Chương 42: Shard Cultivation

Anadis woke late the next morning, surprised at how much his new arm had already formed. It no longer looked like the "take my little hand" guy from Scary Movie 2. It was about ninety-nine percent complete—just tender, red, and a bit sensitive—but he had all five fingers and could bend and control them properly. To make things even better, the Learning Hall had no classes that day. Yep. Today is going to be a nice day. Focusing, Anadis called upon a Boon, and a small blue anchor materialized in his palm.

Its twin, the red anchor, was already set as Home in Eljudnir. He wanted to set his house as Return. It would be nice to have a quick way back to Eljudnir without trekking through the entire forest again. Definitely don't want to do that again. He sighed and was about to pull the anchor's chain twice, just as the Boon's description instructed, when Hel interrupted him.

"What are you doing? We don't have time for that right now," she said, her voice laced with authority.

"Remember, today I'm showing you exactly how a black-core Blessen can compete with and even surpass the likes of a yellow core, or even a white core." Anadis immediately tossed the Boon onto his nightstand and gave her his full attention.

"Oh Helphrena, almighty goddess, please show this humble subject of yours your divine ways." He bowed dramatically from his bed, arms stretched out. She huffed.

"I won't fall for your theatrics, kid, so don't insult me with that. I've already resigned myself to the fact that you'll be helpless without your goddess." Hel gestured toward his satchel, where Anadis had packed the Grullshards.

"Get that. I'll first teach you how to absorb their essence." As he unstrapped the satchel, Albus stepped into the room, white hair plastered to his forehead, chest heaving. Albus was always diligent about training, waking up an hour before everyone else.

"How was training?" His twin looked over and nodded, wiping sweat with a cloth that was already too damp.

"Like every day, it was alright."

"Dad already showed you how to absorb Grullshards that time you two went to the forest, right?" Albus nodded slowly once more, still wiping sweat from his face.

"Can you show me?" He raised an eyebrow, then shrugged.

"Okay."

"How dare you?" Hel declared, her wings buzzing indignantly.

"You would rather have this brat explain it than a goddess?" Anadis winced. She sounded genuinely offended. Maybe he should have just let her teach him, but he wanted to spend some time with Albus, so he pressed his hands together in a pleading motion, hoping she'd understand.

"Why are you pressing your hands together like that?" Albus asked, giving him an odd look.

"Oh, it's nothing. I was praying to Amatheris," Anadis said quickly.

"Can't even say you were praying for me?" Hel's disgruntled voice sounded in his head.

"And Helphrena," he added quickly.

"The one that attacked us in the Blessed Trial…?" Albus looked at him like he had grown a second head.

"No, that wasn't her… That was just some woman who wasn't right in the head."

"Are you sure? She did say—""Never mind that. Let's just focus on absorbing the shards."

"Sure," Albus said, sounding unconvinced.

"But don't you have any books that explain how to do it?" Albus eyed the pile of books on the tiled floor.

"Not really. Blessen books are way too expensive. Something only nobles have," Anadis explained. He shuffled over to Albus's bed and jumped onto it.

"Besides, I'd rather learn from someone who's actually done it."

"Alright," Albus nodded, sitting on the mattress beside Anadis.

"First, you need the correct understanding. A purified shard contains divine essence. That is the same essence that moves through your body now that you're a Blessen. Absorbing it is just pulling that out of the shard and into yourself."

"Sounds simple enough," Anadis replied. Truth be told, he already knew all of that.

"It's not," Albus said flatly.

"Hold one of the Grullshards in your hand and close your eyes." With a nod, he glanced into his satchel and scanned the shards. Which one should I do first? Ah—this one.

"Alright, what next?" Anadis asked, eyes closed, fingers tightly curled around the beetle Grullshard. The first Grull he had killed as a Blessen deserved to be the first one absorbed.

"Without opening your eyes, call upon your Blessing inside your Divine core and concentrate on how it feels. It should be cold or hot depending on your attribute, like a heavy presence inside you. You should have felt it before, when you first called on your Blessing, and anytime after that, though fainter." Pulling on the strings of Soulblessed within his Divine core, Anadis almost immediately felt the icy chill permeating his body and soul, similar to the sensation from Eljudnir.

