The group sat by a campfire having a feast on a variety of food all glazed with generously spread golden honey, seeing as only Riley would be able to carry anything substantial through the teleportation the guys even used the golden honey for drinking. The group was happily indulging in the mood while Aurelius and Jacob shared their experience on Crystalisation with the other two.

Jacob grew more somber as time passed despite having a full stomach and filled with satisfaction over his progress the past week and he was happy to start looking for his best friends. He felt gloomy that he had to separate from his new friends, Riley and Brian saw Jacob growing more sullen as time goes by and only Aurelius was speaking about his experience with crystalising his core. The two looked at each other for a few moments before they both nodded at each other, they excused themselves from the lecture held by Jacob and Aurelius.

Jacob did not sense anything as he was still wallowing in his sadness while Aurelius did not seem to mind at all. Giving Brian and Riley a short wave as they left the vicinity of the campfire, except for the cackling of the firewood silence reigns supreme in the kobold outpost.

An unknown amount of time passed for Jacob before he was called to attention by someone using his name, Jacob looked up amidst his contemplation and saw Brian and Riley holding up a wooden bracelet with a blue gem embedded. The bracelet was made with wood from what Jacob could see however it held blue streaks spiraling throughout the entire length of the bracelet, instead of metallic chains it had two sleek and thin wooden length each ending with an awkwardly made fasterner of sorts. The two lengths of wood were attached to a rather crudely carved jewel holder in the middle holding a glistening blue gem. Before Jacob could ask what was happening both Brian and Riley spoke in unison.

“This a thank you gift for saving us twice over the last few days, we had Aurelius teach us his woodworking skills over the days.” Riley continued and said.

“I know it doesn’t look like much but we wanted to give you something before the System separates us after today.”

Jacob slowly got up from where he stood and walked a few steps and took the wooden bracelet from Riley and Brian. His eyes felt heated as tears started to form due to how intense he was feeling, Jacob could hear his heart pounding louder than ever and his nose felt slightly itchy too. He held the wooden bracelet in his hand as he stepped forward and hugged both Riley and Brian. Jacob did not expect much from the group initially, especially when Brian was acting super arrogant at the start. Riley was somehow sleeping through what was the biggest thing that happened to humanity, Aurelius was still a mystery to Jacob as his actions had no rhyme or reason. The two fiends surfaced in his memories again causing Jacob to tense for a moment.

“It’s just a small thing, and it’s not like we are not gonna meet up again right?” Brian spoke up amidst the group hug initiated by Jacob.

“I will look for you guys as soon as I am able. *sniffles* Stay alive until then and hopefully you guys will be able to reunite with your family as soon as possible.” Jacob replied while he was still overwhelmed by the myriad of emotions he was feeling. When Jacob let go of Riley and Brian, one could see small wet patches on Riley’s shoulder and Brian’s arm. Jacob’s face had a few small tears still rolling down which he quickly wiped off with his vambrace.

“Thank you guys for the gift, I will keep this masterpiece by the three of you properly.” Jacob gave a solemn promise to the rest of the group.

“I only taught them some basic woodworking, nothing that important to include me as thanks.”

“His speaking nonsense, he actually made the blue streaks that spirals throughout the bracelet.” Riley quickly chimed in after Aurelius finished speaking.

“Well Aurelius, I still don’t know why you attacked me out of nowhere and clearly let me live. But thank you for helping me and the rest throughout the tutorial. Our time together might be little but I’m sure we will all survive the merging and maybe...even thrive.” Aurelius gave a small smile before he pointed at Brian and Riley while he replied.

“We still have about 12 hours before the tutorial here ends. Would the two of you want to go through the Crystalisation now instead? With the help of me and Jacob, it should be a breeze to finish it before the time runs out.” Aurelius suggestion made both Brian and Riley eyes lit up, Jacob in turn had a question.

“How do we go about helping them with the crystalisation? During my process, I had more trouble with imagery at the start.”

“I did not have the time to help you previously due to the golden lizard and its knights, but we can help them break their core immediately while they hold the image in their mind. There would be some pain involved but it would accelerate the process, compared to allowing them to explore the process themselves. If they want to achieve the crystalisation before the end of the tutorial that is.”

Jacob took a look at Brian and Riley, they both clearly want to go through the process regardless of the pain involved. But he decided to confirm with them nonetheless.

“Are the both of you still interested in crystalisation despite the pain involved?”

“I got hit by that restoration slime thing and much worse throughout my career, I can handle pain.” Brian replied.

“I’m not too enthused about the pain, but I know it will prevent more pain in the future if I got stronger now.” Riley replied.

