Kaelen heard the message of the spell fade away as his eyes opened slowly
'Huh? 'What's this?'
He was sleeping in some sort of bed, but it was enclosed and seemed to have many wires around the walls as well as a glass lid that folded outwards like a dome.
'Is this a sleeper pod?'
That was exactly what it was—well, it was a significantly older model that clearly lacked any of the self-cleaning abilities that could be discerned by the large amount of accumulated dust on his face
He quickly wiped his face while holding in his cough and sneeze
'I asked to be sent to the police station 3 days before Sunny woke so how...?'
As far as Kaelen knew, the police station was not supposed to have sleeper pods, just the weird torture chairs.
Not wanting to take any risk in case something had changed, Kaelen closed his eyes and tried to focus on his surroundings.
There was only the sound of mechanical whirring, but there were a few noises his ears picked up that seemed to be movement and voices on the floor above him.
There was about 3 that were discussing—'evacuation?'
That was not good. Why would they be evacuating?
He started to listen in closer, trying to pick up on the conversation
"Yes, ma'am, there are 2 sleepers here currently."
"2? I was told only 1 checked in under the third special directive."
"Yes, well... there was a boy one of the other officers found sleeping on the ground—he said he walked away for a day, and when he came back, the kid was still lying there, so he brought him in."
"...Not reporting once infected is a crime."
"Yes, but the kid seemed to be on his way to the station, so we did not make a fuss about it."
"Well... I suppose that's not so bad. How long has he been asleep?"
"...49 days"
"What?! Why did you not inform your higher-ups? If he has been asleep for this long, his body must have crumbled!"
"No, Miss, we may be mundane, but we aren't morons," he chuckled. "The boy is in an old model sleeper pod that we had in the station's basement... we were worried at first that he might fail, but day after day the kid was surviving."
Kaelen stopped listening to them and focused on himself
'I survived 49 days in a first nightmare... That's got to be a record, right?'
He knew the reason why that story had been cooked up—it was the first breath's doing; it was the origin story that the being had cooked up for Kaelen's existence here in this world
'How nice'
A proper underdog story—cliché.
'Well, at least it would give me a bit of Jet's favor.' He was an outskirts rat now and outskirt rats who survived their first nightmare were rare—so if he awakens, he might get closer. having a government contact—especially one of her repute—was not something he would refute
'Well, let's get out of here.'
He tried to push the glass to open it but...
There was a latch
'Should i scream for Jet's help?' He thought to himself, 'Nah.'
He could get out himself
He brought out a manifestation and willed it to take the form of air.
'No better time to test this out.'
He wrapped it around his whole body and like how he became flame, he now became air
Unlike when he was in his soul sea, keeping his form here in reality actually took a bit of effort; air would take the form of the container. It was such an odd feeling
'Is this how Sunny felt when taking another form?'
It was oddly similar but different at the same time—he was afraid that if he were to loose his true name, like Sunny, he would literally become air and just dissipate into the rest
But he had a true name and therefore did not dissipate
He manipulated the manifestation and also his body at the same time shifting his body and moved through the air vent that was meant to take out the air he breathed out
He slipped through and flowed out, dismissing the manifestation; he found himself standing outside the pod
'I'm going to need to practice this a lot more.'
If he gave it a few moments of practice, the ability to manipulate his body would allow him to increase his speed as well as his mode of movement
'...My clothes...'
He was completely naked
Turning his head he saw his clothes inside the pod that was still in the shape of a human
'... Well, it's not like my clothes would stay on in that form.
He was essentially becoming intangible, and unless he gave it the thought to keep the clothes on and consciously moved the air to keep it on his body, they would not stay on
This also meant that in this form, armor would fall off unless he moved the air to keep it up consciously, and also, if he was punched in the chest for example, the chest plate would simply be punched and fly through him and land on the floor
While he would be unharmed
So all in all, things like armor and clothes in this form was useless unless there was some special condition
He looked down at his naked body and summoned the Life Seal armor—the armor was neat-looking and completely white, with the only color coming from the that were being cast on its edges
'...I'm still going to need soap.'
It did not feel the same being cleaned without the use of soap—'The bathroom should be there, right?' He said, looking in the direction opposite of the stairs leading up
But he wasn't only focused on that right now
Sunny was here—asleep and attached to the 'torture' chair
'He should be climbing up the black mountain right now,' Kaelen thought with a smile
His favourite character was here right in front of him; sure, he was ugly right now and not the jade beauty and beyond he would be within the next 10 years
'I wonder how he will react...'
