“The next stage is painful. Your entire brain will be made out of aether. Imagine there is an area near your skull that isn’t made out of neurons or any other cells and push all the aether into it. The new liquid aether will push on the brain from all sides. It condenses it down to the size of your fist while keeping all the nerves attached to your spine. The initial reason why I didn’t want you to be a brain cultivator, is because of the cultivation process. If you fail at cultivating with a gut core, you will experience eternal wounds that can be healed. Even heart core training accidents can be mended. Brain core accidents are irreversible. Think back to everything I have told you about the brain and condense down your brain from the brainstem up.”

“What is the next step?”

“I don’t think you should … ”

His determination was like steel. ”What is the next step?“

Jason sighed mentally. “You will blackout from the pain, so the information is useless, but I am fucking with you. You will need to create a smaller duplicate of your brain in the space that formed. Finally, you imbue it with the will to connect and think.”

“The next step?”

“You do the same.”

“The next step?”

“You do the same ten times.”

Satisfied, Res lay down on the podium and relaxed all the muscles in his body. Casting out his senses, he felt the faint breeze coupled with the scorching noon sun. The faint smell of blood and brains in the air. “Death. What is death? Aether is Potential. Death is potential extinguished. Taken without giving.”

With a snap, he felt the connection to the surrounding aether once again and basked in its potential. He remembered the undiscovered greatness of those lost souls and pulled in. When parts of his mind broke from the strain, he pulled harder, pulled through, pulled. He felt how all the surrounding aether reacted to his thoughts and hopes. A mountain of aether heeded his call and flooded towards him. Like a gutter drain, he pulled in, and in until he felt that his brain was near bursting. With some mental effort, he switched from storing aether to pouring aether into an area next to the skull. When he established his aether cultivation, he had thought that he would never feel such pain again. Res chuckled at his naïve former self. His former self hadn’t had a hundred spears impaling his head at once while rats tore away at the brain. The pain reached a new climax and the vortex in his mind continued to offer the easy way out of this mess. It whispered at him.

“Why are you doing this?”

“For a boy you didn’t know?”

“Blissfulness is nothingness”

Res pulled in even more aether. The dull pain of over-drafting would stop tantalizing whirlpool in his mind. “More, more … ”

With a deafening bang, his brain imploded and took on the shape he wanted it to. The tentacles of his aether reach were now snaking among the bystanders, pulling in more, MORE. While concentrating on all he knew from Jason, he built up another brain while shouting in his head: “Think and Connect! Think and Connect!”. Some might a pause without pain as relief, but for Res, it only made the way out of the dark whirlpool more attractive.

“I could … No.”

Once again, he concentrated the aether in his mind, though it took more effort this time. He let his aether reach shoot out further and further. Even though he readied himself for the pain, his baser instincts screamed at him to let go, to stop.

“No, I won’t give in … I won’t”

His entire body began to burn, first pleasant, then painful. *SNAP* The new brain imploded and snapped into place. He could feel his aether awareness increasing and he used all his new capabilities to once again pull in. In the back of his head, he could hear a protesting voice, but he played it off as a trick of the vortex to lure him in. By now, all his veins were burning like fire and something in his ears popped, but he pulled through. *SNAP* The brain imploded and snapped into his intended form. New data about nearby strong power sources and new potential was bombarding his mind. Through the blood haze, he could hear a small voice in his mind that some part of him still recognized. He ventured closer to the voice until he could make out what was said.

“Stop … Hurts … Bro …”

His common sense came back to him at the name that Jason had given him and he returned to his body. He wanted to suck in lungfuls of air, but couldn’t as a foul liquid filled his mouth. Res spat out the liquid and sat upright.

“Jason, are you alright?”

Through their mental link, he could hear only faint wheezing. “No … worry … fucking … crazy.”

Res laughed out loud and choked at that foul-tasting liquid in his mouth. When he looked down at himself, he realized that he sat in a pool of blood. “Where is …”. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve which came up bloody. “Internal …”

When he let his gaze roam over his surroundings, he could see that everyone was staring at him in horror. Except for one overweight female participant who ran over to him, holding a green liquid in her hand. For some reason, he was now lying propped up against the side of the arena. Most of his strength was draining away as he watched the jiggling advance of his only rescue.

