparring later today?"

Owen nodded his head. "Yeah. I would have liked if we could have just focused on consuming aether pills, but we should really start dividing our time between that and training."

"But it's still astonishing how much progress we have made," Grace said, "it would have taken someone normally years to accomplish what we have so far."

"But still, I worry about us. The competition is just in two weeks, yet we’re still not intermediate essence users."

"Don’t worry," Will said cheerfully. "We still have time."

Owen looked at him and smiled. "You’re right. Let’s just do the most that we can with the time that we have left."

"Will!" A voice yelled out from the side.

The trio turned their heads to look at the person that shouted out his name. A young teen with loose black curls, came running up to Will with a grin. Owen recognized him; he was the kid Owen had faced in the gauntlet with the leaf essence ability.

"Lucas, what is it?"

"Dude! You’ve got to see this. Liz is trying to stuff twenty sandwiches at once in her mouth. Come I’ll show you." Lucas grabbed his arm and started dragging him away.

"Wait!" Will said in protest, but Lucas kept on moving. Will turned around and waved with an arm towards Owen and Grace. "I’ll see ya later!"

And then he was gone. Grace turned to Owen and raised an eyebrow.

"Looks like he has got some friends now," she folded her arms and smiled. "Good for him."

Owen nodded and smiled too. Then he turned to move forward in line. "Let’s hurry and grab some food."

After they had gotten their trays, they went and walked towards the left side of the hall and found the usual spot where they ate at. The table they had stopped at was already occupied by a few people.

Isaac, along with Jason and Hannah were there. And a new person was seated alongside with them. Seated across from the three, a woman with blonde hair that was tucked behind her ears was happily chatting with the trio. Her eyes looked up when she noticed them, and she smiled.

"Please, come and sit." She said while she pointed to the empty seats next to her.

Owen and Grace did just that and moved to sit down. Isaac and the others nodded their heads once they were seated.

"Do you remember me?" The woman asked.

Owen frowned. "How could I not? Your essence ability was the thing I had the most trouble against during the gauntlet."

The woman was Joyce Alford, and she was the one with the mind essence ability that switched each body parts senses with one another. Owen wondered why she was sitting here with them.

Joyce smiled. "I’m glad that you do. Well, how is my ability affecting you these days? Are you having trouble moving your body?"

Owen shook his head. "Nah, I’ve gotten used to it by now," his eyes widened like he had forgotten something. "Though I did have trouble using the toilet for a few days after the gauntlet. I was constipated for a while because I couldn’t figure out what muscles would open up my-"

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Dude, Owen." Isaac said while he looked at him with disgust. "Not while we’re eating."

"What? She was the one that wanted to know."

Owen turned back to look at Joyce. "Anyway now that you’re here, I wanted to know what your insignia ability is. You hadn’t used it during our fight."

Joyce leaned on the table with her hand on her jaw. "I’d rather not say. It’s quite embarrassing."

"Eh? Alright then. But you can at least tell me who taught you how to fight, right? You were strong."

A smirk formed on her lips. "I’m mostly self-taught. I learned through watching fights on the cybernet."

Gasps escaped the lips from the rest of the group at the table.

"Seriously?" Hannah asked her as she put down her fork.

Joyce nodded. "Yes. I was on the run for most of my life, so I needed to learn how to defend myself."

"And you became this good just by watching videos? Wow," Owen said, "I don’t think I could have learnt how to fight by doing that. The way I learned was by going around the city at night and fighting with gangs."

Isaac was about to put a spoon in his mouth but halted and stared at Owen in disbelief. "The hell, you did that? I thought you were taught by your dad."

"I was, but I couldn’t become a good fighter without a shit-ton of experience. So me and my sister would sneak out at night, and go around challenging guys to fights."

"Who does that?" Asked Grace. "How old were you guys when you started doing that?"

"Well we started around the time we awakened our essences, so maybe when I was twelve and my sister thirteen?"

Grace shook her head and returned to pick at her food. "You’re crazy."

Jason raised up an eyebrow. "Is your sister as strong as you?"

Owen looked at him and then frowned. He held up a hand in front of him and pinched his fingers together.

"She’s only a little better at me in a straight fist fight," he then crossed his arms and smiled subtly. "But now that I’m close to becoming an intermediate essence user, I’ll brag about it in her face once I free her."

As Owen continued smiling, the rest of the table went quiet. He noticed this and looked around the table.

"Hey, what are you guys going to do once you’re free?"

First, no one spoke. They looked away, or down at their food. But from the side of him, Grace began to speak.

"I haven’t seen my dad since I was little, so I don’t really remember much about him. But what I do remember was that he was really into hover bikes. One night, he took me on a cruise on one of his bikes,"

Grace held up her hand and waved it across her. Her eyes glossed over, as if she was reliving a memory. "We flew over the city, and watched the neon lights of the distant buildings sparkle down below. It’s a memory I’ll never forget."

She then turned to look at Owen. "Once we’re free, I’ll go on another ride with him. "

Owen smiled and nodded. He then turned to look across the table. Jason and Hannah weren’t looking at him. Isaac however, was staring right at him.

"I… my parents, they are some pretty influential people in this realm. Once my insignia mark came, they already knew what it was and reported me to the Arden officials."

Owen widened his eyes in shock. Isaac carried on talking.

"Because I was reported, my parents were offered a deal in which they could avoid imprisonment for my capture. So that’s what they did."

Owen clenched his fist. "That’s a shitty thing to do."

"Yes… but they did what they thought was right," Isaac’s hand trembled slightly. He sighed heavily. "Owen, if I try to escape with you guys, my family will probably be captured in retaliation. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you."

Owen sat there, looking at Isaac for a moment. He opened his mouth a few times, wondering what to say. Then, he found his voice.

"It’s alright, I understand. But if you ever feel like you want to escape, don’t hesitate to tell us, we’ll help you out."

Grace nodded along with those words.

Isaac smiled sadly. "Alright. Thank you."

From the side, Joyce looked at Owen. "I can see why you’d have the potential for embodiment."

Owen turned to her and raised his eyebrow. "What?"

"Your personal believe is strong. You truly believe you can free yourself, which in turn makes your insignia more powerful."

Owen was confused by her words. Isaac and Jason though had widened their eyes.

"Seriously?" Isaac asked. "I’ve heard about embodiment, but I didn’t think any one of us was capable of doing it."

Owen looked around at them. "What’s embodiment?"

"Ah right, I guess most people wouldn’t know about it," Joyce said. "Embodiment is a special form in which only the most unhinged insignia users can go into. To use embodiment, one has to literally embody and become their concept."

"It’s a form?"

"Yes. It’s a form that drastically increases ones power and gives you additional abilities," Joyce put her hands together. "For the competition I’m guessing they are going to be pitting you against their strongest floor ten inmate. That girl you’ll be facing, she has achieved embodiment."

Owen put a hand to his chin. "Is it really something that strong to be worried about it?"

Joyce frowned. "Saying it’s only strong would be an understatement. It’s such a powerful ability that I think even you wouldn’t even be able to win without entering that form."

"Then, I’ll just do that then. How do I achieve embodiment?"

"If it were such an easy thing to do then anyone could do it. I’d suggest you worry about ranking up first, you wouldn’t want to be fighting a floor ten inmate while still being a novice essence user."

Grace nodded. "She’s right. Let’s think about embodiment later."

"Alright," Owen said. He turned back to his food and picked at it. "Embodiment, huh."