14 - Aftermath

"Ugh..." Arthur grunted awake. His head was hurting as if it had been split in two. He sat up and looked around himself. "Finally up, sleeping beauty?" Claire said. Arthur held his head in his hand. 

"How long was I out?" Arthur asked. "About a week. Thanks to you already building a resistance to your Essence you won't suffer any permanent damage but you can't use your Essence for a month." Claire said. 

"Fuck." Arthur said. "What happened to you? Last I know you escaped from the cave?" Arthur asked, seeing her in a hospital bed as well. Claire gave him a quick rundown of everything that happened. "This is my fault." Arthur said, having heard the full story.

"No, it's not, as the leader I bear the responsibility for any decisions made." Claire said. "That isn't fair, I made the decision and I convinced you into it." Arthur said. "Life isn't fair, as the leader I could've told you no or stopped you. Anyway, throwing the blame around isn't going to help anyone. Dad took care of all the other Wolfmonkeys, so we can go collect our reward for completing the mission when you can walk." Claire explained. 

"I don't want it. Doesn't feel earned." Arthur said. "I agree, but we can't just leave the reward there either." Claire said. "Haaa...fine. We'll pick it up but just won't use it." Arthur paused. "A month without my Essence. That's really bad. How am I going to train it if I can't use it." Arthur said.

"Well next time, don't go so overboard." Elijah said, entering the room at that time. "It's good to see you up again, kid. Rest for now, you need to heal quickly." Elijah advised Arthur. Arthur simply nodded in shame. 

~~~

"Okay let's return." Elijah said. They reported the increase in difficulty and picked up the new better reward after showing proof. 1 gold coin for a now gold-ranked mission. They used Gradus to quickly return home. Claire insisted Arthur hold onto the reward, as she was already incredibly rich since she was part of the Stormcrests.

They came to an agreement after a lot of arguing that he would keep it but only use it in a dire emergency.

Arthur had learned more about this world's currency. Every nation used the same coins. There were bronze, silver, gold, and platinum coins. Each coin has a 'large' variant. 

From the prices that Arthur saw in the market, one bronze coin was worth about 1 USD from his previous world. Each increase, from either normal to large or from large to the next type of coin had a value increase of 10.

Meaning the currency was pretty simple.

Currency:

1 USD = 1 bronze coin

10 USD = 1 large bronze coin

100 USD = 1 silver coin

1000 USD = 1 large silver coin

10.000 USD = 1 gold coin

100.000 USD = 1 large gold coin

1 million USD = 1 platinum coin

10 million USD = 1 large platinum coin

With this one mission, they had made 10 thousand USD. Of course, in a usual situation, the money would be shared, so each would get 5000. 'Mercenaries must be rich.' Arthur thought.

All of them rushed home without rest, using Gradus continuously throughout it. "HONEY! WE'RE HOME!" Elijah shouted when they arrived, in the middle of the night. 

Suddenly a window opened, an explosion precisely striking the top of Elijah's head and burying him deep into the ground. "STOP SCREAMING WHEN YOU COME HOME!" Emory's voice resounded throughout the area, scaring away the remaining birds that didn't flee from the explosion.

"Welcome home Claire and Arthur." She said, this time a lot more friendly. "Hey, mom." "Hello, Emory." Both of them greeted her through the window. They got in and slept for the day.

~~~

"Okay, we're going to have to go back to the drawing board. Even though the mission was clearly out of your guys's league, I think with some training you both should be able to handle a similar mission much easier. 

Arthur, you will learn how to flow your Zeal into your weapons, greatly enhancing their power and durability. Claire, I will teach you how to shoot your Zeal out in beams." Elijah said, all of them standing at the training grounds the next day. 

Both of them nodded towards Elijah and they quickly got to work. "Arthur, come closer. Here is your new sword." Elijah said, throwing him a new sword after his old one shattered in the fight against the Wolfmonkeys.

It was a single-edged blade with no curve. Very simple looking, with a black handle and sheath. It reminded him of old Japanese chokuto's. "I will give you a better sword once you finish your training as my disciple. It will be similar to this, so train and get used to it." Elijah said.