His rescuer stopped dead in her track when the prince called out. “With the power that I possess as the crown prince, I forbid you of giving that potion to Leonard van Avvenci.”

Res gave up all hope when he heard the prince. Instead of turning away, the overweight girl continued her brave run towards Res. She didn’t default in a situation where thousands of others would have backed down. Due to the power of the Alchemy Alliance, the prince had to watch as the girl poured down a healing potion down his throat. “You will pay for this insolence! I will flay your fat ass bloody!”

Yet, the same timid girl continued to hold Res’s torso upright, so the potion could work better. The prince’s threat set the entire colosseum into motion again and general murmur broke out.

Res turned his attention to the girl that saved him. “Thank you.”

“I only did what’s right.“

“I will give you all the nuts you want as thanks. How much time has passed?“

“You have half an hour left.”

“Can you tell me something about the nuts?”

She hesitated and looked back at the fuming prince.

“They are used to keep your ding dong straight. Not poisonous. You should eat some to recover your strength. I will have to get back to my potion now.”

She let his head drop to the floor and got back to her workstation. He pondered for a moment whether some of the old men had hoped that he could make some sort of elixir. Pictures he would never want to think about again flashed through his mind. Groaning, he stood up and staggered back to his podium. Without a better plan, he took as much nuts as he could gather and dropped them onto his podium. As not to tear open any healing injuries he sat down in front of the pile of nuts.

With a shrug, he cracked open a nut and popped it into his mouth. The effect was instant, and he felt a slight stirring in his trousers as he chewed on it. The effect was gone after several seconds, so Res assumed there already must be some kind of extract. With one nutcracker, he wasn’t going to produce enough nut milk, anyway. The nut itself didn’t taste as bad as he had thought, so he cracked open another one. When he examined it, he could feel the effect of the nut taking place without him eating it. When he ate it after that, he didn’t feel the effect.

“So, it isn’t biological, it is aether based on touch.”

He concentrated on the aether flowing in the nut when he touched it but felt nothing apart from the aether flowing into him. He tried to force aether into the nut, but it wouldn’t take it. Even specialized aether that Res shouted ‘FERTILITY’ at, was rejected. The problem was that he knew nothing about alchemy. The thought made him marvel at how he had gotten into the finals. So, Res bided his time by cracking open nuts and watching the aether transfer. He ignored another barbed comment from the prince and continued to crack open nuts. The repetitive task made him fall into a trance and he accrued a mountain of nutshells. In the middle of cracking open a nut, Res called over to the fat girl.

“Hey, what kind of plants are they?”

The silence between them stretched for minutes and, finally, an answer was forthcoming. “They eat other plants. They send surrounding plants aether signals to grow. Then, they devour parts of the plant. They are plants farming plants. Some people even say they have some form of intelligence.”

A crazy idea took over the front of Res’s mind and he laid out a plan of attack. He held it right in front of him and began to talk to it via specialized aether. He began by sending the nut aether with the intent ‘Greeting’ over and over again. His logic went like this: If I was a nut, I wanted to be left in peace. If someone were to knock on my door, I would start to get annoyed. I would respond.

A minuscule aether message appeared in the air after three minutes of bugging the nut. He didn’t catch the meaning of the message, but still shut back: ‘Food’. He hoped the plant would understand that he offered food. The nut emitted aether with the intent: ‘Danger’ from it. Res wondered if that was some sort of defense mechanism. He continued his successful aether pushes with the intent of greeting. Soon, the nut pushed out a lesser ‘Danger’ aether push. After an extra five minutes of annoying the nut, he felt a minuscule amount being sucked in. Res shouted in triumph.

