by Aaron Oster
Small patches of white snow littered the earth, with the green grass still poking through in places. The lush trees had disappeared, replaced instead by a type of tree that Roy had never seen before. Their leaves were long and thin, gathered in clumps that prickled at him when he touched them.
They also grew in a strange, conical shape, flaring wider at the bottom and narrowing near the top. It was nothing like the ordinary trees he’d seen recently, which had thick trunks on the bottom before spreading out in a leafy canopy overhead, nor were they like the bamboo shoots from back home.
Additionally, these trees didn’t seem bothered by the snow at all, growing tall and remaining green despite the cold weather. The grass was much the same. Even as they finally entered into an open forest, with snow blanketing the ground in several places, everything remained green.
Roy breathed in as thunder rumbled once again, taking in the odd-smelling air. It wasn’t unpleasant. It smelled of plants and tree sap, though it was a type of sap that Roy had never smelled before. A similar scent came from the branches on the fire, and they burned far slower than other wood he’d used in the past.
This place was thick with both Darkness and Water Essence, though with the thunder rumbling and the occasional flash of lightning, Roy could feel some Power Essence beginning to form. There was also no shortage of Wind Essence either, the green lines flowing faster and faster as the storm picked up in intensity.
He was listening to the storm so intently that he jumped when Aika spoke.
“You might want to get the rice off the fire. Otherwise, we’ll have a very crunchy dinner.”
Roy moved quickly, pulling the pot from the flames and covering it with the small lid before setting it to the side. Only once he’d done that did he turn to face Aika. Her face was grim — she’d been unhappy since the moment they’d entered into this place — and Roy could well understand why.
“How are you holding up?” he asked, hoping he wasn’t being too pushy.
“As well as can be expected,” Aika said tersely.
Her expression softened then, and she let out a long sigh.
“I guess I’m not as okay as I thought. Coming here to find Doragon, not to kill him, but to save him, has me all twisted up inside. I don’t like the idea of giving aid to the man who betrayed and murdered my father.”
Roy, of course, knew that better than anyone. He’d heard Aika’s story before and knew how the man had managed to give her the slip after they’d captured him. She put her personal vendetta aside so that the two of them could go to the Waterwood and find the answers Roy had been looking for, having been promised answers of her own.
Only for her, there seemed to be more questions added than answers. The knowledge that the man who’d killed her father was also Roy’s uncle and that the vengeance she’d been after for so long might not even be possible to carry out weighed on her heavily.
“You don’t have to come with me, you know,” Roy said. “I can track him down on my own.”
“Not a chance,” Aika said, picking up a stick and poking at the fire. “I won’t leave you to face that monster alone.”
It warmed Roy to know that she wouldn’t leave him, but it also worried him to see the normally chipper and level-headed Aika so twisted up in knots.
“Do you want to talk about it with me?” Roy asked, watching the downcast girl.
The way her mouth was set in a hard line didn’t bother him nearly as much as the look of sorrow in her eyes.
“I don’t think there’s much to talk about anymore,” she said, still poking at the fire. “I’ve already spoken at length about what my feelings are toward that man. I’m just going to have to get over it.”
“Maybe he’ll be able to explain better himself once we find him?” Roy asked. “After all, it’s the not knowing why he did what he did that’s bothering you, right?”
Aika flinched as though she’d been struck, but after a few seconds, she nodded.
“It’s the worst feeling in the world. He was my father’s best friend, my grandfather’s brightest student. I just don’t understand why he would do something so horrible!”
Thunder rumbled outside then, and the wind picked up, gusting into their shallow cave and sprinkling the two of them in freezing mist. The fire flickered and wavered, the flames dancing back away from the wind. It subsided after just a few seconds, the fire returning to normal.
Roy shivered. He wasn’t exactly cold. Cold didn’t seem to have as much effect on him as it once had. Uncomfortable was probably the correct term. The feeling of the freezing mist washing over him was akin to the feeling of ants crawling on his skin. Not painful, just uncomfortable.
“Here,” Aika said, holding out a thin blanket.
Roy took it gratefully, wrapping it around his shoulders.
He would need to change into heavier robes before they went to sleep, or the entire night would be uncomfortable.
“I think the food’s ready,” Roy said, looking back to the pot. “What do you say we eat and then have an early night?”
“I like the sound of that,” Aika said, looking back to the pot as well.
So that was what they did. The food was plain but filling, the two of them eating in silence, listening to the storm raging just outside the cave. Occasionally, a gust of wind would shower them with misty droplets, but now that they were both draped in blankets, it didn’t bother them. The hot food warmed Roy from the inside and made him feel a bit better about the day, and by the time they were done, he felt a little more relaxed.
“I think I’ll be turning in for the night,” Aika said, placing her empty bowl on the ground before scooting back and away from the fire until her back was pressed up against the far side of the cave.
Back there, even the wind shouldn’t be able to reach her. The only reason they had been sitting so close to the mouth before was because of the fire they’d lit there.
“Take some of these with you,” Roy said, poking a pair of sticks into the fire and rolling several stones that he’d placed there earlier, onto the ground.
