It was over and so, as a countermeasure, I took another set of three painkiller pills. This was for no particular reason but a preventive measure.
I laid back down on the bed, my eyes staring at the ceiling as the rotating blade fans circled within my visual field continually, casting revolving shadows over my face.
A smile curled up on my face after a while, born from satisfaction.
My mind was filled with profound happiness and satisfaction from the thoughts that crossed it.
I had taken the Elixir and I had made it past the initial painful process.
Just like me, a few other recruits had undergone the same process and the screams that I paid not much heed to, as I endured my share of the torture, belonged to them.
Of course, they were in more severe pain than I was since I had prepared for this and it still took me by surprise.
…Tch, I can definitely say that they had it worse.
The next step that I had drafted out from my wealth of past life experiences was to take a few steps ahead of my mates.
The Instructors had calculated that every recruit who had taken the Elixirs and was going to awaken would do so within five days.
Unfortunately, those who didn't awaken after this time would have to exit the Cube.
One would think that they were better off not taking it in the first place but the same fate of an expulsion awaited recruits who naturally didn't awake beyond the natural stipulated time.
I knew things that not many knew about this world and a certain extent of the future that was ahead.
Terrence Kenton would become a bane to our world.
He would become a powerful wolf in sheep's clothing and to stop him and save this world I need to be strong myself.
Confronting him now would put me in a bad light with the other trainees, instructors and the Cube in general as well as the powerful Kenton Family. He was, after all, the prodigy in his generation of Kentons.
If I was going to kill Terrence when the time came, I needed to be as powerful as he would become.
I took a deep breath in and exhaled loudly, doing it a few more times until I was completely calm.
…I am a regressor.
A returner with an advantage of prior knowledge and I will use it to its fullest.
We, as recruits, possessed a type of body that is naive to the energy of this world known as Essence.
This particular body type was called the Virgin Body Constitution.
A Virgin Body Constitution cannot manipulate Essence unless it undergoes the process of Awakening, and that was the whole point of taking the Elixir.
Only by Awakening can one open the gates to an innate pool of Essence within our beings called the Pool of Essence, and only by opening these gates can a Virgin Body now absorb Essence.
This was where the Elixir of Awakening played its most important role.
The Elixir of Awakening forces a person with a Virgin Body Constitution to awaken and also passively opens up the Pool of Essence.
However, that was all it did.
The absorption of Essence was an active process which the Hunter had to go through themselves.
If one's Pool of Essence was empty, as is my case now, one cannot use Essence.
To manipulate Essence, a Hunter has to first fill their Pool of Essence either by absorbing the one from the environment or consuming items or things with high condensation of Essence or some concentration.
For the latter, simply put, the better the quality of the item, the more Essence it grants.
Currently, I have no resources or means of acquiring such items with high Essence concentration.
So, I had to stick with absorbing from my surroundings.
Luckily, everything in the world now has been corrupted by Essence and possesses a certain amount of it following the incident that took place 800 years ago.
I breathed in and out again, adjusting myself into the meditative lotus position as I began to focus inwardly.
I needed to stay ahead this time and one way to do that at this stage was to remain ahead of the rest in my control of Essence.
For now, I had two things at my disposal that would put me ahead of the curve: Essence and my Skill.
I didn't possess any classic training like the children of the Hunter Family or had a recognised Family Style of fighting or a heirloom of weapons at my disposal.
The only training I received was as a Hornet and that worked perfectly for a normal human for now than that.
However, in the past, the more powerful I got as a Hunter and incorporated the Enstar Techniques into my fighting style, the deadlier they became.
…It was then that I earned a moniker that evoked concerns in the hearts of my foes—Whispering Death.
Unfortunately, I couldn't combine Essence and Enstar Techniques now. At least, not at the level I would want to.
Inhale–! Exhale–!
I concentrated inwardly for close to four hours until I felt my consciousness seated atop a silent pool of clear water.
'This is it,' I thought with a rush of internal joy.
'This is my Pool of Essence.'
I cheered in my mind and glanced at the clear surface of water which reflected my face back at me.
Ding–!
[6 Units (6U) of Essence Acquired!]
After immersing myself in my subconscious realm, I opened my eyes at the sound of the notification from my Cube ID.
The first thing I did was glance at the time on the clock.
'It's almost six o'clock already,' I thought.
Looking through the window, I could see that the day was gradually breaking but that was not a problem.
There were no classes today and I could still rest for a few more hours.
Bzzzt–!
A cracking sound buzzed around me and soon a transparent screen. manifested in front of me.
I turned to it and smiled.
It was a familiar phenomenon that followed a person's Awakening after this Cube ID detects it.
—––
[Profile]
Name: Luxane Enstar
Skill: Jack of all Trades
Stage: Ore Stage
Step: Initial
Essence: 6/200
—––
[Statistics]
Strength: 0
Agility: 0
Focus: 0
—––
My details appeared before my eyes on a bright blue, transparent screen which floated in the air.
A grin of satisfaction revealed itself shorly after, before I proceeded to distribute the Essence across my three attributes: Strength, Agility and Focus.
"Now, to share this…"