He let out a sigh—sure, he had plans but those plans were not without consequences; some of those consequences others are going to share the burden as well
He moved and sat down on the plastic chair and started to think of what he could do in the remaining time that Jet was up there talking to the police officer
'Oh yeah, I have soul shards!'
He suddenly remembered that he had a little under 750 shards laying there in the [Seafarers Satchel] and summoned it instantly; there should be around 50 awakened shards and 676 dormant soul shards
That was going to propel him into monsterhood and a decent jump towards demonhood
If he became a monster and had the ability to manifest 2 elements at the same time, how much would his battle strength increase by? He wanted to find out and he would find out really soon
He started to pull out the dormant soul shards one by one from the and crushed them in his hand, absorbing the essence within and increasing his shard counter one by one
He also liked the message the spell gave him even if it was getting annoying hearing it so much
[You have claimed a fragment of your power.]
[You have claimed a fragment of your power.]
[You have claimed a fragment of your power.]
He crushed them one by one over and over, and eventually he looked at the count.
999/1000
He was about to crush the last soul shard and reach monsterhood but before he could, he heard a voice from behind
"Are you done absorbing the shards?" The voice was that of a woman's.
Kaelen's mind knew who it was but his body reacted before he could stop it; the satchel was dismissed and the dark sword appeared in his hand, and he aimed it at Jet
His eyes widened as they landed on her face
Her raven-black hair was short, brushing against her neck; her eyes were a cold icy blue, highlighted by her pale skin. She was leaning against the wall with her hands folded, which only made her figure look more attractive
'I can't even blame Sunny for what he said...'
She stared at him for a few seconds silently as he stared at her as well. after about 5 seconds, her eyes seemed to narrow, which gave Kaelen goosebumps
"Are you going to put the sword down?"
Kaelen was pulled out of his stupor induced by her appearance and the situation in general
The Dark sword disappeared into a flurry of sparks as he dismissed it; he bowed his head slightly—"Sorry for that."
She watched him for a few seconds again in silence and then began to walk forwards. as she did Kaelen felt a chill spread up his spine
'Did i piss her off that much?'
No, he couldn't have—Sunny got smacked for ogling at her; he did not
'Tch, what am I saying—I held a sword to her face...'
He was about to brace himself and apologize but before he could Jet let out a loud sigh and sat on the chair that Kaelen had bolted off.
Kaelen looked at her with a confused expression that held a bit of concern as well—'Why did I not get slapped?'
"Did you think I was going to hit you?" She spoke as her head tilted, looking at him
Kaelen let out a turbid breath of air. 'Seems like i'm not getting hit—nice.'
He scratched his neck and responded awkwardly, "Yeah...sorry for swinging the sword at you and ogling you..."
Kaelen's face got a deadpan look before shifting to one of anger, towards himself—'At least Sunny's flaw made him say it. Why the fuck did i just admit it'
Her lips curved into a small smile
"Ogling, huh?"
Kaelen let out a sigh and leaned against the pod he came out from—"Yeah, I havent seen a human in the past 49 days."
He used the excuse; well, it was also the truth but still
Jet seemed to pause again as if searching his entire being. It did not take much to determine why she was doing this
'She is checking my mental state.'
She was
Being in a first nightmare as a kid from the outskirts screamed warnings and would scream warnings at anyone—it was his first time dealing with nightmare creatures and most likely his first time having to kill as well
But Kaelen was not insane right now—'been there, done that.' He thought
"You look in a pretty good mental state for someone who was in a nightmare for 49 days - and pretty clean too.'
Kaelen let out a small chuckle. - "Yeah, my Aspect helped me clean up, ah and i suppose i already went a bit mad in my nightmare."
Jet's smile froze—"What?"
Kaelen looked at her with curiosity again—"What do you mean?"
"... Forget it. How long have you been awake for?"
Kaelen thought for a few seconds, after waking up, listening, coming out and absorbing the shards. About 20 minutes had passed by now—"Under half an hour? somewhere there."
"I see."
The awkward silence seemed to return for a while until Jet raised her hand and rubbed her temples
"Okay, listen, things are a bit awkward because of this situation—I was not expecting to be guarding 2 aspirants and definitely not one who woke up after 49 days."
"Ah, sorry," He replied
"Let's start off with the standard procedure."
Kaelen nodded and decided to introduce himself first—"I'm Kaelen—no affiliations yet."
"I'm Ascended Jet of the government; you can call me Master Jet."
He nodded and waited for her to continue
"Well… In any case—welcome back to the land of the living. Congratulations on surviving your First Nightmare, Sleeper Kaelen."
"Thanks, I guess... but can I ask a question?"
