Chapter-25
The Boy's Secret
His breath came in pants as he emerged from the huge cloud of dust and smoke that he had somehow caused. He coughed, waving away the dust as he spoke in a faint although hoarse voice, "I… I think I did something…"
Arthur looked at him in surprise, the Atherion around them pulsed as if something had agitated it. Ha-Jin's hair had mysteriously turned a light shade of brown.
A system notification—invisible to Arthur—popped up in front of Ha-Jin.
[Congratulations!]
[You have managed to agitate the Atherion in the environment with a pulse of your own!]
[Rewards are being calculated]
"What the hell happened?!" Arthur exclaimed, his eyes widening as he tried to think of what could have happened so suddenly to do this. His gaze darted to the massive crater in the ground where Ha-Jin sat cross-legged just a moment ago.
"I don't know how to explain or do it again," he said, more surprised than Arthur judging by his expression.
Arthur couldn't feel a drop of mana inside Ha-Jin's body anymore. Whatever he had done had drained every last drop of mana from his body.
"But.. I'm pretty sure I managed to collect a lot of Atherion in one place and accidentally let it go in one blast," he said, his voice growing weaker by the second.
"I don't think you could do that in a few hours though," Arthur replied, looking suspiciously at Ha-Jin.
Ha-Jin walked over to one of the chairs, plopping down before picking up one of the translucent orbs from the table and tossing it to Arthur.
Arthur caught it with practiced ease, rolling it across his palm, waiting for Ha-Jin to tell him what to do.
"Channel your mana into it," He said, his skin growing pale as he looked zoned out in front of him, probably managing his Interface to look for something.
Arthur did as he said and the orb emitted a warm yellow glow, projecting numbers and text on a nearby wall.
5 months, 8 days, 16 hours, 21 seconds left
"It's been that long?!" Arthur exclaimed in surprise.
Ha-Jin simply nodded his head. "Seems like time flows irregularly in this place."
Though he spoke, his mind was somewhere else, finding something in his inventory before closing it for a moment to close his eyes. If he didn't find something soon, he would die without mana.
He opened his inventory and a small orb manifested in his palm. Pure Violet Atherion swirled within the small orb like the waves of an ocean. It was the reward he had gotten from killing that Atherion influencing beast he and Arthur had fought.
[Remnant of Atherion]
[Grade: S+]
[Function: Refills the mana in your mana core by absorbing Mana from , simultaneously increasing its capacity]
[Caution: If used recklessly with no mana, it can des-]
Ha-Jin waved the notification away after reading the function, not noticing the caution statement on the bottom.
What do I do with this? I can't eat it, it looks like marble after all… so maybe I have to…?
He pressed down on the small orb, cracks running along its surface before deepening and eventually shattering.
Suddenly, a strong suction force, tugged at Arthur's core and the mana present in the Atherion rich Atheric Environment. Arthur let out a shocked yelp before trying to repel the suction force by using the mana attraction force his body emanated.
Ha-Jin's eyes had turned pure white as the suction force brought all the mana in the environment to him, entering his mana force. The excess mana bulged against the inner walls of his mana core, increasing the capacity, sure but his mana core strained, bulging outwards.
Slowly, the little mana left in the environment was absorbed by Ha-Jin, a crack running along his core from over-absorption as Arthur tried to get near him, trying to stop him from killing himself in a foolish act.
It was futile, the suction force ate away at Arthur's mana like a black hole and he had to summon all his strength to backpedal out of range, his mana depleting at a dangerous rate. Without mana, his body grew weaker and he was helpless. He couldn't help Ha-Jin no matter what he did now.
Cracks appeared in the wood making up the tables, chairs, shelves and anything in the library as Ha-Jin drank away at the mana making them up. The wood splintered, cracks spreading through the structures before they broke and dissipated one after the other in an order of whatever was closest to Ha-Jin.
The books lined on the shelves, pooled on the ground, the books from the upper racks fell much farther from the shelves, however.
One of such books hit Arthur square in the temple and with no mana to protect himself, he was thrown onto the ground, blood trickling from where the hardcover had struck him on the temple.
As soon as he fell down, multiple more of such books hit him on his body. Defenseless without mana, he took the full brunt of each hit, the protective layer provided by his mana completely diminished.
The books seemed to fall infinitely which was weird. Suddenly it incurred Arthur. The books were forming themselves again and again with the Atherion of the atmosphere in a futile attempt to maintain the shape of the environment.
This was bad, both of them were going to die at this rate. He had wanted a royal, prideful death not death to infinite books. The books kept falling, flooding the library floor with books, eventually covering Arthur as he desperately tried to clear the endless sea of books.
But it was to no avail, no matter how much he tried, no matter how much he brushed the books away, new books replaced them, eventually growing the huge sea of books taller.
A grim sense of dread—despair—overtook Arthur as he was slowly crushed under the weight of the books, suffocating all the while.
Suddenly, the library itself dissipated into for a moment visible pure violet Atherion before even the Atherion vanished into the atmosphere of the environment.
The books crushing and suffocating Arthur broke down into small Atheric motes like atoms before fusing with the atmosphere.
Arthur took lungs full of air in long gasps gratefully, jolting upright only to be brought down again by the intense pain.
Cracks ran along the pure Atheric Environment enclosing them as Ha-Jin continued suck in all the Mana present in the Environment, deepening and deepening like the cracks on a circular orb of glass.
Pieces of solid Atherion fell inwards and Arthur had to roll away from them, inciting a fresh wave of pain from his open wounds with each movement.
