Awakening (1)

Chapter 10 – Awakening (1)

Tick… Tick… Tick

This was the one memory I wished would not come to fruition.

A sigh escaped my lips as I lay on my bed, my eyes glued to the black, analog clock that sat on the cupboard beside my bed.

It was still 12:43 in midnight; 17 minutes to a horror of pain that I couldn't by any chance escape.

Of course, I knew it was going to happen. After all, I had stamped and approved for it to happen when I accepted and drank the Elixir of Awakening from Instructor German.

However, no amount of prior knowledge could help one endure the intensity of such pain. Although I had made plans to reduce the horror that awaited me soon, I wasn't quite sure if it would work. It was worth a try anyway.

Sitting under the base of the alarm clock was a sheet of paper, ruffled with a few writings on it.

On that paper were a few things that I had bought earlier, on my way back, in preparation for tonight.

A hot water bag. Check.

Pain-relieving pills. Check.

The painkillers I had to check twice since I didn't want to risk it in any way.

Piece of cloth. Check.

Snacks. Check.

I turned my back to the clock, unable to keep my eyes fixed on it since it was causing me anxiety but that didn't help, because in the next one minute, I looked at the clock again and breathed a sigh.

Ten more minutes.

I held my abdomen and breathed another sigh. I puffed my cheeks and tried to calm myself in anticipation of it.

The clock continued to tick and head toward 1 o'clock.

As it approached about three minutes remaining to the expected time of horror and opened up the bottle of pills and downed three of them in one go.

"I hope this helps," I muttered, examining the white bottle briefly before dropping back onto the table.

Eek!

I felt a sharp sting on my right flank.

"Fuck!" I blurted out in shock, clutching the affected part of my abdomen.

I had prepared for this but it still managed to bypass my alertness and take me by surprise.

The sting was sudden and intense and the manner I shouted made me look at Bright, hoping that I had not woken him up.

The sting was just shocking, other than that it was bearable. But it was also the harbinger of the one that would come in less than two minutes.

I folded the cloth that I had gotten into a roll and put it between my teeth to bite onto it and muffle the painful sound that I would produce.

'Fuck!' I shouted in my mind, already feeling my heart racing and pounding hard inside my chest.

My face was moistened with sweat, increasing into beads and headed towards profuse sweating.

My body was strained and my breathing quickened.

My breathing became unstable and I started to slowly hyperventilate in panic.

It was becoming hard to breathe.

'Fuck, Luke! Fuck! You are ready for this,' I chided as well as motivated myself to endure through the pain.

'You can do—'

MMMMMMMMMMMM!!!

I let out what would have been a loud cry for help had I not gagged myself with that roll of cloth.

'Fuckkkk! Fuck!'

My face burned red as blood gathered in my face with vessels around it becoming prominent.

It was horrifying!

I got redder and redder with the increasing pulsating pain in my body.

It was as though my guts were being twisted with a greater force than I could bear.

My heart skipped several beats so many times that I lost count. I'm sure at that point, it was replaced by a hollow.

I squirmed on the bed, my knees flexed toward my chest as I turned recklessly, trying to find a comfortable position.

It burned and churned at the same time.

If I could yank off my guts from my body, I would have done it as that was the only thing I felt could provide me some form of relief.

After about 2 to 3 minutes of this immense torture, the effect of the painkillers I had taken started to kick in as I noticed the intensity of the pain dropping every few seconds.

It had been unbearable but with every few seconds that passed, it became less unbearable.

This lasted for close to ten minutes before I gained consciousness of myself and a bit of control.

As the pain numbed, my mind reawakened and I gained back control of my body. At least I was able to extend my legs and breathe voluntarily.

My heart slowed and so did my breathing. The pain reduced until I could feel it no more. However, the memory of this episode doubled inside my head and I felt a few stings even after the pain had stopped.

Gathering enough strength to sit up, I removed the cloth gag and hurled it into the bin at the edge of the room. I lowered my head, cupping my face with my hands as I tried to calm down.

After a few minutes in that position, I left my head and sighed with relief.