"What is it?"
"Why is a master being put on watch duty?"
Her gaze seemed to darken
Kaelen already knew the answer to this question; he just wanted to not have awkward silence flood the room again
"Recently, there was a lot of Gates opening in this sector. Most of the local awakened are either wounded or occupied with the clean-up. Or dead. It's always like that close to the winter solstice."
She let out a sigh.
"Plus, there are not a lot of Awakened who, like me, directly work for the government. It's by far the least lucrative or glorious career one of us can choose. Would you abandon wealth and fame to work abysmal hours and risk your life, fueled only by altruism and a sense of duty?"
Kaelen gave it a bit of thought. What had Sunny's answer been?
He said no, obviously, but Kaelen was not Sunny but his answer was not all that different
"No... if I'm going to do anything altruistic, it will be by my own terms and time."
Jet tilted her head slightly—"That's a neat answer, actually. never heard one of those."
"I like my freedom of choice a lot; most of the time i'll choose whats best for myself but sometimes that can help others too."
Jet nodded slowly
"You should go take a shower since you just woke up; when you come back, I'll give you the rundown of everything that needs to happen from now on."
"You can just tell me now; I used my aspect to clean up."
Jet normally would not have asked, but her curiosity got the better of her. It was a very odd-sounding aspect, actually—very sad, too.
"Your Aspect... allowed you to clean yourself?"
"Yeah... It's a bit complicated."
"Care to elaborate?"
It was not standard practice for an awakened to ask a new sleeper the details of their aspect; in fact, it was not in practice at all. She had not even asked Sunny about his ability but only inquired about the vague details he would give on his trial
But Kaelen didnt need to worry about not being able to lie well
"Sure, I don't mind."
He spoke but before Jet could ask if he wanted to sit down, his body seemed to undergo an instantaneous change—he changed into water this time, his armor being dismissed as he became this odd form
Kaelen was using his aspect again, directly summoning the manifestation on his body in its water form
"Neat... so... does it have any combat capabilities?" Jet inquired
It seemed that his aspect was not a sad one, pretty decent amongst the ones she had seen, actually.
Kaelen was curious too.
He tried lifting himself of the ground slowly and was actually able to do so, but he did not want to go to high up—flying would take practice, after all; humans were not meant to fly
But he started to test something else out as well
Since he was a liquid now, and a liquid would take the shape of the container it was in, and right now the container was his mind, which he could very easily change the shape of
Molding the water that was now his body he focused and formed another arm to sprout and then he formed another one on the opposite side
'This is a good...'
He seemed to forget that Jet was there as he summoned the light and dark swords, holding them in what would have been his right and left hands—the third arm held the ossified zephyr, and the fourth one pulled the string
'...This is going to take a lot of practice.'
He didn't have that much experience in direct combat and making an attempt to use 2 greatswords as well as a bow simultaneously was not going to be an easy task
But if he was able to master it, then his battle strength would increase further
He focused again, forming another 2 arms, numbering 6 in total. He summoned the claws of flame and held the black handles, which emitted a sizzling sound as it came into contact with his water hand
'That makes sense... water and fire dont go well together.'
Taking on the ideal form to interact with the current weapons, he shifted the manifestation from water to fire and unknown to him and his thoughts. Jets eyes widened
He tried to summon the armor again and focus; he managed to make it stay up as if it were on his body but the problem was that it was wobbly since it was against a literal flame and not a physical body
He raised the swords and slashed while pulling the bow and making a twin stabbing motion with the daggers
'...1 month in the Academy... Will i be able to get to a point when i can use multiple weapons at once?'
Doing all this at once was already taking a toll on his mind
Jet watched as he dismissed the swords, daggers and bow away and kept the armor out while dismissing the manifestation.
He did so in order to not be naked in front of Jet—he was not doing that
As his human form materialized again Jet let out a whistle and clapped her hands slowly
"That's a pretty powerful aspect..." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Your nightmare must have been tough, huh?"
She naturally was impressed by his aspect; being able to become water and fire was already very impressive and even more so being able to manipulate that
But something else that Jet was curious about was his memories.
How tough must his trial have been to have amassed seemingly six different memories? How many nightmare creatures would he have had to kill, and seemingly all of them were awakened?
Of course Jet did not yet know that he was not limited to fire and water nor did she know that the memories he was given was also a way to remember the first lives that were created in the history of Shadow Slave and the journey that they had taken
Or at least some fragment of what they were
"It was manageable - now that i think about it, it was easier once i went mad."
