Maybe... maybe I just have to accept that this is my life now.
That's the thought that greets me every morning at 0559, in the single minute of silence before the klaxon screams, before the white-hot agony of Jararu's "education" begins. The kid who carried crates on Toten... he's just a ghost. A story I remember. He's not me.
I am Mali Alkahest. And I am in hell.
Jararu has upped the training tenfold. His new favorite phrase, barked at me over the comms as I'm dodging plasma fire or holding my breath in a vacuum chamber, is "The universe does not grade on a curve, Your Highness! You are an Alkahest! Your potential is infinite, which means your training must be absolute."
He's using my POW as an excuse for torture. He's driving me so far past my limits that I can't even see them anymore. My mind would have broken. It would have snapped on day three.
If not for the note.
It's the only personal item in my entire, cavernous apartment. It's not a data-slate. It's real, actual paper, a creamy, thick cardstock that feels ancient. She must have slipped it under my door after our first "lesson." I keep it under my pillow.
The handwriting is a perfect, sharp, intelligent script. It has only one sentence.
"When Jararu says you are finished, you will have earned this. I am waiting."
Below the words, she had simply pressed her lips to the paper, a faint, perfect imprint of crimson.
I trace the outline of it with my finger. A kiss on the lips this time around. That's what she's promising. It's an anchor. It's the only anchor in this storm of pain and duty. How did I get so lucky? How can a woman like her even exist? I didn't even pick her.
My real parents... I still see their faces as a blur. I don't know their voices, their hopes, or their dreams. But they really knew how to pick a lady for their son.
I really hope I get to know more about them. I tried asking General Kaelen, just once, during an escort to the Crucible. I asked him what they were like.
Kaelen didn't even slow his stride. His voice was flat, hard, and final. "Your parents were the heart of the Imperium, Your Highness. They died so that you could live. That is all you need to know."
Man, I hate the Corrupted. They just take. They took my adoptive parents, leaving me an orphan. They took my birth parents, leaving me an heir to a legacy I don't understand. They keep taking from me.
And now, Jararu is teaching me to take back.
"Again."
The klaxon fades. I'm already on the Training Deck. Jararu is already waiting. This is not the dodge-and-survive test of last week. This is the "Active CTL" phase.
I'm standing in the center of the Crucible, my muscles, bones, and sinews humming with a latent power. My body is adapting. My VIT stat has gone up by twenty points. My Imposter Syndrome debuff is still there, a constant whisper of doubt, but it's quieter now, drowned out by the constant, screaming pain of my training.
"Your progress is... acceptable," Jararu says from his observation post. He sounds bored, which means I'm probably doing well. "Your passive dissolution is now at 87% efficiency against standard kinetic energy. A child could do that. Now, we move on to the hard part."
A panel in the floor slides open. A black, jagged, three-foot-tall pylon of metal rises up.
The room, which is always sterile, is suddenly filled with a smell. It's the smell of ozone and wrongness. It's the smell of the Corrupted from my village.
[WARNING: Void Contamination Detected. Proximity is NOT advised.]
"This," Jararu says, his voice losing its bored affect, "is a hull fragment from a Void-class Corrupted raider. It is 'dead.' The energy within is chaotic, but inert. It is anathema to everything your bloodline stands for."
He looks at me, his welding-arc eyes seeming to see right through me. "You are an Alkahest. The Universal Solvent. Your lesson for today is simple, Your Highness."
"Dissolve it."
I stare at the jagged black metal. It's not just a color; it's an absence of color. It seems to drink the light in the room.
"How?" I ask, my voice hoarse.
"You have a POW of nearly ten million and you are asking a LEVEL 1 question?" Jararu scoffs. "You touch it. You will your POW into it. You unmake it. Do I need to draw you a diagram?"
I walk forward, my boots feeling heavy. My Void Survivor trait is making the skin on my arms crawl. The pylon feels cold, a cold that has nothing to do with temperature.
I hesitate.
"Are you waiting for it to attack you, boy?" Jararu snaps. "Or are you, perhaps, waiting for your wife to come hold your hand? Touch the metal!"
His voice, sharp with contempt, cuts through my fear. I close my eyes and slam my palm against the pylon.
Pain.
It's not a burn. It's not a shock. It's a feeling of dissonance. A feeling of static. It's the sound of a thousand nails scraping down a chalkboard, but in my bones. My Alkahest blood is screaming in protest.
[WARNING: Direct Contact with Void-Tainted Matter. VIT Integrity Compromised.]
