Volume 1: Path – [Academy Arc]
Chapter 25: Excitement
Caelus felt his skin becoming colder with each passing second; the temperature was dropping by one degree Celsius every ten minutes.
It had now been twenty minutes since he sat down. He had been trying to concentrate and absorb the Leym energy, but the increasingly frigid air and the chill biting at his skin were breaking his focus.
When he had first changed the climate setting, the temperature was at 13°C. Now it had dropped to 11°C. Coming from a warm region where temperatures often soared above 40°C, he wasn't used to this kind of cold. Snow was unheard of in his homeland, and even winter barely dipped below 20°C, which was already considered cold.
'Fuck, I can't concentrate properly," Caelus muttered under his breath. "Should I pay the merits to change the weather? ... Nah, hell no. I already used it. I'm not wasting more, and if I change it it just means I am giving up and falling in their trap to suck the merits out of me, so that is a big hell nah, and also merits don't grow on trees.'
'Think, think, think…'
As he wrestled for a solution, he suddenly recalled something his instructor had mentioned during a previous lesson about manipulating Leym externally. He had been eager to try it, especially after learning that successful demonstration students are going to earn extra merit points in the next class. He had planned to attempt it in this chamber today, but his frustration over falling for the climate trap had distracted him.
'Even for that, I need to concentrate…' he reminded himself. He raised his freezing hands, shivering slightly.
With a determined breath, he slapped both cheeks hard enough to leave red marks. The sting grounded him. 'Don't think you can't do it,' he said to himself in his mind. 'You can. There are infinite ways to solve a problem in this world. And if there's no solution, you create one. You keep persevering until you find it.'
As that thought solidified in his mind, his heart began to race not from fear or pain, but from something else entirely.
Excitement.
It was the same thrill he'd felt earlier that day when lifting the tachi training weapon, or when diving into the fantasy concepts of magic, or even when attempting the techniques the instructor taught. That strange, refreshing thrill was back.
'What the heck am I feeling… This is so refreshing, it's making me forget the sad past I witnessed two days ago entirely.'
As the thoughts circled in his mind, Caelus locked in. He closed his eyes. The freezing air clawed at his skin, but he blocked it out and forced himself to endure.
Inside his mind, ideas spun like a cyclone, each one rising and falling as he searched for a way to block out the cold entirely.
Then with a click. A thought aligned. An idea surfaced like a beacon through the storm.
But to pursue the idea he just had or even test this sudden spark of inspiration, he first needed to successfully draw out the Leym energy within him.
'Let's think about it, I need to use the trinity, which is my awakened core, mind, and body. He didn't explain how to bring it out properly. But since the mind is involved, that means I can use my imagination to form a way to will it into being and bring it out just like I did in absorbing the Leym process.'
As he thought seriously, Caelus closed his eyes again, shutting out the cold and narrowing his focus to the core pulsing in his heart.
When a person awakens, they gain the ability to visualize their own body directly through their mind. This crucial detail hadn't been covered well by the instructor. 'Maybe he forgot to mention it... just like how he skipped explaining element comprehension ranks,' Caelus mused.
It was Aiv who had told him about it. Apparently, most students knew they could focus inward to observe their core or even inspect different areas of their body because when it was done using one's mind, they could clearly see everything within their own bodies, but the real mystery was the name of this technique. The instructor had not introduced it. That technique was called Inner Sight.
A technique that allows one to gaze inward and visualize their inner self, Inner Sight, is what grants Caelus the ability to properly control his thoughts and perception.
However, maintaining this focus is no simple task. It taxes his stamina, making it difficult to hold a steady mental image when attempting to absorb Leym energy. The strain is mental and physical, forcing him to walk a razor-thin line between clarity and collapse.
Though imagination has no bounds, it is the intrusive, unfocused thoughts, especially those triggered by external discomforts, that can destabilize the image. In this moment, the freezing cold and his anger at the academy's merit trap clouded his mind, weakening the strength of his visualization and ultimately shattering it.