It was, the fact that he had such a powerful aspect in the nightmare that could attest to that fact
Jet looked at him curiously—"I thought you said you went mad?"
"I now now, but i was and it actually gave me a bit of strength afterwards too—after that bit of madness, I dealt with everything else with a bit of ease, honestly." He chuckled
"Let me go and the food then." He must have been hungry after so long
She was about to stand up to leave and get them something to eat, but Kaelen stopped her—"Actually can you just bring back some salt?"
"Huh?"
"I can cook us up something if you give me some salt; I can actually season it."
He didn't wait for her to question; rather, he pulled out a piece of dark red meat that had lines of black here and there—it was the meat of one of the Dark Survivors
"I got hungry in my nightmare so i stored some meat for the darker times." He laughed at his joke but when he saw Jet's blank face he slowed down and had to explain so she doesnt think he is really mad
"I got this meat from a creature called the Dark Survivor in a really dark area."
"I see, well, I'll go get the salt then."
She woke up and went up the stairs to where he believed the kitchen would be
...
Kaelen and Jet sat and ate the food he made
Kaelen was especially glad to have seasoned food after this long—the last seasoning he had was from the tree in the air trial, which he took to the light trial too
Jet looked at him while she took a bite of her food, chewed and swallowed
"There is a few things that i need to inform you about from now on."
Kaelen summoned a manifestation and drank a bit of the water before making it float to Jet, who looked at him weirdly before declining politely by shaking her head
"What things?"
"Well, you are entitled to receive free psychological counseling. No matter what traumatic experience you have encountered, there is no shame in asking for help. Your mind is as important as your body—it's only right to keep it healthy. Are you interested?"
Kaelen swallowed his food and with a smile spoke, "No, not really."
"As you wish. You can also talk to me. Was it very hard?" She offered
"It was interesting to say the least and I learned a lot about myself and a little about what i want and even what i can do when i want something."
She looked at him again with a curious expression that she dismissed instantly
"That's a good attitude. I won't pry any further. We outskirt rats are way more resilient than people think."
Kaelen simply nodded
"Hoh? People are usually surprised when I say I'm from the outskirts."
"Not really. I can see it in your eyes that you aren't someone from this polished, civilized society."
Jet laughed, wiping a tear from her eye—"I have never actually been judged that directly."
"Well, it was a compliment so i hope you'd take no offense."
"None taken."
"What else do I have to know?"
Jet leaned back and answered, "Well, one thing we need to know is your family; I have no details on you and neither did the police."
Kaelen's mood seemed to sour slightly—"They... They aren't here anymore."
Jet looked at him with some odd emotion and nodded slowly—"Don't feel bad; think of it this way—no one will be worried and stressing about your life and actions."
Kaelen laughed—"That doesn't make me feel any better but thanks, I guess."
"Well, with that out of the way, there is only one thing left: to decide how you will be preparing for your first journey into the Dream Realm."
She looked at her communicator and grimaced.
"I must say, your luck is exceptionally bad. There's not a lot of time at all. First of all, you are free to do what you want. No one is forcing you to make a certain decision. That is to say, you can choose to prepare on your own or not prepare at all. Party until the lights go out."
'The same exact words, huh... like Sunny, Kaelen was not well versed in partying.'
"However, I would advise against that. As a Sleeper, you are also entitled to enroll in the Awakened Academy. You'll be provided with food, lodging, and a wide choice of preparatory classes. This late into the year, you won't be able to learn a lot. But it's better than nothing."
She was silent for a few seconds, then added:
"More importantly, you will get acquainted with most of the people who will enter the Dream Realm with you. Some of them might become your companions for life."
'Well, I mean, there is only like 5 people i plan to interact with in there so...'
"I can't take you there right now since I'm here to guard that one." She nodded her head towards the tied-up Sunny
"So I'm going to be here until he wakes up?"
Jet looked at Sunny and back at Kaelen—"Or until he fails."
Those words caused Kaelen to laugh—it sounded so ridiculous, Sunny, failing
That spiteful bastard who made sure to go back and kill anything that harmed him even if it was of a higher rank and class
That Sunny failing - it sounded ridiculous
"He wont fail Master Jet."
She looked at him with a smile of her own—"That's a lot of confidence. Is he your friend?"
"No, not really, but ... let's just say i know things."
"Well then, till he wakes, we will be staying here at the station unless you want me to call someone to take you to the academy?"
"No, you can take me with him when he wakes up."
"Suit yourself." She woke up and moved up the stairs again to the second floor.
"The beds are made and are on the 2nd level. while i go to sleep, you guard him and call me if something happens.
'Did i just get swindled into working?'
He did