Without opening his eyes, Anadis nodded at Albus.

"Good. Now, clear your mind and guide your Blessing to your hand. After that, try to feel the shard's essence," Albus explained. He wanted to open his eyes and look at his twin's expression, but he held still. Albus rarely explained things in such detail. Most of the time, his thoughts stayed trapped inside his head, emerging only as short, cryptic conclusions that somehow made perfect sense to Anadis. But now he spoke as if he had rehearsed this explanation a hundred times.

Still, Anadis filed that observation away and focused on the shard. Clear my mind. Nothing else. But how? His mind felt like a traffic jam—nothing but noise, especially now that it held at least a hundred years of memories within two lifetimes. He tried to concentrate anyway, gripping the beetle Grullshard tightly.

"It'll feel similar to your own essence but… foreign," Albus continued.

"Like mixing hot water with cold." Focusing on his palm, Anadis directed his essence toward the shard. At first, there was nothing, just the porous crystal resting against his skin. Then came a faint pulse, slightly warm but not burning, distinctly different from his own cold essence.

"I think I feel it," he breathed. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"Good. This is the hard part," Albus said.

"You have to draw it out slowly, pull the energy from the shard into your body. Don't rush. If you do, you'll just tire yourself out faster." He did as instructed and pulled, but the essence didn't budge. He pulled harder and harder, yet nothing moved.

"It's not working—""Don't force it," Albus said, quiet, like someone who had done this.

"Guide it as if you were… as if you were—" He stopped, rubbed his chin, hunting the comparison.

"Oh, as if you were coaxing a scared animal. You have to be gentle and slow, or it'll run away." With a slow exhale, Anadis tried again. Really tried this time. He pictured the white ethereal space, then the orphanage and Rosie. But those were still thoughts. He needed to clear his mind, but then he remembered how he had cleared it once before, unwillingly, yeah, nevertheless did so, during the long decades drifting through space, when he wasn't even sure whether he had been awake or asleep.

And then he didn't pull. Instead, his Blessing began to mingle with the shard's essence. After a while, a path opened from the shard to his body. A thin thread of warmth trickled in. He smiled as the essence flowed into him—slow, but steady.

"I think I did it." Then it stopped.

"This is going to take forever," Anadis muttered with a grunt, finally opening his eyes.

"Isn't it?" Albus grunted in agreement.

"Took me three whole hours for my first shard," he said sympathetically.

"You'll get quicker with practice." By the next hour, Anadis was already exhausted, feeling as though he had barely made a dent in the Grullshard. The shard still pulsed with most of its essence, while his Divine core felt only marginally fuller. Now that it had tasted the shard's vitality, it hungered for more, like a man dying of thirst given only a few meager drops of water.

"This is ridiculous," he muttered in exasperation, staring at the shard.

"It took me a full hour just to drain… I don't even know how much. Half of it? Now I know why most Blessens don't ascend. This is brutal."

"You can check with the Divine Voice to see exactly how much essence it has given you," Albus told him.

"Seriously? I didn't know we could do that." Anadis reached for the Divine Voice, and it answered with a quiet hum at the back of his skull. ◉ Divine Core Status Core Color Black Essence Capacity 10, 000 Ascension Progress 0. 017% Conversion Rate 9. 6% · ◈ ·"Oh, Essence Capacity, Ascension Progress, and Conversion Rate. This is all new," he mused with a smile. He glanced around the room, looking for Hel and her expertise, but she was nowhere to be found, probably still mad at him for choosing Albus over her.

"If this is one hour… and I need… that's…" Anadis sighed wearily as he tried to calculate just how long and how many Grullshards he'd need to ascend, then gave up on the calculation altogether, not wanting to feel even more depressed. He forced himself through another hour. Glistening beads of sweat clung to his forehead. The Ascension rate had only climbed to 0. 024%, while the Conversion rate remained the same.

Nausea churned in his stomach from the Grullshard, but beneath it, he could clearly feel the newfound essence thrumming inside his body, like gaining experience from defeating a monster in a video game. But it felt like just a tiny drop in the XP bar, indicating he was still years away from "leveling up" into an Emanant. Conversion rate, though… What does that mean?

