Cronix woke up at an odd hour of the night, and sat up, everyone was asleep at this point, even the crow.

He looked around for a bit before he laid back down.

While I'm awake, I guess I should check that out.

Cronix's consciousness entered a specific part of his mind, the mental expanse.

When he arrived inside, he gasped. His expanse grew a considerable amount, and his mental energy's icy aura became even more apparent. All of this came from the mysterious energy from the water elements.

But this wasn't the reason Cronix entered the mental expanse, instead he turned his attention to the two balls of the water elements still left.

"So I did see things correctly, they stayed together." There was a gleam in Cronix's eyes as an idea came into him.

"My ice wraith method doesn't explain how to create the wraith, but it tells us to take the elements into the mental expanse, and the extraction technique could be used to integrate mental energy and magic together, so this should be the proper way to create a wraith."

Cronix smiled at the thought that he may have found the way to create wraiths on his own. The two balls of water elements bagan moving towards Cronix as he willed it, since they were integrated with his mental energy he could effortlessly move them.

"I just have to shape it into a humanoid form, then I can go back to the ice wraith method and find out how to temper the wraith." Cronix said, before he drew both balls of water elements together, combining them.

Once the two balls were combined, Cronix began forming them into a more humanoid shape, this was the base for the ice wraith method.

When the elements were in form, it stayed in form, just like how it stayed in the shape of a ball even after some time had passed.

Cronix left the mental expanse, and grabbed the ice wraith method off the floor using his mental energy, once in his hand, he started reading, his talent in the dark element allowed him to ignore the darkness.

He skipped to the part after the missing instructions and reached the part where it explained how to develop the wraith into something useful.

Here, he learned there were five phases of the ice wraith: skin, eyes, ears, tongue, and nose.

When all five of these stages were complete, the wraith would be able to leave the mental expanse.

The main part of the method to improve the wraith was to infuse more mental energy and little bits of magic inside.

But there was also something about growing the personal connection between the user and their mental energy, until it truly becomes part of them as the five senses directly correlated with the five phases..

Cronix sighed when he read that part, he knew what that meant. He was gonna have to progress in the external senses technique if he wanted to fully develop his wraith.

A frown appeared on his face, before he went back into his mental expanse. "Might as well infuse mental energy into it while I figure out what to do." He muttered as he looked at his newly created wraith.

Under his control, his mental energy surrounded the wraith, and slowly began infusing itself inside.

By the time the birds outside were awake, making their morning sounds Cronix was observing the changes that had happened to the wraith in those few hours.

The wraith now had little patches of skin. "Is this because I already have reached the external touch of the external senses?" Cronix asked nobody in particular.

With no answer, he left the mental expanse, but his mental energy was still infusing itselfs into the wraith.

When Cronix came out of his mental expanse, both Cayden and Lapsa were already up, getting ready.

Cronix sat up and followed suit, there was only silence among the three of them.

Lapsa was the first one to speak, as they were walking to the manor, he said, "I'll help the bird reach the Core Creation stage."

Both of the two other boys looked at him, Cayden said, "We already planned for Cronix to do that."

Lapsa shook his head, but before he could speak, Cronix butted in, "That's fine, I already have too much on my plate, I need to focus all my time on the array or we won't make it."

Cayden looked between the two boys and sighed, but he didn't say anything.

Roll call was quick, and the three went to work, Cronix and Cayden didn't do anything, but the work they were supposed to, while Lapsa continued imprinting lines on his energy sensing arrays around the kitchen.

Hours drifted by slowly, but Cronix didn't waste this time, as he was carrying barrels of wine from the cellar to where the head butler wanted it, his eyes were closed but his mental energy was spread out.

He felt every single crevice of the barrel, and every part of the walls he passed. When he felt all of these materials against his mental energy, he formed images of his surroundings, this was the training he created to master the external eyes.

It was unknown how long this training would take, so it was better to start now rather than later. While Cronix was doing that, Lapsa was creating his third energy sensing array, while he thought about how to help the crow reach the Core Creation stage.

When the work day was done Cayden and Lapsa went to the room, but Cronix went in a different direction. The place he went to was a secluded area of the manor, where countless gravestones laid, the Ayuna cemetery.

In the cemetery, some of the servants were burying a casket, none of the Ayuna's were present to watch this event, but Cronix arrived for the burying.

After the servants were done, none stayed, but some of the servants gave Cronix a weird look before moving on.

Cronix approached the location where the casket was buried, and stood there, he didn't know what to do. The headstone of the body read, 'Tornic Ayuna, fall 65th 5,647 SM to summer 34th 5,665 SM.

Just as Cronix was about to leave, he heard a sigh right next to him, causing him to jump back. When he turned around, he was greeted by a purpled eyed young man.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." Riley said with a laugh.

Cronix's breathing was hard, but he relaxed when saw it was only Riley.

Riley looked away from Cronix and to Tornix's tombstone, "He's lucky his body was collected, he now can lay next to his mother, what a lucky bastard."

