Back at the main camp, Group 4 had a gloomy expression. The veterans of the group all knew what was to come in six years, while the newer members had heard from the veterans. Cage knew nothing of course, he just knew everyone was gloomy. He assumed it was from losing those seven members.
'I need to come up with a way to send out the energy in my soul, otherwise the next time a beast attack I'll be in trouble if my mom isn't here.'
After pondering for some time, Cage decided it best to sleep on it later. His mom went to hand in the soul stones, after handing them in she got another food ticket. Later on in the day after his mom socialized for a bit, they eventually went back up and went to their home. When it was time to put cage to bed, his mom told some story or another that he couldn't understand. He eventually dozed off.
watching his chest rise and fall she whispered **"Do your best to grow big and strong..."
The next day after Cage woke up, he promptly found himself in need of a change. His mom did the standard procedure.
'I understand it's easy to use magical water gun or whatever, but why has it gotta be the equivalent of a f*cking pressure washer!'
The day was more or less the same as the first, they would register themselves in. Now Cage also had to show his code. They would then go have food, socialize for a little, and then get called into their group. The only thing different about their working conditions was that no beasts attacked this time and they were in quadrant 3 that time.
While trying to figure out how to manipulate energy from his soul better, he made a shocking discovery! it was so important that he couldn't believe he forgot about it!
'I don't even know if I actually am a beast man or not! I mean I probably am considering my mom and all, but I still haven't even checked it out myself yet!' He lifted his hand to the top of his head and he felt cat ears. It felt weird not having ears on the sides of his head anymore, but quickly adjusted to it. Inspecting his tail, he found it to be quite pretty. It was very soft as well. 'It's black like my moms, that probably means I have black hair as well. With no reflections or mirrors or anything, there is no way for me to check my face. although that wouldn't really matter considering how underdeveloped I am, I'm less than a week old after all.'
Cage spent a lot of his time sleeping. whether it was because he was a cat person or because he was still an infant, he didn't know. All he cared about was that sleeping felt nice.
After about a month and a half, he finally understood the basic language. There was still some gaps that he couldn't understand, but he figured that he would learn it after time. Learning the language that was used was one of his side projects other than increasing his soul strength. He found it quite ironic that he had the same name as his past life. He still had no luck increasing his soul strength, but he was hoping that he would get some insight from the conversations around him.
During that month and a half he also discovered that beast-men during their infant stages mature unnaturally fast, almost at double the rate of a human infant. At this point in time despite being only a month and a half old, he was as physically developed as a 3 month old baby. Cage guessed that it was because of his physiology as a demi-human because animals normally developed faster when they were young.
'I'll probably develop quicker until I'm an adolescent... I can't tell if this is good or bad. On one hand, it will allow me to do more stuff quicker, but on the other chances are that it would be suspicious if a kid had the mental capacity of an adult. Oh well, I'll think about it later.'
Cage decided to try his luck with his soul-scape and see if he could figure out how to release energy and begin increasing his soul strength. The sight of his soul being tied up by blood red chains was sad, but not demotivating to him. He did his standard inspection procedure of his soul to see if anything stood out or he got any ideas. He saw nothing particular while inspecting the wisps and the body of his soul, but when he got to the core he found something peculiar.
'Hm? What's this?'
There was a crack forming on the core of his soul. It wasn't very big, but the fact that it was there was unsettling. Deciding to keep an eye on it for the time being, he went back to experimenting with his soul a little. Some time later, he had no breakthroughs and chose to just observe the daily routine that his mom had.
The next day, he checked in on his soul again. To his worry, the crack had grown and webbed out some more.
The day after that, the crack had grown again.
And the day after that, the crack had grown.
And the day after that, again, the crack had grown.
On the fifth day after he noticed the abnormality, he started showing feverish symptoms. the cracks covered about a fifth of his soul at this point. Taking notice of his fever, his mom brought him and told Zaria about his feverish symptoms.
With a nonchalant expression, Zaria looked at Cage and said."Tricia, you're smart. You can probably figure out what it is".