[HP: 149/150]
[HP: 148/150]
I'm being drained. Just touching it is hurting me.
"I... I can't," I grunt, trying to pull my hand back. It feels stuck, a terrible magnetism holding it there.
"You can't what?" Jararu's voice is relentless. "You can't focus? You can't try? You are the son of an Emperor, and you are being defeated by a rock!"
"I am trying!" I yell back, a surge of frustrated rage breaking through. I close my eyes and push. I push all my will, all my anger, all my POW into my hand, trying to force it to obey.
The pylon just... sits there. It's still cold. It's still draining me. My System is flashing red. [HP: 140/150].
"You're pushing!" Jararu screams, his voice cracking with fury. "You are a sledgehammer, boy! You are trying to break it! An Alkahest does not break! An Alkahest dissolves! Stop being a brute and be a prince!"
His words... they trigger something. Anya's voice. You're not a void. You're a consumer.
I stop pushing. I take a ragged breath. The pain is intense, a cold fire spreading up my arm.
Don't push. Consume.
I open my eyes and stare at my hand, at the place where my skin meets the dark, dead metal. I stop trying to force my power out.
I... pull.
I open that 'void' inside me, the one I'd hated my whole life, the one that made me feel empty. But this time, I do it on purpose. I open the tap. I don't try to destroy the pylon. I try to eat it.
The effect is instant.
The cold, dead wrongness of the metal doesn't just stop draining me. It reverses. A torrent of chaotic, screaming, filthy energy floods up my arm, into my Karmic Absorption trait.
It's the most disgusting thing I've ever felt. It's like drinking spoiled milk and ash and despair.
I scream, a raw, guttural sound, as the energy pours into me. But the pylon... it's working.
The black, jagged metal is flaking away. It's not melting or burning. It's un-making, dissolving into motes of red-black light that are being drawn into my palm like iron filings to a magnet.
[Absorbing Tainted Energy... Refining...]
[WARNING: SOUL Dissonance at 30%]
[REFINING FAILED. PURGING...]
My body convulses. The energy is too much, too dirty. I fall to one knee, but I keep my hand on the pylon, my teeth gritted.
"Don't you dare let go!" Jararu roars. "You started the meal, you finish it! Control the flow! Don't let it control you! Refine it!"
I focus. I squeeze the energy inside me, using that tiny CTL: 3 stat like a tourniquet. I force the 'taste' of the Void through a filter I didn't even know I had. It's agony. But the flow of red light begins to... change. It's still coming into me, but it's cleaner.
[REFINING... SUCCESS. Tainted Energy Converted: 10%]
[ENERGY (EP): 150 / 10,000,000 (LOCKED)]
I'm doing it. I'm eating the Void.
The pylon is shrinking, unraveling faster and faster. The flow of energy is a river, then a stream, then a trickle.
And then... it's gone.
The pylon has vanished. The floor where it stood is clean.
I collapse, rolling onto my side, vomiting onto the pristine white deck. My body is wracked with tremors, my arm a string of fire. But I am alive. And the pylon is gone.
My System, my beautiful, cruel System, sings.
[ACTIVE SKILL LEARNED: ALKAHEST TOUCH (LVL 1)]
> Description: Actively dissolve targeted, low-level matter or energy. (Cost: Stamina & Willpower).
[+5000 XP]
[LEGACY INTEGRATION: 7%] [|||||||---------------]
[CTL (Control): 3 -> 5]
[VIT (Vitality): 170 -> 175]
[DEBUFF UPDATED: Imposter Syndrome - PENALTY REDUCED. (Social-based action (CTL) at -40 penalty)]
I lie there, panting, a pool of my own sick next to me.
Jararu's shadow falls over me. I look up, expecting a word of praise. A "good job." A "well done."
He just stares at the spot where the pylon was, his expression one of calculation.
"Sloppy," he says, his voice flat. "You purged 90% of the refined energy. A complete waste. Your conversion rate is abysmal."
He looks down at me, and I see the faintest, almost invisible, twitch at the corner of his mouth. It might be a smile. Or it might be a grimace.
"But you did it," he concedes. "You aimed your POW and you didn't destroy the room. You learned to be a solvent, not a bomb."
He turns and walks away. "Medical drone is on its way. Clean yourself up. Be on this deck at 0600 tomorrow. We are moving on to ranged dissolution. And try not to vomit on my floor. It's unbecoming of a prince."
He leaves. I'm alone, aching, and... victorious.
I close my eyes. I'm one step closer.
I am waiting.
Anya's promise. I can almost feel it.