One of them nearly caught his leg but he managed to retract it just in time.
But when he looked back up, a huge shard was about to crush him. The colour drained from Arthur's face. There wasn't enough time to roll away, he couldn't use Mana to defend himself.
The shard neared dangerously close to Arthur before the entire environment shattered, sending shards of Atherion everywhere which slowly fused with the Mana-Rich environment.
Jae-Woo was thankfully nearby, waiting for the day to pass and for Ha-Jin and Arthur to return. His eyes widened as he noticed Ha-Jin and quickly rushed to their aid. Jae-Woo struck Ha-Jin in a few points, disrupting his mana flow as the suction force disappeared. Huge amounts of mana were released in the air with nowhere to go.
He quickly caught Ha-Jin before he hit the floor and placed him down gently. "This reckless fool!" He barked out as warm mana from his hands pressed tightly on Ha-Jin's chest was supplied directly to his mana core.
The mana, acting like an adhesive, tended to the cracks running along Ha-Jin's mana core.
"This fool weakened his already weak mana core!" Jae-Woo bellowed with a mix of anger and sadness.
The cracks running along the circumference of his mana core closed but not without remnants. His mana core was now even less durable and absorbing too much mana could shatter his mana core.
Arthur, who had barely managed to force himself to stand on his exhausted and injured legs, had been standing right beside Jae-Woo while all this took place. After seeing Ha-Jin's condition stabilize, he let out a shaky sigh of relief before his body gave out. He collapsed onto the floor with a thud.
Jae-Woo let out a bellowing, rage-filled yell. Not only had their time in the Atheric Environment cut short but the entire thing had been a complete disaster, an utter failure.
Before he got angrier, he noticed something surprising. Though Ha-Jin's mana core had been cracked and damaged, its capacity had significantly increased and now…
It was absorbing mana unconsciously. A feat accomplished by the most refined and strongest warriors on the continent.
***
A few hours passed until Arthur's eyes fluttered open. A sense of vertigo overtook him as soon as he sat down. Bile rose up the back of his throat before he wretched out all he had eaten.
He shifted away from the mess on the ground in disgust. His vision was blurry, his mind spinning and whirling uncomfortably. He would have vomited more if his stomach had had anything else.
He wiped the remnants of the bile from the corners of his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt before crossing his legs.
His mana core was empty, devoid of any mana. He closed his eyes before carefully manipulating the attracting force his body emitted. The pure ambient, water and earthen mana entered his core, the abundant Earthen mana simply flowing throughout his body without being refined since Earth was his natural affinity.
After a few minutes had passed, his core was once again full and his body started to recover. He opened his eyes, one hand coming up to his face to rub them, he still felt slightly drowsy and disoriented.
He looked around for any sign of a person before he noticed Jae-Woo sitting on a nearby tree, juggling an apple. Arthur pushed himself upright with a groan before calling out Jae-Woo's name.
Jae-Woo's gaze shifted from the apple to Arthur. As soon as he saw him, he hopped onto the ground with a slight "humph."
Though he had seen Orpheus leave him in Jae-Woo's custody before they were put in the Atheric Environment, he knew he would be coming soon to check on him.
He had to ask his question and he had to be quick if he wanted a straight answer.
Jae-Woo came to a halt right in front of Arthur, eyeing him for any lasting injuries by the looks of it.
"I have a question and you cannot lie to me about this," Arthur spoke, keeping his voice cool and collected even though the curiosity ate away at his mind.
"What is it?" Jae-Woo asked, meeting Arthur's gaze.
Arthur had never seen him this serious even though he had been the king's Royal Guard for god knows how long. It was almost as if he knew what Arthur was going to ask.
After explaining all about the Atherion abundant expanse he had seen in Ha-Jin and about the incorporeal form he had been and about the dragon's head eating that form, he finally came to his question.
"Who—What is Ha-Jin?"
Jae-Woo continued to stare into his eyes, a deafening silence taking over the atmosphere. It was Jae-Woo who broke the silence with an unexpected response.
"Pfft… Puhahaha," Arthur stared at him in surprise and disbelief as he burst into a chortle.
"The hell's so funny?" Arthur said, his eyes gleaming a dazzling gold as his gaze pierced through Jae-Woo—quite literally—to look if he were pure.
"Enough with those eyes, boy," he said, bringing up a finger to wipe an amused tear from the corner of his eye, managing to stop his laughter.
"So are you gonna tell me what the hell's so funny or not?" Arthur demanded, his tone one of authority, fitting for the future emperor.
"It's just that you acted so serious and told me that whole fairytale just to ask me a stupid question. 'What is Ha-Jin?' pfft."
"Wha-" Arthur gasped. "I'm telling you, I'm not lying!" He exclaimed.
"Trust me kid, it was all a dream. Like seriously? An infinite expanse of Atherion inside a boy? Forget it," he interrupted his fit, brushing it away with a wave of his hand. "Now go rest, I've healed your wounds but if you force yourself too much, they'll open."
Letting out a frustrated groan, Arthur mumbled through gritted teeth, "fine," before walking away.
Though, he turned back once to see Jae-Woo retreat back to the thick canopy of the forest.
Jae-Woo stood on a particularly large tree, looking over the vast expanse of the forest.
"Kid's sharp, I can't let him find out. I can never pass on Master Ambrose's last curse to me to young children who are bound to die now that they know of them." He mumbled under his breath, the memories of his younger days coming back as he chewed on his lips until they drew blood.
"I suppose I'll have to pay them a friendly visit once these boys are grown up."