Seconds, minutes, hours, days? Asta couldn't tell time as it passed without any change in the cave.
In his boredom he tried to scour the entire cave, the whispers must've come from somewhere and the guardian had to exist, perhaps they were one and the same. Sadly, his results proved the exact opposite, the moment Lucas touched the pool, the whispers vanished. There was no guardian, there weren't any other students visiting, he was just alone. Being in the darkness with nothing to do, he started to reflect.
Asta struggled with himself, more than usual. He was always quite critical of himself, and even more so for others, yet now he felt like he was but a follower of Lucas. He wanted to stand next to him, not behind. His family was made from rulers, yet he would be a subordinate of someone else?
He was strong enough to be seen as one of the strongest on the island. He had the confidence to even stand his ground against a Rank 2 if he went all out. Yet his lingering doubts remained, he was smart, yet Lucas made plans beyond his comprehension, he was strong, but Lucas defeated Brutus.
'If my brother was the age of Conrad, they would almost be equals. If I can't even keep up with Conrad, how am I supposed to go back home?'
Suddenly, his willpower picked up a massive presence right next to him, the figure that represented Lucas was starting to unleash an unprecedented amount of energy, making the ground vibrate. So much so that the cave couldn't handle the pressure, making the stalactites break off and fall down. The amount of energy that the figure was holding was way too much for a single person to contain.
'Why is the pool suddenly wreaking havoc? The energy of the entire pool is trying to settle in his core! It'll explode at this rate! What the hell is he thinking?'
Asta placed his palm on Lucas's back, he knew he shouldn't disturb him, but that didn't matter anymore. He would die without his intervention.
'The Darkness is coupled with pure mana, what the hell is going on with this amount? Both can't enter his core at once, or it'll overload it. His core needs the elemental energy, it'll have to do with the pure Darkness.'
Asta tried his absolute best to take control of the energy in the pool surrounding Lucas. To his dismay, that was impossible. If control wasn't an option, then he could only guide the energy to himself and sort it there. Asta didn't have a black core though, so he couldn't take the energy as it was.
Asta tried to split the Darkness from the Pure Mana. Doing so, he could manipulate the Pure Mana towards himself, but that would also leave the pure Darkness to destroy everything. Time wasn't something he had, it was now or nothing.
Doing nothing meant death, splitting the energy into two pieces, it would at least give Lucas a chance at survival.
'Your core better be as good as your head!', he could only hope the core could control the Darkness on its own or that his consciousness is still aware of its surroundings.
Asta broke the link between the Darkness and the Mana and started to absorb the Mana himself by guiding it through Lucas's pathways. It felt extremely easy to get it out of Lucas's body, making the process a bit smoother than expected.
The energy felt great at first, his core showed immediate improvements, but the energy never seemed to stop.
'This, what is this? This is way too much energy!', Asta knew right away he had little time left before his own core would explode. He didn't have any other choice but to push the mana out of his own body. Letting out so much Mana could disturb the air around him though. Not that he had any choice, using his other hand he raised it high and let Pure Mana exit his hand.
The dark in the air of the cave feasted on the energy and became heavier than before. Yet Asta kept going, even if the pressure on him started to increase in multitudes, he didn't have the luxury of stopping now. At a certain point he could feel his bones being squeezed, yet he never gave up.
Still, it wasn't enough, the energy was way too much for two people alone.
'The mana needs to stabilize, and I need to guide it outwards, but it has to go through me first, or I'll kill Conrad!'
Asta's mind knew what it had to do, but focussing on so many different things at once would be near impossible.
Using his willpower he tried to divide his mind trying to multitask. With his hand he didn't just constantly release the mana, but used it to quickly draw arrays into the air and on the ground, the speed was just barely fast enough to keep up with the mana pouring into his own body.
The surrounding air started to become seriously heavy, so he drew up a bunch more arrays to protect himself from it. The cave kept shaking, the thought of a collapse never occurred to him. Not because it wasn't obvious, his mind was too occupied with everything else that the shaking ground didn't even register.
