Chương 3: Last Day

"Sir, are you sure you want to be discharged?" the receptionist asked him.

"Yes," Ethan gave a simple reply. He filled out the paperwork while Raphael stood outside under the shade of a tree. A few minutes later, Ethan joined him just as the sun was beginning to set.

"Where do we go from here?" Ethan asked.

"There's an abandoned district to the south scheduled for destruction. It'll make a perfect spot for your training," Raphael replied. He carried them across shadows and out of sight until they were just upon their destination. All around them dilapidated buildings stood on unsteady foundations. Windows were broken, shops boarded up. The entire district looked like it hadn't seen human life in decades.

"That one will do," Raphael said, pointing towards one random building, and shadows came up to consume Ethan and him. A second later, the shadows popped like a balloon and Ethan found himself standing inside one of the buildings. The floor was littered with cracked glass and dust, and most of the place was coated in a thick darkness. Only a little bit of light came in through the windows, and there was moldy furniture everywhere.

After scanning the place, Ethan looked out of one of the broken windows, which showed that they were ten floors above the ground.

"Wow…. Wait, if you could teleport this whole time, why didn't you do it before?"

"You can never be too sure when the GPA's watching, kid. If there's someone on my tail, I'd rather not let them know I've got an out. Now, come over here." Raphael crouched and reached into the shadows once more. This time, he didn't plunge in himself, but instead brought something out. Two stones that people would kill each other to get if he'd unveiled them in a crowd. Both glimmered with an otherworldly light that gravitated Ethan towards them.

The one on the left looked like a dull sapphire with a rainbow branching tree stuck inside. The one on the right was much more dull looking, just a smooth grey angular rock with the same rainbow veins as the last one. Ethan reached out one hand, but Raphael pulled the stones away.

"Easy. You know what these are, right?" he asked.

"A Talent and Skill Stone. For me?"

"An F-Rank Talent and Internal Skill Stone. That's the first thing you need to note down. F-Rank ones are for unawakened Designers, the first one unlocks your Talent and the second is going to grant a skill that lets you manipulate essence inside your body, understand?" Raphael said. Ethan nodded along like a dog eyeing a treat. He wanted Raphael to skip to the part where he could use them.

"You just squeeze it and put your mind to it, and it should break. Here, take a crack," Raphael said, before throwing the Talent stone towards Ethan. He caught it out of the air like it was a baby, fear coursing through him. He gave Raphael a pointed look, but the man didn't even acknowledge it.

"There is going to be a sharp pain once you use it, so if you need help…" he held out his hand. Ethan stared at it for a long while before shaking his head.

"No thanks, Mr. Mag-I mean, Raphael. I think I can handle the pain, especially after that pill you gave me," he replied with a pointed look.

"Still not over that? Just unlock the damn talent." Ethan turned his attention from the man to his Talent Stone. These things were worth a fortune anywhere, even if they were F-Rank. The higher you went up the ranking, the more expensive they became, and even C-Rank stones could be worth a country's entire GDP. The price wasn't anything new to Ethan, but somehow seeing it in front of him made the weight of the tiny stone in his hands all the more heavy.

Can't believe Raphael and his God would trust me with something like this. Despite how he framed it, Ethan felt a smile tugging at his lips. He was actually going to do it, become a Designer. Nearly every child in the universe dreamt of it, but he was living the experience. He grasped the Talent Stone tightly and pushed, not just with his muscles, but with his mind. The first cracks appeared silently, and started spreading throughout the stone.

The more Ethan pressed, the larger those cracks became, and the multicoloured light coming off of them grew. Finally, he pushed one last time, and the stone turned to dust. It flew towards his heart, and Ethan felt a stabbing pain, like a dagger being driven into it. He fell back down onto the ground, and instinctively reached out to hold something, but by that time the process was finished, and a screen appeared hovering in front of him, accompanied by an announcement. Talent Unlocked!

[Talent: Regenerating Berserker (Hidden: Life-Death Manipulation) - Rank F!] Abilities: [Life & Death Sense (F- Rank)] You gain an innate sense for the life and death energy around you. (Progress to E-Rank: 0%) A burning sensation bloomed in his head and Ethan's third eye opened. Everything around him was blanketed in a new green and dark light.

He saw the faintest essence of death in the decaying planks of wood, in the buried insects hidden from his view in the ground, life flowing through Raphael and birds that flew outside the window, and it transfixed him.

"Most Cycles of the Samsaran Order, like me, have our Talent's first ability manifest as a sense for life or death essence. You must be seeing both right now," Raphael stated, and Ethan nodded in response.

"Your body, it's full of life working in channels. Are those veins? It's so thick I-I can't really parse it all," Ethan said.