After only one extra minute, the nut absorbed its second part of specialized aether. When the nut sucked in his directed aether, Res changed to ‘MATE’ which spurred the nut on in its sucking. Finally, he switched to shouting ‘Hot woman, Perfect Proportions; Attractive’ in his mind. Res pushed all the implications about plants having consciousness to the back of his mind. The nut’s absorption stuttered for a bit but pulled through after a while. It seemed like it was close enough to the original special aether ‘Mate’, the plant had. Through his entranced state, he could hear the old alchemist announce:

“Fifteen minutes left.”

The nut refused to take in more aether and Res gave up on pushing more into it. Instead, he cracked open the nut, careful not to touch the seed, and shouted at the prince.

“My prince, Catch!”

The human reflexes can’t be unlearned, so the prince caught the nut. Res could see the prince’s eyes widen when he felt an effect. The prince wore a pair of southerner, tight-fitting trousers. Res broke out into laughter at the tiny bulge on the prince’s crotch. Contented, Res grabbed a new nut as he didn’t have the time to mess around. When he spared a glance, he could see the prince covering up his crotch area, which made it even more obvious. General laughter ensued. He couldn’t only feed the nut specialized aether, instead, he needed to start the relationship.

You needed to think with all your being, that you wouldn’t want to gain anything from the nut. When the final gong resounded through the room, Res had managed to create nine ‘booster’ nuts. To decrease their duration, he had filled all of them only a quarter and had even created a ‘woman booster nut’. On a whim, he had created a nut especially for the chance that he would meet a certain someone. The four alchemists had brought in tens of delicate microscopes, cylinders, and pipes.

“Bro, shit. That was hell, but I can’t be angry with you. Brought it on myself.”

Res cried out in joy. “I am so sorry for hurting you, I didn’t hear you at first. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, Bro. I had to spend all my energy to keep you from exploding. I doubt even I in my day, would have been able to pull in as much aether.” Jason switched to an elated tone. “Yet, that isn’t even the most exciting thing right now. You just made Viagra and even fucking female Viagra. Dude, this is the perfect occasion to turn this into your product. You can make hundreds of platinum coins with this shit.”

Again, the youngest alchemist stepped forward and announced: “We will now test your creations and evaluate your talent. Candidate four, step forward. What did you create?”

The chubby girl stepped forward: “I created a practitioner one skin clearance potion.” An appreciative murmur ran through the audience at that.

“Miss, those are outrageous claims. Let’s see whether you can uphold them.”

The girl presented the potion to the judges, who ooed and aaad. It was determined that the girl had made an acceptable practitioner one potion. Res gave her a thumbs up. He understood why she wasn’t concerned with her safety, as a future member of the Alchemy Alliance.

With a mocking smile, the woman turned to Res next. “Candidate number five, step forward. What did you create?”

He gave his most respectful bow and put on his presenter's voice. “I created something wonderful. Something unique. Something … that has never been created before …”

The woman scoffed at him. “Everything has been created before.”

Res continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “I created a wonder of Alchemy. Have you ever wanted to spice up your sex life? It is no secret that with age, some areas of the body will sag and don’t stiffen, especially with men.”

At that, there was general laughter with the woman of the luxury booths. “Even most women can’t seem to get into it no more? The spirit has been extinguished by the inability?”Now, the elderly and powerful men chuckled.

“This problem will exist no more from now on! My product, the ‘booster’ nut promises stiff extremities for men and soggy waters for women! Have a look at our wonderful test subject, the crown prince! As you see, he has been stiff for more than a quarter-hour and doesn’t seem to lessen his efforts. Our ‘booster nut’ provides guaranteed pleasure for up to eight hours! I will repeat that: Up to eight hours! Wait, there is more! Even for the wildest stallions and mares under you, this pill will offer you fornication as you have never felt before! If you aren’t pleased with our services, we have a MONEY-BACK-GUARANTEE POLICY! If you want to get your hands on the limited few nuts, I have produced, you can approach me after the tournament. I would be quick to buy if I were you, ONLY LIMITED STOCK!”

The general laughter had subsided and was exchanged for genuine interest.

“Bro, are you sure that you don’t come from a family of salesmen, that was sick.”