Asta was decoupling the mana in Lucas, guiding it towards himself, letting his core take some energy and guiding the rest towards his stretched out hand, all the while drawing arrays wherever he could to stabilize himself and the mana. His mind was starting to get burnt out by processing so many different things at once.
Then Asta realized something, 'Shit! If the Mana is way too much, the Darkness is only going to destroy everything inside him!', with the heaviest headache he ever had, he still made correct deductions and acted swiftly.
Asta had been focussing on managing the Mana he forgot that the Darkness left alone would start to destroy everything in its surroundings.
He checked the pitch black figure again and felt as if the world was telling him not to look any further. His gut was warning him to stop right there, but Asta didn't have the time to think things through.
Everything had to be done as fast as possible, or his own mind would explode from all the effort, and then both would be dead by the end of it.
Asta send his willpower into Lucas, but an oppressive feeling invaded his mind. Inside his dome big fiery red eyes appeared that seemed to rule over everything. He could only stare at the big fiery eyes as he retreated his willpower and started to focus on the pure Mana again.
No words or thoughts were needed, his fear controlled his body on his own. He was glad the Eyes didn't do anything to disturb his concentration, or they would both be dead. Asta knew right away that he should just focus on the mana distribution.
The moment all the Pure Mana was taken care off, he retreated from Lucas's body and stayed in the dark awaiting his awakening.
Asta had a lot of experience with all kinds of monsters. Yet this was something he couldn't understand. 'What kind of ancient beast is living in there? The aura is even bigger than... What is happening here?'
His gut suddenly felt strange and weird, he had absorbed so much energy, he was about to enter Rank 2, he needed to congest the mana if he wanted to improve himself. His mind fully focussed on his own core, he let Lucas deal with his own problems.
It was then that another realization came to his mind. 'Wait a minute!', when he tried to guide the mana towards himself, he didn't have the time to guide it perfectly through the pathways. But the mana never stopped moving as if the pathways didn't even exist. If it was a normal human body, most of the pathways would be destroyed and his flesh should've taken damage, yet he was perfectly fine.
'Those weren't normal pathways, is he not human? Does he have massive pathways like the Slime Lords? No, he has a human body. Then, has it something to do with that monster inside him?'
"Argh, my head already hurts enough, let's just focus on recovery for now.", he took some pills and tried to relax his mind. Asking difficult questions without answers would only deteriorate his mind further.
An unknown amount of time passed before Lucas could finally open his eyes again, the black substance around him was gone. He needed a moment to adjust to what he experienced, he had a lot of questions and doubts circling around in his head. If he were to think about them now he would be lost for the next couple of days. Lucas decided to put those question aside to focus on the here and now.
Looking forward with his willpower he could tell he was surrounded by dozens of arrays.
"Asta? What happened?"
"Hey, you're finally awake? Took your time, didn't you? I don't know why, but you decided to absorb the entire pool, making me have to pull the mana out of you and feed some of it to the air. Well, at least we both benefited."
Lucas was about to ask how, but the moment he noticed the arrays that kept the Darkness in the air away he knew there were other things to figure out. Before he focussed on that though, he looked back at his own core. It had gotten even thicker, though not by much. He could tell that the speck of Darkness on his core had gotten deeper as if a small infinite abyss was hiding there.
He tried to inspect it, but nothing strange happened, his core existed like it always had. The light and dark sides have just gotten stronger.
'Dammit, we're in the same situation as them, we can't seem to get to the next Rank.'
'Ah, hold on a second.', Lucas didn't know what the next step was, but he had a living encyclopedia right next to him.
"Asta, did we achieve Rank 2?", Lucas had already inspected Asta before, and now he could tell that the aura was strengthened to the point of him reaching Peak Rank 1.
"Of course, did you not realize how much mana you absorbed? If I hadn't saved your life by removing half of it you would've exploded! And even then, the amount you absorbed is too much for it to be natural. I don't know what you got in there, but you better have control over it."