Having a fire deeper in the cave would cause a lot of uncomfortable smoke build-up, even with an open front. Heating rocks in the fire was an efficient way to keep warm while avoiding the smoke.
Aika gave him a grateful smile as he pushed them over but didn’t say anything else. She unrolled her sleeping mat and crawled inside, turning her back to the fire and going still a few moments later.
Roy sighed, picking up the stick she’d been using and began poking at the fire himself.
“What do you think of all this?” he asked Geon.
“About all of what?” the Core asked.
“Everything I told you on the way here,” Roy replied. “About my mother and everything she said.”
“You can clearly sense the power of that thing, so it’s obviously true,” Geon said. “I think killing it would be a great idea. It’ll make me much stronger.”
Despite their advancement to Red, Geon still seemed to be as bloodthirsty as ever.
“I meant about meeting Doragon,” Roy said.
“I guess we can kill him too,” Geon replied with a mental shrug. “Hey, now that you’re a Beast, are you going to start eating Cores? Because if you do, I would like to know.”
“I didn’t just suddenly become part Beast,” Roy sighed, already regretting starting up this conversation. “So, no, I won’t start eating Cores.”
Thinking about how Beasts absorbed Essence made him immediately think of Ferry and the way she used to lie next to him, gnawing on Darkness Cores with her eyes half-closed. He could still sense her now, distantly, through the bond she shared with Geon. She had, after all, once been the Guardian of his Dungeon.
“You should consider starting to eat Cores,” Geon said. “It’s a much more efficient way of absorbing Essence.”
“Speaking of ways to absorb Essence,” Roy said, leaning to the side and reaching into their pack.
“What
about ways of absorbing Essence?” Geon asked as Roy removed the ancient scroll given to him by Azure.
“I’m thinking that with my new advancement, some new part of the scroll might show itself to me,” he said, pulling on the string and unrolling the parchment.
Sure enough, he seemed to be correct. There, where the previous cycling technique had been the last time he’d looked, lay a completely different one. Well, not completely different, but different enough that it looked new.
He heard Geon prattling in his mind about one thing or another, but he ignored him in favor of studying the new technique. The breathing pattern of cycling was different. There were no more half-breaths and the like. Now, it was six deep breaths for a total of six seconds, followed by a seventh for ten. The cycle repeated itself over and over, with the change in power happening at the seventh second each time.
The flower pattern over his Core looked like it needed additional adjustments, meaning more pain and discomfort. Roy would have loved to keep studying this new technique all night but decided that it was probably best to get some sleep. But if there were one thing he could do before going to sleep, it would be to burn those new channels into place.
It would have to be done with Chakra, as specified by the scroll, but seeing as he still had a bit from his advancement, he wouldn’t need to forge any of the new energy tonight. Closing his eyes, Roy curled his legs in, placing his fists together and starting to breathe in the way of the new cycling technique.
The Chakra responded far less sluggishly than he’d expected, the syrup-like energy flowing up and out of his Core and into the flower patterns he’d formed for cycling and refining. The energy twisted through the channels quickly, and when it reached the turning point, Roy braced himself.
The pain as the Chakra left his channels and burned into his body wasn’t nearly as intense as his advancement, but that didn’t mean it felt good by any means. Roy ground his teeth together, sweat beading on his brows, as he began the wide loop around his newly enlarged Core. The original pattern had stretched along with it, encompassing the width of the entire thing, but these new channels would take far more work to create than the old ones.
It was all Roy could do to keep his breathing in a steady rhythm as the golden Power burned through him. First, it traveled in a single, wide loop around the entire pattern, then in a series of waves, crossing over the first loop nearly a dozen times. Finally, he had to cross it again, placing the new channels where the two met, only on steeper and sharper angles. The new channels ended up looking more like a ball with spikes and waves running in and out than an actual flower, and by the time he was done, Roy had nearly depleted all of his Chakra.
As far as he was concerned, he was running on almost no power at this point, not having had the time to replenish his Core since the test. But, when he finally opened his eyes nearly two hours later, sweating and panting as his body adjusted to the newly formed channels, cultivating was the very last thing he wanted to do.
With a groan, he simply lay down where he sat, pulling the thin blanket over his shoulders and closing his eyes. He had done enough for one day. The rest could be taken care of by the Roy of tomorrow.
13
“Curse you, past Roy,” Roy groaned as he clutched at his center, taking shallow breaths and trying not to throw up.
His current mood was caused by the fact that he’d woken up just a few minutes ago to a wrenching agony in his gut. The pain had been apparent when he’d looked inward and found that his Core had been drained dry. A quick study of the scroll had shown him why.
Apparently, while Chakra was needed to form the channels, more would be needed to stabilize and strengthen him for the new cycling technique. Had he taken the time last night to read it, he could have seen that and prepared properly. Now, his body was trying to pull whatever it could from his Core and was causing him a lot of discomfort in the process.
Roy tried to fight through the pain as he read, making sure to take everything in this time before getting into a cycling position. He couldn’t remember the last time his Core had been this empty. Luckily for him, the thunderstorm outside was still in full swing, his sleep having lasted all of three hours before the pain had awoken him.
