The last hardest game Reina came up with was to do it all over again. This time in the Astral Plane.
Less than a quarter of the World Rankers remained to try it. Mostly the ones with the most powerful souls.
This time they would use essence in place of snow. They'd pack it the way they'd packed snow—the shaping would use the same principles.
They wouldn't use any Skills they already had though. That would give the essence structure. They would go into it raw—using just their bare souls.
It'd be a new kind of hard. Essence didn't stick the same as snow. But how it felt on the soul was close enough to how snow felt on the hands. The snowman made good training wheels—and it would transfer, Reina said.
The World Rankers nodded all determined. They set to work.
This time it was essence-based, so they got Skill Levels out of it—and fast. It turned out their snowman-making skills did transfer, like Reina thought. Zane nodded as he walked around inspecting his students' progress.
It was still rough going at first. Soon, the explosions started. Nothing big. Reina had told them not to use too much essence to start with, and these were World Rankers. A little blast wouldn't hurt them.
Their game faces were on. Soon most were sweating, eyes squeezed shut, trying to free-form control it. Zane could reach them with Sage Mind. It felt to them like trying to shape water into a ball at first—it just wouldn't stay still.
It felt totally different from Zane's experience of it. Sometimes he didn't understand why things that felt easy to him weren't easy—if he didn't have Sage Mind, he might be mystified forever. When he really looked into things, it almost felt like he and the rest of them lived in different realities.
Life was just a lot easier when you were big, he supposed. This only reinforced yet another one of his general life philosophies: become as big as possible. One can never be big enough.
He had a lot of these little quotes now that he thought about it. He should write a book. Or maybe get Reina to write it with him. Yeah. That sounded like a better idea.
Anyway.
Soon a few of them were really starting to get the hang of it. Eze was packing lump after lump of Earth essence in, rounding it out into a pretty nice-looking ball. D'Angelo Hall had a shadow-sphere going. The Frenchman Maxime was weaving together a nice circle of light.
They started Leveling in a Mortal-grade Rare Skill—'Essence Shaping.' It wasn't Core Formation. But it was something close. Reina was confident there would be transfer.
As the hours went on—and more and more of the World Rankers got the hang of it—Zane was pleased with their progress. It was kind of strange—he knew all these techniques. They were all trying to imitate how he formed his Core. It was like seeing a bunch of not-quite-hims on a loop.
Some of them, like Eze and Yuki, got pretty close to him. They did lack a certain… heft. Though. Their technique was similar. Honestly maybe better than Zane's. But Zane could simply sit on essence in a way they couldn't, which made a bigger difference.
Size matters. He nodded. This was another wise saying from Zane.
He was pretty sure it would be good enough though.
He supposed they were about to see.
***
This little training camp would last one more day.
Reina said that only those who had reached Level Max in the basic Shaping Skill should move onto the final step. The rest could finish up on their own time.
That left just a few top World Rankers, mostly—Eze, Cristina, The Spitfire Monk, Yuki, D'Angelo, Maxime, and so on. Also a few random World Rankers with big souls—a gruff German archer named Gunther. And Lucia, the Argentine beastmaster. Zane supposed you needed a big soul to be able to control so many dragons.
They called it a day. Most of them were eager to get going tomorrow. Yuki came up to him. He had long hair and pretty delicate features. He could've been in one of those pop bands before the Change, Zane thought. "Walker-sensei," said Yuki. "Your instruction has been invaluable to me… I had never thought there were so many little intricacies in such a simple technique. Without your guidance I would never have gotten them. Thank you."
He gave Zane a deep bow.
"No worries," said Zane. Honestly Zane didn't know there were so many little details either. Reina was the one who dug it out of him. From his perspective he just kind of did it.
Yuki wandered off.
Zane blinked.
Everyone was getting better together.
He hadn't expected it—but he kind of felt like how he had back in the Luminous Faction.
A warmth. He felt it in his chest. Something like pride? He looked over at everyone trying so hard, together.He saw lots of the same folk who had answered the call to drive back the Monster horde.
This was Earth. His home—he had never thought of it that way, because for so long it had been everything. But now that the Universe opened up, more and more, now that he started coming in contact with these big forces trying to take it from him… it did start to feel a little different. He scratched his head.
Zane did not think of himself as someone who had a strong allegiance to any particular group. Definitely not at first. Now it was just his friends he felt strongly about. But there was a part of him he was growing more aware of. A part that thought of him as a man of Earth. Someone who stood up for it when it was in danger of going down, when no-one else could stand up for it. This was, he felt, his home, after all.
It was nice to help out.
***
The next day, the top World Rankers came back to a training field. There they found thick rune circles drawn out against the snow. They were for those few who were ready to graduate to the real thing.
Reina and Zane would personally oversee their advances.
