Posted by “I’ll kill him, there is no reason to wait until tomorrow. No one has ever disrespected and shamed me in such a manner before. The mere fact that he is still drawing a breath at this moment is an affront to me.” Alex was seething with resentment and was ready to go and take Aker’s life this very second.
“Young Master, of course that disrespectful and impudent child deserves death a thousand times over but if you were to go down now then how would you vent your frustration? You must annihilate him in front of the crowd that was looking down on our family name and pay back their disrespect a hundred-fold. Only by slowly torturing this child in front of their eyes will they truly understand the difference between heaven and hell.” The old servant was trying his best to talk reason into Alex who was at the end of his ability to remain calm.
“Your right, only by humiliating him in front of all of those eyes will I be able to release this frustration. Get the Level 1 Intermediate magic beast ready for tomorrows battle. I want to go with the Five Element Dominator Formation, I will make this kid beg for death before the battle is over. Even after he begs I will continue to torture him until I get bored with it and then and only then will I allow him to die.”
Alex was getting lost in his thoughts of earning back his face and more importantly venting his bitterness. Tomorrow he would unleash hell on Aker and as Aker was suffering under his might he would suffer and die to the insidious laughter of Alex.
Aker who walked out of the arena after his battle wasn’t concerned at all with Alex’s revenge as he already had a whole pit that was trying to see him dead. What was one more person? Could the threat of death from Alex be any more intimidating that the threat he was already under? Will he make him doubly dead if he failed to make it through a battle in the arena? Since that was the case and Alex was already trying to kill him then why would he not ignore and shame him? Aker had already committed himself to standing up to those that oppress him, his goal every day was to make those people cringe their teeth. Hopefully right now that Alex was seething with anger, as far as Aker was concerned that would be best.
Vance of course spoke with Aker about his new opponent and especially told Aker not to underestimate him. Vance was clear to strenuously emphasize that someone of Alex’s background couldn’t be measured by the same standards that he had been used to.
Of course Aker understood what Vance was trying to say, and of course he realized that Alex would be a difficult opponent and he definitely wouldn’t underestimate him, but Aker was left with only one thought, so what? The only way to placate Alex was for him to give up his life, since that wasn’t an option then there was no room to negotiate. In truth Aker understood from the announcer that his battles would get more and more difficult much quicker than they had based on the structure and format of the battles against Alex.
As soon as Aker heard the announcer speak and the crowd talking, he realized quickly that he had only one option if he wanted to survive through his battles with Alex. The only option Aker had was to mock and humiliate Alex trying to draw him into the ring.
As long as Alex was on the sidelines directing the magic beasts, he would never have an opportunity to take this opponent down. Since that was the case, Alex could continue to train ever increasingly more difficult magic beast in greater and greater numbers until Aker was simply overwhelmed. Right now, unless the script was changed Aker was playing the part of the defeated hero. He had to force Alex into the ring for a battle with him, there was no other choice.
To that end Aker would taunt and coax Alex hoping that Alex would lose his temper and enter.
Vance continued to guide and direct Aker explaining how certain formations worked. Aker was already versed in some of the formations and was familiar with the specific formation that Alex had tried to use. A few months back Aker had asked Vance to bring in different kinds of books besides the medical, cooking and blacksmithing books he had been reading, so Vance had begun bringing in stacks of books every day.
Aker who would read ten to twenty books a day had read a rather interesting book series on battle strategies called Knowing When to Move Forward, Knowing When to Withdraw which went through several hundred different types of battle formations. These formations covered everything from guerilla warfare to commanding millions. It reviewed in depth historical battles fought across countries on a single planet to multiple planet destroying battles fought across multiple galaxies.
The series was made up of thirty-two books of which Aker had the opportunity to read twenty-four of them. He had asked about the remaining eight, but Vance explained that you had to attend one of the Emperor’s Academies to read the last eight. Fortunately, the Lightning Bullet formation was included in the books he read along with best practice uses of it as well as several different countermeasures.
Instantly when Aker saw that all of the magic beast lined up were wind element types he knew it could only be on of about a dozen different formations. As soon as he saw them get in the four by four formation and start coming in waves it left only the Lightning Bullet. When facing the Lightning Bullet, it was imperative that you didn’t turn your back and run as that was playing into the strength of that formation. In the case of this formation, the action that seemed most counter intuitive was actually the right recourse, and that was to hold your ground and attack it from the front. If you could dismantle the first wave all the subsequent waves would be interrupted therefore putting a kibosh on it.
of course, everything sounds fantastic in theory, in practical application you have to be a strong enough force to stand up to the beast waves. Fortunately for Aker and unfortunately for Alex they were using Level 1 Basic beast for this formation. Had this been Level 1 Intermediate magic beast Aker may not have been strong enough to stand his ground against them, it could have gone either way in those circumstances.
Thankfully Aker had already advanced to the 8th Level of the Peerless Body about a month ago and in doing so he improved all his skills this time and not just the Comprehension and Mana. He did still manage to increase his Comprehension and mana by one point each and with the reaming six points he evenly distributed them between his remaining three skills.
Aker sat in his cell on his beast blood stain while reading his book and absorbing nature particles. When Aker first started this exercise, he was incapable of pulling nature particles towards himself. He slowly trained starting from that point he had to be solely focused on absorbing to now being able to absorb nature particles while reading the books that Vance brought. If he solely focused on absorbing nature particles, he naturally could absorb them faster, however he had determined that there was no benefit to it and it could even hurt him.