Cronix frowned, but he didn't speak.

Riley turned back to Cronix, and with a frown, he asked, "Wait, why are you here? Are you one of those people who get some sort of sick pleasure watching their enemies final moments above the ground?"

"No! It's just..." Cronix could find the words to explain.

Do you... Perhaps... Feel guilty for what you did?"

Cronix turned away from Riley, and stayed silent.

Riley sighed, looking back at Tornic's tombstone, he said, "If you do feel any guilt, you should just forget about it."

Cronix's voice was quiet when he asked, "Why?"

Riley frowned, and he asked a question of his own, "Why did you kill Tornic?"

"I had no choice, he attacked first and..."

Riley interrupted Cronix, "So it was a you or him scenario?"

Cronix nodded.

"Then let me ask again, do you feel guilty over Tornic's death?"

Cronix looked up at the taller man, "I... Don't know."

Riley shook his head, "That's not good enough. In two weeks, you'll be meeting the biggest challenge of your life. If you are still feeling guilty over killing this one person, then I don't have much hope for your escape."

Cronix frowned, but he found nothing to say, so he only silently stared at Tornic's tombstone. He didn't notice when Riley left, who was shaking his head when he looked at Cronix.

Cronix became lost in thought, and his surroundings suddenly became colder as his mental energy was slowly leaking out of his mental expanse.

Cronix eventually became aware again, and sighed.

When I killed Tornic I was conflicted on what I felt, but when the crow found the beast core, I killed many beasts like it was nothing. Both Tornic and the magical beasts I killed had a conscience, yet I didn't feel any guilt when I killed them... Why?

Is it perhaps because I can't envision myself when I killed the beasts, but when I killed Tornic, since we're both 'humanoid', I could picture myself in his position?

Cronix looked at the sky, and shifted his shoulder blades.

...

"Where's Cronix?" Lapsa asked, as he finished the energy sealing arrangement using the formation book as a guide.

Cayden opened his eyes, stopping his absorption of the magical energy in the air, he looked at Lapsa and said, "He's at Tornic's funeral."

"Tornic's funeral? What is he doing there?" Lapsa asked while frowning.

Cayden sighed, and laid down on his bed, "Who do you think killed him?"

Lapsa went silent for a while, and when he spoke again, he said, "But why would he go to his funeral? If I killed someone, I wouldn't want to have anything to do with them."

Cayden sat back up, " People would have different reactions to the same event, even if you put yourself in his shoes, you would never get their emotions, unless you're actually in a similar situation." Caydens face was out of view from Lapsa, but it looked like Cayden was looking back at a past event of his life, "Maybe he feels guilty."

"Guilty." Lapsa quietly repeated the phrase before going silent again.

A few minutes later the door opened and Cronix made it back to the room.

When he entered he saw Cayden was on his bed, absorbing magical energy into his stars, and Lapsa lost in thought.

Cronix didn't disturb them, he moved his bed from his usual location and began working on his teleportation array.

A few days passed and the second week was just about done, so far Cronix has completed 13 primary lines and 39 secondary lines on the teleportation array.

"Where's Cayden?" Cronix asked, as he trained Lapsa on the energy sealing arrangement.

Lapsa drew the last line of the arrangement before saying, "He's at the servant hall, grabbing us dinner."

Cronix nodded, before he took the finished arrangement from Lapsa, and examined it, "One of your primary lines is crooked, and a secondary line is intercepting another primary line."

"Oh crap!" Lapsa instantly began fixing those mistakes on another paper.

Cronix had a twinkle in his eyes as he watched his apprentice, and he asked, "Why did you suddenly want to learn the energy sealing arrangement?"

"The crow is going to make an aura when she enters the Core Creation stage, when that happens the head butler is going to know what happened." Lapsa answered as he drew another formation without mental energy.

Cronix frowned, and said, "That's going to be a problem. I'm gonna have to help with that. I'll work with the formations, while you help her."

Lapsa frowned, it kinda ruined the whole reason he took over the task, but all he could do was nod, he couldn't deny that he needed the help that only Cronix could provide.

Cronix clapped his hands, "Great, we'll do that tomorrow."

"Wait, but I don't..."

Cronix didn't let him finish and with a smile he asked another question,"Anyways, I do have a question, have you decided her name yet."

Lapsa's lip twitched and he didn't answer.

Cronix turned around and began working on the teleportation array, however a sudden thought appeared in his mind. When he spoke, this time his voice was serious, "Lapsa, have you ever thought of killing someone?"

Lapsa frowned and he looked at Cronix, he only saw his back, but there was a strange energy being emitted from him, that made a shiver travel down his back, "Yeah, who doesn't, but why do you ask?"

Cronix didn't look up as he said, "I first killed someone a couple of weeks ago, and I still have no idea how to feel about it, so I wanted to ask you, are you ready to kill someone."

Lapsa was silent for a while, and just as he was about to open his mouth, Cayden entered, with the usual dinner for the servants.