“Why does that sound dangerous to me?” Damien asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Not dangerous,” Delph said with a wave of his hand. “Just not very fun. Getting stronger rarely is. Pain paves the road to success and all that.”

“Wonderful. Well, I suppose it’s better we do that than worry about accidentally going through the evolution during finals,” Damien admitted. “When can we do it? And is it free?”

“Completely free,” Delph said. “Part of the services that the school provides. And it’s not all that difficult. All you need is a mage that knows the ritual and some time.”

“Well, do we know anyone that knows the ritual?”

Delph quirked an eyebrow.

“Right,” Damien said. “I suppose you do. When should we do it, then? Finals or not, I still have a bunch of classes that I’ll have to go to. Is this going to take a while?”

“Same here,” Sylph added. “I don’t think my teacher would approve of me skipping them.”

“Don’t worry about it – we make exceptions for situations like this,” Delph said. “You’ll be able to catch up on what you missed later.”

“I guess I’ll let Greg know next class,” Damien said.

“No need,” Delph said. “I’ll let your teachers know for you. Time is slipping away. No reason wasting an extra day.”

Damien blinked. “We’re doing it now?”

“Why not? You don’t need to prepare for this. You can’t, really. Just get it over with as soon as possible.”

Damien and Sylph exchanged a glance. Something told him that, even if they didn’t want to do it immediately, telling Delph no wouldn’t have been good for their health. The strange professor didn’t take kindly to people disobeying him.

“Alright,” Damien said. “If you’re sure. So, what do we do?”

Delph brushed past them, walking down the hallway and into the training rooms. He glanced around and let out a grunt before stopping at the second room. “You’ve been busy I see. This back room will do nicely. Sit down on either side of me.”

Damien and Sylph followed the professor’s instructions, watching him warily the entire time. Delph smirked at their expressions. He reached into the open air before him and his hand vanished, entering some sort of invisible portal.

He pulled out a long rod with a stick of chalk at the end of it and started to draw on the ground. The professor created two intricate rune circles around each of them. The circles were several rings deep and had several hundred runes each.

Despite their complexity, Delph almost looked bored drawing them. The room was silent aside from the rapid fire scratch of chalk on the ground and Delph’s occasional disinterested yawns.

Henry, what is this rune circle? I recognize a lot of the runes and it looks like some sort of feedback loop paired with a containment spell, but not one that I’ve ever seen before. And what’s the purpose of having so many circles?

“It’s meant to force your body to use as much Ether as possible in a short amount of time, then force it back into you,” Henry said. “Not a bad way to force a core evolution at all. Similar to what I would have used. This should work fine.”

And what about the containment spell? What’s he doing with that?

“That’s to keep you in of course,” Henry said. “If you just ran out of the circle, it wouldn’t do all that much to help your core evolution. This way you’ll be forced to stay inside until it’s done.”

That’s… ominous.

“Quite,” Henry agreed merrily. “But Delph is wrong about one thing. You don’t just get to sit back and enjoy the ride. Not all core evolutions are equal. You need to snag every bit of power that you can, and that means remaining focused and drawing in as much Ether as you can handle. Don’t stop no matter what.”

Okay. Ah – when Delph says this is going to be painful, does that mean –

“Right,” Delph said with a clap. “We’re all ready. The two of you won’t need any nourishment during this process, so don’t worry about that. Your bodies won’t be doing much of anything, so just relax as much as you can.”

Damien and Sylph both nodded.

“Fantastic,” Delph said. “Best of luck, you two.”

“Wait,” Damien exclaimed. “What if we need to leave the circle for some reason? How long is this going to take?”

“Oh, just a week or so,” Delph replied, ignoring his pupil’s bulging eyes. “As for leaving – don’t.”

Delph snapped his fingers. The runes surrounding Damien and Sylph lit up with brilliant white light. Motes of energy rose up from them, forming a translucent barrier that blocked out the outside world.