"That's fine, kid. Take a few minutes to adjust to it all," Raphael said. And so Ethan did. He looked from Raphael to the animals hiding in the corners of the room. Life and death played together inside of them in tandem, working to maintain a single organism, forming layers of life as veins, bones, muscles and organs.

"Everything is technically made of essence, Talents allow us to glimpse that essence and Skills allow us to work it," Raphael explained while Ethan observed a colony of ants walking in a line. He couldn't really see the intricacies in their tiny life force, though. Raphael took him outside and exposed Ethan to other forms of life. Plants, cats and dogs before moving up to humans and then crowds. They watched from above one of the commercial buildings as a crowd of people passed below.

Each of them bearing a unique life force. Similarly, death energy was everywhere too. The earth was chock full of it, almost as much as life. The thousands of buried insects, dead matter, decaying elements, and organic matter that had died. Wherever life had once been but had left, the gaps were filled in by death energy, consuming the shell that had remained, breaking it down till it returned to its bare elements..

"They're… intertwined. Every time the life force pulls, the death energy pushes. And vice versa," Ethan stated as he observed.

"You're the only one aside from Alphome himself who can see that, Ethan. Your parents… they left you this, never forget that."

"... I won't," Ethan promised. But how could you even work with only one half? He wondered. He supposed high-level Designers like Raphael and his mother had managed.

"Where to next?" Ethan asked. The rest of the night was spent with Ethan getting used to his new Talent. Raphael didn't give him the skill stone, preferring to take it one step at a time.

"Unlocking a Talent? It leaves the soul a little… raw, let's say." Once they were done with their patrol, they headed back to the ruined building where they made camp. As soon as they returned, Raphael noticed that Ethan had gone silent.

"Kid, what's wrong?" Raphael asked.

"Nothing, it's just… I always knew something was wrong with my body, but…" Ethan looked down at himself.

"S-seeing it myself makes it all feel so much more horrible…"

The next day, Ethan's fear and shame had receded a bit. He still looked at his own crooked life force from time to time. It was mismatched, never moving in tune with his physical body quite right. And there was more death energy in his body than someone should have had. He could see the effect of it. Wherever the essence was concentrated, his body was starting to shut down.

To make matters worse, his life force was leaking out from a hundred places across his body, and though it generated more to replace it, it wasn't enough. He was an hourglass waiting to empty out any day now. Raphael had taught him how to check his status as well, and he'd been staring at the menu for the past five minutes. Status Name: Ethan Collins Race: Human Age: 18 Credits: 0 ————————— Health: 99.

9% Status Effects: None Estimated Time to Live: 2 Days and 14 Hours ————————— Talent: [Regenerating Berserker (Hidden: Life-Death Manipulation) - Rank F] Skills: Aura: [Locked] The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Internal: [Locked] External: [Locked] Spirit: [Locked] Out of everything, his Time to Live was what caught his attention the most. 2 days and 14 hours. That's all the time I have left to live. It was a sobering thought.

He'd finally become a Designer, the elite of society, and he had all but a weekend to enjoy it. No, it's not over yet. I'll get more time. Raphael arrived a moment later, bringing breakfast along with him. He moved a sofa and coffee table together with his shadows to make room, and they enjoyed a meal of waffles in the apartment building before moving onto the day's topic.

"Now, you've gotten used to your Talent. That makes you an F-Rank Designer, Ethan. Not much better than a normal human."

"How do I change that?" The sooner he did, the sooner he could fix what was wrong with him.

"Talents need to absorb essence to progress. And it needs to be related to the Talent. Got a fire talent? Go to a volcano and harvest some fire essence. Water talent's the same, just hit an ocean and drink it up."

"What about your Talent?" Ethan asked.

"Shadow and death essence. Can't just harvest any old shadows though. You'll need stronger and stronger sources the higher up the ranking you go."

"Shadow and… death? But Alphome sai-" Raphael raised a hand to pause his words. He kicked a leg up on the coffee table.

"Yeah, yeah. Death practitioners don't live long. I've heard it. I'm lucky I made it where I am, the shadow essence dilutes the effect on me."

"Still…"

"Doesn't matter. You won't even have to deal with that. You just need to absorb death or life essence to progress."

"Either or?"

"Your Talent balances out whatever essence you use, at least according to the big guy. Trust me, you won't be limiting your lifespan."

"So, how do I absorb this essence? Are you going to give it to me?" Ethan asked.

"Greedy kid, aren't you? No, your Talent has the ability to automatically absorb essence, so you're on your own." He brought out the Internal Skill Stone from the previous day.

"Almost on your own. Having an essence control skill can really help with progressing your Talent. Take this." Raphael handed it over and Ethan braced himself for the coming pain.

