by Aaron Oster
“Don’t worry, you’ll have tomorrow to recover,” Eric chimed in. “Though you’ll have to meet with the Queen at some point to discuss your progress. You’ll also need to be fitted for your uniform, and meet with the judges so they can check that your rank is sufficiently high enough for you to compete.”
Morgan nodded mechanically, deciding that if he only had tomorrow to rest, he would leave his bath for the next day.
They both said their farewells and left, closing the door behind them. A moment later, the distinct click sounded as the door was bolted from the outside. Morgan didn’t even know why they bothered. If he really wanted to escape, all he’d have to do was bust through the door.
Shrugging to himself, Morgan hobbled over to his bed and collapsed onto it. Sarah was currently taking a bath, so she wouldn’t be around to hound him if he was asleep before she was done. Luckily for him, Sarah seemed to enjoy long baths, so that gave him just enough time to look over his status and make some decisions regarding skill upgrades.
He’d already discovered that his attributes did indeed have a cap, just as before, though now it did seem to be just a bit higher. So, he placed as many points as he could into all his attributes, before examining his status.
Name: Morgan
Evolved Supermage: Rank - 33
Energy to next rank - 78/520,000
Ability Advancement: 2,780,000/3,800,000
Total Available AP: 202
Ability - Natural Disaster
RP - 2,440/2,440 (Regen - 24.7 per second)
Strength - 237 (+27)
Agility - 275 (+31)
Constitution - 220 (+19)
Intelligence - 244 (+21)
Wisdom - 247 (+22)
Skills - Perfect flight II, Explosive impact II, Stormforger, Goldfire barrage, Nature’s wrath
Traits - Gravity field, Recovery, Aura sense (inherited), Aura flare (inherited)
Extra - Gravity storm (3rd category), Starbreaker (2nd category), Collapsing star
Morgan noted that after assigning his points, he still had a fairly large number of points left, leaving him to ponder over which skills would be the most useful if he upgraded them. Though Perfect flight was by far the cheapest, it would do him absolutely no good in the upcoming tournament. His first choice was easy and Morgan assigned the 95 points to raise Explosive impact to stage three.
But he had a difficult time deciding what to do next. He only had a couple of options left to him with his available points, but he didn’t know which would be more useful. While Goldfire barrage was a powerful attack skill, Aura flare had proved itself to be an extremely effective tool in his arsenal.
He’d used it a few more times during his training, and discovered that it would at the very least, cause a beast to stagger or hesitate. In the middle of a high-speed fight, a split-second advantage could make all the difference. Morgan blew out a long breath, knowing which skill he would rather have invested all his points in. Nature’s wrath was by far his most versatile and useful skill.
It wasn’t the most powerful, but it would give him the most options and he would have a counter to just about anything that came his way. During his training, he’d also discovered two more elements besides force which he still couldn’t handle. The first was diamond. He wasn’t sure why, but trying to use the sheer fortitude that it leant him just put too much strain on his body. And the second was a silvery green metal that radiated the power of mass-destruction, but made him violently ill each time he tried using it.
He wavered back and forth for a few more moments, before finally making his decision and putting the points into Aura flare. While having another upgraded attack skill would be great, he already had plenty of those. Improving a psychological skill would be much better. He confirmed his selection, then read the descriptions for the upgraded versions.
Explosive impact III - Manipulate gravity and air to massively increase your speed and power for a short burst (Currently: Agility & Strength X3.05).
Cost - 205 RP
Duration - 4.5 seconds
Cooldown - 45 seconds
Aura Flare (inherited) - You have been bestowed the gift of power by an Omniscient. You can make those around you feel your power, merely by focusing your intent. Your aura will now stun the weak minded for up to three seconds, and may cause some physiological damage as well.
Morgan noted that while the power of his Explosive impact hadn’t gone up, the duration of the skill had increased by half a second, and the cooldown had decreased by five. He also noticed that Aura flare had now changed from a non-damaging trait to one that could cause some real damage.
Grinning tiredly, Morgan closed his status and stared up at the ceiling for a few seconds. He wanted to try and come up with some sort of plan for the next day, but his exhausted body had other ideas and within seconds he was fast asleep.
30
Eric moved swiftly through the darkened halls of the palace. Feeling the aura in the air, he moved to avoid any late night wanderers or staff. After all, it would not do for him to be spotted in this part of the palace. He was already too well known, and news would travel to the Queen quickly. He knew she was extremely paranoid, so if her new healer was spotted near the quarters of the South Kingdom’s party, she would order him executed for treason. Of course Loquin wouldn’t stand for that, but he’d had his body and face reconstructed before. It was not a pleasant process, and he would rather avoid that eventuality for as long as possible.
As he walked, his mind wandered back to the last few days spent training with Morgan. He’d known that Morgan had become powerful as of late, but that skill he’d used on the riot-saurus ancient was absolutely terrifying. He’d met some powerful supers and mages in the past, some even more powerful than Morgan was now, but it wasn’t just the raw power he’d displayed that frightened him. It was his potential.