Lines of energy trailed across the ground, rising up and pressing into their skin. Tingles ran across Damien’s body as they passed through him, traveling past his flesh as if it wasn’t even there.

They curled up his legs and covered his back, passing through every part of Damien’s body and slowly making their way towards his core. He drew a sharp breath as the tingles grew stronger.

Damien sat down cross legged. There was no more time to argue or ask Delph questions – not that he thought the professor would even bother answering at this point.

Faint vibrations started to travel throughout Damien. At first, they were almost pleasant. That quickly passed as the intensity grew into a violent current that threatened to make his teeth chatter. His hair stood on end and the air around him crackled with energy.

“Start drawing in Ether,” Henry instructed. “And don’t stop.”

Damien closed his eyes and followed Henry’s instructions. He cast out his net of mental energy. Brilliant light flooded the room, nearly blinding him. Instead of the normal crisscrossing lines of Ether, it was like he and Sylph were each in the center of a giant knot.

Lines of Ether pulsating with golden energy surrounded them, leaving the rest of the room strangely empty. He could just barely see out from in between them, but the Ether grew brighter with every passing second.

He squeezed his eyes shut. There wasn’t even a reason to reach out to gather the Ether – it was getting pumped straight into his core. All Damien had to do was open himself to it. He drew one more steadying breath and started to channel the Ether.

The pressure gathered slowly. Ether started to trickle into his core, filling it at a steady rate. With every passing minute, the flow rate increased a small amount. It wasn’t too difficult to control at first, but it showed no sign of slowing.

Damien had briefly been worried about getting bored or distracted throughout the process, but he soon learned that neither would be possible. The churning Ether within him demanded every scrap of his attention, threatening to overwhelm him the moment he lost focus.

Time started to blur. The thin trickle of Ether turned into a stream, and then a flood. Damien’s core filled to the brim, but the energy continued to pour into him. Hairline fractures raced across it, leaking Ether out into his body.

It raced through his flesh and bones, shooting into every unsaturated spot it could find – but still the Ether came. The prickling sensation gave way to a powerful throbbing ache, and it was only getting worse as time went on.

Damien gritted his teeth. His eyes had long since been squeezed shut to save them from the blinding light surrounding him. Despite the growing pain, he drank in Ether like a starving man.

The air around him hummed with power. Swirling energy raged within his core, clamoring for a release. Damien’s back arched and he let out a scream of pain as the symphony of agony reached a crescendo.

Conscious thought faded in and out of existence. Aside from the pain, there was only a single conscious thought within his mind: absorb the Ether.

The inky black tentacles on Damien’s skin twisted and churned across his skin. They sprawled outwards, hungrily drawing in any excess energy that the boy missed. The runes they emerged from shifted, burning with their own brilliant glow as they attempted to keep the darkness sealed.

A great crack split down the center of Damien’s core. For a moment, mere strands kept it in place. Then it shattered, imploding on itself as the Ether surged forth, unrestricted at last. Damien didn’t scream this time – his voice had given out long ago.

As horrendous as the pain was, what little of Damien that was free to think was amused to find that it wasn’t even close to the worst he’d suffered. Even as the Ether ravaged his body, he drew more of the energy into himself.

The patterns of magic swirling within him started to change. Patterns started to form within the Ether. Piece by piece, shimmering runes formed within him. They were of no language he knew, but the raw power within them was undeniable.

Ether redirected, flooding towards the runes instead of attempting to escape his body. At the same time, the runes started to migrate towards the shattered remains of Damien’s core. It twisted together, connections snapping into place with thrums of energy.

Piece by piece, a new core started to form within his chest. It was made entirely of runes connected by a rapidly growing shell of Ether. Strands of dark energy traveled throughout it, intertwined with the golden light.

The flow started to reverse. The Ether started to rush towards the core as a powerful force started within Damien’s core.

Damien’s skin prickled. The air grew cold around him and his lips turned blue. Ether flooded into him once again, this time rushing past his outer body and darting straight into the newly formed core as if the void itself was on its heels.