"Don't clench up. The Talent Stone hurts because it's opening something brand new. Skill Stones are much tamer compared to that." With that vote of confidence, Ethan repeated the performance from yesterday, focusing on the stone and crushing it with strength and will both. The dust from the stone flew straight into his chest and a new screen popped up in Ethan's view.

[Internal Skill: Life & Death Control - Rank F Description: Allows the User total control over unbound life force, as well as the life force within their body. Additionally, any life force under the user's control can be converted into death energy and vice versa. Progress to E-Rank: 0%] Ethan relayed the information from his skill to Raphael, careful not to leave out any details.

"Great, just as we expected. Skip the life force for now, kid. Let's deal with my domain first." Ethan watched as Raphael pulled a thick mass of death essence out of his being and balled it up above his hand. He split a small portion of the mass from his own, and let Ethan take unsteady control over it. Ethan held out his hands like he was coveting a flame, and focused hard on his Talent deep in his soul.

At first, he thought of the movements he wanted the death essence to make, but that didn't make it budge at all.

"Skills aren't all mind over matter. Use your hands," Raphael instructed. Ethan did as ordered, and flexed his fingers over the death essence. That finally made it stick, and he smiled as he moved it across his body.

"I'm doing it! Look!" He threw the essence from one hand, unflexing to let it go. The orb arced, and Ethan grabbed it with his other hand easily. To a layman, it would've looked like he was playing with an invisible ball. Finally, when he was done playing around with the orb, Raphael continued with his own orb. Ethan's was a hollow plastic ball compared to his, which felt like a thick tungsten orb and was visible even without his Talent.

"Death energy or essence is, foremost, about decay of matter, it likes consuming organic things and breaking them down, but it also works on inorganic matter, but much less effectively. Though the distinction is… thin. Something like bones, while organic, are much more resilient to death energy than flesh," he explained.

"There is another essence known as Destruction, which naturally seeks to destroy, subvert or ruin whatever it comes into contact with. And it works just as well—" Raphael held out his hand palm forward and launched the orb at a wooden desk. The piece of furniture exploded from the impact.

"—on inorganic matter. Death is a variation of it, hyper effective on living things but much less so on inorganic things. But a lot more things are built of organic materials than you realize. Anyways, now, you try." Ethan put himself in a pitcher's position, breathed out and flung his orb like a softball. The ball flew in the wrong direction, made a tiny bit of paint flake off the wall, and vanished.

"Huh…. These last two days are going to be tough on both of us, kid."

Hours passed as Ethan struggled to take control of the death energy. Raphael lectured him the entire time, not only on how it worked, but other topics as well. The GPA, the Samsaran Order's role, details on the Realm Trial, anything he could remember. The entire time, Ethan had to borrow the energy from Raphael himself. He had no way of generating it himself, and no idea how to convert between it and life force like his skill had suggested.

"Shouldn't conversion be the first thing I work on?" Ethan asked Raphael. The old Designer shook his head.

"Let me put it in words you'd understand. You don't ask someone to develop a new surgery without even knowing what the human skeleton looks like, do you?" After a while of working with death energy to no avail, he switched back to life force instead. It was much easier to work with, though Raphael warned him against using too much of it all at once.

"It's called life force, kid. It's the thing maintaining your life. For a normal person, using a bit doesn't mean much because they can replenish it, but for you it doesn't come back as strong. Just be sure you don't burn yourself out, there's not a lot of good sources around here to gather life essence." Ethan used only a few threads of life force and layered it gently over his nails. That made them grow out half an inch in a second. He waved the hand around afterwards, slashing a brick wall.

But it only made them break upon it.

"I could… have like super strong nails for cutting people?" Ethan said.

"... Keep practicing. You've done growth, now show me regrowth." Healing came easily, since it was just another kind of growth. Ethan cut lines across his arms, and stimulated his body's natural healing with an infusion of life essence. Then he practiced it over the course of three hours, widening the cuts each time, until it was time for lunch. Digesting food helped increase the rate of life force production, but not by enough to really push against his Time to Live. Not with normal kinds of food at least.

The more life force I use, the more my Time to Live goes down. Which means I have to be efficient with my techniques. After lunch, he switched back to death energy practice. The break helped him absorb everything he'd been doing wrong. Ethan shaped it into discs, orbs, spears and whatever else he could think of. After practicing for another four hours with the essence, Ethan finally came up with a move that he could use. It began with gathering whatever death energy he could from Raphael.

He then shaped the energy into a kind of fingerless glove with thick knuckles, and fitted it over his hand, anchoring it there so it would move along with the fingers. DE Overlay, he called it once the technique was finished.

"You'll rot your hand off like that, kid," Raphael admonished him.

"It's fine, see the design?"

"Like a knuckleduster… the death essence isn't touching your hand?"

