Kaz found another crystal structure and stashed it. Though they were uncommon, the sheer amount of crystals within this structure did not mean that they were unlocatable, especially with the use of his domain he is able to search for them a lot easier. Kaz at this point had a lot on his mind, until now the situation never truly cemented with him. He forgot how much he missed people even if they treated him wrong. As he picked up another fragment he started to leave and head back to base, but he didn't want to shift there, just walk and digest somethings.
Kaz began to recall when he first met her. He remembered the first thing he noticed when he walked into the new home was her. There were many kids at this orphanage, this was the second one he went to in his life, the first one wasn't that bad but it shut down due to a lack of funding, and Kaz got moved to this one, run by a man and his wife, and this was also where he met Rika.
The many, somewhat disheveled in appearance, bent over towards Kaz trying to put on a welcoming face in front of the social worker that brought Kaz here. "Hello there, my name is Rick, what's your name?"
"...Kaz, nice to meet you."
Kaz was a shy person as a child, due to his innocence, and ignorance as a child he was often wary of new things. This included the man in front of him, he got a sense that he wasn't being genuine.
"Nice to meet you Kaz, you see her over there?" The man pointed at Rika who had eyes filled with curiosity when staring at Kaz. "That's Rika, she is going to show you to your room and around the house."
The man gave a firm pat on the back, with enough strength put into it to somewhat shove Kaz along before turning back to the social worker to talk.
"Hi I-" Kaz was cut off, unable to finish.
"You just said your name, and you heard mine, it's ok to not introduce ourselves again, just follow me." Though somewhat impatient due to being young, Rika still gave a smile as she grabbed his hand and pulled him along. It was at that moment Kaz noticed how red her hair was. It almost looked like dancing flames trailing behind her, Kaz didn't realize someone could have such a color of hair at the time, and this is also why his favorite color became red.
Kaz was then drug around the orphanage meeting various other kids who were also staying at the orphanage, but they seemed a lot more timid than Rika, who Kaz could tell was a strong willed person. After putting away his things and finishing the tour, Rick showed up in the hall as Rika and Kaz rounded the corner, the former seeming to pause at his appearance.
"So the lady is gone now, Rika, you can go back to your choirs, tell the other kids to keep it down and do their part as well or I will get angry. Kaz me and you have to talk"
Rika walked away in silence towards where the other kids were and left, as Rick crouched down next to Kaz with the same fake smile as before. "Now I know it's your first day and all, so I will give you the rundown. Everyone here is going to work. Me and my wife opened our home up to you children so you wouldn't be out on the street begging, or even worse, wind up dead, so here you wanna eat, you gotta work, show me why you deserve it. I'm not given handouts, and you won't get any either. Do you understand that?"
Rick grabbed Kaz's shoulder giving the image of compassion, but Kaz could feel the strength of his squeeze increasing, causing him to wince slightly before nodding. "Good, now here is a bucket and a rag, I need these floors cleaned before dinner which is in 2 hours. I wouldn't want you to go to bed hungry on your first night."
Rick handed the supplies to Kaz and walked off. From this encounter, Kaz knew this wasn't a good place, and felt slightly scared as well. But, he wasn't sure what else to do so he started rubbing the floors. He hadn't ever experienced cleaning before now really, as he wasn't even 10 years old yet, and his last home didn't make him clean. He clumsily began scrubbing the entire corridor in about 30 minutes. As he was getting ready to go to the next area Rick showed up.
"What the fuck? Do you not know how to scrub a floor? It seems like your last home didn't teach you right from left. I already know I am going to have my work cutout for me helping you. Go back to the other end, and properly clean this shit."
Kaz stared at the man, unsure of what to say or to move, before suddenly feeling a sting across his face, and him falling back knocking the bucket over.
"Are you fucking acting out against me, I said clean the fucking floor correctly!"
Kaz, still dazed from the slap, got up, his face smeared in snot and a bit of blood from the impact of the slap. He scrambled to his feet, almost slipping on the water and began rubbing vigorously out of fear.
"Fucking idiot."
Rick walked off clicking his tongue. Kaz silently cried a bit as he tried his best to clean, before hearing a bucket plot beside him and a dry towel being given to him.
"Hey, I'm sorry he did that to you, Just soak up the water with your towel, squeeze it out into the empty bucket then dry the floor with this towel, he doesn't actually care about how clean the floor is, he just wants an excuse to take his anger out."
Rika's worried face comforted Kaz, like a light in a dark room, so far, she had been the only positive thing for him here. Kaz grabbed the towel and began to clean like Rika told him, trying his best to complete his job out of fear of what could happen.
"Main thing, he won't hit you if you just do as he says, most times anyway. Even if he complains, just do it and he will leave you alone. I gotta go back before he comes back, see you."
Rika disappeared back around the corner as Kaz continued his cleaning.
*****
A light touched Kaz's eyes, he had finally made it back to his base as the light wall brought him back from his flashback. He came back to his senses as the realization of him walking back set in, how much time did he have left until day?
"How long until the day cycle?"
[3 Days and 13 hours left until dawn.]
With determination in his eyes, Kaz went to his workshop and started pulling out the various crystal types and examining their properties as well as recalling back to what the system had told him before about their formation.
'I didn't find any Nexus Hearts but I can only imagine what they could do, the process sounds similar to how I condense drops of nexus, maybe I can force it?'
Kaz then took a cluster and held it in his hands, staring at it. He could feel the pull of energy as the cluster somewhat begged for his energy, but the pull was nowhere near strong enough to overpower Kaz, but gave him an idea.
'What if I feed a drop to condense it?'
He then took out 50 nexus cores and condensed a drop before moving it into the cluster. He started to use the drop to pull the crystal's structure inwards, slowly increasing the density with each pull, the energy inside assisting. He then used more energy to push from the outside as well, speeding up the process. This refinement continued for about an hour until the crystal got to the size of a grain of rice, and he could then feel it solidify and the structure collapse into place.
[New Material Acquired: {Nexus Heart}]