"Good morning listeners, today is Friday, November twenty-ninth, and today the first snow started falling in the northern parts of our beautiful country, Anima…"
Caecus sat in his chair, listening to the radio and practicing augmentation with his bracelet.
His frame had grown several centimeters and was equipped with more muscle than before. Still being lean, his physique looked well-defined.
The door opened and Amelia stepped in. Caecus, of course, was not surprised, as he could sense her.
"Good morning, Amelia." he looked in her direction, even though he was blind.
He was able to sense the location of her eyes and looked straight into them, the only difference to normal eye contact being that his eyes seemed empty and didn't harbor anything within them.
Just two voids.
'Amelia told me this would make me seem more present and well-mannered…'
"Good morning, Young Master, I hope you slept well." she said, her previously neutral face breaking into a smile.
"That seems like a lot of food…" Caecus said, sensing the large tray she had in her hands with his echolocation.
"Today, we will be trying to break through rank two in your soul core. The food I brought is more generously portioned compared to usual, so prepare to eat a lot."
Amelia placed the tray with the food on it right in front of Caecus on his desk.
"Thank you. Time to dig in!" he exclaimed, flashing a smile at Amelia and then shifting his focus to his food.
It was a lot, just as mentioned, but this wasn't anything that would be able to stop the teen.
Slowly, he ate everything that was in front of him, trying to keep his manners, just like he was taught growing up.
'If I was going to be married off anyway, they wanted me to have good behavior, so I would get a good partner.'
With a sigh and half of his food devoured, he drank a few sips of water and continued.
After around fifteen minutes, he finished everything and stretched, intertwining his fingers and raising them over his head while leaning back.
"Phew, this really was harder than training." Caecus rubbed his belly, his tone exasperated.
"Should I increase the intensity—"
"No! It was just a figure of speech!" panic clearly shown in his tone.
It wasn't often that Caecus raised his voice at someone, but when it happened, it was solely for important things. And saving himself from torture definitely was one of those.
His training intensity had only increased over the past few months. Right now, whenever he finished training legs, walking was nearly impossible.
"Go to the concentration room, I'll bring this away and follow right after." she said, patting his shoulder first before grabbing the tray with the empty dishes and walking out.
'Soul core rank two… if I fail here, all of it will be over. I need to make sure that I manage to do it.'
His stomach felt like butterflies were fluttering inside it, and while biting the nail of his thumb, Caecus stood up, opened the door, and walked towards the concentration room.
His steps echoed through the hallway, and he felt the nervousness increasing the closer he got.
A while later, the soothing smell that emanated from the concentration room reached his nose. His body had grown accustomed to automatically recognizing that when he smelled that scent, full concentration was needed.
A Pavlov's dog kind of reaction.
He had trained his body to automatically react to certain scents depending on the situation.
If he smelled his fighting scent, his breath would automatically quicken and his adrenaline would kick in, activating his sympathetic nervous system.
If he smelled the lavender scent of the concentration room, his parasympathetic nervous system would react, speeding up digestion, lowering his pulse, and calming his body.
Caecus had changed the smell of his room to vanilla for that reason. If he hadn't done that, it would have confused his nervous system, making the adaptation harder.
Clink.
The door handle twisted, and the lavender scent fully greeted him. With his enhanced senses, it was far more intense for him than for the average human.
For normal people, there would just be a slight trace of that scent in the atmosphere, but for him, it completely dominated his sense of smell.
Because the scent grew stronger, his body reacted accordingly and became calmer and calmer until his pulse was in the fifties.
A little more steady now, he sat down cross-legged and already started the breathing exercises Amelia had taught him.
Sensing the door open, Caecus' attention was disrupted for a second before he returned to his breathing. Amelia sat down next to him on the floor and watched him.
"I assume that the memory of advancing to rank one is deeply engraved in your mind, right?" Amelia said, her thoughts shifting back to the time where he almost destroyed his soul core.
