A finely toned young man with pale skin stood bleeding, fresh red blood leaking from the wounds he had just sustained in a duel against a Tuning phase Adept ranker.
His opponent, the Adept ranker, also finely toned, had light wheat-colored skin and brown hair. Stood at 6ft, spear in hand. Unlike his battered opponent, he bore no injuries.
The wounded young man stared straight at the Adept ranker, his left hazel eye barely open, while his right eye remained shut, and the strands of his fallen dark hair covered his closed right eye.
'Even after all this time, after all these battles, I still can't awaken… '
'Should I just die?' The thought clawed through his mind like a venom as he released his long sword, the weapon he had clung to as if it were part of his body.
Simultaneously, drained of energy, his left eye closing shut, a simple cold air breezing past his face, resulting in his body falling back.
Seeing his fall, the Adept ranker lunged forward to the wounded youth and stopped the young man's body from finishing a quarter circle.
He knelt beside the wounded youth, set his spear aside, and began tending to him. He closed the gaping wound on the young man's chest, cleared the blood from the scar above his right eye, and bandaged the rest of his wounds.
As a non-awakener, the young man's body could not sustain even a common healing potion. Natural healing and medication meant for regular people were his only options.
"Theo, do you really have to keep doing this?" The Adept ranker frowned, his voice tight as he looked at the bandaged youth, who groaned softly in pain.
Theo, as the second son of Duke Azreil Varkheil, had failed to awaken. It not only barred him from walking the path of a Varkheil but also branded him as the "Loser" and the "Joker of Varkheil House" for nearly three years.
He usually carried an unyielding fire, never surrendering even when lost again and again, even when spat on by others, their venomous words meant to break him. But now, his will wavered.
Awakening typically occurred between the ages of twelve and sixteen. The earlier one awakened, the greater their potential was said to be. Now nearing his sixteenth birthday, Theo couldn't help but question whether it would ever happen for him.
He had asked himself the same question countless times, to the point of numbing his own reasoning. Could he give up?
'If I give up,'
'I'll be abandoned...'
'I won't be able to stay with my family.' The thought alone rekindled the fire inside him, not as bright as before, but still enough to hold him together.
'...Family'
"I don't have a choice, Cain," Theo finally replied, his voice firm, though moments earlier it had cracked under the weight of despair.
Cain, the Adept ranker and Theo's shadow, who is the same age as Theo, didn't like this at all. Not at all, and it's not because he was loyal and couldn't bear to see his master risking his life, but because if Theo died, the seal placed upon Cain would activate, killing him as well.
Cain's eyes gleamed intensely, masking his burning hatred.
'If you want to die, I won't stop you. But at least wait until I find a way to break this damned seal.' He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms until blood dripped.
Forcing himself to calm down, Cain helped Theo back to his room. Though Theo resisted, intent on pushing himself further, his battered condition left him no choice but to rest.
Normally, a battle between a non-awakener and an awakener would be one-sided. But Theo's superior sword techniques and combat understanding often allowed him to hold his ground against Initiate-stage awakeners, and even challenge Adept rankers of mediocre skill.
Still, Cain was exceptionally talented, and Theo's loss today was inevitable. Theo did not resent defeat; what tormented him was that no matter how desperate the battle, awakening still eluded him.
Shaking his head, Cain left the room with his usual stoic mask after helping Theo onto bed. Though he cursed Theo inwardly, his face betrayed nothing. Glancing back at the closed door, he sighed softly and returned to the training room where they had fought.
There, his spear still lay on the ground. cold and mercilessly resembling its master.
Cain picked it up slowly and gave it a sharp swing, shaking the blood that clung to its blade.
Whoosh.
He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and focused on his nexus energy, willing his affinity to take shape and wrap around the tip of the blade. A few water droplets formed around the spearhead, only to vanish instantly.
Cain did not falter. He had expected this. As an Adept ranker in the Tuning phase, it was simply said to be an impossible task to will an affinity. One could summon it, but not control it. Yet the fact that he had formed even a few droplets proved the monstrous talent he secretly harbored. Avoiding the cold eyes of House Varkheil.
If he wanted, he could have advanced not only to the next phase—Balanced, but even to the next rank: Seeker.
Once the house finds out his talent, his goal to achieve freedom would slip away.
But Cain chose to conceal his true potential, honing his techniques and control over both nexus energy and water affinity instead.
"What am I missing?" he muttered, convinced it was possible to will an affinity at his stage. For a month, he had struggled with little progress, but like Theo, he was stubborn. He would not stop.
Believing the secret lay in his mastery over nexus energy and will, he sat in lotus position and began circulating it with a Grade 3 internal art called Flawless Stride Energy.
His calm and pleasant nexus energy circulated softly inside the core with considerable speed for a certain time, as instructed in the grade three internal art.
Cain settled cross-legged, the internal art's rhythm a quiet hum in his mind. He drew a slow, deliberate breath. The air, thick with nexus energy, flowed in. A microscopic fraction of that raw power was instantly seized, refined through the intricate loops of his meridians, and merged into his own circulating energy. The useless, inert particles, rejected like chaff, were exhaled in a barely perceptible sigh.
The process, guided by the Grade 3 art, felt agonizingly slow. He could almost hear the clock ticking.
With just Internal art, a full year of this methodical absorption was required to gather enough energy for his next phase. He didn't need to do the math.
He knew the absorption of a monster's nexus core was the key to moving to the next phase. Crush one of those polished cores, and three months was all the patient time he'd need. The variance in the cores, their quality and size, meant the exact number he'd need was a mystery, an ever-shifting target.
A wave of warmth, the byproduct of the calm, purified energy, washed over his skin, a soft, seductive tide. He ignored it, his concentration fixed elsewhere.
The Flawless Stride Energy moved with a serene, unhurried power through his internal channels. He watched it, not with his eyes, but with a trained inner sense, tracking its exact, preordained path.
A sudden, ambitious impulse flared.
'Control it better. Speed it up.' He tried to tighten his focus, to force the flow.
Sharp, piercing pain immediately radiated from his core, lashing out through the meridian channels. His body tensed, a momentary, full-body spasm that pulled his shoulders rigid and clenched his jaw. He instantly relaxed his grip, easing back the pressure. He was an Adept, too fragile to play these games. Pushing too hard now meant a shattered meridian system, a devastating, permanent injury.
The pain faded. He remained still, his focus a relentless, patient wall. He continued the slow, steady cycle of the internal art. His training endured.