This could all, of course, be a wild goose chase and he’d end up with nothing, but right now, it was all he had to go on. He’d always been terrible at tracking essence, especially if he didn’t know what to look for. When he’d heard the word explosion, he’d immediately thought of either Fire or Power Essence.
Sure enough, after looking around for a trail of either, he picked up a faint hint of golden light trailing off into the woods. Clearly, the person didn’t even bother trying to cover their tracks. This further highlighted to him the degree to which they must have been injured. Perhaps he’d be lucky, and they’d come upon a corpse in possession of the Dungeon core. Then they could go back home and put this whole mess behind them.
“Koya?” Izu asked.
He started, realizing that he’d told them both to be quiet, but hadn’t actually answered any of their questions.
“I think we’ve got a lead. Now come on. If we’re lucky, we could be heading back to the clan by nightfall!”
21
Roy yawned, his mouth opening wide and his eyes squinting as a result. Wiping away the moisture that had collected there, he concentrated on his open palm once again. He’d been riding non-stop now for the last three days and was subsequently exhausted.
It had been just over two and a half weeks since he’d left his campsite, and he hadn’t been having an easy time traveling through the Waterwood. The closer they drew to The Crater, the more powerful the Beasts were becoming. Roy knew that if it wasn’t for Ferry’s constant vigilance, he’d be long dead by now.
All the Beasts they’d been running into were at the Yellow level of advancement. So far, they hadn’t run into anything that Ferry couldn’t handle. They’d been making bad time because of this, which was why he’d been riding non-stop. They were a full day behind schedule, and every second they delayed was time wasted.
It wasn’t all bad, because Roy had had the opportunity to collect several different types of Beast cores, all filled with Yellow level essence. He hoped it would get him some money once he got to The Crater, or at least, give him something to barter for. All he had right now was the nine Ginka from selling his last cores.
At the moment, it was nearing dawn and he was once again trying to get a handle on his Projected technique. He didn’t want another technique that just exploded, though he was quickly learning that he may just have to settle for one until he found either a proper teacher or advanced far enough to have a better understanding of Power Essence.
He hadn’t had much opportunity to gather Essence as they rode, but he had managed to pull some Essence in during the previous night’s storm. Surprisingly enough, it had been an excellent source of Essence, though he didn’t know why that had surprised him. The Power trial had been one gigantic storm, and the Essence had been so thick that it was impossible to breathe without pulling some in.
As a result of the storm, his core was now mostly full, though not any closer to advancing than it had been since he’d moved to 1st Dan. In his favor, it was enough for him to resume work on his Projected technique.
Breathing in his cycling technique, Roy cycled Essence from his core and up to his right arm. It didn’t take long to pull the energy into his hand and push it outward, where it hovered there in a formless blob. Continuing to concentrate, he pulled the Essence together, forming it into a rough sphere.
Sweat beaded his brow as he did so, and it took longer for the Essence to respond than he would have liked. When he’d gotten the sphere as close to the shape as he could, he imagined what would happen when he unleashed the attack.
The sphere would hit the ground, then explode outward, sending needle-thin blades of force in all directions. This would be a perfect Projected attack, as it would have the possibility of hitting multiple targets.
Once he was sure he was concentrating hard enough, Roy pulled his arm back and lobbed the sphere of golden energy behind him. Swiveling quickly in his seat, he watched as the sphere hit the ground, then burst in an explosion of golden light, sending a loud, echoing boom through the still morning air.
“Why won’t it work?” Roy complained, turning back and letting out a long sigh.
He was exhausted, frustrated and, above all, afraid. He was running out of time and, for some reason, he’d convinced himself that if he could just get this technique right, he’d be able to make it to 2nd Dan. The constant threat of death hanging over his head was beginning to wear on him, and despite his resolve to do what needed to be done, he was still afraid of dying.
“Well,” Geon piped up for the first time in over a day. “If you ask me, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is insanity.”
“You literally just quoted the meaning of the word, so that is abundantly obvious,” Roy replied with a sigh.
He was trying to be civil with the Dungeon core, but he was nearing the limits of his patience.
“No need to be so grumpy. All I was saying is that you keep using the same method and expect to get a different result. Why not try changing something?”
“Like what?” Roy asked, feeling his annoyance turn into guilt. He knew Geon was only trying to help.
“You keep trying to force the Essence into a shape you want, but in case you haven’t noticed, you can never quite get it there. Perhaps if you do, your technique will be successful.”
Roy thought about that for a moment. Geon wasn’t wrong when he said that he couldn’t get the attack into the shape he wanted. He’d been trying to form a perfect sphere for weeks now, but the closest he’d gotten still looked like the Water Essence Beast cores. Perhaps Geon had a valid point.
Resolving to try something different this time, Roy concentrated on his palm, bringing the Power Essence out into the air once more. This time, he allowed it to just float there and he waited to watch how the energy would behave if left alone. After watching the blob of raw Essence for a few minutes, he noticed that despite the random tendrils moving in and out of the blob, the Essence itself never stopped moving in a circular direction.
Wondering if it could really be that easy, Roy concentrated on pulling the Essence into a sphere once more, but this time, he pushed the Essence to spin while he did so. At first, nothing happened, and the Essence pulled together in a lumpy sphere. Frowning, Roy allowed the energy to return to its natural state.
He then attempted to make the Essence spin faster and was excited when he finally got the result he wanted. Even yet, it still wasn’t quite right. As the Essence spun faster and faster, it refused to pull into the spherical shape he wanted. Letting go of the Essence once more, he began to wrack his brain.
If he tried to make the energy gather into a sphere, he couldn’t spin it, and if he tried spinning it, he couldn’t gather it into a sphere. There had to be some way of accomplishing this. He mulled the problem over, watching the Essence playing over his palm in seemingly random patterns.
“Ooo, that’s interesting,” Geon said, breaking him from his thoughts.
“What is?”
“The Essence. It seems to be moving in multiple directions at once.”
“It is?”
Roy blinked a few times to clear the haze of exhaustion from his eyes and leaned in a bit closer. Now that he knew what to look for, he found that Geon had indeed been right. The Essence swirling over his palm wasn’t just moving in one direction; rather the top layer was. If he looked close enough, he could see another layer underneath spinning, not in the opposite direction, but at a forty-five-degree angle to the first.