I woke up, dazed and confused. My senses suddenly blasted me with information, probably from getting multiple times sharper. The faint sound of steam coming off the hot tea next to me, the faint wind blowing outside. It normally would have been too much to take in, but my brain was able to perfectly handle it now.
I immediately checked for my core, but.. it was not there. The only thing giving me a bit of hope was that I could still feel Sylvia's will.
It seemed Myre saw my distressed face. "Good morning. There is tea on the nightstand. You don't have to worry about your core disappearing, I will soon explain." she said, her voice soft.
She approached me, bringing a chair with her.
"You have reached the Integration stage, meaning you are not human. I thought Sylvia's feather was to hide the mark from Sylvie, but it was not only hiding the mark, it was hiding your Asura blood, making us see you as a normal human child."
She put her index finger and thumb on her chin, sitting in a thinking position.
"Don't worry, I will not tell anyone. Your body was special, as you know. A human with an Asuran body. Asuras are fundamentally different from humans, seeking power and abandoning emotion during it. It seems that your core, integrating itself into your very being, was conflicted as to what to do.
It acknowledged that you didn't want to be an Asura, but keep an Asuran body. Normally, it only integrates into your body, human or Asuran, making you more powerful and letting you heal minor injuries instantly as well as giving you much higher mana capacities. In your case, however..
Arthur, I think you might be an entirely new being never seen on this world."
Thousands of thoughts and emotions ran through my mind. Am I going to lose all my power? Am I still at least part Asuran?
Wait a second.. My brain could never process literal thousands of thoughts at once.. Could this mean that my brain function accelerated?
"So what happened? Am I no longer an Asura?" I said with a shocked look
"I think you're now much more powerful than a simple Asura, Arthur. You and your core have perfectly merged, reaching a equilibrium, and with it unknown power."
I wanted to say something, but words wouldn't come out of my throat. So many emotions were racing through my head, but somehow the most prominent one was.. determination.
looking in a small pocket mirror, I can see that nothing about my appearance has changed except that my eyes are now purple.
Putting on a determined look, I said "Alright, let's try my new body."
...
Firstly, I tried to manipulate the four basic elements and their deviants. What I noticed was that there was no delay between the thought and execution. I could manipulate all the elements with much greater precision, something I thought impossible.
My body being literally made of my mana core meant that I was always perfectly reinforced with mana, and could absorb mana much faster than regular mages.
My physical strength and reaction speed were multiplied at least tenfold, and my mana capacity a hundredfold. I could also now manipulate pure mana, meaning much more options and precision.
Even with this extreme powerup, I still knew I had no chance against the king of the Asuras.
Next, I activated my beast will. My first form worked perfectly, but what was different was Realmheart.
Much more intricate and complicated runes ran down my entire body, glowing dimly. It still seemed to have the same effect, but Myre looked completely in shock.
"You seem to know what those runes mean." I asked in an apprehensive tone
"Yes.. those runes indicate that you possess an unreasonably high affinity to all types of Aether. I have known a man like you, he was an Asura who had almost as complicated runes as you. He self taught himself Spatium in a few years, and could control it better than any Asura before.
The great eight deemed him a threat, and personally went to get rid of him. His talent, however, lied in Aether, not in combat. He was mercilessly slaughtered along with anyone who sided with him."
Myre looked at me with a serious face.
"You must not under any circumstances reveal your Realmheart physique to the Asuras, you understand?"
I slowly nodded, too stunned to comprehend the words coming out of her mouth.
Activating the third phase of my beast will, the before dim runes started to glow brightly like the sun, and also apparently burning like the sun, as I felt them slowly searing into my being. I tried to deactivate Awakened Realmheart, yet it didn't work.
After an agonizingly long five minutes, the runes stopped glowing so brightly, instead settling on a mild glow.
Deactivating Awakened Realmheart, the runes were still present, as if seared to my very core. Although not glowing at all, using any kind of spell made the runes glow based on its power.
"Oh great, now how am I supposed to keep the runes from being seen." I barked at nothing in particular
"Try to put on the feather, dear. It might work."
I did as she said, and after a few seconds of staring at me, Myre gave me a smile and nodded.
My body had a pretty powerful healing factor, being able to heal small wounds. This took a tremendous amount of mana, but could be repressed.