At rank 33, Morgan had enough power to beat someone 2 or even 3 ranks above him. He might even be able to take Percival on now, and have a fairly decent chance of victory, even if the man went all out against him. And that was saying a lot! Morgan wasn’t even seventeen, and yet he was already more powerful than ninety-nine percent of the people in the Five Kingdoms. If he kept going at this rate, he could be the most powerful being in all the Kingdoms by the time he was twenty!
Eric was snapped from his thoughts as he sensed someone coming down the hall. He quickly pressed himself up against one of the walls, pulling his gray and black cloak around himself and melding into the shadows. A moment later, two men and a woman walked past. Eric recognized them as the party from the North. Lord Simon, his sister Sing - the one who would be representing their Kingdom - ,and a third man that he didn’t recognize.
There was something strange about the man’s aura, though. It seemed twisted and malevolent, lashing out at its surroundings. It only took him a moment to recognize that this man was a tracker, and one that could feel auras no less. Eric wasn’t worried about the man spotting him, as he was a master of concealing his own aura, but he was curious as to how Simon had managed to find someone with such a rare talent. As far as he knew, he’d been the only one.
He watched the small group as they passed. None of them said so much as a word, the only sound being the light scuffing of boots and swishing of clothes. Eric waited for them to pass out of view, before moving away from the wall and continuing down the hallway. As he walked, his mind went back to Morgan.
He’d tampered with Morgan’s mind and body in the two years they’d spent together, and he knew better than anyone how much punishment the boy could take - or at least, he’d thought he’d known. After his battle with the ancient, he’d examined his body and had discovered a staggering amount of damage. The damage was so severe, in fact, that he couldn’t understand how he’d even managed to stay conscious.
The most disturbing part of this all, however, was the fact that he no longer seemed to be able to sense Morgan at all. He couldn’t read his aura, see his core, or
even track him by the disturbance people caused in the natural energy of the world with their passing. Every time he tried, it was as though he were looking at something that just wasn’t there. Even when he’d been healing him, injecting his power into Morgan’s body, he’d still been unable to sense anything other than his injuries.
While he’d been in there, he even attempted to do a slight modification, just tweaking the composition of one of his joints to make them more flexible. His power had been rebuffed with such force that it took all his considerable control not to stagger back from the boy.
Eric took a few deep breaths, speeding up his progress down the long corridor. He took the first left, following the trail of power left by Loquin’s champion.
He’d gone with her to the capital and met with the Queen. Loquin had then told her that she already had a candidate picked to represent the South Kingdom. When Beatrice had become angry at her insolence, Loquin had reminded her of the debts owed to the Merchants Guild by the Kingdom.
She had assured the Queen that the champion was well trained, and would acquit themselves admirably in the tournament. Once they’d returned, Loquin had immediately sent him to the West Kingdom and had him infiltrate the Queen’s staff. He’d wondered why she had him do it, up until he’d been tasked with the training of a supermage who was going to represent the West instead of Percival.
A man had turned up at his door after the first day of training. A man he recognized all too well. He’d told him that as soon as the training with Morgan was over, Loquin expected a report.
A door suddenly came into view at the end of the corridor, and Eric took a deep breath to steady himself. Talking to the goddess was always difficult, especially since she seemed to enjoy toying with him. Stopping before the door, he calmed his racing mind and fixed a neutral expression onto his face. Then, he raised his hand, and knocked.
***
“Come on! Wake up, you lazy sack. There’s a lot for you to do today, so you can’t afford to lay around all day!”
Morgan groaned as Sarah began shaking his shoulder for the third time that morning. He’d already ignored her previous attempts at waking him, but knew if he didn’t get up now, he was liable to be drenched. Blowing out a long breath, Morgan forced his eyes open, staring up at the blurry form of Sarah standing over him.
“I’m up,” he croaked, trying to brush Sarah’s arm off his shoulder.
“No, your eyes are open,” Sarah said, shaking him more vigorously. “I’ll stop shaking you once you’re out of bed and on your way to take a bath.”
Morgan swung his feet over the side of his bed and forced himself to stand.
“Happy?” he asked grumpily, rubbing at his eyes to clear them.
“Very,” Sarah replied, shoving a clean set of clothes into his chest along with a towel. “Now go take a bath. You smell like you spent the last three days rolling around in garbage. Breakfast is already here, so don’t take too long or it’ll get cold.”
The smell of whatever had been brought finally broke through his sleep haze and he nodded, quickly moving to the smaller attached room, containing a privy and bathtub. Before he entered, he paused, calling to Sarah over his shoulder.
“Check the bag. I’ve left you a present.” Then he walked into the room.
As he entered, he saw that the tub was already full of steaming water and reminded himself to thank Sarah once he got out. Being courteous wasn’t exactly new to him, but thanking people for a nice gesture was.
He was quick to strip out of his armor, and although it had already cleaned itself, he was still filthy. He sank into the hot bath with a groan of pleasure, feeling the hot water seeping into his cramped muscles. Despite having been healed of all his injuries, his muscles had still tightened up overnight, and seeing as the tournament began tomorrow, he was loathe to use his core at all today.