"Right, just floating over it. And watch this," Ethan said, turning to the closest wall and planting his fist right into it. The stone cracked where he impacted it, and spread to the top and bottom of the wall. Ethan smiled, and then winced, looking at his bleeding and flaking knuckles.

"Ugh…. I s-should've thought of that," he said, before the pain started spasming throughout his arm. He cradled it and Raphael brought antiseptic to clean the wound.

"It's an interesting idea. Something only you could do as well, since your life essence naturally shields your hand right behind the death essence. That said, it won't be as strong if you're using your own death essence," Raphael said as he bandaged up the hand. Ethan would have to fix it later himself, if he could." Hsss … you're right. But it's a start, right?"

"It's a start. Here's a tip, breaking a weapon against a wall won't hurt as much. And if it's made of wood or bone, you can use the same trick that keeps your hand from rotting, to keep the wood from rotting." It was dinnertime by that point, but what Raphael had said inspired him, and as soon as Ethan was done eating, he went back to work. It would be near midnight before he got DE Overlay working with knives, and even more hours before he made it work with spears, maces, swords and a variety of other weapons.

Sunlight broke by the time Ethan was finished training, and he could feel his eyes getting heavier by the moment. The Trial's tomorrow. It's tomorrow and I'm still not ready. Fear threatened to shake his resolve, but Ethan ignored it.

"You're going to kill yourself before the trial does, kid," Raphael said as he materialized from the shadows, carrying the day's breakfast.

"I need this, Raphael. You said it, kids from rich families train for years for this. I've only got one more day," Ethan said, wiping the sweat that had gathered on his brow.

"And plenty of Trial Goers are less prepared than you. Not everyone walks into the Realm Trial with their Talent and a skill unlocked," Raphael tried to tell him.

"What you need is rest, kid." Ethan brushed him off.

"Once I'm done. Teach me what else I can do." Raphael looked conflicted, but he finally caved in after a moment's hesitation.

"There is… reinforcement." Reinforcement took eight hours. Eight hours of learning how to use life force not to heal his body, but to make it stronger than it was. And it was something Ethan sorely needed. His practice with Raphael made him aware of just how slow and weak he really was. Life Reinforcement, Ethan intoned once he'd learned the basics. A constant stream of life force entered his muscles and bone, raising their limits. Ethan picked up a bottle of water, feeling the effort lessened.

He then tried a small table, and even that lifted, though with some struggle. Anything heavier than the sofa was a no-go. Life reinforcement could only do much there when the foundation was so weak. But that didn't stop Ethan from trying.

"Alright, kid, cut that off right now," Raphael ordered, and Ethan lost control over the ability. Raphael caught the falling cupboard he'd been trying to lift with his shadows.

"What? huff Didn't you… huff want me to train… huff for the Trial?"

"Yeah, but you're risking it too much. How much time do you have left to live?" Raphael asked. Ethan took a deep breath and looked down ashamedly.

"About… 28 hours."

"That's barely three hours after the Realm Trial starts. You want to live, or do you want to be dead on arrival?"

"... I want to live."

"Then you're effectively banned from practicing with life force until you figure out conversion between it and death energy," Raphael spoke it like an order he couldn't argue against. He even forced Ethan into an hour-long nap, but he woke up by himself as worries for the Trial piled up in his mind. Instead of forcing him back asleep, Raphael let him focus on his last task. Life-Death Conversion. For every move he'd practiced before, Raphael had centuries-old traditions to reference and guide Ethan.

But what he was about to attempt was unknown territory. Which meant he had no idea where to begin. He started with a ball of death energy, as he had done before. Then he tried shaping it, squishing and stretching the energy, hoping it would transform. But it didn't. It's… like putty in my hands. But how do you turn one colour of putty into another? He wondered as he continued shaping and turning the energy, but it all proved fruitless. Maybe it's some sort of mental command? Change!

He ordered it to shift, but the essence would not obey. Behind Raphael's back, he tried mixing a bit of life force into the death essence, and that proved fruitless too. The hours dragged on with Ethan trying and failing to convert the energy. He even tried to work backwards from life force, but it wouldn't take. It just wouldn't take. And then time ran out. The day ticked over, the sun rose, and the Trial would begin in ten hours or so. That's still enough time, I can… I can keep practicing.

There's something I'm not seeing, Ethan rubbed his eyes. His mind felt cloudy, and forming a thought was becoming harder and harder with every passing minute. Time, time, time… Someone placed a warm hand on his shoulder, and Ethan looked up into Raphael's pitying eyes.

"Don't… look at me like… like that, Raphael," he mumbled unintelligibly.

"You've got a big day ahead of you, kid. Get some sleep." Ethan only felt the death essence for a moment before it knocked him out.