Liam felt a strange sense of dissonance.
After Shay had shown him the path that the Aether took in his body as well as the general principle of how to form a core, the dragon essence had done something he never expected.
It awakened. Like a beast sprung from its slumber, it came with a hunger and urge to devour. It moved with a will of its own, sweeping into the space above his navel- his Core Space he called it.
There, it swallowed his newly formed Aether grain before it attacked Shay's Aether stream. He didn't really remember much other than the fact that Shay had stopped and retreated from him...
And that the Dragon essence integration had shot up after devouring Shay's remaining Aether. The dragon essence did something familiar, it cleansed his marrows and strengthened his bones. It was painful but bearable.
Almost like sharp needles sinking into his skin with a fire of hot agony. Compared to the first time he received the essence though, it was almost lightwork. It still hurt, just a little less when that was put into account.
After a hearty breakfast with Ushanti and Lad, he left them still in the mess hall and decided to head to his room. He locked the hatch behind him, Lad wouldn't return here until it was lunch time anyway so he had a couple of hours to get this done.
He sat in the middle of the room, the metal floor cold against his thighs. He crossed his legs and closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. He took long breaths with short ones inbetween as he tried to enter a meditative state.
I took him a little while before his mind finally calmed and he could feel the Aether in his body more clearly. That wasn't what he was looking for though.
No he needed to dig deeper. Reach further than he had reached this morning.
Then he sensed it.
It was faint but it was definitely there. As though signal buried under a frequency.
The dragon essence was asleep now but he felt a deeper connection to it.
What more was it capable of? Liam had no idea.
What he did know though, was that in time he would come to learn the secrets of Aragon's blood. He just had to hope that by then it wouldn't be too late. He turned his attention away from it, focusing instead on what he could actually do at this time.
Circulate his Aether.
A deep breath escaped his nose as he focused on the energy that run free within him.
'Focus' he directed all his attention onto it and tried to direct it with his will. He started with a small trickle. He directed it following the same paths that Shay had used. He directed the energy through three cycles first before he finally got the feel for it. Then he increased the load.
***
Ushanti stood along the guardrails. One hand stretched out with an open palm. Her eyebrows were furrowed in an expression of pure concentration. A single drop of sweat fell between her brows. It crawled to the very corner of the eye threatening to fall into her sclera.
Her expression remained the same. Eyes unblinking and fixed upon the small round object hovering above her palm.
Beside her Lad held his breath in anticipation as he watched.
Ushanti's Aether circulated within her, it flowed from her body to her palm and then from there, small streams of them fell upon the surface of the water below. The moment it made contact though, droplets of water began to climb upon them as though creatures crawling up ropes.
Aether ropes acted like sponges and pulled like the pipes of a water pump... albeit a very weak one.
Water droplets climbed up until they reached and settled into the marble sized ball of water. The more the droplets gathered the more the water marble grew. It wasn't until it was the size of a baseball that the surface of the water finally rippled once but nothing more.
Ushanti continued to pull on the water, gathering more of it. Just as she hovering water in her palm reached the size of a soccer ball, it became unstable. She grimaced as she tried to keep the water uniform but the shape became irregular, rippling constantly until the ball of water crumbled and fell back to join the rest of its kin.
Ushanti leaned against the railing with a pale face. Her breathing was heavy.
"You almost got it this time!" Lad cheered.
Ushanti took a few moments to gather herself before she shot him a smile and said:
"Yeah but I still got a long way to go"
Shay hadn't been lying when she said that Ushanti had been focusing more on her personal training so she would train Liam instead. Yes a part of that had been to discourage him but another part truly meant each word she said about Ushanti too.
She had made more progress in the past several days than she ever had in the last half a year. That had to stand for something. Thanks to Lad's unprecedented source of inspiration, Ushanti had finally gained what she need to finally refine her Aether control.
It was a slow process true, but she was slowly increasing the amounts of Aether she could control from her large Well. She hadn't started her core formation and she probably wouldn't for a while.
She had to get used to controlling her own Aether first as well as mastering her... water control ability as Liam had called it.
"Has Liam still not come out of his room yet?" she couldn't help but ask.
"Yeah its strange I mean I get that he takes a rest after the training he's going through but he's usually up and about by now" Lad said.
"Let's leave him be for now"
"Yeah we can probably find more time to talk in the evening"
On the other side of the deck, the rune covered box of metal flashed once and then dimmed. However under the glare of the afternoon sun, it went unnoticed. And even if one of the crew members saw it by chance.
They wouldn't have understood what it meant. However regardless... the consequences would be felt by all.