It was almost evening, the cadets had finished their combat class and were taking a break in the lecture hall. All of them had their eyes closed and supported their entire frame on the chair, indicating the exhaustion of their mind and body. Aria too followed them but he wasn't tired at all.
After the combat class, the Teacher had left and the cadets were only left with a single class, which was not actually a class.
-Ting-
A soft chime sounded indicating the end of their break as the cadets dragged their exhausted bodies towards the venue of the next class which was located in between the two lecture halls. Entering the room Aria could observe lines of capsules placed on both sides.
{Welcome cadets. Please lay down within the capsule to complete today's training session. You may access the capsule with your biometric data.}
A mechanical voice guided the ten cadets. Aria watched as one by one everyone entered one of the capsules near to them. He followed them as he neared the one beside him. The capsule was almost twice the size of his body including the length, width and breath. There was a transparent panel on the side of the capsule.
He had observed the cadets placing their palms on the screen and understood that it was a biometric sensor. A blue light seemingly from within the transparent panel ran from the top to the bottom, lighting up his palm.
-Swish-
Along with a little air pressure, the upper part of the capsule slid open. He could see that the rest of the cadets including Dron and Jasmine were entering these capsules so he imitated them as he gently lay down on the soft cushion type material within the capsule.
-Beep-
-Beep-
A short warning beep sounded which surprised Aria. Judas, who was just about to close the capsule, heard the beeping sound and traced its source.
"Wear your mask or it won't close." He politely yet arrogantly informed Aria as he proceeded to point at the side of the upper part of the capsule which had a mask that fit on the face.
The level of these capsules was too high thus its mechanism was not something that he could understand despite integrating with the Knowledge of Science.
Aria nodded to indicate his gratitude and donned the mask. The beeping sound stopped and the upper part of the capsule slid down. With that he felt his entire body being covered in the soft cushiony material.
'Hmm, quite novel. Although I heard multiple times that these capsules help in increasing one's bodily strength, it's my first time experiencing it.'
Aria thought as suddenly he felt some tingling sensation on his body. He used his senses to ponder over this weird feeling and he observed that there was some type of energy that gently entered his body.
'Is this?'
He extended his senses out from within his body intending to know more about his energy.
Suddenly Athenaeum's voice was heard in his mind.
[Host has been injected with Primal Vital Energy]
Its voice swirled within Aria's thoughts, but he was unaware that only his capsule was supplied with Primal Vital Energy. As for the reason behind it, he would find it when the time was right.
Removing all the distracting thoughts Aria focused his mind and started chanting the Scripture of Ancients. His strong will power connected to the Universe but this time he did not try to exert influence over the workings of the Universe. Instead he used it in order to tame this energy as mentioned in the Scripture but then he stumbled upon another fact that the energy was very easy to control.
A sensation of joy welled up within him. Little by little the Primal Vital Energy seeping within his body started to move to the lower regions of his body towards the fundamental units and was converted into Primal Vital Force.
-Plop-
Another celestial object within his body was revitalized. Slowly and slowly----
-Plop- -Plop- -Plop- -Plop- -Plop- -Plop-
The rate of progress of his training increased and at the same time the energy started to decline.
-Plop- -Plop- -Plop-
After another three fundamental units were revitalized there was only a little of the Primal Vital Energy left, he adjusted his mind and then proceeded to use it to stabilize the Primal Vital Force being emitted from those units.
Aria's concentration level reached maximum as strings of texts appeared on his retina and his bodily strength was increasing in real time.
Meanwhile as this happened, within the Temple Six of the Seven Marshals had gathered.
"How was it?" Old Seven asked Marshal Two.
"Seven said he should be able to attain a breakthrough within a century." Marshal Two replied in a calm voice, not bothering to mention the King of the Void Kingdom.
"Hmm, we don't have a century though." Old Seven mumbled, he knew that Marshal Three had mentioned that he would have a breakthrough this time but he also knew that the workings of the Universe were particularly hard to decipher especially on beings as powerful as the Marshals.
"Okay, so I convened this meeting not to discuss this but there has been an issue on the ground." Old Seven addressed the matter at hand.
Hearing this the Marshals expression tightened. Ground was a sensitive topic for the Academy as they had little influence on the ground.
"Our spies have discovered traces of Academic influence within the ranks of our Allies powers." Old Seven's words dropped a huge bomb on the other Marshals.
"Although the exact identity cannot be confirmed at the moment, we cannot assume the Monarchs as one of us anymore." Old Seven continued.
"What do we do now?" Asked Marshal First.
"For now we do nothing, except increasing our scrutiny. It will still take them months to attempt something. I will try to station some spies close to the powers, though if I interfere personally too much, they might be alerted and withdraw. So let them be, we shall take action once we have confirmation." Old Seven replied as he closed his eyes in contemplation.