Chapter 18 - Resonance To Strengthen

Panting heavily, Zenith's body was sore, though he was slowly getting the hang of things. Sometimes he would focus on offense, other times he would try to work on countering or defense, trying his best to learn each of the three facets of combat. Currently, he was in no rush to kill this creature; he was trying to adapt to its rhythm. This was the 28th one, he thought. He was quite tired.

Fable whistled quietly as he thought to himself. "Well, not too bad. He's in no rush to simply kill it but wants to train all three forms of combat." He was impressed but would never reveal it to Zenith. Stroking one's ego too much would be dangerous, and there would always be room for improvement.

"Hey Zenith, 30th kill, we can take a break and I'll give you some better critique," Fable called out. When he spoke, Zenith turned a little to nod, but doing so lowered his guard slightly. The creature used this to its advantage to jump as if to tackle Zenith, but Zenith smirked. It had been a trick to bait the creature into thinking he let his guard down.

He grabbed it with the large gauntlet. The creature wriggled and clawed, trying to escape, but Zenith was using 1500kg, the maximum output of the gauntlet. One could see flickers of light leave the exhaust-like port of it. Zenith then squeezed, crushing the creature's skull. This made some splurts of the substance outwards, but those, just like the creature, didn't even leave a stain as it all dissipated into light.

Fable nodded in approval again. After killing the next two creatures, taking only 4 and 3 attempts, Zenith fell to the ground exhausted. Fable walked over. "Not good but not bad either. Average learning speed, but most importantly, that's what I rate your combat. What's really impressive, that I can give you an A+ for, is your stamina. You can keep going and push yourself to your limits just like when we train normally."

"This is important, Zenith. Anything can happen in a relic site. I haven't told you yet, but it's not rare for a site that is ranked F to be upgraded to a D or E, and so on. There was once a C relic site that some bastard human no doubt wanted to be giddy about; it upgraded to an A rank. The teleportation device even transformed while it was open. Can you believe that depravity?" Fable scoffed.

Zenith gave a bitter laugh, panting for air, his muscles hurting and body too from the hits he had received from the creatures. Fable smirked. "How does your body feel? Sore and exhausted, right?" Zenith looked up and nodded. "Not sure how else I'd expect to feel." Fable soon spoke, which surprised Zenith.

"This is the moment we've been waiting for, you know. If we think of your flesh and muscles with energy like filled sponges, then currently they've been pressed and squeezed, emptied out. That means we can move onto the second process: using resonance to strengthen your body."

Zenith was stunned; he didn't expect this to be what Fable truly wanted. "Is that why you made me work so hard? I guess it's killing two birds with one stone, huh?" This time Zenith smiled, laughing a bit.

Fable smirked. "That's right. Here at Allspace, we use the better methods. We may not have the latest stuff anymore like those higher-tier organizations or the Relic Syndicate, but we put more heart into it for sure. Here's what I want you to do: that current you feel in your body, think of it like a filled bucket. Try and swish and move it around as much as you can. You will then see what happens."

Zenith nodded, shutting his eyes eagerly, taking a soft breath. He felt that current in his body. The resonance he pictured and felt was spherical, like a coagulated glob that shifted every now and again, almost like floating water in no gravity. He willed his thoughts and the current to move, and it did indeed slowly begin to wiggle and move a bit.

Zenith found the feeling odd, like a little caress, not on his body but his mind and soul. He kept trying to wiggle the ball of resonance more and more, trying to add mass and motion to it. The current continued; the adding thoughts and willing of Zenith caused it to move more and more. It took Zenith 30 minutes until the ball was now shaking heavily; Zenith could see the top of the ball of resonance drip unstably.

Zenith then, with all his willpower, tried to slam that resonance ball in any direction he could. The ball quickly moved in a direction, hitting an invisible wall, and the top spilling with splashes all over. These drops and splashes turned into strings as they left the ball mass, moving around his body.

Zenith tried to continue this, swishing and swirling, but almost faltered when he felt a delightful feeling like a massage to his body. His muscles, organs, and bones, as if instinctual, were absorbing these strings of resonance, or more so these strings were moving to anywhere they could, mending and fusing with his tired, exhausted body.

What Zenith didn't know was there was a faint soft glow emitting from his body, an aura of resonance. Fable blinked in surprise. "Huh?... Why does he have so much resonance already, and he's already able to begin the process?" he thought, looking with admiration and envy. He would never tell Zenith that it took him 5 months before he could do this. "We really scored an unpolished gem!!!" He shook a little with excitement, watching Zenith do this, though he attributed this to whatever it was that the human did to give Zenith a resonance frequency.

This process Zenith did, continued for a few more minutes before the strings on his body could no longer fuse into his body. They then drifted back to the ball of Resonance mass, as if attracted by the force of it, and soon became part of it. Zenith felt refreshed, filled with energy. He took a deep breath and gently let it out; it was the feeling like he had gotten a physio massage.

"Feels great, doesn't it?" Fable spoke. Zenith nodded excitedly. "Like I can do anything! Why'd my body stop absorbing it though?" he asked curiously. Fable replied to him, "Your body is full at the moment, muscles all healed and no longer hungry. Since you can do anything, haha, back to training! This time let's see if you can break that 30 limit."

Zenith suddenly had a bad feeling, like maybe he should have bragged less. He could almost see a little disdain in Fable's eyes.

Meanwhile, Jenabell and Mirabell were currently speaking with their assigned individual at the Relic Syndicate outpost. "Miss Jenabell, you definitely gave us a little shock when we heard about that successful haul you brought back. All these antiques and belongings are always sought after by the elite. We will gladly purchase what you don't list on the market. Are you sure you don't want to sell those to us? We can work out a deal," the man gave a smirk, no doubt having a way with words.

Jenabell chuckled quietly. "Ha, like I'd get ripped off by you guys. Buy in bulk and sell in pieces, that's the motto I think you live by. Besides," Jenabell gave a satisfied look, "The goods we listed are all bought out, none to sell you from there." The man then sighed a little, unsatisfied. "Well, it can't be helped. It seems you paid all of the debts accumulated over the decades by Allspace. I must say that's impressive."

Mirabell emitted a chime as if happy as well. Jenabell spoke, "Relic hunting will always be the best way to get credits. Hundreds of years of debt, gone just like that. But that's only what I owe the federation banks. I still owe money to those other bastards," she gloomily spoke.

The man cleared his throat, speaking softly. "Well, Scorpius is a relic hunting organization, so it still has to abide by federation laws, though... if they have connections, I'm sure you know. I'm certain if your luck continues, then it won't be a problem."

Jenabell nodded simply, and soon both she and Mirabell left. Jenabell sighed inwardly, thinking to herself. "It's not as simple as credits. Those greedy bastards want the information stored in Allspace and even want to crunch the bones..." She clenched her old hands onto the cane she used. Mirabell, seeing her grandma a little thoughtful, gently reached over to rub her back.

"Don't worry about me. As long as a Novaforge still lives, Allspace won't ever fall or be eaten by any hungry animal. In fact, we will be the ones to rise and eat them!" she spoke with confidence, akin to Fable.