Everything hurt.
Huff.
Huff.
Caecus lay on the ground. His breathing was labored; the texture of the padded floor was getting way too familiar to him for this past hour.
The servant introduced herself as Amelia, while she was assisting Caecus with running laps in the training area.
'Am I really this weak? I barely managed to run two kilometers.'
Caecus stood up.
"Amelia—huff—please help me run again."
"But, Young Master, if you keep going it'll only do harm. You've passed out twice while training." There was genuine worry in her voice.
"What else—huff—am I supposed to do—huff—Amelia? It's useless for me to learn—huff—swordsmanship. Strengthening my foundation is—huff—all I can do…" Caecus was slightly irritated as he slowly returned his breathing back to normal.
"It is clear that you're not educated well when it comes to training. The most important thing while training is rest," she reprimanded him. "Speaking of that, I know that the Young Master likes listening to audiobooks and reading books which are written in braille. How about we study together instead of torturing you like this, and then tomorrow you can run again?" She shook her head, the wind from her hair brushing against Caecus's face.
"B-but in the audiobooks I listened to, the heroes always trained tirelessly until they collapsed…"
"Those are stories, and Young Master, you already collapsed twice!" She was slowly getting exasperated.
"…alright, I'll do what you say then. The study thing sounds good…"
…
In the library, Caecus sat with a bunch of books in front of him, each of the five describing the five most important topics he had to learn:
Soul Cultivation; History; Politics; Science; Literature
"A-are you sure? You picked out complex things…" Caecus said. He touched every single book to see how thick it was and counted them, finding out that each of them had 300 pages at the very least.
"Young Master, I don't expect you to finish them all; I picked out the best ones. Most of them are used in the education of new essence users across different corpora. I'll first teach you the basics myself, and then when you know enough, we'll start with these."
"Yourself? Are you sure? I don't want to seem rude, Amelia, b-but if you actually knew so much you wouldn't be working as a servant… there are many different schools outside of the corpora that would need your skills there."
Amelia started laughing. "Young Master, you may not believe it, but I get paid very well here. Before working as a servant, I worked as a tutor for children from different corpora. I actually used to be an augmenter myself until… well, never mind. Just know that you can trust in my skills!" Caecus felt the chair next to him being pulled back and Amelia sit on it.
"You were an augmenter and a tutor? You don't sound that old, though." Caecus scratched his head.
"I am 28. I wasn't exactly a strong augmenter, so I mostly worked as a tutor for children of the corpora. Well, that's in the past now. After my career… ended, your corpus offered to take me in as a servant. The pay here is pretty good, so I didn't decline." Caecus heard her clothes moving; she shrugged.
"So you're knowledgeable about this!" His voice was excited.
'This will be a huge help…!'
"Alright." Caecus heard her shifting. The shuffling of notebook pages sounded and—click—a pen.
"I'll first ask you questions to know how far you are. It would be best if we start with soul cultivation." She cleared her throat. "What is soul essence?"
"It's a power that's found in everything that lives. It can be used to do stuff like reinforcing one's body." He bit the nail of his thumb. "Every person has a different purity of soul essence, and it can be cultivated. Uhh… I'm pretty sure genetics play the biggest role when it comes to purity, and that's why we from the corpora are stronger than normal people."
"Yes, you're right. Genetics play the main role when it comes to the purity of your soul essence. That's why people from the corpora like you choose partners based on purity to produce offspring with the most potential. We, the normal people, actually have the privilege to choose our partners based on love."
"…"
"Well, anyways. There are cases, though, where someone with extremely bad genetics, for example, gets huge soul purity, or someone with the best of the best genetics gets the soul purity of a normal person. Do you know why this is?"
"I—I'm not too sure," Caecus said, embarrassed by his lack of knowledge. He nervously fidgeted with his fingers under the table. It didn't smell like wood, and the texture was rough, so he guessed it had to be made of some kind of stone. The chairs smelled like leather, and there was a cushion supporting his back and bottom.
"Mutations." Caecus felt a small impact on the table. After that, the sound of skin touching skin was heard. She was resting her elbow on the table and propping her chin up. "Everyone is born as a combination of the genes of their mother and their father; that's why we look similar to them. For example, my father had brown hair and my mother had green eyes, so I have brown hair and green eyes."
Caecus heard her describe her looks for the first time. He didn't actually know what something "looked" like but it was still pleasant to receive more information about someone else.
"It's probably hard for you to relate to because you're blind. Everyone shares features with their parents. But you still always have a feature that is unique to yourself; these are mutations. For example, if your parents both have brown hair and you get red hair, that's a genetic mutation."
The black-haired boy thought for a little while and then answered. "So basically, that would mean that soul purity has something to do with your genome, which also means that the soul is reliant on the body to produce its soul essence. Am I right?"
Amelia was silent for a few seconds. He picked it up very fast and already made his own theories.
'If he wasn't blind he would have made a fine soul essence user.' she thought.
"This… well… it's a question that hasn't been answered yet. The best theory proposed so far is that every soul has the same amount of purity, but the body shackles that down. So basically, to contain the soul in the body, it needs to restrict its soul essence. What we know, though, is that your soul core, which is also called the appendix, is the main connecting point to your soul and what stores your soul essence. Back in the past, to keep lesser people weak, doctors actually removed it under the pretense that it was a useless organ."