The female Alchemist seemed displeased with his display. “This is no market, boy. Give me the nut already.”

Once again, he put on his merchant's voice and shouted. “First, we need someone to use the nut. Let’s demonstrate our secret formula for extra passion and duration. I won’t tell you the secret formula of creating the nuts, as it is a trade secret. To please everyone’s curiosity, I bid the Sir on the right to step forward.”

The elderly man’s eyes shone with hope and desire, so Res thought that he had the best chance of complying. Indeed, the old man stepped forward and announced, despite the old woman’s protests: “I will offer myself up as a sacrifice for science!”

Res cracked open a nut and motioned for the old man to eat it. Everyone in the colosseum held their breath while watching the old man’s crotch. Before the man had swallowed the nut seed, one could see an obvious giant protrusion in his pants. Breathless, everyone watched whether the nut would lose its effect. Yet, after the customary second, the old man stood firm. He had to struggle to keep a straight face when the man looked at him in wonder. With a tear in the corner of his eyes, the man grabbed Res’s hands and pulled him into a hearty embrace.

“This is amazing. How did you do it?”

Res was trying not to touch the alchemist’s lower body while patting him on the back. Finally, he was let free and was greeted by the angry female alchemist. She thrust her hand into his face and he dropped a nut in her palm with a grin. She examined it from every angle and brought it over to the testing equipment. With a small plop, she dropped the nut into a complicated network of tubing. None of the liquids in the tubing changed color as they had done with the fat girl’s potion. With a contented tone, the female alchemist announced:

“This has no pill or potion properties. Thus, it doesn’t fall under our evaluation criteria, which means that you could not produce a potion. I hereby disqualify you.”

A confused murmur passed through the crowd and the old man stepped in front of Res, displaying his giant bulge in his pant. “You look at that and tell me that the effect isn’t at least on par with the skin clearance potion.”

The old lady shook her head with obvious satisfaction. “I can’t bend the rules.”

The old man made as if to object, but Res stopped him with a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “It is all right. I am not here to win, anyway.”

With a snort, the old man gave in and took his place next to the female alchemist. The rest of the potions were under the level of apprentice two. The prince tried to bump up his ranking by accusing Res of obstructing him, but was denied the request. Finally, all the alchemists formed a small group and chattered among each other. After about two minutes, they turned back stone-faced. Again, the youngest one stepped forward and announced:

“Leonard van Avvenci is disqualified, but receives a monetary price of twenty gold.” The old man winked at him and Res knew that he had made a new friend. “Placed at number nine is the crown prince Robert. He will receive forty gold and a recipe for a cultivation aid.” The prince promptly exploded at that and cursed the judges and their incompetence.

After the prince had calmed down, the alchemist continued to list off participants. Finally, the chubby girl, Emma Vandrest, was announced the winner of the competition. Being first qualified her to join the Alchemy’s Alliance which she accepted. After some chitter-chatter about being an alchemist, a servant gave Res a money pouch. He put the twenty gold in a side pocket of his robes. Additionally, he packed up as many nuts as he could manage in all his pockets.

“Young alchemists, may I ask you to join me in a small banquette we have prepared for you and our honorable guests. You will be able to meet people from all over the world and create connections to future employers.”

“Bro, I would love to see the face of that female alchemist if you tell her that you have never actually done alchemy.”

Now with a grin on his face, Res was escorted back into a hallway in the colosseum building. While they were walking to the banquet, Res caught onto the shoulder of the overweight girl, Emma. “Hey, thank you again for saving me. Take this as a thank you.” With that, he dropped the female booster nut into her hands. Her face turned red as a tomato and Res winked at her. “It is a female booster nut.”

His actions left the girl blubbering, so Res fell back again and spoke through the plan with Jason. To some, it might seem as if Res had completely forgotten about the prince’s actions, which wasn’t the case. Those feelings were bottled up deep inside him with rationality. He would bide his time until he could pounce. The group arrived at a spacious room, like the entrance hall of the auction, and were greeted by applause.

“Jason? Are you ready?”

“Ready as I’ll always be, captain!”