Lucas was surprised to hear what Asta said. It didn't take long before he realized what happened. To make suggestions to something living inside his core Lucas could only think of the bright sun and the fiery eyes. If Asta got in contact with one of them, he wouldn't be surprised of his reaction.
'It has to be true, considering the amount of energy a single pool contains, there's no way we absorbed everything. So we're indebted to him...'
'Shit, that's the last thing I wanted. Now we can't sacrifice him as we please, right? And he knows of one of our secrets? Possibly even more!'
'Debts have to be paid, no matter what. Human lives are expendable, anyone who gets in our way can be used, but we stay true to our debts. That's the only thing keeping us human.'
'You call that human? Well, if that's the case, I think I know how we can get out of here. That should be enough to get rid of that debt, right?'
'Seriously?'
'...Dammit.'
Lucas took some more time to inspect his current situation.
"Don't worry about me, I'm fully in control. Now, you're saying that we both reached Rank 2, but aren't we both just at the Peak of Rank 1?"
"Look, we're still in Rank 1, but that's only because our core needs to adapt and process all the energy it received. You don't just upgrade your Rank in an hour or so, the body could take weeks to get used to changes. You just need to be patient. A castle isn't built in a single day."
"I see, thanks for saving me.", it was quietly said, but the feelings were true. Asta looked at him in surprise, if anything, he should've been grateful to move with him so he brushed Lucas's gratitude off.
"I do have to say that I was quite surprised you absorbed so much Darkness. I initially thought you would have a Light core since you're blond and have yellow irises, but I guess the idea that the eyes are a window to the soul is a fairy tale."
Lucas, not giving any remarks, stood up and inspected the surrounding air. Seeing Lucas wander around a bit, Asta kept continuing his monologue.
"If you're wondering, the amount of mana in the air right now is about the same as two Peak Rank 1's. The air has become a literal threat to us, not that it will kill us. But moving outside these arrays isn't going to be fun."
Asta tried to explain the current predicament, yet Lucas wasn't really paying as much attention as he should. He was fixated on the Darkness in front of him. All that energy, a combination of Darkness and pure mana, and something else. Lucas now knew what it could possibly be, but felt that such a thing wouldn't be possible.
He stepped forward and reached his hand out so that it would abandon the safety of the arrays.
"Hey! What are you doing?", Asta couldn't help but feel alarmed, while he said that the air wouldn't kill them, he wasn't exactly a hundred percent sure, he wasn't expecting Lucas to just go for it.
Lucas could feel his hand being attacked by the Darkness, the logical thing to do would be to use the Light to heal his wounds, but remembering what the artificial lanterns went through he wasn't stupid enough to try.
Rather, he let the Darkness slowly consume his clothes and flesh. Even though Lucas had a high pain tolerance, it still made him flinch and instinctively pull his hand back. He needed to consciously keep his arm still.
'Currently there's no way for us to manifest our willpower into reality.'
'But there's no reason to since this Darkness is already bound to someone's willpower. We don't need to create, simply change. Plus, if that monster is actually on this island, everyone's dead.'
'Luckily whatever or whoever made it is not present, it's a lingering thought that keeps it together. I can't exactly tell what the message is, but it seems like something along the lines of "consume, light, exist". I can't tell if those are three separate orders or one complete one.'
'What a weird way to phrase it, "consume", as if Darkness lives. So, what's the plan, gonna make a path or something? Or steal it?'
'The owner of this lingering thought is already long gone or dead, so this wouldn't be stealing.'
'Hahaha, perfect, I'm glad you're starting to take my teachings to heart!'
The Darkness ate a bit more of his flesh before it slowly started to merely move around his wounds. Lucas had sent his own willpower to the Darkness and overpowered the lingering thought to make it simply stop consuming.
The others commands were still active, so he didn't even dare think about healing his wounds. Such a risk didn't feel smart considering he couldn't understand the other parts of the lingering thought.
