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 an Adept ranker, who was at his mid-phase — Tuning. His opponent, also finely toned, had light wheat-colored skin and brown hair.
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 as he released his long, curved sword — the weapon he had clung to as if it were part of his body.
Simultaneously, his body is slowly falling back as well.
He, 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.
The Adept ranker stood at 6ft, spear in hand. Unlike his battered opponent, he bore no injuries. Without a break in his steady breathing, the Adept ranker stepped closer 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 was his only option.
"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 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—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. 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. He picked it up and gave it a sharp swing, shaking the blood from 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 his mid-phase—Tuning—it was said to be impossible 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.
If he wanted, he could have advanced not only to the next phase—Balanced—but even to the next rank: Seeker.
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.
Then he circulated his nexus energy through the meridians in a certain way, instructed in the internal art, and also through breathing, a minute and almost insignificant amount of energy entered, and the useless particles were rejected and released back, and the useful nexus energy mixed in with his own nexus energy. This process of absorbing and refining the nexus energy from the air is too time-consuming, even with the grade 3 art. It would have taken at least 1 year for him to accumulate enough nexus energy to advance to the next phase, but absorbing nexus core from a monster would help him accumulate enough nexus energy required to refine and advance to the next phase could be done in 4 months at ease. The number of cores one needs to accept is not fixed but varies; sometimes it may be just one more extra or less, and sometimes it's more than one, and it's not fixed as the core size and quality are a bit different from each other's core.
Without caring for the pleasant washover feeling in his entire body, which was a result of the calm nexus energy flow in his meridians
He put his entire concentration on the flow and the path it was supposed to take. As the name suggests, Flawless Stride Energy, his energy flowed through his meridians with calm vigour.
Cain tried to manage the pace a bit, but it brought him a great deal of pain, as he was just in the Adept rank, and excessive training in trying to control the nexus energy better at early ranks might impact negatively and shatter the meridians, so one needs to be focused and patient, and Cain was very patient.
His body tensed a bit, and he still continued training in his internal art.