Kaelen yawned as he sat on the chair.
He was sitting here for at least 15 hours just looking around the room and doing nothing; he already knew that Sunny was going to succeed so there would not be a first nightmare seed that blooms and there would not be a creature that spawns
Which also meant that he had no motivation to pay attention to him
He also could not take that last shard to become a monster right now because Jet was asleep; sure, if she were awake, he could make some story about how every 100th shard or something caused him to experience pain but she was asleep and he knew that it would be extremely painful to form a new core
And just in case he did not want to wake Jet up
Jet was a master; sleep was not something that ascended needed often but she was not just any Ascended—she was a slave labourer of the government
How many missions had she been given prior to this?
Many
It must have been many difficult missions, which is why she was given the task of guard duty over an aspirant rather than a pure killing cause that suited her best.
In other words,
Jet was likely very sleepy and he did not want to run the risk of waking her up
Waking up with a groan and stretching his body, he walked over to the sleeping pod and opened the latch, pulling out his clothes
'I wonder...'
He manifested water and threw the clothes into it, making the water swirl and swish around—there was a lot of dirt that came out of it as well.
He could dismiss the water right now, but then all the dirt would fall to the ground, so he walked over to the bathroom.
Pulling the clothes out from the water and holding them, he watched as the manifestation was dismissed and the dirt fell onto the ground, and by opening the shower, it was washed away. Now, looking at the clothes that had no water on them, he smiled, dismissing the armor
Before he put the clothes on, he noticed all the creases on the outfit and pulled out the manifestation again and turned it into fire—holding the shirt and jeans a decent distance from the flame, he watched as the clothes got ironed slightly
Sure there were still creases but at least now it looked decent
Putting the clothes on, he walked out of the bathroom and back to the chair
'Nice, i just used supernatural magic abilities to wash my clothes.'
He chuckled to himself
Or it would have been if Jet were not leaning against the door again—"Dammit... you need to stop doing that," he said, startled.
Jet smiled and walked over to the chair, stretching her arms over her head, making Kaelen blush and look away. "Where'd you get those clothes? I thought there were only tracksuits in there." Dropping her hands
"Oh, these are mine." He said
"Then why were you using armor earlier...?"
"My clothes don't stay on when I am in the elemental form, and I had to become air to get out of the pod without calling for help."
"You can become air?"
Kaelen nodded and, trying to pull the conversation in another way, asked her his own question, "You had a nice sleep?"
She nodded with a yawn. "Being a government official is tiring; you can go res..."
She was about to tell him to go and rest but her communicator started to beep loudly and read out a message
"Category 1 gate opened in the north district of NQSC. All available awakened are requested to respond."
Jet let out a sigh—"Another one."
"I mean, it said category 1, right? It's not that bad."
"That's not what I meant; I meant another sleeper died."
"Oh..." Kaelen went silent
'Thats right... the gate blooms when an aspirant fails.'
"Are you going to respond?"
"No, there are awakened who will respond—I need to stay here and make sure that if he fails." she nodded at Sunny
"A nightmare creature doesn't come through and topple the whole station."
"Ah... I see." He was silent for a few seconds before a smile appeared on his face. "Can I go check it out?"
"You woke up just less than a day ago... "
"So?"
"So, why would you want to go and fight a nightmare creature so fast?"
Kaelen stood silent for a few seconds—"I want to learn about my flaw for a bit."
Jet looked at him and then nodded; she would not ask why or how since flaws were a rather sensitive topic for the majority of awakened beings.
"Sure, try not to die; the strongest creature should be an awakened one, at most a devil."
Kaelen stopped on the step and turned to look at her through the side. "Hey, Master Jet?"
"Yeah?"
"How much stronger is an awakened titan compared to a devil?"
Jet's eyes narrowed as she gazed at him—"They aren't comparable at all."
He nodded his head—"Thanks""
Kaelen smiled and walked up the stairs, leaving Jet to her own thoughts
He made it to the top floor and walked out of the station door, sucking in the stale air of NQSC. With the alarm havinf rung many people must have already entered their basements for safety as their doors and windows had been shut
Looking around he saw the bench that Sunny had been sitting on and he immediately moved towards it
"This should be out of earshot for a master, right?"