After pausing for a few seconds, she continued. "We drifted too far from the main topic. Let's take your twin sister, Lady Aurelia, as an example."
As soon as Caecus heard his sisters name his fist clenched.
"…"
The brown haired servant continued, seemingly not noticing his reaction."You both got the same good genes from the main family, but she had a genetic mutation on top of that which basically stacked on top of your good genes, and that's why her soul purity is currently the highest we know of..." She sighed.
"The reason why Young Master is blind is most probably Lady Aurelia getting more resources in the womb. Due to her high soul purity, she probably unwillingly consumed most of them, resulting in Young Master being unable to form his optic nerve, which is why you're blind." Her voice was soft this time, knowing it was a sensitive topic.
The blind boy was already aware that he was blind due to some kind of birth defect, but hearing it in detail made a hollow feeling creep up from inside.
"Soul purity doesn't decide how strong you are. As an example I'm gonna use numbers. If a person with high soul density and a person with low soul density used soul essence to fill a bowl with soul essence, they effectively will need the same amount of soul essence to fill it. But here is where the importance of soul purity comes in. The bowl of the person with higher soul purity will be denser. That means if we weigh both bowls the one from the person with higher purity will weigh more."
Caecus started to understand what she meant. "A person with higher soul density will need less soul essence to be able to apply the same effect as a normal person right?"
"Exactly. So even if you have a higher soul density, someone with way more soul essence than you will be able to easily overpower you."
The sound of her pen scribbling against the paper was heard. Then pages turning.
"Alright its time to move on with other topics. We will talk more about soul essence another time."
Amelia asked him more questions about history, science, and politics.
After two hours, they finished up.
Sigh.
Caecus heard the chair tremble and was able to make out from that that she was probably stretching.
"Well. I think that's enough for today, Young Master. I'm gonna ask the chef to care more about your nutrition and give you more protein and calories since you are pretty…"
"Frail," she finished quietly.
Caecus frowned. It was pretty clear to him that he wasn't the stockiest, but still, hearing it explicitly wasn't exactly that nice.
"If I'm honest now, I am pretty exhausted. I forgot to eat since noon when father… well, basically, I didn't eat since noon, and it's already 8 PM…" His stomach growled immediately after he said that, as if wanting to accentuate his point. A blush crept up his ears; this wasn't behavior that should befit a descendant from the main family of Corpus Caelum.
He heard the fabric of Amelia's pants shuffling and her tapping on something that seemed to be glass. The servant took out her phone. "Hello, please prepare a nutritionally balanced meal for Young Master Caecus. Yes… yes… yes, please, dessert too. He needs the carbs and calories. Alright, thank you, bye." The Young Master she was talking about heard a little click, which was her pushing the off button of her phone. The fabric rubbed against something—she was putting it back in her pocket. Then she spoke.
"Alright, Young Master, please extend your hand so I can grab it, and I'll show you the way to your room. I will bring your food into your room after."
Caecus extended his hand. The screeching from Amelia's chair being pulled forward resounded, which meant she had stood up and put the chair back so its legs were under the table. The contact of her calloused hand touching his soft one was felt, and then she tugged. As he was standing up, the blind boy slightly stumbled. Amelia let go of his hand, and this time the screeching of his chair was heard. After doing that, she took his hand again, and they walked to his room.
Their steps echoed in the hallway of the manor. After around two minutes of not saying a word, Caecus felt Amelia stop tugging him.
"We have arrived now."
And so it was. Caecus smelled his room's scent. Lavender. So that Caecus could find his room normally without always needing help, there was a lavender scent added to his room so that he could always know when he was close to it and where to go. Due to his blindness, his senses were enhanced after all, which resulted in him being able to use that method of finding his room through scent pretty well. The library was pretty far away from his room, though, so he needed assistance to return.
Amelia opened the door for him and helped him step inside. As soon as he did, he felt the soft, cushioned ground. He took off his shoes and went to sit in the chair at his desk. He spent most of his time in his room since he could barely do anything alone, so he knew where everything was perfectly.
"I will go bring you your food now, Young Master, and then you should go to sleep," she told him. He heard her walking out and—click—close the door.
After a few minutes, she arrived. Caecus could smell rice, chicken, and broccoli, with a few other things like liver and milk.
"These are all foods you need to get sufficient nutrients for you to grow well." She listed everything she brought and then gave him the utensils so he could eat. Guided by the smell of the food, he was able to eat by himself. He finished everything after around thirty minutes of eating and was already feeling drowsy.
"I think it's time for me to sleep, Amelia." He yawned.
"Alright, Young Master. Call me when you wake up tomorrow. We are gonna start with strength training." He heard the shuffling of her clothes and her shoes touching the ground with every step. She left.
The black-haired boy then went over to his closet, grabbed a few sleeping garments, and changed into them, throwing his clothes that were sweaty from training into the washing basin. Then he went to sleep.
As he was falling asleep, he noticed that today no one but his father had bothered him. And he approached his father first.
'Maybe being invisible isn't that bad after all.'