He looked at Asta and gave him a slight smile. "Looks like I gained some enlightenment. The Darkness won't be an issue anymore, so let's leave this cave quickly."
"What are you talking about? Did you seriously learn how to control that substance in mere minutes? I've been looking over what kind of element this thing is since it can't be pure Darkness, but my arrays haven't found anything. How did you figure it out?"
"It's not an element, I can't tell you anymore.", Lucas wanted to tell him everything, but part of him held himself back. There was no good reason to spill everything he learned just to get along with Asta. Asta placed his hand on his chin and after a few minutes he breathed a sigh of relief.
"No, that's fair, and I get it.", leaving Lucas with that double-sided meaning, Asta stood up and walked straight in the Darkness. He had complete faith in Lucas's words.
"Looks like you weren't kidding.", he waved his hand around in the Darkness and felt that he was completely fine. He moved on towards the exit of the cave, leaving Lucas alone.
'He's angry about something.'
'Why do you think that? Hah! We can't just go giving out secrets like candy. Maybe he's just annoyed we're better than him! '
'No, Asta is extremely intelligent and has a full grasp on arrays and their complexity. We can only do the most basic things, but he can make our plans come true. We need him.'
'Says you. If we had time to study those dumb arrays we would be better.'
'And do we have that time?'
'Sigh, I can't wait to be in control again.'
'The moment you know how to behave in social situations.'
'Bullshit. I acted perfectly with that little girl.'
'If I didn't provide you with every single sentence would you have been capable of doing it yourself?'
'...'
'Don't worry, I'll be giving you control in a minute.'
Lucas couldn't stay behind for long, moving after Asta. The feeble rays of sunlight landed on his retinas, making him squint his eyes. Exiting the cave, he realized how fresh the air felt outside. Taking a deep breath he looked around to find Asta sitting on a rock drawing an array on the ground.
"We've been in that cave for 26 hours, 34 minutes and 12 seconds. Does your plan still hold weight?", Asta said with a tired tone. Now that he was out of the cave, the realization of their situation came in. Wasting so much time meant they would be behind schedule no matter what. There should only be around a day left, not nearly enough to achieve remotely anything.
"Yes, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.", Lucas brushed his clothes off before staring in the direction of the forest. He could tell by the incredulous look an Asta's face that he wasn't expecting such an answer. Lucas simply grinned at him. To Asta, the grin seemed like one of the Devils, they unexpectedly lost an entire day, yet his plans weren't affected.
"Hahaha I should've known you thought so far ahead. Tell me, what can I do?", Asta might've laughed it off, but his question was serious. Lucas already felt that Asta wasn't feeling well, he pinned Asta's lack of motivation due to a lack of contribution inside his mind.
"Don't worry, I'll need you to put in your all if we want to win this. Losing an entire day was a misfortune, but we can still make it if we hurry. There are two things we need to do as fast as possible. One, we need to get as many mutated wolves as possible. Two, we need to distract the Rank 2's on the island.", Lucas only had two points left, but both didn't seem that easy.
The wolves on the island were now at their strongest, but neither knew that. Besides that, most people on the island would've already hunted them down, so they would have to fight for scraps.
The other was even harder since it involved getting the attention of the few people capable of killing them in an instant. Asta thought for a moment before taking things seriously.
"I can make an array that'll gather info of our surroundings, I can easily get the wolves. What do I do with them?", killing the wolves for the tokens didn't seem like a great plan since they were already far behind on tokens anyway.
"Bring them to the top of the volcano, pull the horns out and throw them inside the volcano.", Asta couldn't understand the reasoning in the slightest. Lucas could see why and since they didn't have much time, he gladly explained.
"There's a wyvern in the volcano, it's Rank 2. It's the only thing capable of fighting against the others. When you eat the liquid inside the horns of a mutated beast, you can turn into a mutant as well."
"You want to mutate a Rank 2 Wyvern? Why?"