"Y-yes."
"Alright, then let's start. I don't have any worries about you not reaching rank two. You should be able to pull it off without any complications."
"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice clearly unsteady.
"Yes. You've got this." she reaffirmed him.
Kind of reassured by Amelia, he focused on his breathing exercises again, and when he entered the now well-known trance-like state, he started moving his soul essence.
Drawing out ninety-nine percent of it and feeling how his control over his body started to fade, he quickly formed a sphere around his soul core with his soul essence, leaving one gap.
He pressed it closer and closer until it was just about to touch his soul core. Then he quickly drew out the last percent of his soul essence, until his soul core was completely drained.
Adrenaline rushed through him, but he stayed focused and closed the small gap. Then he pressed against his soul core and assimilated.
A familiar ecstasy was felt by Caecus. The reinforcing of his soul core made all of his soul essence rush back inside. Having learned from last time, he didn't try to observe it and instead lay down on the floor.
He knew he would lose consciousness, as he had withdrawn all of his soul essence and would soon enter soul drain.
'I just need to steady my breathing and relax.'
His consciousness was already slipping.
And then everything went dark.
…
As soon as his eyes fluttered open, the familiar feeling of soul drain greeted Caecus, but this time the effects were different.
A wave of nausea washed over him, and he rushed to the toilet, not even realizing that he was already back in his room.
The world around him was spinning, and his thoughts were racing far too fast. So fast, in fact, that he couldn't make sense of them.
The fourteen-year-old crashed into the wall, unable to balance himself, and flinched when he heard the sound it made.
'Way too loud!'
Everything he did made his head throb violently, as if it were splitting open whenever something was even slightly louder than usual.
With difficulty, he finally reached the toilet and opened it, his hand trembling uncontrollably.
Gagging, he spilled the contents of his stomach into the toilet water.
With time, the nausea lessened, and the side effects of the soul drain began to subside.
Sitting on the ground next to the toilet, his back resting against the wall and one arm draped over the toilet seat, he caught his breath.
After a while, he stood up, using the toilet seat to support his weight, and flushed it.
The flushing sound made him flinch again, and he immediately covered his ears.
'It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!'
Breathing heavily, he quickly left the washroom and called for Amelia.
"P-please tell A-Amelia to c-come to my room." Caecus' voice trembled as his head throbbed.
Quickly, he grabbed a tissue from the box on his desk, balled it up, and stuffed it into his ears.
His hand brushed against the cardboard box, and he received a small paper cut.
"Gah! It hurts so bad!" he said, clutching his finger.
The pain from what should have been a tiny cut felt as if his entire finger had been sliced open.
Having heard Caecus' panicked voice through the intercom, Amelia rushed over to his room, and the door was almost ripped open when she entered.
Amelia, clearly worried, spoke in a loud tone. "Wha—"
"No! Too loud! P-please make it stop…" Caecus interrupted her immediately.
Amelia went silent for a few seconds, steadying herself and assessing the situation. When she understood what was happening, she quickly rushed to his side and removed his hands from his ears.
Smack!
Her hand, infused with soul essence, struck his pulse point and cut off the blood flow to his head.
Caecus immediately slumped backwards, and Amelia caught him in her arms before he could hit the floor.
…
When Caecus woke up, the world around him felt hazy, as if a fog had settled over everything.
Amelia's voice sounded distant, almost like he was underwater.
"Young Master? You're awake? How are you feeling?"
"I… I feel like I'm on drugs." he said, propping himself up and rubbing his temples.
"Well… it's probably because you are."
?!
Caecus stared in her direction, an incredulous expression forming on his face.
"Drugs? Why?" As he remembered what happened before he collapsed, his expression shifted into a frown.
"Well… it seems that the enhancements to your senses from your advancement became too intense. Your sense of touch, along with your pain receptors and your hearing, overwhelmed you. So I gave you something to calm your nervous system."
"What drug?" His voice was much quieter now.