“Alright since the both of you are fine with it, I’ll try my best to help.” Jacob clipped the bracelet made by Brian, Riley and Aurelius onto his left hand. Despite the rough worksmanship, the wood did not feel prickly to his skin at all, it felt snug to the touch and the blue gem looked very pretty in Jacob’s eyes.

The group sat down again with Jacob facing the broad back of Brian and Aurelius facing Riley’s slender back. Aurelius explained to Jacob how the process would go and it sounded very violent to Jacob, if it was a normal person and one of their internal organ was forcefully exploded they might just die within that single moment of explosion. So Jacob would have to contain the essence after he forcefully exploded the core giving the person he was helping the entirety of their own essence to work with for crystalisation.

It was agreed that Riley’s core being situated inside her brain would require a more delicate hand than Jacob was capable of. Hence, Aurelius would be responsible for containing and destroying Riley’s core and Jacob would do the same for Brian.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Jacob took a deep breath before he started drawing out his essence from his own core and exerting it outwards and into Brian. Jacob sensed slight resistance from his essence travelling into the back of Brian as if there was a membrane of sorts blocking it. He was able to inject Riley with Blessing before so he did not know why this would be any difference, but he decided to mold the essence currently being blocked by the thin membrane into thin stripes similar to what he would have to do with Blessing. His essence managed to slip pass the resistance and entered into Brian’s back easily and into his chest. This small change gave Jacob a small sense of wonderment and a new appreciation for what essence could do with just a simple change.

It felt weird winding through a body that was not his own using essence, although the distance traveled was rather short given that Brian formed his core in the middle of his chest. Giving Jacob an easier time, as he finally poked a hard object with part of his essence. Revealing a pure white orb of essence to Jacob’s sense, while the orb looked to be smaller than Jacob it still contained a considerable amount given that Brian did not fight any boss-level monsters at all.

“Brian, I’hv reached your core. Hope you’re prepared for the pain coming your way, I will begin breaking you core soon.” Jacob gave Brian a simple warning before he started pouring more essence out from his core into thin stripes and willing them to enter Brian’s body and started forming around his core. Jacob’s green-blue essence formed a sphere around Brian’s pure white core, it looked like the aurora borealis containing a small sun. It looked mesmerising to Jacob’s senses but he had something he needed to do and it was time to get started. He started giving Brian a countdown so he could expect when to brace.

Jacob began closing his essence around Brian’s core. He readied a miniature sword that looked like Flowing Water within his own sphere aiming it right at Brian’s core. Jacob intended to pierce the core in one blow so he drew out even more essence from himself and willed it to flow into Brian to sharpen the sword. When the miniature blue green sword was giving off a wicked shine, the countdown Jacob was giving reached 1.

He immediately willed the blue green sword to plunge forward and into Brian’s core, there was a short moment when the core resisted the sword but the resistance did not amount to much as the sword broke through as easily as cutting paper with a real sword. As the sword bit into the core, Jacob willed the sword to slide down to open up the core even more. A wave of explosion rocked forth from Brian’s core forcing Jacob to abandon the idea.

Brian let out a primal growl when his core exploded, Jacob could not see Brian’s expression but he did not have the available bandwidth to worry about Brian’s feelings as the wave was rocking the sphere of blue and green he put up. He quickly dissipated the miniature sword into pure essence and tried to reinforce the sphere of blue and green. Jacob felt the battering from a second wave of explosion from Brian’s core, but with the additional essence from the sword. Jacob was able to hold against the wave, he braced his essence for the third wave but it did not arrive.

What was happening instead was the essence staying afloat within his sphere like a directionless cloud, Jacob took a brief look at Brian to see sweat rolling down his head but his breathing was even. Giving Jacob a sense of assurance, so Jacob expanded his sphere of essence a little as he saw the pure white cloud of essence starting to take a proper shape.

While he wanted to keep his essence within Brian to see what is the chosen shape for his crystalised core, what he wanted more was to give Brian his privacy. So Jacob waited for a few moment to make sure no more waves were coming forth from the innocent looking cloud of white essence. He quickly withdrew his remaining essence out from Brian’s body and brought it back to his own. He filled up his own crystalised core and let the remaining essence dissipate into the air.

He got up and left Brian to his crystalisation, he saw Riley was also alone and in much better shape compared to Brian. No sheen of sweat, not even a furrowed eyebrow could be seen on her, he looked around for Aurelius and saw him sitting by the fire looking rather wistful. Jacob went over to sit beside Aurelius as he intended to ask him some questions.

When he sat down his tunic stuck to his skin, only then did he realise that he was sweating too and quickly wiped off any remaining sweat that he felt.

“To start off, I tested a few others before you. None of them managed to evade my first strike, it was after getting the Job.” Jacob’s face turned to one of shock as he did not even speak yet, he started questioning if Aurelius was a mind reader.

