Cores

Nathan was sitting on his bed, staring at all 180 cores he'd got. He crossed his legs while saying, "According to the instruction manual, I'm supposed to swallow this core."

The cores had a round shape and a pale gray color. Each of them was as small as a candy. They didn't produce any smell. 

"Are you going to swallow it now?" Fenrir asked. 

"Yes. Normally, we would have to split these cores, but I guess I should be the ones swallowing all of these."

"Your quality is higher than mine, so you obviously need to be the one. But recording this process will allow your teacher to compare it with other students' results, you know that?"

"Yep. The result might vary, but there's simply no way for her to test one's aptitude. If I'm different, I'll just say that it's your fault. That's the reason I summon a beast instead of a humanoid familiar or something." Nathan shrugged. 

"Fair enough. In that case, hurry up and swallow them. If you get stronger, I also want more Ena so that I can use more of my abilities."

"I know, I know." Nathan nodded. He grabbed one of them and put it into his mouth. 

"It doesn't have a taste. I feel like I'm eating gum that has no more flavor in it." Nathan muttered. Unlike the chewy gum, the core gradually melted like ice. The fluid was gradually entering his throat. 

His heart rate and body temperature increased gradually. 

"Huu…" Nathan inhaled deeply, adjusting his breathing.

It was uncomfortable. It felt like there were ants crawling outside his stomach, lasting for a minute. 

Fenrir was staring at him carefully, making sure nothing dangerous occurred or resided in Nathan's body. 

After the itchy sensation died out, his heart rate went back to normal. The whole time, Nathan was just holding on to his stomach while closing his eyes, enduring the weird sensation.

"Fuu…" Nathan let out a long sigh. "It's really uncomfortable."

"At least, it's not painful. Why don't you just take a lot of them and eat them all at once?" Fenrir asked.

"I can't do that." Nathan crossed his arms. "According to the book, if you take several of them at once, it can indeed increase the process. However, it'll also increase your heart rate and body temperature drastically. If the person passes out, in the best scenario, they might be let off with their body not absorbing the Ena. In the worst-case scenario, there might be some complications.

"There is a record about a person taking a lot of cores at once. His heart beat so quickly that it exploded. His body was fried up from the inside. Because of that incident, they recommended people take one at a time and wait until the body returns to normal before taking another one. 

"It took me about a minute to process everything and another minute to calm down. So in an hour, I could only take 30 cores. I guess I will only swallow 60 cores every day. I have to spend the rest of my time developing my muscles." Nathan ended his explanation with a tired sigh. 

"Good, good. I won't be the only one who fights." Fenrir nodded with a grin. 

"I know. All summoners have to build up some stamina as well. If they're tired, the enemies can take advantage of that. That's probably what they're trying to do next week." Nathan rose from the bed and grabbed the crystal.

As soon as he infused his Ena, he got "22." 

"Well, it seems that one core gives you only one point." 

"Who knows? There is no decimal point here. I believe it'll be different. My quality right now is high-tier basic. I might get more if I have better quality." Nathan wrote it down for the record. "Anyway, I will continue."

Nathan grabbed another core and swallowed it. Now that he understood the sensation, he could resist it a bit better. The more cores he swallowed, the more resistance would build up. 

At the same time, noting down every progress took a bit more time, which caused him to only swallow a total of 45 cores in two hours from the original 60 cores.

Nevertheless, the record had given enough information about the proto-class cores.

While looking at the number, Nathan said, "It seems that each core is giving me about 1.4 Ena since it increases from 21 to 84. The increase itself is consistent, so I guess each core contains the same amount of Ena."

"So how much Ena will you get after swallowing the rest?" Fenrir asked.

"Should be about 189 if I calculate it correctly. It means I'll have a total of 273 Ena points after swallowing it all… about 4.5 times of my original Ena before summoning you." 

"Great! The problem is how much Ena do I need to unlock my abilities. My level is 13, so I can't really be reckless since I don't want to make another contract recklessly since I'll lose another ability." Fenrir frowned. 

"I don't know. Anyway, I'll be writing down all the answers I've written previously for Selena and studying for the rest of the day."

"Before that, why don't you check your own level? It's said that summoned familiars can increase their levels by absorbing the cores, right?" Fenrir asked.

"Now that you mention it…" Nathan almost forgot about it. Fenrir managed to increase his quality by increasing his level, so if he somehow surpasses basic quality and reaches the good quality, the amount of Ena he can get from each core might be different.

With that in mind, Nathan went to the mirror. 

Name: Nathan Reckmoon

Level: 3

Race: Human

Quality: Basic (High)

"I level up too! But if I give you my Ena, will my level drop?" Nathan frowned.

"Probably. But I don't think it'll go down to zero. After all, your initial level should be 1 with 60 Ena."

"Fair enough." Nathan nodded in agreement. "If that's the case, my quality can increase and decrease depending on how much Ena I have. It makes summoning familiar more complex."

"True. With your current rate, you get 70 Ena with 50 cores. But if your quality increases, and you somehow get 80 Ena with 50 cores, it might not be significant at first, but it'll be in the long run." Fenrir nodded. "But if you're too greedy, it'll also cause our growth to be slow as well."

"I know. I'll just put more thoughts into it, not becoming greedy or paranoid." Nathan waved his left hand, his other hand writing down the answers.