Now that he was doing everything he could to ignore the cold every time by slapping his cheeks to jolt himself, and this caused his concentration finally returned. It was a strange technique he had learned from his mother. When he was a child, if he failed to study seriously, she would smack him until he did. Oddly enough, it always worked. The pain shocked his focus into place. That's why he was using the same trick now, and once again, it worked like a charm.
He let out a sigh, locking back in as he activated his inner sense to check on his awakened core. It took a minute of struggle to properly initiate the technique. Even though he had slapped his cheeks for focus, distracting thoughts still buzzed in his mind. After all, every human, no matter how disciplined, had some distractions flickering around, especially in silence.
These distractions weren't anything explicit or obscene, but rather random, undefined images, thoughts with no name or form. They came and went like fragmented dreams, impossible to catch.
Every time he tried to lock in, a flurry of visions broke through.
Finally, he broke through the fog of mental noise and activated Inner Sight. What he saw was his awakened core a translucent sphere residing within his heart. The lower hemisphere was gently enveloped in a colorless mist, like a soft fog trapped within crystal. The upper half remained completely clear, empty of any energy.
Leym energy was colorless.
And it was just like this when he absorbed it, but the form changed when he used Inner Sight, making the energy become color and transform into wolves.
Now he can finally see the colorless Leym energy in his core.
He didn't have time to admire the mesmerizing sight of the Leym energy within his core. His ability to concentrate was already being pushed to the limit, and even now, he nearly lost focus just from seeing the colorless energy swirling in his core.
Steeling himself, Caelus extended his hand and gently touched the surface of the core. The energy stirred. His hand slipped inside the translucent sphere, phasing through it, and he mentally grasped the Leym swirling within. It responded, coiling into his palm.
Drawing his hand out, a concentrated ball of colorless Leym energy floated in his grasp. He turned his back to the core and, with a focused motion, hurled the Leym toward his Leym circuits.
As it made contact, he immediately extended his consciousness to the internal web of circuits inside his body. Guiding the Leym with his will, he directed the flow toward his dominant right hand.
He carefully imagined a direct path through his circuits and deliberately sealed off any unnecessary branches, streamlining the flow. The precision allowed the Leym to travel without resistance.
In a mere moment, the process was complete. Caelus opened his hand in the real world, and there it was a floating orb of pure, colorless Leym energy hovering above his palm.
His eyes widened with joy. For the first time, he had succeeded.
He didn't waste a second. Fixing his concentration on the orb of Leym energy in his hand, Caelus brought it to the center of his chest and pressed it firmly against his sternum.
The moment contact was made, searing pain lanced through his entire body. It was as if thousands of icy-hot needles pierced his skin simultaneously. He clenched his teeth, his left hand fist trembling, but didn't falter.
The Leym energy responded violently, spreading like a storm surge across the surface of his skin. It crawled outward in shimmering lines, tracing over his shoulders, his arms, down to his fingertips, then across his back, legs, and face. Each path it carved felt like a molten thread was being stitched through his flesh.
His breath caught with each pulse. Muscles spasmed involuntarily as the Leym scoured every inch of his outer body, latching onto his skin and binding with it like a second layer. Every nerve screamed. It wasn't just pain, but it was overwhelming sensory overload, like lightning crawling beneath his skin.
But then, as if passing a threshold, the agony slowly ebbed.
Warmth flooded in, replacing the chill. The biting cold he had been enduring all this time disappeared, and with it went the numbness. His skin no longer prickled from the frost, and he felt balanced and Neutral.
He could finally breathe without seeing it fog in front of him. And though his body still trembled faintly, a calm settled in.
'Finally, I achieved it, my first ever technique, created entirely on my own. It feels incredible. So this is what that excitement was all about... I think I get it now. To think that creating a technique could be this satisfying, it's exhilarating. I want to create more, so many more. But for now, I've depleted my Leym energy. I need to recuperate, absorb more, and store it in my core to raise its reserves again before I can try anything else.' As he thought, he slowly exhaled and closed his eyes once more, locking in with renewed resolve.
[End Of Chapter 25]