And then it was over. With the pungent smell of ozone and copper, the barrier surrounding Damien shattered. A wave of Ether that he’d yet to absorb rippled out, washing over the room and dissipating into the air.

The runes on the ground sparked, the chalk burning away as the power overwhelmed it. Damien drew in a ragged gasp, slumping forward as the Ether lines slipped out of him and returned to their natural spots.

“Well done, Damien,” Henry said. He sounded almost hesitant. “Are you okay?”

It took Damien a few minutes to answer. His ears still rang and his clothes were so wet with sweat that, for a moment, he thought someone had dumped a bucket of water over him.

I – I think so.

With a supreme force of will, Damien forced his gaze to rise from the floor. Cracks were traveling through the barrier surrounding Sylph, but it had yet to break. Delph was nowhere to be found.

Did it work?

“It worked,” Henry said. “Your core has evolved. Look at your wristband.”

Damien activated the band.

Damien Vale

Blackmist College

Year One

Major: Undecided

Minor: Undecided

Companion: [Null]

Magical Strength: 8.3

Magical Control: 2.4

Magical Energy: 22

I’ll be honest. I don’t remember what my numbers were before. My head is fried.

“Your magical strength and control nearly doubled,” Henry reported. “Your magical energy grew as well. However, the most important part is that the limit to your growth that was approaching in the near future has been removed. You’ll be able to continue progressing now.”

Too many words. Too big.

Damien pushed himself across the floor until he reached a wall. With a groan, he pressed himself against it and slowly started to rise to his feet. The shower was only a few feet away from him, but it felt like it was on the other side of campus.

He took a wobbly step forward, keeping one hand on the wall. A low crackle rose up from Sylph’s rune circle. The cracks covering the glowing Ether spread further, racing across its surface.

The barrier flared a brilliant white, forcing Damien to squeeze his eyes shut. Then, with a sound like tinkling glass, it shattered. The wave of Ether that shot out was nearly strong enough to knock him off his feet.

Damien raised a hand, bracing himself against the wall as he was buffeted back. Sylph stood before him, her face set in a determined snarl. Her hair rippled around her like a dark halo.

Sylph blinked, slowly looking around the room. She didn’t look to be in much better shape than Damien. The two of them watched each other, too tired to say anything for several moments.

Damien was the first to break the silence. “Did it work?”

“I… yes, I think so,” Sylph said slowly. “I don’t feel that different, though.”

She looked around the room, then pinched her soaked shirt with two fingers. Sylph pulled it up just enough to reveal the runes covering her lower chest and stomach that Henry had put there and grimaced. The core evolution hadn't removed them. “Where’s Delph?”

“Don’t know. Just woke up,” Damien muttered.

“He left,” Henry said. “Only stuck around for the first few hours before wandering off.”

How long were we under?

“Not that long,” Henry replied with a mental shrug. “Few days.”

…how many days?

“Eight or so.”

That’s more than a few.

Henry grunted in response. Damien shook his head, trying to force some motivation into his limbs. Then he took another weary step towards the bathroom. Sylph had the same idea moments later.

What followed was possibly the most ridiculous race in human history. The two dragged themselves, inch by inch, across the arduous journey that was the distance from the training rooms to the healing shower.

It took them several minutes just to reach the curtain. Damien practically fell through it, staggering against the bathroom wall with Sylph hot on his heels. The only reason he’d beaten her there was because his circle had been closer to the bathroom than hers.

He flicked the shower on, then slumped against the wall with a relieved sigh as the healing liquid rained down upon him. His clothes were already so soaked that there wasn’t even a point taking them off – not that he could have, had he wanted to.

Sylph pulled herself inside the shower as well, but her movements were getting sharper by the moment. She leaned against the wall, letting out a similar sigh to the one Damien had made moments before.

The two of them remained there for several minutes, just enjoying the relaxing water as it washed away their pain.