As Friedrich and Hans worked diligently to construct a makeshift tent around the unconscious John, Nicholas knelt beside the young prince, checking his pulse with a furrowed brow. The surrounding air was heavy with the scent of blood and sweat, the aftermath of John's agonizing transformation.
"How is he?" Hans asked, turning to Nicholas, who was wiping the blood from his hands with a cloth.
Nicholas took a moment to finish cleaning his fingers before responding. "He hasn't woken up yet, but his vitals seem to have stabilized for the most part. He seems to be asleep due to the exhaustion that the process would have caused."
Pausing after his explanation of John's condition, Nicholas continued. "The two of you should go rest. I'll stand guard. You'll need it as we have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow."
"Yes, sir," Hans and Friedrich replied in unison before hastily retreating to their own tent to rest.
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After several hours of unconsciousness, John's blood-covered body stirred, and a groan escaped his lips. "Ugghhh," he moaned, trying to sit up.
Hearing the groan, Nicholas yelled at the top of his lungs, "Oh, the kid is waking up! Get him some food; he'll likely be hungry after what he went through." The loud voice woke both Friedrich and Hans, who quickly emerged from their tents.
Slowly opening his eyes and looking around in a daze, John spoke, "How long was I out for, and why is everything so…red?" He gazed at the surrounding grass, which had been stained red with his blood.
Nicholas smiled broadly and looked at John, "Congratulations on finally making your core! You are now at the starting line on your journey to power. Now to answer your first question, not very long, about six hours, including the two hours during which your core was forming. So you fainted for about four hours. And lastly, everything you see is red because you and everything around you are covered in blood. All of us were far too disgusted to clean it up for you, so after putting up a temporary tent around you, none of us wanted to go anywhere near you." Nicholas pointed at the coagulated blood around and on John.
John stared blankly at Nicholas for a moment, then spoke with a smile on his face, "I see, and thank you. Hold off on the food, by the way… I need to clean myself…very much."
"Hans, cook the food, but hold off on serving it. The kid needs to clean himself, and Friedrich, take him to the hot spring you found," Nicholas instructed, nodding at John's words and popping his head out of the makeshift tent.
"You found a hot spring?" John asked, surprised.
"Yeah, Friedrich got lucky. It's pretty close to here," Nicholas said proudly nodding his head.
"In the middle of the forest?" John questioned, with one eyebrow raised.
"Yep," Nicholas nodded.
"Negotiations with the dwarves just got easier," John whispered to himself with a sly smile on his face.
"What?" Nicholas asked, noticing John talking to himself.
John shook his head and replied, "Nothing. I'll go take that bath now…the drying blood feels disgusting." He got up slowly, wincing at the pain in his muscles.
Just as he got out, Friedrich gave an imperial salute to John, congratulating him on his recent breakthrough, to which the young prince returned with a salute of his own. Hans also congratulated him with a wide smile and a slight bow of his head.
John's face lit up with a wide smile as he replied, "Thanks, both of you. I would love to talk more, but I need to take a bath, especially now that I know there's a hot spring nearby." He gestured to his blood-stained body, prompting Friedrich to lead the way to the hot spring.
However, Hans stopped him, saying, "I'll have your food ready when you're done, and as for your clothes…"
John interjected, pointing to a black spacial ring on his right index finger, "Don't worry about that. I always keep a few changes of clothes in here."
Hans smiled and replied, "That's great, then."
"Let's go," John said as he turned to Friedrich, who nodded and started running into the forest. John kept up with ease.
Meanwhile, Hans approached Nicholas, who sat with a look of awe on his face. "So, how strong did he get? You must have some idea, given your level of strength," Hans asked.
After a moment of silence, Nicholas replied, "I don't know what that kid did, but he's a monster. There's energy practically leaking out of him. If this forest had monsters in it, he'd be a magnet. His body is almost like a mana crystal, a pure concentrated lump of energy."
Hans furrowed his brow in confusion, prompting Nicholas to explain further. "It means that the North now has the greatest monster known to mankind." He gazed at the spot where John had been lying only minutes before, now feeling both awe and fear at what John had, and would become.
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As Friedrich and John made their way towards the hot spring that Friedrich had found to the east of their camp, Pallas spoke up from within John's conscience.
"Hey kid, your body is radiating energy," Pallas warned. "You might want to rein it back in, lest you want every beast in this forest to come at you. You don't have dragon fear to fend them off, so you need to keep that in control."
John stumbled over a tree root, trying to keep up with Friedrich, and asked, "Sorry, what now?"
Kostas continued the explanation, "Well since we made it so that your core acts as a dragon heart, which acts like a pump of mana, your entire body is radiating mana, divine, and chaos energy. This will attract all the wildlife in the area, so pull it back in before you get yourself eaten by some random beast out here."
Just as Kostas ended his explanation, Pallas spoke up, "By the way, when will you test out your new capabilities?"
"After I take this bath that Friedrich found," John replied, "As you can probably see, I am not a fan of being dirty. It trumps my need to test myself."
Soon after, Friedrich came to a stop, and John took in the sight of the hot spring. The moonlight reflected off of the spring's surface, and the steam that covered the area coalesced to form a perfect picture.
"It's beautiful," John said, admiring the breathtaking sight before him.
"Your Highness?" Friedrich said, tapping John's shoulder and pulling him out of his daze.
Snapping out of his trance, John turned to Friedrich and apologized. "Ah, right. I apologize. The beauty of the sight caught me off guard. Please stand back there; I will call you once I am done cleaning myself."
"Understood, sir," Friedrich replied, moving a few trees away and standing guard with his hand on his sword hilt.
Once he was alone, John made his way into the hot spring, clad only in a towel that covered his lower half. He let out a deep sigh of contentment as he felt the warm water enveloping him, easing the tension in his muscles. The blood that had covered his body began to disperse into the water.
"Haaaaaaah, this feels great," he murmured, closing his eyes and sinking deeper into the water. As the last traces of blood cleared from his hair and skin, John opened his eyes and looked down at his reflection in the water.
"Holy shit, what happened here?" he exclaimed, running his hand through his now fully silver hair that grew almost to his waist. "This looks way too similar to how I looked before we came back…you two have any idea why?"
After an awkward pause, Kostas replied, "Previously it was because you were old, now it's because your hair is overflowing with energy, and also the physical trauma and pain you went through while forming your core…those two things probably played a huge part."
Staring at his now even deeper red eyes for a moment in his reflection, John said as he felt his face, "I didn't notice earlier because the blood was covering my vision, but I think I got a couple of inches taller. But then again that was to be expected, considering my entire bone structure changed during the process."
Just as he was admiring himself, John noticed a pair of bright green orbs moving towards him from inside the hot spring. "What's that? Huh?"
As John moved forward to check what it was, a massive black lizard with yellow spots all over its body jumped towards him, almost tripping the boy. John, now stronger, barely managed to evade the beast and quickly got out of the spring.
*Hisss*
As the creature hissed, John stared at it and exclaimed, "Fuck."
But before he could do anything, Friedrich ran towards him and exclaimed, "What the fuck is a fucking salamander doing this far north?"