In his small dorm, Aric had locked himself for a whole day without leaving.
He only opened the door when the maids brought rations and water and that's all.
He spent the last day sitting with his legs crossed slowly training in the dawn flame art, he also had a small notebook by his side, he bought it yesterday with what little money he had with him, and wrote on it's cover, " the mysteries of chaos".
The notebook had all his discoveries on the chaos Trinity art so far, not that they numbered much but it was a beginning.
The book had basically four lines, one on how chaos crystal can contain essence.
And what shape and sings chaos essence takes in nature.
How chaos essence can digest materials into their essential building blocks.
And his last discovery, how the chaos crystal gave him nearly absolute control over digested essence.
The last point could be said to be the most crucial factor in training the mystic he found, and it left him breathless.
Control over essence stems from three factors, one being your talent in the said element, the lower your talent, the worst your control would be.
The second factor is your realm, the stronger you are, the more insync with essense you would be and the more control you hold over it.
And the last factor is your mastery over the art you train , or a certain skill you master is.
The last one is very limited though, since the spirit contains something similar to muscle memory, the more you train an art or skill, the easier it is to execute and use .
Aric on the Other hand didn't have any of the above factors, but received his control through a forth one, rarely found in the outer world and that is control provided by a treasure.
Aric sat indifferently, the chill wind blowing from his window and past him made his brown hair rustle and weave.
Within his body, and deep in his core structure, a crimson line of red essence was circling in an intricate pattern unperturbed.
It didn't make any deviations or mistakes in its flow, from the view of it, it appeared like the control of a master with a hundred years of trial and error ,when it was in fact Aric's first time revolving the art.
The essence in him was faint and extremely light, running in a stream of hair thin and circling his body one revolution at a time.
Every round ,a small bit of the aura surrounding the essence would seep into his body and it slowly nourished his muscles and bones.
Aric was the lowest rank of a paladin apprentice, and the only aura he could condense was so thin it could only roam the depths of his core realm.
A human body was split into three main levels, the outer realm being the muscles and tendons, the inner realm being the bone and joints, and the core realm being the meridians.
Each realm is connected to the realm above by a link, these links are from core to inner as acupuncture points and from inner to outer as pressure point.
As a paladin slowly grows in power, his body potential rises and that creates a pressure that would slowly condense the essence in the body as it revolved around, and when a paladin is able to condense essence strong enough for it to breakthrough one of his acupoints and roam through the marrow of his bones, than that would mean he've stepped into the realm of an essence integration master.
Where by essence can be integrated into his movements and attacks, and his prowess would rise by leagues and realms.
But Aric was far from such a realm, for now all he could do was use all the potential in the medicine he was given to the best of his power.
He had an emmanse advantage in the fact that the essence digested by the chaos crystal was the purest it could be, clean of any impurities that might harm his body in the long run, and also slow the process of revolving the essence.
While practicing the art, Aric also realized that essence was slowly escaping his body and decreasing in amount, through every point possible, his breath , his pores and even his ears and… other holes, the refined essence kept decreasing no matter how hard he resisted.
This was in itself one of the rules of essence convergence, essence will always seek to flow into realms of lower pressure and higher purity, and when essense coagulates and condenses, it'll become an entity with a sentient like demeanor, and it'll push itself to flow towards more preferable conditions, and to keep. Essence within higher pressure realms, an equivalent amount of power needs to be paid for that to happen.
Aric obviously didn't possess such power and all he could do was make the most out of the essence within him before it disappeared completely.
After three hours of complete concentration, Aric's reserve was finally completely depleted, he was actually left out of breath by then, and was a step away from giving up on the left over essence.
Training the crimson dawn flame art proved to be more tiring than the chaos Trinity art, a three hours training in the later left him with discomfort and fatigue, but the first was true hell.
To keep your attention on both the circling process and fighting the essence will from going rough was a pain, or so Aric thought.
While he was sulking at the lost of a thirty percent of the arcane products material, most new recruits wouldn't be able to get that percentage in gain, the essence they would slowly digest one chip after another, would be heavy in impurities, and with a lower talent , most the essence would go untouched in the clogs of impurities.
Although Aric had only a decent talent for fire, the essence he was using was the purest their is, the likes only found in the most divine and pure of materials, and although it resulted in the loss of some material, he was still pretty well off, even compared to some purple robes he was in greater range of achievement.
As for the fatigue that followed his training, it wasn't a result of low stamina and soul resistance, rather it was the amount of essence he was using at once.
Usually when digesting a material, people would take things slowly and choose to take the medicine in small doses, even those capable of taking it in one single session would choose not too for the sake of maximizing their efficiency of work.
Aric, completely ignorant of the factors, got off his bed a bit disheartened and checked himself for any changes.
He didn't feel much different at all , he moved around, stretched his arms, and he felt a bit more resistance and weight hidden in his muscles, he didn't hold much hope to the strength he gained in one session of training but he wanted to test his power.
" Well , let's see if these mystic arts are worth the fuss they carry out!" Aric had little contact with the mystic throughout his childhood, his only source of reference was the tails and legends told in the pubs around his hometown, and we all know how unreliable as reference those can be.
He walked out of his room, with no one in the vicinity of the droms, with the trails having two more days to finish and the results to be announced, Aric felt at peace to test his strength in here,- not that it had changed that much, right ?-
He then walked toward a rather thick beech tree standing to the side of his dorm.
" All or nothing " Aric clenched his arm, he took a stance he learned from when he was young from the butler of his uncle's house, a simple stance that was more than enough to control the momentum of a mortal.
He then took a Deep breath, and with all the strength his arms could put, he sent a punch toward the centre of the palm wide tree .
Swift - his punch wifted through the air, leaving behind a whistle like sound before it slammed thoroughly into the tree.
Aric retracted his palm while feeling the pulsing pain, he was left dazed as he saw the two inch deep mark left on the tree's surface.
He couldn't process what had happened, he proceeded to tap the tree's carcass, to make sure the tree wasn't dead or fake, and after two taps, the sounds of creaking wood issued as the three meter tall tree fell back with an exaggerated display leaving Aric even more on edge.
" The hell !" Aric didn't know whether to laugh or cry, to break a palm thick tree with a punch was a far exaggerated amount of strength, it felt so surreal he never believed he'd achieve such a thing in a single day, yet he did.
Aric stood there in front of the tree motionless for a while, before he awoke from his daze, and clenched his palms in excitement, so tight they turned pale in color.
"... With just a single pill " Aric was overwhelmed in excitement , to the point he almost forgot the tree fell beside his house and that he now has to deal with it.