The Luminous Faction didn't have the best artificers. But Reina had requested that the Japanese and Germans, who had specialty workshops, bring their best Artificing Masters with them. They worked together to make simple but robust quarantining wards. So the worst of the explosions got contained.
Though it shouldn't come to that, Reina assured them. If she had prepared them all well. She was a little nervous, but not any more than usual.
Bright that morning, nearly thirty of the best in the world sat down in their little rune circles. They almost seemed a little uncertain about this, which was strange to see—then again, it was a big jump. Zane encouraged them. Told them it was fully within their powers. If they could shape their essence spheres as well as they had, he was sure they would do well.
Somehow his words got through to them, even more than Reina's.
They closed their eyes. They got to work.
Attempting what might be the biggest power jump in human history. They took their elixirs, Law Fruits, treasures—each one of them was loaded. They lacked for nothing there. They closed their eyes, and went for it.
Eze, D'Angelo, Lucia, Maxime, Gunther, some Eastern European and Asian Warriors, a Kiwi Archer, a handful of Scandinavian and South American Rogues and Fire Mages …One by one their circles lit up with aura. Various kinds of essence, some hot, some cold, some thick and slow, some light and playful, swirled around them.
And their auras began to flicker. Began to thrum with the beats of their hearts—and just from feeling them, you could get a sense of who they were. The purest expressions of their souls. Their very Cores.
Their souls began to flex, strain. Zane could see them starting to work at it in the Astral Plane, layering on essence over essence. Reina had thought about whether or not to give pointers as they went, but in the end she stayed out of it. She didn't want to distract them.
It was too delicate a process. Best not to risk it. Their heads started beading with sweat. The first few minutes were the most tense. But soon, half an hour passed—no explosions. Then an hour. Two. Three—and though some of their Cores weren't perfect, all of them knew what they were doing.
Zane had taught them well.
He kind of felt like one of those wise old masters right now. Except he was neither wise nor old, now that he thought about it. And he wasn't really a master of anything either. He wondered if you could be a master of smashing things. It didn't take all that much skill. He just had to be bigger than the other guy.
Anyway.
Soon, the first top World Ranker broke through. The most talented of them.
Out in the middle, there was a fierce rush of wind. A flash of sky-blue light, blinding, intense. And at first, both Zane and Reina thought something had gone wrong. But there was Yuki the Sky Painter, floating on a cloud of his own essence. And his core shone strong and bright, like the morning sun. Playful, light, swift—showing who he was to the world. He was a lot stronger pound-for-pound than even the minotaur. Yuki gasped. His eyes shone.
It worked. It wasn't like Zane's—it was still a clear tier below. But then, Reina thought, Zane had gotten pretty much the peak possible result for any human. It was hard for her to think of Zane the same way she thought of other people sometimes.
It turned out Yuki had gotten a High Peak-grade Core. He stared at his hands. Wonder shone in his eyes. He turned to the sky, waved a hand—and a gulf stream of colored wind splashed over it, changing its face. Up above shone the Northern Lights, splitting the clouds, running a mesmerizing turquoise river down the length of the sky. It quickly faded.
Yuki came up to Zane, put his fist to his hand. "This was a wonderful gift," he breathed, smiling. "I will remember this kindness."
He drifted happily off. It just hit Zane that the boy was 16 now—if they all survived, he was probably going to go off to do interesting things. Maybe not even on Earth. Zane hadn't really thought of this angle before. He looked out over the field of top Rankers… he supposed it was nice to build up lots of goodwill like this early on.
***
The next to finish up was Eze. There was a roar of essence. And Earth and Darkness merged within him to make a feeling of infinite depth. It felt like staring down a bottomless well… a robust, ferocious aura raged out of him. Yet also a very controlled one. A tempered one.
Like Yuki, he was also High Peak. He was also curious to test it out—he struck out for a nearby stretch of icy bank, took a casual step. And the ice ruptured violently beneath his feet. He opened up a fissure so deep you could see magma flickering in its bowels. He seemed satisfied. He gave Zane a nod, a meaningful look. He headed off with the rest of his crew.
***
One by one, Zane saw humanity flourish. Maxime the Light Mage came next. He showed the Law of Starlight, powered by his new Core essence—summoning a phantom moon in the sky, casting rays that healed friends and scalded enemies. He'd achieved a Mid-Peak Core.
Cristina Dos Santos was also Mid-Peak. She gave a slash of Steel-Wind fusion, and the harshest edge Zane had ever seen ripped through the air, slicing cloud after cloud in two, vanishing into space leaving a jagged void-trail behind… she nodded, satisfied. Like the others she came to show him her appreciation before she left. She seemed to understand this whole thing was about giving humanity a fighting chance. She vowed to make the most of it.
On and on, the results rolled in.