Simma walked into his room, with trailing steps, all his nerves seemed to be drained of energy. He looked around his room and let out a weak smile. The joy hovering around him again.
Slumping on the bed, he let out a huge sigh.
"Long day," he sneered, his eyes fixed on the ceiling of his room.
He lay sprawled awkwardly, his torso on the mattress, and from his waist down to his leg on the floor, his left foot moving up and down and tapping lightly on the floor absently.
Tap, tap, tap.
Simma's mind kept going adrift. With each tap, his mind drifted even further, everything seemed to be clumped into a huge knot in his head, that felt impossible to untangle. He thought of the incoming tournament which is a few weeks away.
Sarah and the rest had people giving them training; mentors, personal trainers even, but him? Nothing except the so‑called basic training.
"Basic training," he muttered bitterly. 'Why even call it that? All they did was toss out cryptic hints and leave them to figure the rest out.'
At that thought, his mind flickered on Delilah. Though she might be around his age, she clearly was commanding and well mature enough to handle all the recruits.
'Well, maybe she had done it before or maybe her powers were something connected to it, who knows. Or is it just something in her very nature?'
Just then, he smiled, remembering how well he did with the Yiriana's bow, the way the crowd stared, the way even Delilah's eyes had wavered when his arrow split another into the bull's eyes, to the extent that when Delilah had left many people came to him for instruction.
Like he was suddenly some master archer. It felt good, so good, but…
'If only they knew…'
If only they knew how not so strong or how not so good he was, how undeserving that sudden fame felt. They all wouldn't bother, but well there he was enjoying the it, he didn't push them away. No, though he didn't know how he'd earned half of it, the fame, or if he should have it at all.
Coming to think of the Yiriana's bow once more he couldn't help but imagine if bows and arrows were his power, Because it hadn't felt like learning. It had felt like remembering. But, If not, then why did he find it so easy to handle it?
Most recruits struggled for hours just to conjure an arrow. Even those who managed it rarely scored more than five points on the board.
Sarah was the worst, for she spent the whole day only learning how to make an arrow. The thought made Simma sigh again.
At that instance, another thought surfaced the chip they had given them, the Echelon Seal, he wanted to know if it held some answers since Zolomon had told him it was more than just an identity token, it defined them. Their rank. Their abilities. Their Within Beast. And makeup.
He closed his eyes and stopped the tapping he made with his leg, looking into himself.
Quietness now seemed to have stretched and draped over him, stretching long and heavy, but something shattered the silence.
A voice in his head and as it spoke it was as if he could see the words scribbled into his mind, in the dark canvas behind his eyes.
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[Name: Simma]
[True name: ...]
[Rank: aspirant]
[Sub rank: ... |still a recruit|]
[Core trait: .... |still a recruit|]
[Azrax; |within beast|: Dragon]
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He smiled but the smile seemed a bit submerged and not deep. Well, the last time those ranks appeared to him it just said that his Azrax was rare and now it said it fully: Dragon. He narrowed his mind back to the ruins.
[Bloodline; azren line: .....]
[Soul core Rank: initiate| |soul core aspect: Blue - {reveal }]
[Kernel essence: 0/50]
Judging from the knowledge he got earlier back at the infirmary, he would need to kill Waithraites to gain kernels. Kernels would thread around his Soul Core, fifty to a full cycle, making his Soul Core to level up and thereby him evolving to a higher rank.
Therefore there was no need to reveal the one that said [Soul core: Rank: initiate| |soul core aspect: Blue - {reveal }] since he understood what it meant, which was that his soul is still at the lowest level which was determined by the colour blue.
Each colour marked progression:
Blue → Purple → Crimson → Silver → Gold → Red → White. Representing the ranks as well (that is from Fluxborn to the sentinels)
And as one's Soul Core evolved, so did their rank. Fluxborn carried Blue. Xenon carried Purple. And subsequently. Though the higher one climbed, the rarer, and stronger, the hue.
This means that the kernel that will revolve around his now blue soul core aspect once he becomes an Azren will be a purple kernel and once he completes a full thread of 50 kernels, then his soul core will evolve and become purple and then he will advance to xenon rank.
So also if fate allows him and he completes the full thread of kernels, which will now revolve as a crimson colour around the already purple soul core. He would advance to Accrehx level, with his soul core aspect turning fully into crimson and subsequently.
After assimilating this knowledge, his gaze moved to the last line.
--------------------
[Exhibit....]
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But there was no "reveal."
How was he now going to determine what it was all about.
The suspense it threw him into was so piercing that what happened next startled him more than it should have.
There was a knock on his door and from a little space beneath his door a letter slipped in.
Simma, who was jerked out of his echelon seal, now stared aghast noticing what just happened. He rushed to his door and threw it open hoping to catch whoever had delivered the letter and …
"Hey," said a voice to him, very innocent and genuine as he carried a box probably filled with letters.
"Hey," Simma said back, blinking at his wiry rough brown hair, his skinny look and then his somewhat tattered appearance. His thin scruffy frame inside baggy threadbare clothes.
"I dropped off a letter that was for you."
"For me?" Simma asked, looking at him.
"How did you know it was for me?"
The boy frowned, as if confused by the question.
"The letter was addressed to you, it bears your name."
Simma winced.
"I know that, but how did you know this is the right place… that I lived here?"
The boy now smirked, making his bony face look more awful and eerie.
"Your name is at your door." He replied
"Ooh,"
Simma replied, he had clearly forgotten that.
"I'm Kelvin by the way," the boy said to Simma as Simma nodded and the boy strode off.
Simma gently closed his door and turned to the letter still lying on the floor.
'They should have just texted me now that I have a phone,' he pondered, but realizing that maybe they didn't know he now has a phone he shoved the thought away.
Calmly, he snatched it from the ground and inquisitively opened it and read its content.
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Dear Simma,
Follow this direction at the back of the letter and find me. Make sure you come alone.
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"The hell",
He muttered, whoever this strange person was, did they think he was really dumb to just want him to wander alone to a place he doesn't know of? I'm not yet ready to die, he thought.
But there was more. He noticed the P.S.
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P.S.: Just in case, prep for the training to come before coming.
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At that, Simma's mouth dropped.
Training? No, no way he is going.
This could be a trap. Maybe now that people knew about his Within Beast, someone had marked him as a threat, and wanted him gone.
'But what if it wasn't?'
'What if it was someone else, someone willing to help?'
His thoughts clashed, circled, then settled.
"Yes," he muttered. "Maybe I should go. No risk in trying… right?"
He flipped the letter over. Directions were scrawled across the back. And a quick prompt, At the very bottom:
Training starts tomorrow after dawn.
As if they knew what his next question would be. As he sneered.
"you read my mind"