"For now, try using your Zeal and infusing it into the sword. It is somewhat similar to reinforcing yourself with Zeal, simply convert that to the sword. Like with the body reinforcement, use the Zeal out of your core and move it to your veins. However, instead of stopping at your veins focus it on moving it into your arms and hands. From there you can try to infuse your Zeal into the sword." Elijah paused, making sure Arthur understood till here.

"You will have to do two things. One, you will infuse your Zeal into the sword. This will be incredibly hard to do since there are no Zeal veins inside of it. Over time it should become easier though. After you have mastered that, its durability and power should be drastically increased. The second step is to form a second layer of Zeal that covers just the edge of the sword. It will increase the sharpness and cutting power by many times over the already in-place Zeal infusion." Elijah explained the process. 

"For now just focus on the first step. Don't try to use body reinforcement in the duration that you're learning that. It might hinder your learning process." Elijah advised. Arthur nodded and started to focus on imbuing his Zeal into the sword. The first step was infusing it into the sword from the inside. 

Without pre-existing Zeal veins this was an incredibly complicated process. It was similar to trying to drive a motorcycle with no prior training, when before all you did was ride a bicycle with training wheels. The entire support system of the veins, which previously helped the flow of Zeal completely disappeared. 

"Claire, you will learn to shoot a Zeal beam. Like this." Elijah said, holding out his palm and shooting a massive blast of pure light-blue energy. It blasted away everything it touched, destroying and uprooting dozens of trees in a straight line. "We really need to stop destroying the forest." Claire remarked. 

"It's a cursed forest, it's fine it'll grow back by next week." Elijah waved her off. "Okay so, first you need to gather your Zeal into your palm. That shouldn't be too hard, however afterward you need to keep it there. Form a ball of Zeal in the air and use it as a basis for your blast. Once the ball is stable and sufficiently charged with Zeal, you will then build up your Zeal in your palm. 

Don't infuse it into the ball, simply gather it all in your palm without letting it touch the Zeal of the ball. Then when you have enough Zeal gathered, you will blast it all out into the ball. Like a dam breaking loose, all the Zeal you had gathered before in your palm and in the ball will shoot out like a beam." Elijah explained how to shoot a Zeal beam. 

"Sounds simple enough." Claire said. Her confidence was reasonable, she had incredible control over her Zeal. While some people might struggle with forming a ball in the air and keeping it stable part, she had done so with much more complex forms and in much worse conditions, such as having to do it while using body reinforcement and two at the same time, both turning in different directions. 

She quickly started practicing as well. Claire and Arthur got to work, training once again. They knew that they screwed up their first mission, so for now, it would be a lot of training without a break to make up for it.

Back to Arthur, who was diligently trying to infuse his sword with Zeal. 'This is pretty hard.' He thought. Moving his Zeal inside of his body had become second nature to him. However, he was getting support from his Zeal veins. He started by just pushing his Zeal out of his palm, trying to somehow get some of it into the sword.

"Be more precise." Elijah said. Arthur nodded and cut down on his Zeal output. He managed to get a very small amount of Zeal into the sword. However, as soon as he lost some control, all of it would leak out instantly. 

He kept repeating and training for the entire day, and at the end of it, he was able to keep the Zeal flow up for 30 seconds with a very small amount of Zeal infused in it. "You made good progress today Arthur." Elijah said, putting his hand on Arthur's shoulder.

Arthur stopped concentrating on his sword and looked around himself. He was just in time to see Claire blast a giant Zeal beam toward the forest, destroying about 5 trees and uprooting the last one. "Is Claire even more talented than me?" Arthur asked. Elijah had said he was a prodigy, but seeing Claire do much better in the same timespan confused him.

"Well, you also have to realize she had 17 years of time to improve her control over Zeal manipulation. Certain things that mostly rely on that, are obviously easier for her. But I can guarantee you, the first 3 months of her training did not go anywhere near as smooth as your 3 months." Elijah explained everything to Arthur. 

It seemed that Claire had overheard them. "Artie? Am I feeling jealousy?" She said with a smirk, teasing him.