First, his body was not capable of absorbing the nature particles any faster than his current rate. When he focuses on drawing in the nature particles as fast as he can it becomes to much for his Venas and his bones and blood cannot absorb it creating a type of backlog within his Venas. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt that if he tried forcing it he could damage his Venas or his Body Conditioning, at least that’s what his instincts were telling him. It gave him the impression that if he was to damage his Venas or his Body Conditioning now that it could have long lasting effects.
Secondly, Aker wanted to accumulate knowledge about the world he was in. He had been ripped from his home and was on a distant planet and it had been two years and he had never seen anything apart from his cell, the foyer and the arena. It wasn’t until recently that he learned which planet he was on, Malidan in the Methenin System. After reading in the books that Vance brought, he learned that the Methenin System was part of the Eastern Universe and it was at the border edge of the known Universe. Unsurprisingly the universe was broken up into five quadrants, North, East, South, West and Central.
He had read that even though some communication was possible between the different quadrants it was already nearly impossible to go from one quadrant to another due to the massive distance. One of the big benefits of reading about the universe was he was now fairly certain that his home planet had to be in the Eastern Universe somewhere in the outer edge of the universe….in other words from these peoples perspective it wasn’t that far, which Aker found as exciting news. When he had read that on the first day, he couldn’t fall asleep that night, somehow finally understanding where he was gave him a sense of relief.
It wasn’t just the books about the Universe and planets that Aker would read. He also read books about different types of beast and their weaknesses and strengths, philosophy, science and technology especially magic engineering, pill concocting and alchemy, magic formations, and everything else that Vance brought.
The fact that he could absorb nature particles while reading for Aker was the greatest advantage, and he wasn’t even interested in trying to figure out how to increase the rate of absorption for now. For Aker he found it humorous that he looked forward to his reading time each day since before he was brought here even when his mom threatened him, he wouldn’t read. He wasn’t sure what it was that changed his opinion of reading to such a degree, but he was grateful for it.
As Aker sat absorbing nature particles, he was especially enamored with a book on pill concocting and alchemy he was just finishing up. He was reading the introduction book for this series and was reaching for the second book in the series and wasn’t paying attention as his hand reached out to pick it up, his eyes glued to his book.
In the process of picking it up his hand slipped and using his amazingly fast reflexes went to grab the falling book in the air which he did easily, however, that wasn’t the part that caught Aker’s attention, instantly freezing him in place.
The part that caught Aker’s attention was that as he moved his hand quickly to reach for the falling book all the nature particles that were near his hand followed motion with him.
Stunned! There was no other word to describe his current mindset. For others they may not understand what this meant, but for Aker who had been reading every type of book he could get his hands he was in disbelief and doubt because his magic fighter level was nowhere close to where it needed to be in order to move nature particles.
Aker already understood being able to sit and absorb nature particles was already outrages and preposterous and without this capability he would be struggling to run around and try and absorb nature particles via contact, so he was already tremendously pleased with his current situation.
Even when breaking through the Source Core, magic fighters were not able to influence the actual particles, they could merely exhibit magic via using themselves as a medium in conjunction with their Source Core. It wasn’t until a magic fighter was touching the boundary of the Nature Core that they could use the magic particles directly and even then, it was narrowly limited.
Aker couldn’t use these nature particles for the purposes of fighting because he didn’t have his Nature’s Core which was required to manipulate them for battle, so he wasn’t excited about that. No, what had Aker exhilarated about being able to manipulate and move nature particles would be the ability for pill concocting and alchemy as well as magic cooking and magic blacksmithing.
A Source Core magic fighter could make magic weapons, concoct pills, and do magic cooking but they were acutely limited based on the size of their Source Core. In order to create magic weapons, food, pills and anything else that required nature particles the magic fighter would have to inject already absorbed nature particles into what they were creating utilizing their Source Core. A magic blacksmith who wanted to make a magic sword might have to use weeks to create the sword as he would have to use his own limited Source Core to create it. It wasn’t possible to have multiple blacksmiths inject into the same weapon as their nature particles were changed when absorbed by the magic fighter and would not be compatible with another. This is the reason that despite the high demand for pills, potions, weapons, and even food there was severely limited quantities.
Aker was beside himself with excitement as he lifted his hand up, his eyes completely hypnotized by the movement of his own hand; he was open-eyed engrossed in what he was doing next. With a ‘swoosh’ his hand moved and the particles around his hand followed suite. He moved his hand sideways, up, and around in circles as he concentrated on having the nature particles move with his hand. Initially it had happened by accident but now he found that it took his full mental focus.
“Hahahaha…..It’s working, it’s working…They’re really following my hand!” Aker exclaimed as he lost control of himself his voice carried out of his cell and into the prison.
“Shut up, were trying to sleep” came an angry and pissed off voice.
“You shut up, don’t talk to Dr. Little Life like that!”
“Ya, let me catch you in the ring, I’ll make it so even Dr. Little Life can’t fix you.”
“Would you just shut up, I have a battle in a couple of hours, and I need to sleep.”
The yelling of the cells started and cascaded through the whole of the prison as the prisoners were getting angry at each other for yelling. Finally after tens of minutes, just as it was about to calm down another yell broke out from Aker’s cell “Hahahahaha….It’s still working…I can’t believe it’s still working!” which started the yelling of the prisoners again.
Aker who was oblivious to all of this was still caught in a euphoric jubilation that would make for a long night for everyone in The Pit.
Level 8
Comprehension 11
Vitality 5
Agility 6
Strength 6
Mana 8