"Zaria! I know what it is, but I don't know what to do! It's mana saturation, but the only way to reduce it is by casting spells or using protective artifacts! He'll die in a month!". Taking a deep breath she continued, "It's not like we can teach an infant magic, Cage isn't old enough."
Sighing, Zaria responded "You idiot, you don't have to teach him magic... He's an infant, they have a monster see monster do mentality. Just show him how to release energy."
nervously laughing internally, he thought to himself 'haha... This sure
is funny... I- I'm gonna die in a month if I don't learn to release
energy?!?'
Hearing this, Cage felt a mix of emotions. He was ecstatic at first, but then became worried. He could still barely focus but using the little bit of strength he had left, he clapped his hands together at the prospect of the idea. It's not like he had any other options anyways.
Zaria and Tricia were startled by Cage's actions, they didn't expect him to do anything.
Zaria took the initiative and said with a slight smile, "Tricia, why don't you show him. You are excused from the daily quota until he either becomes okay or... You know, dies."
Zaria was excited. she didn't know why, but she felt that in the eyes of Cage was intelligence that shouldn't be in the eyes of a baby.
'If he is a genius, then things will start to be interesting around here. I might even get a worthy sparing partner!'
Tricia waved her hand in front of Zaria to try and get her attention. "What are you thinking about? Actually... Knowing you it's probably something about fighting."
With a sigh and a thanks to Zaria, She walked away and returned to the dirt room she made.
Once in the room, She said to Cage "Make sure you pay attention, your life is on the line here."
'...Not that you can understand me, I just have to try and get you to copy me.'
Tricia sat down in front of Cage and got into a lotus position. She began taking deep breaths, imbuing energy into her breath. Cage didn't know how she did it, but he tried to watch her anyways.
While he was watching, he got lost in thought. 'I think I understand, I'm trying to walk before I can crawl. I need to understand the fundamentals first...'
Nodding to himself inwardly, Cage decided to try anything that came to mind regarding releasing energy.
Before he knew it, a little less than a month had gone by. He was nearing the limit of his soul. At this point in time, his soul had cracks and fractures on almost every portion of his soul. there was only a little but left, he estimated he had a day at most. He had learned a lot about the theories and fundamentals from his mom and self experimentation. But ultimately, he was unable to release energy from his soul.
On his last day, he was miserable. His forehead was so hot you could fry an egg on it. The only up side he found was that he didn't have a runny nose. Of course there were many downsides to his current condition, like death in less than 24 hours for example.
'Well, I guess now I know why there is no children here. The only problem is I'll probably be joining them soon'
On the last day, both he and his mom gave up. His mom resorted to telling him stories about her time as an adventurer. Apparently, She was known as "The Swamp Mage". Even more surprisingly, Both Zaria and the man with a scar over his eye, who's name is Marcus, were all in the same party at one point.
By the end of the day, There were so many cracks on his soul that there was only one spot left. Just one more crack, and his soul would fall apart due to the mana saturation. He felt immense pain because his very being was about to fall apart. Compared to the time when he was bound by the red chains, it was a difference between heaven and earth.
In his mother's arms, he closed his eyes. His mom could feel his heart beat get fainter and fainter, slower and slower...
With tears in her eyes, she said "I knew it was impossible, and it's not the first time I have lost someone, but why does it still hurt?"
Cage's memories came back to him all at once like last time. 'This is just like last time, I can't do anything again! who knows if I'll get a third chance...' Cage was frustrated with himself, 'I should have worked harder, I should have done something! But now, I get to relive the dreadful experience of my previous life! It came back like a flooding torrent... torrent... TORRENT!'
With a flash of inspiration, he released all the energy he had in his soul into his entire body.
'That's it! I just needed to release the energy like it was a raging torrent! My soul acts like a reservoir holding it, and I just need to lift the blockade to release it!'
At the same moment he released the energy into his body, his soul cracked and his heart stopped.
A shock wave of energy came from Cage.
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