#Chapter 20, Draft 2

Several bolts of lightning came from nowhere, right after Lucius finished accepting the deal. Delton simply stood by with a surprised expression, as the lightning bolts struck Lucius and himself. Then, like before, one of the bolts of lightning turned into a strand that connected the two.

After the lightning subsided, Lucius’s light armor quickly transformed into simple furs and skins, similar to the ones that the villagers wore.

He looked down in somber silence, then grinned, “Wanted to change up into something a little more authentic.”

Delton wore a surprised look, causing Lucius to tease, “Oh. You didn’t think I would agree to that stupid bet of yours now, did you?”

Delton responded, “Yeah, I honestly didn’t think you would.”

Lucius stretched out his hand and put up two fingers, “First, I only make bets where I know I’m gonna win. Second, I want you to train, so you can inherit my memories faster and find a suitable body for me as soon as you can.”

Delton jumped off the heap of rubble and landed on the floor. He stretched for a bit, while Lucius simply crossed his arms and watched.

After finishing his stretching, Delton noticed that there was no energy radiating from Lucius. Delton then took a pose from one of the soldier’s training exercises, causing Lucius to laugh out loud. Lucius grinned, then exclaimed, “Oh. I’m going to enjoy beating the crap out of you. Let me know when you want tostado start.”

Delton took on a serious face and said, “Start!”

Immediately, a large amount of force, like that of a moving vehicle, hit him on the chest, forcing him back a couple of meters. Looking down, he saw a fist imprint on his body. Delton looked up to where Lucius was, but he had already disappeared.

Then another ramming force jarred him from the side of his face, forcing him to crash into the rubble heap. However, because of object permanence, his body simply rebounded back. Lucius again appeared and landed a kick at an angle, forcing Delton to crash upward on the wall, rebounding again.

While Delton’s body was still in midair, Lucius appeared above and kicked Delton to the ground. Before he could rebound upward, Delton smashed to the ground as Lucius’s leg slammed him in the stomach.

Screams of pain and mouthfuls of blood eked out from Delton’s mouth. He slowly got up and looked towards Lucius, “You’re cheating, old man. That’s no power of a First.”

“Ho. Sore loser. You can think of my power as a First who unlocked all of their god-given Talents. And all of these Talents are at the peak,” Lucius smiled then disappeared from view again.

Sweeping his leg, he tripped Delton, who was then subsequently smashed to the ground with another kick.

Lucius mocked, “You think you’re hot shit, since you experienced Caelus’ battles. Your body is simply too weak to act that fast.”

Again Lucius disappeared from sight, Delton was then slammed to the ground several times after being juggled between the air, the heap of rubble, and Lucius’ legs.

“Look at you, kid. You can’t even take advantage of what Caelus has given you,” Lucius continued to mock Delton.

Seeing Lucius disappear into a blur again, Delton visualized his time inside Caelus’ mind. Focusing with his eyes, time appeared to hav slowed down within his vision.

From his perspective, Lucius is running at an extremely fast speed, but not as fast as it originally was. Watching Lucius let out a kick towards his chest, thoughts immediately filled Delton’s mind of various moves and counters. Choosing one of them, Delton controlled his muscles, forcing his pecs to become denser and bulge out. Bracing for the incoming kick, Delton also controlled the muscles on his legs to become larger and more stable.

However, all he felt was the force of another car ramming on to his chest again, causing him to fall backwards. “Haha! You got a quick mind on you. But again, you’re too weak in the face of absolute power. Try to think of something else, now that you got a better mind on your shoulders,” Lucius egged on.

On those words, several answers to the current predicament rushed into Delton’s mind. With a large exhalation, Delton got back up and this time, he controlled the muscles in his heart to contract and relax at a heightened rate, increasing the blood flow in his body. With his breathing increasing at a rapid pace, he started to hop on his feet. His originally bruised and battered body turning a darker sheen of red.

Lucius smiled, “If I had it my way, you would have reached this conclusion of Muscle Controller a long time ago. You’re lucky that this is your soul body, or else you’re simply killing yourself at this rate.”

After speaking, Lucius zoomed towards Delton, letting out a punch. Focusing on Lucius approaching him, what Delton saw was Lucius approaching him at a normal pace. Seeing the punch directed at his face, Delton contorted his body to barely dodge the punch.

Smirking, Delton punched towards the face of Lucius, whose momentum carried him forward, not allowing him to change directions.

Even with the increased speed, Delton barely grazed Lucius’ face, since Lucius turned his face the same way. Lucius, then planted one foot on the ground and spun a kick towards Delton with the other. Delton bent backwards with his arms raised, at a 90 degree, quickly to avoid the kick. However, the sudden jerk caused the veins on his knees to pop. Compounded with the increased blood flow, the skin on his knee ruptured and blood sprayed out, landing on Lucius’ eyes and forcing Lucius to close them.

Delton, then sprung back, placing more force on his knees as the muscles welled, forcing more blood to spray out. Delton smashed downwards with his two fists, which had expanded to grotesque proportions, as his body straightened, and landed them upon Lucius’ forehead.

The results of this collision were only two extremely faint bruises on his forehead for Lucius. However, for Delton, his fists had exploded into a pink mist, as more blood continued to spray out. Feeling his corporeal form getting weaker and weaker, Delton was forced to transform into a wisp again.

Lucius quickly rubbed his eyes and changed his clothes back to the light armor. He looked at the ghost-like Delton and laughed, “Hahaha! Congratulations, you were able to land two hits on me. Only a very large percentage of people I have faced can say that. You released your anger and frustration on the punch, huh. Me, too. All these years of seeing your lazy ass sleep. Just thinking about it makes me angry. I hope it was worth it because I still won.”