"Hey, Albus," he called. His twin was drying his white hair with a towel, freshly bathed.

"Yes?"

"What's your Conversion rate?" Albus furrowed his brows for a moment, listening to the Divine Voice, then answered, "My conversion rate is at 96%."

"W-what?!" Anadis jumped off the bed, stammering, eyes wide.

"Why so high? What about Ascension? And how many Grullshards have you absorbed?"

"I slew three Grulls the time I went out with Dad," Albus mused, finger on his chin.

"Ascension is at 0. 95% right now." Anadis wanted to flip the mattress and scream at the gods. Albus was already one percent of the way there. If becoming an Emanant was like climbing a hundred steps, his brother had already taken the first one. One sounded like nothing when there were ninety-nine more to climb… yet Anadis couldn't even see the staircase. And Albus had managed it after killing only three Grulls? Three Grulls.

Anadis knew better than anyone how hard that was—he had done it himself when he slew the wolf-like Grulls. Still, how many would he have to kill just to reach that single percent?

"Well, if it isn't the twins." They looked up. Sevran was in the doorway, knocking on the frame as if he hadn't already announced himself.

"Hey," Albus waved.

"Of course it's us. You came into our room—who else would it be?" Anadis eyed the grey-skinned boy, not really in the mood for visitors.

"I better not hear anything about you walking near my sisters' rooms." Sevran stood there dumbfounded.

"Hello to you too, Anadis." He walked in slowly and sat on the edge of Anadis's bed.

"Someone's not in the best mood."

"Listen, if you want to make yourself useful, tell me your Ascension progress and your Conversion rate."

"Why so curious?" Sevran scratched his forearm, lips pursed.

"Just tell me. Or have you not absorbed any Grullshards yet?"

"Actually, yeah. My first and only Grullshard was the one from that ugly tendril-wolf three days ago. You were still unconscious when your father showed Aelia and me how to absorb it."

"So? Your progress and rate?" Frowning and clicking his tongue, the boy concentrated for a few seconds before answering.

"Conversion rate is at 30%, and Ascension progress is at 0. 1%." Having already used Soul Sight the day before, Anadis knew Sevran's Divine core was grey. Still, it surprised him just how massive the gap between them truly was. Sevran's Conversion rate was roughly three times higher than his, while his Ascension progress was four times greater—all from a single Grullshard. Even though Anadis hadn't finished absorbing the beetle shard, he was certain it wouldn't yield anything close to the same results.

What makes a black core so much worse?

"Do you guys have any idea what the Conversion rate means?" Anadis asked, his gaze shifting between Albus and Sevran. They shrugged in unison.

"Shouldn't you be the one who knows that kind of stuff?" Sevran asked.

"Aelia told me how much you read and like to stay ahead of things."

"Yeah… I don't know either," Anadis exhaled in defeat. A faint golden glow materialized beside him, followed by a tiny yawn and stretching arms.

"Finally ready for my tutelage… vessel?"

"Hel!" Anadis sat up.

"Yes, please. I have so many questions, like how come their Conversion rates are so much better than mine?"

"Don't tell me you don't know something so simple," she clicked her tongue.

"Perhaps I should have been more selective when choosing a vessel."

"You know you didn't choose me."

"Don't remind me." With a weary sigh, she dropped onto his head and settled into his curls as though they were a throne.

"Anyway, I'll explain." However, before Hel could continue, Sevran spoke up.

"What is this?" He held up an interesting object. On closer inspection, it wasn't an ordinary item at all. It was a Boon. Anadis patted his tunic. Hadn't he pocketed it, or at least dismissed it? He was sure he had, but he was still in his sleeping tunic, one that had no pockets, so of course he hadn't"Oh, that's one of my Boons. Don't pull on the chain—""Why not? I already did." The moment the words left the boy's mouth, a flash of blue light, exactly the same shade as the twin anchor, radiated from it.

Anadis squinted against the glare. A chill wind carrying the damp scent of water rushed over him, and the wetness beneath his feet told him clearly he was no longer in his bed.

"I'm back in… Eljudnir."