Kaelen was looking for a place to become a monster where, if he screamed, Jet would not hear him if the pain was too much and he ended up screaming too loud. He sat down on the chair and pulled out a dormant soul shard and looked at it grimly.
He gritted his teeth preemptively and crushed the shard
[You have claimed a fragment of your power.]
[Your being is growing...]
"Agh!"
He gritted his teeth trying to hold back the scream, unlike the last time when his hand was ripped out and his eye was plucked—he didn't have the rage he did back then blinding the pain
This pain was just as bad, if not worse
It initially felt like an explosion that occured in his own soul; the explosion had sent flames in every direction that caused a wave of heat only for it to return back swirling in the shape of a ball of searing flames
Then it stopped suddenly everything returning to normal—no, it was not normal
[Your being has expanded!]
Kaelen breathed out heavily the sweat dropping from his forehead
'Fuck... that was worse than being burned...'
But he was now stronger and faster; his senses felt better as well
This was the power of being a monster
Kaelen immediately summoned his runes and looked at them again
Rank: Dormant.
Class: Monster.
Primordial Cores: [2/7]
Soul Shards: 0/2000
'Nice!'
Kaelen was glad that he had so many nightmare creatures to kill within the trial and so many shards that he had stored away—his efforts had begun paying off already
The pain had already been forgotten by him seeing the runes. Kaelen sat there on the bench and folded his legs, immediately looking into his soul sea
The sky was currently rather dark; it was like the time just before the sun began to rise in the morning. 'Is my soul's sea sky related to the real world's time?'
It was
His Soul Sea was like a miniature world and now it seemed that there would be a day and a night, which was also dependent on the outside world—he pulled his attention away from the morning twilight sky and started to look around
He started to look around the area to find his 'pet' but couldn't see it.
"Here, puppy... come here."
He called out while walking around; as he was looking behind one of the trees, he was suddenly tackled and thrown to the ground
But there was no malice in it
"Hi, pup... hey, wait, get... off," Kaelen said, laughing, trying to push the beast off.
Well, it was no longer a beast now—it was a monster
It was licking his face, and the odorless black acidic saliva leaked onto his face, doing no damage to him at all or his soul when it leaked onto the grass. Kaelen could only chalk that up to the fact that it did not want to hurt him
The creature laid its head on Kaelen's chest, simultaneously pinning him to the grass bed as it lay on him
Kaelen let out a small chuckle—"You really are like a cute small puppy, aren't you?"
Perhaps Kaelen was playing favorites with the creature's appearance because it was anything but cute and it certainly was not small
Especially now after it had become a monster along with him
The appearance of the creature did not undergo any change other than its size, which seemed to increase by 70% to 80%
"You grew bigger already... and I haven't even given you a name yet." He patted its head as it nuzzled into his chest
He would need to give the creature a name soon but not right now; right now he wanted to test their abilities
"Okay, pup, can you show me what you can do now that you're a monster?"
The creature slowly got up from him, and he woke up as well. It looked directly at him, and Kaelen watched as it set its one leg aflame and then the other one into stone.
'Partial genesis?'
Could he do the same?
Wrapping a manifestation around his arm alone, he commanded it to become flame as well and watched it change; his hand now was made out of fire rather than his while body
'I mean, this doesn't really change much.'
But then he smiled slightly and moved the second manifestation onto his other hand and willed it to become stone and it did
"So I can use multiple manifestations differently and so can you."
He said, shifting it to water and then the other into air
"Pup, can you do a full transformation like I can?"
He inquired.
The creature did not have runes that he could analyze but when the first breath had officially gave it to him, he gained an understanding of what it was and what it could do and essentially...
It was a clone that, rather than having a human base form, had the form of the abomination that it was
He watched as it shifted and became fire.
"Good good."
This was going to be of great assistance, especially if it was going to grow with him
"I'll come play with you later, okay?"
He spoke to the creature which had dismissed the fire and walked to him, nuzzling its head on the top of his, which was quite easy since it was now just a head taller than him
"Okay, bye." He patted its head and moved out from his soul sea
Just as he did he heard the sounds of battle a few blocks away from where he was
'Well at least i don't need to go searching for where they are'