"Jopoo. It's a drug that reduces sensory input and helps stabilize you."
"Jopoo…?"
"Yes. Anyways, Young Master, I didn't think I would be teaching you this so soon, but you need to learn to control your senses with your soul essence."
"Control my senses? You can do that?"
"You can do a lot of things with soul essence. I've only taught you the basics so far. You can expand much further on both assimilation and augmentation. Remember when I told you to make the iron of your weapon vibrate? That's already a step into the next area of augmentation. What we're going to do now is take a step into the next area of assimilation."
"So what exactly should I do?" Caecus asked, eager to get out of his daze.
"The basic concept of it, is using your soul essence to create the opposite effect of what you normally do. This is called an assimilation reversal. Normally, when you enhance your body, your senses become sharper and more sensitive. Now, you'll need to learn how to apply negative effects to yourself, essentially dulling your senses using soul essence."
"That… sounds complicated. Does that mean I'll have to constantly reinforce all of my senses?" a frown formed on his face. "That would make combat even harder. I won't be able to multitask properly, and even if I can, I won't be able to fight effectively."
Amelia's previously concerned expression shifted into a small smile.
"No, don't worry. Once you apply reverse assimilation, the effects remain until you remove them manually."
"Oh. So should we start now?" The frown on Caecus' face was still there, but less pronounced.
"That would be best. I'll need your full concentration. This is advanced, so it will naturally be harder than normal assimilation."
"Okay, I'll start with the breathing technique." Caecus said.
Still slightly hazy from the drug, he crossed his legs and straightened his back.
Then he began regulating his breathing and stabilizing his focus until he entered his trance.
Once he was fully immersed, Amelia's voice resounded through the room.
"Draw out your soul essence and spread it throughout your entire body."
Caecus followed, pulling his soul essence out of his core and distributing it evenly across his body.
He noticed something immediately.
'Holy shit! My soul essence increased massively!'
As his soul essence spread through every part of his body, including his brain, he felt a massive boost to all of his bodily functions.
Because of the sheer amount of soul essence he now possessed, it felt similar to when he would normally focus it on a single muscle — except now it was spread everywhere.
"Now imagine a scale, or something that changes based on intensity. Right now, everything is at maximum. I want you to picture that scale going down while you feel your soul essence… oh."
"I can't picture anything, I'm blind." Caecus said, feeling the urge to laugh but suppressing it to maintain focus.
"Yes… right. Then imagine the sensation of something like a volume meter going down."
The black-haired boy followed her instructions and gained control over his soul essence.
He imagined the sensation of lowering a lever, like on a DJ table. Slowly, he brought it down and felt his enhancements weaken.
When it finally reached zero, it felt as though there was no soul essence present at all.
"Now shift your soul essence into your pain receptors across your entire body, as well as your ears and the inside of your nose."
Caecus moved his soul essence from everywhere in his body to the specific nerve areas.
Then he precisely targeted his pain receptors, along with those responsible for hearing and smell.
"Imagine the scale again, but this time push it below its limit. I know that's difficult, but try to imagine it going lower than zero."
Caecus recreated the sensation of the scale and reached its lowest point.
This time, instead of stopping, he imagined ripping the lever out entirely and forcing it even lower.
"Now assimilate!"
As he assimilated, Caecus felt around thirty percent of his soul essence disappear, and a strange tightening sensation formed in his soul core.
He tested his senses, and even with the drug still in effect, everything felt closer to normal.
"It worked! But my soul core feels strange. What is this?"
"That's the reverse assimilation. Just like I said, you can undo it at any time. Just loosen the part of your soul core that feels tight using your soul essence, and the effect will disappear."
"Oh… okay. How long will the drug's effects last?"
"Probably a few hours. I suggest you either rest or cultivate during that time."
"Okay!" Caecus said.
After Amelia left, he immediately began cultivating.
He still pushed himself into soul drain every time, so this time he intended to repeat the process.