It was over and so, as I countermeasure, I took another set of three painkiller pills. This was for no particular reason but a preventive measure.

I laid back down on the bed, my eyes staring at the ceiling as the rotating blade fans circled within my visual field continually.

A smile curled up on my face after a while. My mind was filled with profound happiness and satisfaction from the thoughts that crossed it.

I had taken the Elixir and I had made it past the painful process. Just like me, a few other recruits had undergone the same process and the screams that I paid no heed to, as I endured my share of the torture, belonged to them.

Obviously, they would be in more severe pain than I was. I had prepared for this and it still took me by surprise. Tch, I can say that they had it worse.

The next step that I had drafted out from my wealth of past life experience was to take a few steps ahead of my mates.

The Instructors had calculated that every recruit who had taken the Elixirs and was going to awaken would do so within five days.

Unfortunately, those who didn't awaken after this time would have to exit the Cube.

One would think that they were better off not taking it in the first place but the same fate of an expulsion awaited recruits who naturally didn't awake beyond the stipulated time.

I knew things that no one else knew about this world and a certain extent of the future that was ahead.

Terence Kenton would become a bane to our world. A powerful wolf in sheep's clothing and to stop him and save this world I need to be strong myself.

Confronting him now would put me in a bad light with the other recruits, Instructors, the Cube in general as well as his powerful family—the Kenton Family. After all, he was the prodigy in his generation of Kentons.

If I was going to kill Terence when the time came, I needed to be as powerful as he would become.

I took a deep breath in and exhaled loudly, doing it a few more times until I was completely calm.

I was a regressor.

A returner with an advantage of prior knowledge and I will use it to its fullest.

We, as recruits, possess a type of body that is naive to the energy of this world called Essence. This was called the Virgin Body.

A Virgin Body cannot manipulate Essence without going through an Awakening. Only by Awakening can one open the gates to an innate pool of Essence within our beings called the Pool of Essence, and only by opening these gates can a Virgin Body now absorb Essence.

This was where the Elixir came in. The Elixir of Awakening forces a Virgin Body body to awaken and also opens up the Pool of Essence. However, that was all it did.

The absorption of Essence was an active process the Hunter had to go through themselves. If one's Pool of Essence is empty, as is my case now, one cannot use Essence.

To manipulate Essence, a Hunter has to first fill their Pool of Essence either by absorbing the one from the environment or consuming items or things with a high concentration of Essence.

As it stands now, I have no resources or means of acquiring these things with high Essence concentration. So, I had to stick with absorbing from my surroundings.

Luckily, everything in the world now has been corrupted by Essence and possesses a certain amount of it following the incident that took place 800 years ago.

I breathed in and out again, putting myself in a lotus position as I began to focus inwardly.

I need to stay ahead this time and one way to do that at this stage was to remain ahead of the rest in my control of Essence.

Inhale~ Exhale~

I concentrated inwardly for close to four hours until I felt my consciousness seated atop a silent pool of water.

'This is it,' I thought with a rush of internal joy. 'This is my Pool of Essence.'

I cheered in my mind and glanced at the clear surface of water that reflected my face.

[You have acquired 6 Units (6U) of Essence]

After immersing myself in my subconscious realm, I opened my eyes at the sound of the notification from my Cube ID. The first thing I did was glance at the time.

'It's 5 o'clock already,' I thought.

Looking through the window, I could see that the day was breaking but that was not a problem. There were no classes today and I could still rest for a few hours.

Bzzzt~

A cracking sound rang and just a second later, a golden screen manifested in front of me, shining with ethereal glitter as I turned toward it and smiled.

It was a familiar phenomenon that followed a person's Awakening—the Status Screen.

—––

Name: Lucas Enstar

Skill: [Jack of all Trades]

Stage: Ore Stage [Initial]

Essence: 6/200

—––

Strength: 0

Agility: 0

Focus: 0

—––

My details appeared before my eyes on a bright golden screen that floated in the air of my room.

A grin of satisfaction revealed itself shortly after before I proceeded to distribute the Essence across my three attributes: Strength, Agility and Focus.

—––

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading.

Hope you're excited about the power system in play. ~wink~