Delton smiled, occasionally wincing in pain, and said, “Hehe. As long as I got to punch you in the face, all of this pain was worth it.”

“The cheek on you. Looks like you possessing Caelus and training all this time didn’t go to waste. Now do you see the difference between your mind and the mind of a genius?”

Lucius snapped his fingers, healing Delton’s body again. Lucius then said, “Since I won the bet, you’ll undergo the training regimen I had in mind since we first met. Too bad, you didn’t take me as your master, I might’ve been more lenient with you.”

After taking a sip from a cup of water and smacking his lips, Lucius continued, “Since there’ll be a period of mourning, I’ll train you most of the time this next couple of days. THere’ll only be bride periods of rest. But once my younger self’s training starts, you’ll have to sync with him more and more. After all what you need to sync up are with my actual experiences; not with just the peripherals.”

Delton, still smiling and staring at the two light bruises on Lucius forehead, then asked, “When do we start, then?”

Lucius quickly answered, “Right now.”

Lucius unleashed an insurmountable pressure from his body, causing Delton’s recovered body to already tense up.

Lucius then spoke, “You’re going to perform the soldier training exercises even at night. But this time it’s with the added pressure from my soul. This should accelerate its growth. Half the time, but twice the effort.”

Delton shook his head and interrupted, “That’s not how the saying goes, old man.”

Lucius simply ignored Delton’s words and said, “Now go ahead. The soul doesn’t need rest remember. If you get ‘tired’ it’s literally all in your mind, but if you still can’t separate the mind from the soul, just visualize the mother-son image. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna overwork you. I just don’t want you to waste your time like before.”

Delton said, “Before we start, can you explain something to me? When I was fighting with you earlier, when I visualized Caelus’ battles, it seemed as if my min unlocked something earlier. Like tapped into its reserves. I honestly can’t describe the feeling.”

Lucius nodded his head with his eyes closed and explained, “It’s because you had synced up with Caelus at the time. By visualizing it, you’re recalling the actual thought processes that Caelus had, influencing your actual mind and accelerating it to its level. Because his mind was already pretty strong at the time, it allowed you to make connections that you would never—I repeat never have thought of. Like the idea to use you Talent to increase your blood flow. His mind allows you to use your body to its full potential. Now way you’d have thought of that, ha!

“Thanks for giving me the inspiration.” Delton bowed his head and said with a humble tone.

“Inspiration?! I was practically telling you to do that! Even when I was your opponent, I was helping you out. Either way, you’re lucky that you did this in my memories, or else your body would be completely irreparably damaged.”

“Can’t you just heal me with your aura, like you do here?”

Lucius looked at him with a sneer and answered, “I’m just a soul, kid. While I can interact with objects in reality, I’m extremely weak in the physical world. Regardless, with my training, your mind and soul will acclimate to my memories at a better rate, and your body will improve at the necessary level to do so. So it’s not a stretch to say that you’ll be able to do these crazy feats in the near future.”

“As long as I don’t become a Second. If I stay a manufacturer, you won’t hear me complain. Like the deal.”

Lucius nodded his head once more. “Ok. Now start training. And remember. No complaining. Bah. You won’t be able to even if you want to anyway.” Lucius then began to lie down on the air and got back to watching the shows on his phone.

Delton rolled his eyes and began to visualize the soldier’s exercises, while performing the routines.

At daybreak, Delton let out a breath of stale air, as he finished his sixth iteration of the exercises. Lucius then released the oppressive aura and, without taking his eyes off the screen, said, “Alright. Break time. Be back here in an hour.”

Delton overheard from the phone a young man’s voice, “Your uncle knows the truth about us. I’ll make sure he doesn’t tell anyone about our forbidden love.”

Looking up in reminiscence, Delton then said, “That’s a good show, old man.”

Lucius barely bothered to respond, briefly said, “Yeah, but it’s no Forgotten Dreams.”

Delton cupped his chin and nodded his head in agreement and spoke with a sage-like tone, “Oh. You watched that, too? What’d you think of when Emiliana got together with Yunto at the end? I honestly thought it was a cop out.”

As Delton said the last word, an even more oppressive aura caused him to bite his tongue. Lucius angrily shouted, “Get the fuck out! It’s your break! Say one more spoiler again and you’ll wish that you’d be battling within Caelus for the rest of your time here!”

Delton quickly ran away and escaped from the oppressive aura. Heaving a sigh of relief, he then looked towards the villagers in the medical tent. Some of them were not able to sleep the night before. One of those was the child Lucius.

Seeing that his parents were breathing normally, the child Lucius looked around and walked like a zombie towards the remains of his old house.

Curious, Delton took possession of the child Lucius. He immediately heard the thoughts of Lucius, ‘I’m so tired. But I can’t sleep. I’m too powerless.’

Lucius saw a figure standing by the side of his house. The figure was too hazy even though it was a couple of blocks away, but he Lucius was able to make out the height. It was that of a kid’s. Lucius picked up his originally zombie-like pace to a complete run.

He yelled out with a smile on his face, “Brother!” When the figure became clearer, tears and snot had already drenched his face, and Lucius was breathing heavily. However, the figure was Caelus.

Seeing the disappointment on his face, Caelus gritted his teeth and could only mutter out, “Sorry.”

‘Why is it you? Where did my brother go?’ Delton heard Lucius’ last thoughts, before he subsequently passed out.