Roy breathed in, ignoring the wrenching pain from his Core as he reached out to the Power Essence created by the storm and pulling it into his Core in a rush. Almost as soon as it entered, it was sucked away, Roy not even having the time to refine it before it was pulled through his body and to the channels flowing to his legs.
In this fashion, Roy continued to cultivate, having a few moments of relief as he pulled Essence in, only for it to be dragged away the instant it settled in his Core. Light slowly filled the sky, though the sun didn’t so much as peek through, as Roy continued the seemingly endless cycle of pulling in Essence and having it sucked away.
Aika woke up at some point and began cycling on her own, but Roy barely noticed, continuing to work to stop the ache in his channels. He had no idea how long he sat there for, but by the time he pulled in a stream of Essence and it remained where it was, he was completely exhausted, both physically and mentally.
However, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake as he had last time and pulled more Essence into his Core. He was lucky the thunderstorm had kept going, the flashes of lightning providing him with a nearly endless source of Power Essence as he worked to stabilize the new cycling technique.
Essence continued to flow into him, pouring into his empty Core and barely seeming to do a thing. It was only after he’d pulled in what felt like a lightning bolt’s worth of Essence before he started to see some measurable progress in filling his Core. Earlier, when he’d compared his Core’s size to that of an ocean upon exiting the test, it hadn’t been an exaggeration.
The problem with trying to fill the massive Core was the sheer amount of time it took. Roy hadn’t been keeping track, but between cycling to stabilize his technique and replenishing his lost Essence, he was sure it had been at least six or seven hours.
He was tired, and all he wanted to do was sleep. Roy knew he had to keep working, though. His Core was perhaps a third of the way full now, which meant he had to refine it to its purest state before he could weave Qi from that Essence. The speed of his previous technique was still there, but his capacity had increased so much that even that wasn’t enough to keep up with it.
By the time his eyes finally flickered open, it was dark once again. His Core now shone with the shining gold of Power Qi, surrounded by the duller gold of refined Essence. He had converted perhaps half of the Essence he’d taken in, but when he’d started to fall asleep as he cycled, he finally had to give up.
“What did you do to yourself?”
Roy half-turned, blinking bleary eyes as Aika came into focus.
“I tried a new cycling technique without reading the whole scroll,” Roy croaked, finding his throat more than a little dry.
Aika extended a hand, holding out a waterskin, which Roy took with a nod of thanks. He drank slowly, allowing the freezing water to wash down his parched throat. It didn’t so much wake him up as make him slightly more alert.
“We lost a day,” Aika said, holding out a bowl of still-steaming rice. “But that’s fine. I did some scouting of the surrounding area and found a path about five or six miles from here. It looks to be well-traveled, but with the rain, no one was out.”
Roy nodded and looked to the small string stretched across the back of the cave, on which a set of sodden robes hung to dry.
“Sorry,” he finally managed to croak out.
“No need to apologize,” Aika said, shifting to lean her back against the wall. “Advancement takes work. I know that more than anyone. Besides, it’s not like I didn’t get anything done today.”
Roy’s eyes flicked to her Belt, which was Purple with a single slash of Red now on one end.
“You managed to get to 1st Dan?” Roy exclaimed.
His surprise was obvious, as A
ika hadn’t advanced to Purple all that long ago.
“I had a Light Core left,” Aika said, giving him a bright smile. “That fight with the golem pushed me pretty hard, so it didn’t take much work to push to 1st Dan.”
“Still,” Roy said, looking at the shimmering Belt, “that’s huge! It won’t be long before you’re going in to test for your Red-Belt.”
“That sounds a bit patronizing coming from you,” she said sourly, looking to the Belt sitting around his waist. “Besides, I’m only at 1st Dan. It’ll take six more before I can even hit the peak of Purple, and then I still need to take the test.”
“So, that’ll be next week then?” Roy joked.
Aika let out a snort, but her smile didn’t fade in the slightest.
“Eat your food before it gets cold,” she said, turning her back on him. “You’ll want a good night of sleep. I might have let you get away with taking up all day today for cultivation, but tomorrow, we’re heading out.”
Roy hid a grin as he started eating, soon realizing that he was ravenous. He polished off the bowl of rice in just a couple of minutes and kissed Aika when she handed him another bowl.
He polished that one off quickly as well, and when Aika handed him a third, he ate that one too. Finally, after a fourth, he felt satisfied enough to stop, which was good because the pot was pretty much empty by that point.
He and Aika spoke for a bit longer before he curled up to go to sleep. Of course, before he could, Geon let him know how stupid he’d been for just trying something new without thinking it through. He’d been asleep all day due to being completely empty, and he wasn’t happy about it.
All in all, as Roy fell asleep, he felt as though he’d had a pretty good day.
When he woke up the next morning, it was to find that only a little of his Qi had disappeared, going to strengthen the small parts of his channels that had yet to settle when he’d fallen asleep. But he felt better than he ever had before. And, when he reached out to the Essence in the air, he was shocked at the torrent that came flooding through his channels.