After both me and Myre got over the shock of my new body, we started training my Realmheart physique.
...
"Excuse my intrusion," the familiar voice responded as he opened the door.
It was Windsom.
"I apologize for coming without notice, but Lord Indrath has already arranged for Arthur's next instructor, and he is waiting rather impatiently for his student." Windsom's gaze lowered as he spoke.
"Very well, I do wish to keep tabs on the child, so there would be no problems if I popped in every now and then, right?" Myre's question came off as more of an irrefutable declaration by her tone.
"Of course not. Now, we must get going"—Windsom's gaze turned to me, indicating for me to get ready—"So if you'll excuse us."
"You should go, Arthur. Remember to continue your training with Realmheart." Myre ran her fingers through my hair that had grown long enough to be considered a mane.
"Of course. I'll have it mastered by the next time we see each other," I teased, exposing a childish grin.
Following Windsom out of the cottage, we made our way through a dense cluster of trees that surrounded Myre's little hut.
Walking a few hundred meters, we soon reached a teleport circle.
As I stepped out of the teleportation circle onto the sand-strewn ground, I couldn't help but gaze in awe at the vastly different landscape we had traveled to. We were at the bottom of what appeared to be an enormous crater with imposing walls, carved by nature, towering over us on all sides. It looked like water once filled this giant hole at one point in time, but the only traces left now were the silver, ribbon-like fissures that lined the walls at varying heights.
"So my next training session is going to be here?" I confirmed, my voice quivering at the thought of spending weeks, or even months here.
"Ah, he's here," Windsom announced, ignoring my question.
"So this is him? He's the pup that's supposed to be the hero, leading Dicathen to victory against the Vritra-raised armies and their disgusting little Lessurans?" A deep, bass voice reverberated clearly from the top of the gorge.
The insect-sized figure standing on top of the crater's edge, shadowed from the sun shining at his back, leaped up, growing larger as he descended like a meteor toward us.
Upon landing, an explosion of sand and debris made both Windsom and I shield ourselves. As we waited for the dust cloud to clear, a large hand shot out from inside the cloud and lifted me off the ground.
As I was pulled into the cloud of debris, a firm, deep voice resonated. "Hello, Pup."
"Uto?" I asked
"Well damn, now you ruined my entrance.
"Arthur, I'd like you to meet Wren. He's going to be your instructor for quite a while, so get acquainted." Windsom had an amused sparkle in his eyes as he said this.
Dipping my head, I formally introduced myself to my new instructor. "Nice to meet you, my name is Arthur Leywin. I'll be in your care."
"I want you to strip." The asura's gaze was unrelenting as he tapped his foot with impatience.
"Of course you do," I muttered quietly under my breath.
"What was that?" He snapped.
"Not a single thing." Letting out a sigh, I stripped down to my underwear. "Is this good enough, or would you like to study my family jewels as well?"
"The supposed savior of the lesser beings has quite the mouth," Wren replied sardonically. He began circling me, poking me with his finger now and then. When the asura saw the white feather that Sylvia had left me wrapped around my arm, he reached to remove it.
"Don't remove that." I said as I clamped my arm shut around the feather.
"Dragon's feather. Truly a crafting material too rare to be wasting as an arm warmer, don't you think?" the frail asura marveled.
"No, I would like to keep it on."
"Alright, just give me a few strands. You'll not regret it."
"Sure, take them. Just make sure not to remove the feather from my arm." I said as I extended my arm towards Wren.
plucking a few strands off of the feather, Wren made a noise that sounded somewhat like a satisfied hum.
...
Suddenly, a bloodcurdling scream from behind made me whip around. What I saw bewildered me just as much as it filled me with horror.
With two, black horns gleaming menacingly against the morning sun, an asura of the Vritra Clan stood over me. Covered from the neck down in completely black-plated armor, the basilisk in human form opened his lips into a triumphant grin to reveal a row of jagged teeth, and in his grasp was someone I thought I would never see here.
I was barely able to form a word as another gut-wrenching scream was ripped out from the Vritra's hostage. "K-Kath?"
Author's note: Please let me know how you like this chapter in the comments. I'm completely open to redoing it, but I want some feedback on what you think. I wanted to do smth original with the integration stage, and figured this was cool. thx for your support, I read every comment.