Aria was in high spirits as she skipped past the doors of the Training Room after Frey. This morning, Dr. Hugh visited and informed her, albeit grudgingly, that her body has reached 5.35% stability and that her life is not in danger anymore because her body is recovering quite well from the damage caused by her ability.
Even when Frey instructed her to go through the motions of what she has been doing the previous days, the warm-ups, the weight training, and the cardio, she remained in good humor.
Aria sat cross-legged on the floor of the Training Room catching her breath after the rigorous physical exercise she had to go through. "Hey, Frey? Can I ask you something?"
"Go ahead." Frey sat on the floor a few feet away from her.
"I never had the chance to ask you about the walls." She waved a hand around the room, indicating the purple metallic walls. "I've never seen something like this before."
"The walls are made up normal construction materials. It's been layered with a mix of what the dwarves who gifted called 'healing metal' in their language, and other metals."
"Dwarves?"
"Yes and this 'healing metal' is one of their most precious possessions."
"And this got here?" Aria pondered on what could have made these creatures part with one of their most precious treasure. "They must've been desperate to solve some problem they have to willingly part with this." Discussing creatures like this still felt surreal to her. Aria still hasn't gotten her mind around the existence of
"You got that right, Miss Selman. But that happened many years ago."
Aria made a face when Frey addressed her. "I have a request, Frey."
Frey waved a hand telling her to continue.
"Can you, if possible, stop addressing me that way. It's weird."
Frey nodded. "Is Selman okay?"
"That's better. Thank you."
"Anything else?"
Aria shook her head.
"Let's start. You need to learn how to store spiritual energy in your body and activate your ability. What we call spiritual energy is the energy that comes from the earth. It is what fuels our abilities." Frey began. "There are six known types of energy that can be stored: fire, air, water, earth, light, and darkness. These are easily accessible, but people like you can only store the same type of energy your underworlder ancestor had. Most underworlders have only one elemental affinity."
"So we can only store one? Is it possible to store more?" Aria inquired.
"Most can only store one, but there are only a number people who were able to store two, and that's because their parents are the rare and elusive kind of underworlder like the elves and the Fae."
"Oh." Aria lightly scratched her head. "One last question. Why do most underworlders only have one affinity?
"That's because when the two energies are haphazardly absorbed together, they react with each other and become volatile and it causes the body to explode. The only way to store them together is to absorb the two of them in a certain ratio."
"That's scary."
"It is. Now, close your eyes and clear your mind of any distractions and take deep breaths. The Training Room is saturated with spiritual energy so it will be easier for you. Try to sense the energy that calls to you and pull it towards you. Try to store it in little by little to gauge how fast your body will absorb them. Then try to match the pace your body is absorbing the energy."
Aria rolled her shoulders and she wriggled a little to find the sitting pose comfortable to her. "I'm ready."
" A few reminders. Don't absorb over your current body limit. It will increase gradually as your body become more stable. Don't. Get. Impatient." Frey emphasized. "Absorbing spiritual energy for the first time will make you feel empowered, so keep what I said in mind. Overabsorbing will cause your abilities to automatically activate to its current strongest form as a defense mechanism, and when that happens, you, who are not used to using even its weakest form, will be the one to suffer."
"I-I will keep that in mind." Aria swallowed, her palms began to sweat a little. She nervously followed Frey's instructions to the dot. After a few seconds, she began to feel the energies saturating the air. In her mind's eye, millions of kaleidoscopic threads of what she guessed as energies appeared moving around her.
Like what Frey explained, Aria saw six different types of energy. There were blues, greens, reds, browns, golds, and ink black threads of energy that were mesmerizing to gaze upon. She kept her eyes on them but their constant shifting made her dizzy. She tried pulling them towards her one at a time but each of them resisted. Her eyebrows knotted in confusion. None of the energies are calling to her.
[I guess I'll try again.] She began to pull them again in succession but she was unsuccessful in drawing one of them in. She kept on trying to pull the threads of energy in succession but she remained unsuccessful.
When she failed for the twentieth time, Aria was so frustrated. She was having a hard time concentrating on sensing the energy around her. She tried for the last time, pulling each kind consecutively, and like her first twenty tries, none of them responded.
When Aria was about to give up, she saw each gold and ink black threads of energy begin to pulse as if calling out to her. Something in her gut told her to draw them in. She quickly got hold of the threads of the two colors, and following her gut feeling, Aria started drawing them by pairs toward her. She began to absorb them little by little.
Frey, who was watching Aria, flinched when sensed the movement of the two energies towards Aria. His eyes widened and he immediately craned his neck to see if the other people present in the Training Room noticed what he did. Sure enough, they did. Most of them paused at what they were doing and their gazes were focused on Aria.
In his mind, Frey began to remember the kind of underworlder who has the elemental combination as Aria, but nothing came to his mind. He does not know any underworlder with the light and dark elemental combination.
[I need to report this.] He thought as he focused his attention on Aria.
The moment the energies flowed inside her body, Aria sensed them rapidly stored. She doubled the quantity of the two energies she absorbed in an attempt to match the rate her body was taking in the energies in, but it felt insufficient.
[I need more!] As Aria kept increasing the rate she was absorbing energy. She became so focused on her task that she began to lose a sense of her surroundings. All that mattered was the spiritual energy her body was taking in and that she needed more of it.
The drastic decline of light and dark energy in the Training Room alerted Frey. He hastily stood and walked towards Aria.
"Selman, stop." Frey knew that Aria is close to going over her limit in absorbing spiritual energy so he decided to remind her. "Hey, stop. You're absorbing too much."
When Aria remained unresponsive, Frey called her name louder, but it was ineffective. He laid a hand on her shoulder to force her out the trance she was in, but the moment the two of them touched, Frey's hand was repelled a strong force.
In the blink of an eye, he was thrown against the Training Room wall. The force was so strong that it was able to dent the wall, but that wall was able to return to the way it was after several seconds. Frey was caught off guard that he was not able to react until his body fell on the floor. With his vision still spinning, he tried to get up, only to collapse again.
He closed his eyes as he tried to regain his composure. Then he felt strong waves of light and dark energies released.
"Damn it!" Frey silently cursed as he pushed himself up and saw that Aria has indeed gone over her body's limit.
Aria came to her senses the moment she felt the energy she worked hard to store drain away. She opened her eyes but all she saw were colors. She frantically looked around but all things around her were colors alone.
She tried to stand but her legs buckled. She began to crawl, desperately trying to find something she is familiar with. She closed her eyes and began to rely on her other senses. She felt the Training Room floor and she calmed down a little. She heard Frey calling her name and then, she felt so dizzy that she passed out.
Frey reached Aria the moment her body slumped on the floor. He immediately picked her up and dashed towards the elevator landing. He hit the up button in quick successions.
The wait made Frey uncomfortable. He was constantly looking from Aria to the slowly descending numbers on top of the closed elevator doors. Each second felt like an eternity.
The moment the elevator doors opened, waves of relief flooded throughout his body.
"Hold on for just a little more, Selman." He whispered to Aria. Frey hoped she does not wake up until her body has used up all the excess spiritual energy she took in that sent her ability into overdrive.
The moment the elevator doors finally opened to the twenty-second floor, though, was the same time Aria opened her eyes. She took a look around her, saw the dizzying assortment of colors and was unable to stop herself. She turned her head to the side and emptied the contents of her stomach on Frey's shirt.