He had a theory about how it worked, and today was going to be an experiment. He believed, that like all things, his core was starting to become overworked with the amount he’d been using it over the last few days. He still wasn’t sure as to what the limits were, so he would experiment. Since he didn’t have to do any fighting, today he was on rest. He wouldn’t use his core at all and would see if it made any difference tomorrow.
After soaking in the hot water for a few minutes, Morgan lathered himself up, scrubbing away all the dirt and blood that had accumulated on his skin, and especially under his fingernails. After that, he was quick to dry himself and change into a clean set of armor, making sure to buckle on his enchanted belt as well.
When he walked back into the room, Sarah was in the process of absorbing a core.
“Looks like you found my present,” he said, sitting down at the small table across from her.
She had a wide strip of cloth spread out before her, which already contained a sizable pile of core dust.
“Yeah,” she said with a grin. “Just how did you manage to pilfer these from under Percival’s nose? He was watching you like a hawk the entire time!”
Morgan grinned when she said that. He’d tried to hand her cores more than once during their time in the beast zone, but each time, Percival had caught him and stopped him from handing them over. He wasn’t about to let Sarah fall behind though, so he’d devised a way to keep some of the cores, while tricking Percival into thinking he’d used them.
He saved some of the core dust from a few of the cores, then, when he’d gotten a new one, he’d held it up and allowed his eyes to unfocus. Each time he did this, Percival would lower his guard, turning to chat with Eric. Since Sarah was always within his sight, he didn’t think he’d be able to sneak her any cores.
He also checked Morgan’s pockets at the end of every day, just be certain. But there was one place he never checked: the secret compartment in their chest plates. As soon as he turned his back, Morgan had slipped the core inside the compartment, then allowed the dust to trickle out of his fingers. He explained this to Sarah as she absorbed the last core and shuddered lightly as she ranked up.
Doing a quick check, he saw that she was now rank 34, a full rank higher than he was. That was understandable, as the cost to move up was a lot less for her than it was for him.
“Who knew you had a brain when it came to anything other than fighting,” Sarah said with a laugh.
“Not me,” Morgan replied, picking up his fork and knife, digging into the stack of pancakes set before him.
He hadn’t had these in a while and took a huge bite, stuffing more than he could handle into his mouth at once.
Sarah snorted out a laugh, as he was obviously having a hard time chewing.
“It’s not going anywhere, you know. You can take your time.”
“I thought you said we have things to do,” Morgan said, after he’d managed to swallow.
“We do, but probably not for another hour or two. Someone stopped by and said that they have you scheduled for a fitting at noon.”
“What time is it now?” he asked. It was impossible to tell time in this room, as there were no windows nor a clock.
“It was about nine when I woke you, so I’m guessing it’s between 10 and 11.”
He nodded, digging back into his breakfast and enjoying every bite.
A couple of hours later, there was a knock at the door. Morgan and Sarah, who had been reclining back in their beds - he checking his status, and she reading - both abruptly stood as an elderly woman entered the room.
She was followed a moment later by two guards carrying a large chest, and a third toting a full length mirror.
“Guess we’re not leaving the room to do the fitting,” Morgan said as two of the guards positioned themselves inside the room, while the third left, locking the door behind him.
Rolling his eyes at the sheer absurdity of the situation, Morgan moved toward the woman, who was already digging through the large chest, removing various bits of cloth and metal.
“I guess you’re the one who will be making my outfit for
the tournament?” Morgan asked as he stopped near the woman.
“Yes. Just give me a moment and I’ll be right with you. If you don’t mind, would you please strip down to your underclothes in the meantime? Things will go much faster if I can get the measurements right the first time.”
Morgan shrugged, and began working himself out of his clothes. Once upon a time, Sarah’s face would have turned a deep red and she would have berated him for being improper, now she just eyed him with a smirk.
As he pulled his shirt off, the woman finally straightened from the chest, holding a long measuring tape and a notepad. She stared him up and down for a few moments, then nodded to herself.
“Take the undershirt off as well,” she said, “and be quick about it.”
Shrugging once more, Morgan pulled the light linen undershirt over his head. It had been in the stack of clothes Sarah had handed him this morning. Since the fabric had felt so nice, he’d decided to put it on, though he wasn’t entirely sure when or where she’d gotten it.
The woman then prodded him until he was standing before the full length mirror. She then had him hold his body in various positions while she measured him, taking down notes on her pad all the while. Once she’d finished that, she had him move around the room, first walking, then jogging and finally sprinting.
The room wasn’t all that large, so he’d been forced to move back and forth several dozen times before the woman was satisfied. Once she was finished with that, she had him move around as though he were fighting invisible enemies, demanding he throw punches and kicks. At a certain point, she’d asked Sarah to get off her bed and stand near the guards, so he would have more room to work.
Sarah stayed silent the entire time, but he could tell from her slightly elevated heart rate that she was watching very closely. At first, he didn’t understand why the woman was having him dance around in his underpants, but eventually he figured it out. She was designing a uniform specifically for him, which meant she would need to see how he moved, in order to achieve the best possible result.
