After defeating Craig, I got teleported back to my Dad's car and headed to Trader Moe's while using my implant to send messages to all my friends. I hadn't checked in in a few days and honestly I was hoping we could all meet up somewhere in MSE. By the way, Trader Moe's has the best frozen food aisle, their orange chicken is to die for! Not to mention that I don't exactly have the time to cook right now, so frozen food it is.
Stocked up, I arrived home and filled the freezer while thinking, 'I wonder why they emptied the house of food?' I still hadn't heard back from any of my friends, so I decided to train Defense of the Light. I need to get that down fast, I don't want to spend the next several weeks getting destroyed in that formation over and over again.
To my surprise, Patrice was inside the training room when I got there. After thinking about it, it made sense though. She was living in my mindscape, and my mindscape had merged with the implant. So, of course she could access it. She had transformed into a little storm cloud and activated one of the training formations, practicing hitting moving targets with lightning bolts. Focusing on her, I got the feeling of excitement and joy every time she blew a target up. Think 3 year old with a toy gun shooting soldiers, except her gun is a lightning bolt... 'Yeah, I hope she matures quickly' I thought, worrying about her killing someone when she gets mad.
Taking a deep breath I put it out of my mind, there wasn't much I could do about it anyway. Stepping into the add-on training room, I closed my eyes and focused for a moment. Every time I get ready to train in something that I know is going to be incredibly painful I have to take a moment to psyche myself up. After starting, I can deal with it, it's the anticipation of the pain that's the worst part. Breathing out a long breath, I turned the formation on and started moving at the same time.
To my complete surprise, the technique came to me as if I had mastered it months ago. With every swing of my staff the barrier of light became more and more complete, and I could feel the Elemental Energy that was passively refining my brain focusing on my families technique.
"Of course!" I said to myself, grinning as I kept moving now with more confidence, "My refining technique makes me skilled at all barrier techniques, I guess this counts!" Half an hour later I had managed to block every attack, and as the lights shut off I closed my eyes and concentrated. Another half an hour later, my implant pinged.
*Ding*
*Defense of the Light Intermediate Staff Technique Mastered*
*Light Element Affinity raised by 1 point; Light Affinity is now Medium.*
'Thank god I'll never have to do that again' I thought to myself as I stepped out of the formation and walked over to join Patrice. Honestly, I didn't expected to finish training that technique so quickly. My families technique making me innately gifted with all barrier abilities is really overpowered.
Checking my messages, I still hadn't received anything from my friends. Figuring I should practice shooting lightning too, I setup another target practice formation. In the past, I had a ton of trouble using Lightning Elemental Energy because I hadn't refined my body with it yet. Now, I had actually managed to combine Air, Lightning, and Water Elemental Energy into Storm Elemental Energy and was using it to refine my brain so I figured I'd have a much easier time controlling it.
Starting the formation, I waited for a moment before taking aim with my palm and shouting, "Elemental Strike!" A burst of electricity left my hand as a lightning bolt not even a tenth the size of the ones Patrice was flinging around shot out of my hand and... didn't even manage to dent the target?!?! The worst part was that Patrice had floated over to watch and I could almost hear her giggling at my lack of strength.
Remembering back to when I struck the flesh abomination with lightning, I closed my eyes and gathered as much Elemental Energy as I could. With the familiar feeling of a cold wind whipping around me, I opened my eyes and called out, "Elemental Strike!" A purple lightning bolt shot from my hand and slammed into the target which blew up into at least 6 pieces. Unfortunately, I was completely drained of Energy and had to take a moment to regain my strength.
"Guess you're the one in charge of smiting our foes" I told Patrice after I'd recovered a bit. She seemed to preen at my comment, the clouds transforming into a miniature tornado in happiness.
Checking my messages again, my friends still hadn't sent anything. "What the hell is going on?" I asked in confusion, deciding to go back over the message log in our group chat. There, I found that Beth, Rick, and Connor had all gone into special zones like Storm's Refuge that didn't allow for implant functionality. "Well shit, guess I'm on my own."
Logging into MSE, I headed to Ariel's place to ask for some advice. Walking through the castle by myself, I took the time to admire the architecture while also thinking about how empty the place felt. Knocking on the door to the hut, I heard Ariel call, "Enter!"
Walking in, I was surprised. Yesterday the room had been a rustic alchemy laboratory, today it had transformed into a modern living room. Ariel was sitting on a comfy looking leather couch sipping a margarita and watching the latest Mission Impossible movie. The movie paused as she pointed to a love seat next to the couch, and said "Want a drink? 2nd Chance isn't the US so you can drink at 17." She had an enormous grin on her face as she pulled a blender out of midair and started going about making the drink.
"How'd you get a TV into 2nd Chance?" I asked her, looking around the room.
"College Arcane offers specialized crafting services if you're rich enough. They actually had to make it into a Spiritual Item in order to get one from Earth through the portal, cost an arm and a leg but it was worth it." She said as she finished her mixing and started blending.
Taking the drink she'd just made from her hand, I took a sip and sighed in bliss. "Much better than Rick's" I said, enjoying the aftertaste.
"Spiritual Liquor is the best." Ariel sat back on the sofa and took another sip. "So how's it going with your new friend? Pick a name out yet?"
"Yes, although I was a bit surprised about how different the process was from how the manual explained it." I said, sitting back.
"Yeah, it surprised me too, but it's the way the Storm Emperor want's it and I'm not about to argue with him." She said, finishing off her drink and taking the blender back out to make another one. "What you should really be worried about is helping your partner find the best possible retainers."
"Retainers?" I asked, "What do you mean by that?"
"Storm Spirits are considered Royal Spirits, in that they can perfectly control multiple Elemental Energies. What kind of Royal doesn't have retainers?" She asked, "Storm Spirits can permanently bond a single Air, Lightning, and Water Spirit to their command, although they're notoriously picky about who they choose. Not just any Spirit is worthy of being the retainer of a royal. Which is why you need to get out of Storm's Refuge and start exploring 2nd Chance!"
"Really? I thought you guys wanted me to stay here until I was stronger."
"Even though we carry the Mark of the Storm, when we die and our souls are dragged back to Storm's Refuge we have to grow a new body starting over from the beginning. That's what I'm doing right now, I died in the front lines during the last wave and so I'm stuck here re-cultivating again. In the worst case scenario, some of us lose our memories for a time until we manage to train back to a certain level. However, you have entered 2nd Chance through the implant so when you die here all you'll have to do is suffer some soul damage. This means that instead of keeping you here, we can afford to send you out to gain experience and look for retainers for your Storm Spirit!"
As she was talking, the room around us was morphing. A door rising from the floor, glowing brightly as it shimmered. "This is a portal to a village in the Ironmarsh, it's a special zone created to allow new cultivator's to gain experience. It's perfect for you to begin your journey, good luck!"
With a wave of her hand I was sent flying into the portal without even asking if I wanted to go, behind me I heard the the blender going off as she made another margarita and Mission Impossible started back up.