When Aoni returned to the cave, he found that Glacia had placed the water bottle given to her down near the fireplace, as originally intended. Having completed her singular task and feeling uncomfortable, by the time the lad entered the cave, he found her in the middle of shaking out the snow from her fur, which caused her to puff up comically.
Walking past the fluffed-up ball of fur and trying his best not to laugh at her state, Aoni placed his bottle down beside the first one and helped smooth out his summon's standing fur before giving her plenty of attention in the form of headpats.
"Now Glacia, I have a big job for you…"
"Gao?" Tilting her head to the side, Aoni didn't know if she understood his words or was just wondering why her Lord had stopped pampering her.
Knowing that this was going to be the hardest thing to instruct his summon on, Aoni took a moment to gather his wits while glancing around the room before his eyes fell on the desk, more specifically, the sealed stationary kit, which was included in the starter pack.
Making his way over and breaking the seal on the airtight packaging, he took out a small notebook and a pencil; then, after using the knife to sharpen the writing utensil, Aoni finally walked over and sat down in front of Glacia.
Curious about her Lord's actions, Glacia stood up on her back legs and leaned on his thigh to get a view of what Aoni was doing, but soon chuffed…or laughed…the lad wasn't really sure which one it was, but he knew damn well it was her way of mocking his lackluster art skills, which left quite a bit to desire.
On the paper, he had drawn a little fuzzy ball with eyes and a face similar to Glacia's and pointed at it.
"This is you," then poked her nose, causing the summon to wrinkle her face and sneeze.
"And these are the trees out there," using the pencil as a wand, Aoni pointed toward the mouth of the cave and then back down to the paper.
"What I need you to do is go out there…" As he spoke, Aoni drew a series of pictures wherein the little cartoon of Glacia climbed a tree, chopped down some branches, and dragged them back to the cave.
He even made sure to draw little pictures of her, letting them fall to the ground before picking them up in a bundle.
"Do you understand Glacia? This is very important; we need those sticks to make the fire come back…" Pointing at the fireplace, the lad waved his arms around in a manner similar to how the flames flowed.
"Remember, don't go too far away; stay as close to "HOME" as possible." Tapping the drawing of the cave with a stick-figure version of himself on the paper, Aoni instilled in her that she shouldn't venture too far.
"OoOo Gao…" Nodding her head several times, Glacia patted her chest as if saying, "Leave it to me," before darting out of the cave like a furry missile, leaving her Lord alone for the first time in 24 hours.
Heaving a sigh, Aoni stood up and mentally wished Glacia the best of luck before checking on the bottles of snow, but as expected, they hadn't melted much, something that didn't throw him off, considering it was in the low 40s in the cave.
'An hour's worth should be fine…' Thinking that, he walked over and picked up the unused half of the tinder kit, and, with his knife, Aoni cut off a pinky-sized chunk before setting it beside the ashes of the first half and lighting it, starting a small fire.
However, the moment the tinder ignited, he noticed something strange while feeling mesmerized by the flames. There was a faint shimmer of ethereal light surrounding the flames, and the sight, in particular, was what had drawn his attention.
Yet, for some reason, the longer Aoni stared at this shimmer, the harder it became to see until it eventually became unnoticeable.
'That was weird…could it have been a physical manifestation of Energia…wait…that's right, I Reached F-…which means I can start doing THAT.'
As a Terra-born human, Aoni was exposed to minor amounts of Energia from the moment he was but a wee little sperm. As such, he underwent the same genetic mutation as every other living entity exposed to said mystical energy.
Deep within the core of his being was a small organ, which, up until becoming a Traveler, had no use other than to prevent him from getting sick when coming in contact with Energia.
The name of this organ, which resembled a kidney bean at its conception, was the EC, or Energia Cell. Yea, weird name, right? Well, don't look at me; I didn't name it; that honor goes to some old Genovian fogey hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Anyway, the EC stores and Filters Energia through your body, and upon reaching a certain strength, it can be tapped into as a resource, which is the primary source of a Traveler's powers.
While the EC grows in different parts of the body depending on species, for Humans, it is always to the right of the Heart, and with each increase in Rank, it grows in size.
The Smallest is G, where the EC is the size of a Kidney Bean, and the largest S-Rank is the size of a peach.
Since Aoni's Energia was at F- he knew that his EC was roughly half the size of an adult thumb. But that wasn't the exciting part; that came from the fact that until you breached the F Rank, you wouldn't be able to utilize Energia in any way, shape, or form.
Sitting down in front of the fire with his legs crossed, Aoni closed his eyes and took several slow, steady breaths. A good majority of the last several months worth of classes were about what to do once you were able to awaken your EC, and now that he had reached that point, it was time to follow through.
The easiest method was to treat the Energia Cell as if it were a clone of your Heart. To do this, you would first try to slow your Heart rate down to a recognizable point, and then the hard part began.
Focusing on the spot where he knew his EC to be located, Aoni envisioned it working like a second heart, forming a mental picture of a small bean expanding and contracting in time with his life-giving organ.
On the upbeat, it would draw in the Energia flowing in his body for filtration, and on each downbeat, the filtered Energia would be pushed into the lad's circulatory system.