“No, I am not a mind reader. You have been keeping that question in your mind ever since the fight with Angelus Gigantis that was all. I cannot answer the rest of your questions unfortunately. Lets go and get some food for the two still crystalising their core.”

Jacob resigned himself to unanswered questions as Aurelius stood up and left for the exit back to the verdant green forest with it sweltering heat. He got up on his feet and went to retrieve Flowing Water from where he last laid it down. He looked at both Riley and Brian a little worried about their crystalisation process but it was up to them now, he wished them good luck and followed Aurelius to the exit.

Jacob and Aurelius sat by the fire cooking up their spoils since there was no storage ring, Jacob and Aurelius had to carry the corpses manually through the winding cave tunnels. Nearby Brian and Riley were still sitting down as still as a corpse, even the sweet smell of the roasting meat did not distract them from their core crystalisation process. Jacob brought out the second last jar of his own golden honey that he took from his house for the day. He used a wooden spoon to scoop up some of the golden honey and slather it on top of his assorted meat, he started eating his plate of meat savouring each and every last morsel of it seeing that this might be the last time he would be eating such delicious meat.

Not long after Aurelius and Jacob finished their portion of food, Jacob saw Aurelius looking towards where Riley was sitting, she stood up and flashed a bright smile at Jacob and Aurelius. In Jacob’s eyes it seemed like Riley seemed more welcoming then before. Jacob took a quick look at the remaining timer for the tutorial, It would seem that Riley finished crystalising with 2 more hour to spare before the end of the tutorial. Making Jacob worry about Brian’s time and what might happen if he was not able to finish the process in time.

Riley greeted the two warmly before she sat down beside Jacob and started wolfing down on her food, only after she finished two whole plates of meat did she stop eating. Jacob was watching Riley finished the two plates with a gaping jaw. Aurelius kept his smile up while he looked at Riley.

“How are you feeling Riley? Did you managed to obtain a ranking?” Jacob asked

“I’m feeling great! Actually...I wanted to eat more but I think Brian would be hungry too. I did get a ranking but it wasn’t in the 9000s anymore. I was number 12371 from what the System said.”

“It’s still rather surprising, there were at least 10 billions humans on Earth when we were transported by the System. Even if we were transported to other different worlds, only 12000s people who crystalised amongst the billions and billions of other races seemed quite little.” Jacob voiced out his thoughts.

“It should be considered a rather rare phenomenon especially in the tutorial and information had been rather limited since entering, given how we received different information from two different sources.” Aurelius added while Riley produced one of the jar of golden honey she had and started to eat the honey with a wooden spoon. Which sprouted a thought from Jacob.

“Hey Riley, I have one final jar of golden honey left. Let me keep it with you and if we ever meet again you can pass it back to me.” Riley stopped her eating motion mid-swing for a moment before she answered.

“If I’m not stuck on a desert with nothing to eat, I will keep it safe for you until the day we meet again.” She said and resumed eating.

“Great, I will bring it over now.” Jacob replied with glee and quickly ran to retrieve the pot of golden honey for Riley to safekeep. He took a small stone shard near the his jar and carved his name on the jar of golden honey. He brought the jar to Riley and presented the side with his name on it. Eliciting a small laugh from her before she swept her hand over the jar making it disappear into the storage ring. Silence ensued as the group waited for Brian to finish his crystalisation, the wait lasted for an hour and thirty minutes.

Aurelius once again looked right at Brian, before Brian started to stand up from his position.

“Hurry over Brian, we only have 20 minutes or so left before the System separates us.” Riley waved Brian over while she held a plate of uneaten meat.

“I took that long huh, thanks for waiting you all. I’m feeling really hungry too, thank you Riley.” Brian took the plate from Riley when he arrived by the campfire and took a seat too and got to eating. The group talked about what they would do after they were teleported into the new world for the remaining 20 minutes. Before the timer reached one minute, everyone came in together for a group hug even Aurelius joined in too. They held the hug for as long as the System allowed although Aurelius grip was already quite loose when the vibrations came in once again.

Jacob both welcomed and dreaded the teleportation, he had no warning when the first teleportation into the tutorial happened. He could have been drinking tea still and playing games back at the wooden table with his best friends, but he got teleported to a worn down temple almost got eaten by a giant tiger. Killed a living, breathing and thinking race, while he enjoyed doing things he never thought was capable. Jacob still feared the joy he felt when he was killing those floaters, it did not feel like himself at all and he would have to kill a lot more before he would see even a glimpse of his best friends and the new friends he had made.

While those thoughts churned inside his mind, the vibrations started intensifying and the squeeze he felt previously did not affect him as much. He held on tight to Flowing Water and said goodbye once again to Aurelius, Riley and Brian in his mind as he and the rest winked out of existence in the kobold outpost.