"Mutated monsters just want to consume and spread. The horns take almost full control of the mind, but are more active when the life of its host is in danger. Right now, the wyvern is sleeping, and attracting its attention manually is suicide, and it might go back to sleep after killing us. Making it mutated, it'll fight whatever is closest."
"I see, but won't the Rank 2's simply use their jade and run away?"
"Who knows, during the start of the ceremony I could tell that Simon had a posse following him. The Ice Princess had a bunch of followers, but they weren't as coordinated so they might not mean much and Mino doesn't have any friends."
"They would want to protect their followers and show their might. And while getting their fame and respect they would also make a chance of getting the special token from the wyvern, meaning better rewards. But that's a pretty big weak spot in your plan, isn't it?"
"Correct, I'm kind of betting on their ego and greed. I planned to use the day we lost to figuring out how the jade worked and finding a way to disable them, but now I can only hope that the image they portray are also their true selves."
"Then let's hurry.", Asta started to draw a massive array on the ground. Runes were neatly placed between lines that crosses a circle made of runes containing other symbols. Asta started to talk to himself, some words about calculations and the placement of the runes.
"Can't believe I'm going to fry my mind again, I barely recovered from before. If I didn't have those damn pills I would still be out."
"What do you mean?"
"Why do you think you're alive? All that mana needed to be divided in your body, guided through mine and brought to the outside while drawing arrays to stabilize the mana and protect us from the Darkness's pressure. That was probably the hardest thing I've ever done before."
'So our debt is deeper than I thought.'
'Oh great.'
Lucas couldn't understand how the array worked, but he did recognize certain runes.
'An array to gather info from the surroundings?'
'If I'm reading this correctly, this range is enough to cover the entire fucking island. So he's really going to fry his mind?'
'No, well, maybe, he just wants to prove his usefulness. It would be best to let him continue, having trust is also part of our partnership.'
Asta seemed to be in a flow, drawing lines and runes with his pure mana with extreme speed. Any array specialist would have to look in awe at how fast and precise his movements were. Once he was done Asta looked it over for a mere second before walking towards the center.
Sitting in the middle of the array it activated on its own lighting up the area. Information from the entire island and some more started to gather in a single spot. From the birds in the air, to the fish in the rivers, to the insects on each piece of grass and worms moving the tiniest piece of dirt to crawl forward. Everything started to flow through Asta's mind, making his forehead completely red.
His brows furrowed, his hands balled in a fist and his toes were curling, Asta parsed through every single piece at the cost of his own mind.
Suddenly he quickly stood up, swiftly leaving the array and leaning against one of the nearby trees. With his hand on the side of his head, his eyes looked tired and worn out. He didn't look at Lucas, he wasn't capable of much right now. He simply raised his other hand and pointed in a random direction.
"30 people.", he then moved his hand towards another completely different place. "10." Asta needed a moment to sit down and calm his mind. The strain it must've taken to go through all that info was immense. It was practically impossible to go through all of it after all. He needed at least a few hours to recuperate. He didn't wait any longer before pulling out a bright red pouch and taking some silvery pills.
Lucas waved his hands to create a strong shield of pure mana around him. "Take a rest and be careful.", Asta let out a small laugh mixed with a sigh. He still had to go and gather the wolves, resting wasn't really something he could do. Swallowing the silver pills, his mental energy got replenished, and his headache started to fade away.
Without wasting any more time, Lucas moved forward towards the biggest group.
'I'm giving you full control, this isn't about tricking others or gaining info, this is just to kill as many of them as possible. This group will be people who follow Simon, so they'll be well organized, be prepared.'
'And what's the goal? Since you're giving me control I can't believe it's just to kill them?'
'No, to make them feel fear. To make Simon realize that this competition isn't over, yet before we say so. He's smart, but also arrogant, he'll want to prove himself against someone that's ruining his empire.'
"Hahahaha, finally! Oh, it's good to be back baby!"