Aurea blinked twice before saying, "What do you mean you pass?"
"Exactly that, I don't feel like it."
"C'mon Zenon, just for a minute. I want to test your strength."
"You are testing my patience, which isn't much right now. See ya."
Without looking back, Zenon left the facility center while waving backward. Aurea stood still in the middle of the warehouse as she watched the boy go.
Sighing, she grabbed the tracksuit from the floor and went inside the climbing room again. Even if there was a slim chance of meeting inside the Layers, Aurea wanted to taste the strength of a Void Carrier.
After all, most of them died the moment they became eighteen, since killing a human while they are Awakening is far easier - or sometimes even before that, illegally. She threw off the tracksuit for the second time and took her neck warmer off.
Her Familiar also appeared from her Soul, bringing some chuckles from her, "Sorry for waking you up."
"Eeeee!" The bird shouted.
Aurea sat in the middle of the vast cushion pad and lied down, looking at the ceiling. The Familiar flew towards her and landed on her chest, making the same sound.
Aurea sighed and said, "He's strange. Everything he says seems to be both true and fake but it's really exaggerated, so I don't know if I should believe it. I'm no one to question that, secrets are for everyone."
"Eeeee! Eee!"
Aurea frowned at her Familiar suggestion.
"What? Phoenix, are you hearing yourself?" The bird tilted his head, "Befriend him you say?"
Phoenix nodded, making Aurea sigh again,
"I don't know, to be honest. He has spent the past two weeks bringing me problems. And you know how much it pisses me off." Aurea got up and began walking around while talking to her Familiar with different voices.
"Aurea, that asshole has gotten into a fight again! Weren't you going to do something? Aurea, he's bluffing again! It's annoying already!"
She looked at Phoenix and said, "You know, all that for the past two weeks. The strangest part is that Dan and Harbor brush it off like it's nothing. I wonder what those idiots are up to now."
"Eeeee!"
Aurea looked at Phoenix before chuckling, "A bet? Alright, what do you want."
"Eeeee! Eeeeeeee!"
"Damn, I thought a bet was fair for both parties but alright." She licked her lips before squinting her eyes, "If you want to play it that way, be ready to lose."
—
Days went by faster than Zenon thought.
The Runes became easier each day that he took them. Even though the first and second week was beyond torturous and could be considered a war crime due to the inhuman amount of information he had to understand and remember, it progressively became easier.
Speaking about Runes, he managed to become somewhat fluent in them. It was the same as if someone asked him, what's two plus two? Your brain would subconsciously give the answer as it was not difficult and straightforward.
This is what happened the last few days with Runes. The most simple nouns, adjectives, or verbs were integrated into his mind as if he was part of the Runes itself. Just a mere glance and he was able to determine which Rune he was seeing and its true meaning.
However, there were still Runes which, no matter how much he studied them, he still needed some seconds - even minutes - to properly understand correctly. And all this knowledge was applied earlier than he thought when tried to understand his own Runes.
No matter how long he stared and tried to analyze them, it seemed like there was something missing. But, nowadays, he was able to read them just fine. That's when he noticed something about his Named Runes.
It was named Void Bringer. Simple right?
Well, he found out some more similarities. First of all, let's start with the first Rune, Void.
If you were to ask yourself the question - "What does Void mean in this exact scenario?" - you'll probably end up thinking that is really simple, it's just the void. The Element.
Well, not exactly.
Applying what Zenon knew about Runes, void could translate to something else. Being a noun reduces most of the possibilities, but it could be understood as Darkness, Emptiness, Coldness, and some more…
The second Rune, Bringer, also has its peculiarities.
Bringer can also be understood as Carrier, following the main property of Runes. Is there a difference between Bringer and Carrier? Perhaps the former is more active than the latter, which just implies carrying something.
Summarizing, we end up from "Void Bringer" to "Darkness/Coldness Carrier" in general.
And this is just a small part of analyzing Runes.
Yet, only this small change made Zenon's world light up. At first, he thought being Named was just done with a random name.
However, now that he properly understood the deep meaning behind it he could see how Runes and names were easily related. I mean, some in-depth analysis and he found the term from which he was named his entire life, Void Carrier.
He also wanted to understand Aurea's Named Runes, but if he didn't have the original ones in front of him... it turned out to be extremely difficult since there were up to ten different Runes for Divine.
Now, changing to the Survival part of the lesson, he found it to be beneficial. Most books focused on the basics, like making campfires, cooking Layer Beasts meat, or climbing. Since he had some time, having already finished the basics, he began learning astronomy.
Since the Layers had their own stars and constellations, knowing where they were could become a significant advantage. Even though it was extremely hard to comprehend due to the vast amount of possibilities, he still found it awesome.
Along with some skills such as swimming, or blending with the environment, which he sadly had to train inside the Layers, Zenon felt ready.
Anyhow, changing back to the shelter. He always sent the Leviathan to scout around and gather as much information as possible. While he - indeed - brought some extremely useful information about Familiars and Elemental Abilities, he also brought some gossip.
And as much as he hated it... he wanted to know the real story behind most of them. Hell, some of the rumors could've been taken out of a best-seller movie! And with this he realized something.
To the surprise of no one, love seemed to slowly take hold of most Unseens.
Well, it was expected after all. They were about to get sent to such a creepy and unforgiving place that they wanted to try some of the pleasure the human body could receive before going.
Like, what would happen if you gathered a lot of teenagers with their hormones wildly raging, and told them they had a month left until they were sent to a place they'd mostly die? I guess the answer is obvious.
Obviously, Zenon was left excluded from this. His reputation, along with the rumors, turned him into a cold-blooded lying, arrogant sociopath.
He didn't know when it took such a drastic turn, but he felt somewhat happy about it. Now, nobody would be dumb enough to annoy him. He could at least enjoy that sensation of peacefulness for a little while longer.
And these last days gave him some more insight into his Elemental Ability.
The void could not only be applied to his exterior, but if he wished to, he could even apply it to his organs.
Yep.
He figured this out when he got an upset stomach and had the great idea of saying, "Hey! What if I introduce an unknown matter inside my organs that can potentially destroy them?! Sounds like a great idea!" And that's how the upset stomach went away in less than an hour.
It mainly purified whatever organ it was focusing on. Doing so in his lungs can let him breathe some poison perhaps. In his heart... probably would get rid of any infection he had inside of his blood. Maybe if he sent it to his brain he could think better.
So many questions... yet too few answers he wasn't willing to find.
The void could also be applied to anything that directly touched his skin. If he was holding a stick, empowering it with the void, and hitting a rock with it, it's more than probable that the stone would snap in half.
He also found out that the amount of void varies depending on where he was. But most of the time he always got - more or less - twice the power.
Combining all of this would make his Ability the most versatile amongst the Unseen. While very few Elemental Abilities could do this, they could only focus on either a weapon or the Unseen itself. However, void Sense let him do all of this and even almost double his strength!
Truly remarkable.
This is how days went by. Without even realizing it, the entire month already ended and the ambiance inside the Academy slowly turned more and more serious. Then the day came.
1st February.