Essence

Laughter could still be heard from the compartment.

"You guys only think I'm an old guy because I'm wise beyond my years!" Haskell scoffed playfully.

"No you look old too!" Odis retorted.

Everyone was laughing when Valentina suddenly stopped.

"Then.. Mr. Haskell, can you answer a question I have?"

Haskell turned towards her, "It's brother Haskell! And you can ask me anything!" He replied with a smile.

Valentina hesitated for a moment before opening her mouth. "Uhmm...If someone close to you was hurt because of someone else who is also very close to you, what should you do?" She asked, fidgeting with her fingers. "Uh...they hurt the other person by accident." She added.

"Hmm..." Haskell thought about it for a moment. "If they were hurt by accident, can't it be resolved by them talking with each other?" Haskell replied, to which Valentina dropped her head, with a disappointed look.

"If that's not possible, you should talk with the one who hurt the person. Confront them why they did so." Haskell smiled.

"But you all should always remember." Haskell looked at everyone.

"On the path we walk, we must take many decisions. These decisions may sometimes hurt other people, even if it's an accident. I know it's cold of me to say this, but we must find it in ourselves to forgive others for taking such decisions, and be strong enough to forgive ourselves too." He spoke in a serious tone.

"Steel your hearts... Because in order to deal with monsters, we must inadvertently follow them through the same path as they take." He said in a somber tone.

The atmosphere became silent as each cadet fell into thought. Haskell looked at them and sighed.

"Well, that's if you can become knights. You'll have to work hard if you want to become a knight!"

Everyone looked at him with resolute eyes.

He smiled looking at them, each with different a motivation, but the look in their eyes were the same.

Valentina spoke, changing the topic. "Then brother Haskell, are you really from K-Knight Edana's batch?"

His eyes sparkled hearing the word "Brother".

"Yes! I am!" He replied enthusiastically.

"Then... can you tell us a bit about her?" Valentina asked.

"Sure you want to know how she was when she was a cadet?"

She nodded.

"Okay then, listen carefully. When we just started as Cadets, on the first day, Edana beat up everyone in the class!" Haskell started telling them about the stories from his time as a cadet, while they listened carefully.

Soon, they all started giggling and laughing again.

---

"How much have you finished?" Zaros's lazy voice broke the silence, his head leaned against the sofa and his eyes closed.

"Not even 15%." Zane replied, his focus still on feeding the beast his essence.

"Ugh... When will we finish at this rate? I thought you were at least at the peak of Initiate Seeking." Zaros sighed heavily.

"No, I only recently became a Seeker."

"You better hurry up then. We don't have much time." Zaros replied.

"For what? Why do you guys need a barrier anyway?" Zane looked at him, temporarily stopping his work.

With a anticipating grin, Zaros replied, "We'll soon be at war, you better prepare yourself."

"War? With whom?" He was confused.

"You'll know soon enough. Just complete the task given to you." Zaros closed his eyes again.

"By the time I'm done, I think the war will already be over.." Zane mumbled.

Perking his ears up, Zaros rose up again. "Dammit.." He complained.

"Okay listen kid.. There are two ways Seekers can raise their powers." Zaros started explaining.

Zane listened to him attentively.

"The effective method is consuming the type of essence that your <Arcane> has. In your case that would be Shadow Essence." he explained.

"I know this, I consumed the essence of other beasts and your cult's members.." Zane spat.

Zaros furrowed his eyebrows at the mention of his cult.

"Uh.. But I can't consume every shadows..." Zane quickly added.

Zaros shook his head, "It seems I need to explain the basics of essence... Listen up."

"You could only consume the shadows of beasts and my members because they had a core." he explained.

"Essence can only be generated by beings with cores. You're quite lucky as every being has a shadow, thus, every being with core generates shadow essence."

Zane tilted his head in confusion.

Zaros sighed, "Let's take the Sacred Order for an example. They can only consume Night Essence, which means they'd have to defeat beasts that are active only at night, or they'd have to wait for their Goddess to gift them cores full of Night Essence."

"Oh I get it now.." Zane nodded his head. "What about your cult?"

Zaros stared at him, "It's the same for us. Either wait for our God's gift or consume the Heat Essence of beasts."

"Like that of a Feathered Flame Ape?" Zane remembered the beast he had escaped from.

"Right..." Zaros squinted his eyes towards Zane.

"What about the second method?" Zane also looked at him.

"Ah right... The second method is not worth mentioning for now... You're basically doing it right now anyways." Zaros replied.

"I am?" Zane furrowed his brows.

"Yes. The second one is the popular method to increase your level, for this, you expend your daily essence capacity."

"Daily capacity?"

"Yes, it's what you're doing right now. Using all your essence, recovering it fully, then using it again. You do this repeatedly for the whole day until you can't recover any essence for that day." Zaros paused. "Check your essence."

Zane nodded his head and did as he said. He widened his eyes.

'The shadow I can use increased... but just by a bit...'

"Understand why it's useless right now?" Zaros quizzed Zane..

"Yes... It would take a lot of time to level up like this." Zane replied. "Why is this method the popular one? Isn't the other method faster?"

Zaros shook his head, "Do you think gifts are easy to come by and hunting beasts is like butchering a chicken?"

Zane couldn't reply, and was left with his mouth open.

"Now get back to work." Zaros went back to his rest while Zane fed his essence to the slug.

---

Once he could not recover his essence anymore, Zaros walked Zane back to his cell.

"There you go kid. Have a good rest." Zaros uncuffed him.

"There's only one bed in the cell, how can I have a good rest." Zane retorted.

"Hah.." Zaros chuckled. "Also, the prisoners here are all Seekers.. some rogue, some from the orthodox faction.." He gave Zane a sly grin. "They're not uncuffed either, it's a special treatment only for you and that kid there." He pointed towards Slem.

Zane stared at him and smiled, "That's not good. Accidents can happen if one cannot move their body properly."

"What can we do about accidents?" Zaros shrugged. "Let's just hope not many accidents occur. Then, goodnight."

Zaros closed the cell and went on his way.

After he left, Zane walked towards the bed and sat down, his hands on his chin.

Slem came to his side and tilted his head. "What's wrong brother?"

"Nothing.. Just thinking about something." Zane replied and went back to his thoughts.

"Haah... If only I had some tools..." Zane sighed and got up from the bed. He walked towards the door and angled himself so his shadow was on the lock.

"Ughhh..." He tried to turn his shadow into a thorn, but the liquidy shadow would fall apart in seconds.

"I don't have any essence left..." He dropped his head, disappointed.

Slem moved towards him and pulled on his sleeve, "What are you doing?"

"Oh.. I was just trying to unlock the door.. Do you have any tools we could use?" Zane looked at his big round eyes.

Without saying a word, Slem moved towards the door and turned his hand into slime, he inserted his hand into the lock and rotated it.

*Click*

Zane was left there with his mouth hanging wide open, while Slem looked back at him, a smug smile on his face.