Digestion

The morning scintillating sun rose over the horizons, the glorious blazing ball of light illuminated the surroundings with a incandescent yellow hue. The gigantic building of the test floor floated in the air, its shadow stretched across the wheat and grass fields below for miles on end. The fields below were covered by a faint white mist, scattering the light of the refulgent sun.

However, as Winston had just found out yesterday, the sun was not, in actuality, a sun. Instead, it was simply a ball of light that floated high up in the artificial atmosphere of the tower, which too was made out of Shinsu.

Winston got out of the bed, his hair sprawled all over his head and his eyes dazed over slightly. The curtains of his room which were wide open; solely because he had forgotten to close them before going to sleep; filtered the soft morning rays of light into the room.

Winston yawned and rubbed his right eye. Then, he got up and stretched his body. As he did, he could not help but savour the feeling of his joints and muscles opening up after a good night's rest.

Then, he sighed.

The crown games had ended right then and there. In a series of events Winston had honestly failed to see, the crown was utterly destroyed. He looked at the bandages on his right hand in thought, his mind overtaken with the visions of the naive boy he had met.

The 25th Bam. Enigmatic he was.

There were very few people that would throw themselves into dangerous situation to shield someone else. At least, Winston himself was not one of them.

Then, he remembered how the previous day had gone over. Due to his injuries, he was taken to the infirmary by his teammates and spent the next 3 hours there. After that, his teammates escorted him to his room, despite his repeated insinuation that he was fine.

Well, it is what is it. He shook himself out of his thoughts and went to freshen up. Every regular that had passed the tests and managed to survive the crown game with their full teams were alloted their own rooms. Each room had all the supplies one could hope for while living, save for a kitchen, the need for which was fulfilled by the cafeteria. It was also worth mentioning that the teams had also been disbanded by the time the crown game had ended, meaning there was little chance that he would take the next tests along with Zarhan and Amon.

For all he could think, the next test might be an individual test.

After he freshened up, he walked out of the door to his room and headed for the cafeteria.

It was still 2 days for the next test to go. There was plenty which he could do to prepare for it. The first of which was to better familiarize himself with his abilities and gain resources which allow for full utilization of them.

Although he had spent all his time in the cave to train his abilities, there was little he could do with the lack of materials.

As he was lost in his thoughts, he felt someone approach from his back.

Intuition is indeed a very useful ability. He turned back without delay, only to come face to face with Zarhan, his old teammate.

"Yo!" He greeted, throwing his hand into the air.

Winston nodded. "Good morning." He smiled.

"How'd ye notice me? As a hunter, I make sure to be super quiet all the time." He inquired, getting closer.

Right... Winston gave him a judgemental stare for the slightest moment.

"I just felt someone was behind me." Winston shrugged, a grin on his face.

"Tch! Fine! Don't answer!" He exclaimed, his face turning a bit sour.

Winston nodded to himself, feeling a bit pleased.

"Going to the cafeteria?" He asked.

"Man's gotta eat!" He said, tapping his stomach with a chuckle.

With that, they both went towards the cafeteria, walking side by side.

As they walked, they engaged in some small talk.

"How's your arm?"

"Feels fine. I guess it'll be alright in a few days." Winston answered, feeling a bit unsure himself. As of right now, he felt no actual discomfort in his arm.

To be honest, it felt as if he hadn't even been hurt.

Does the Shinsu speed up healing? I'll have to take off the bandages and see for myself. Winston mused.

As they chatted, the cafeteria finally came into view.

The cafeteria was a large hall, filled with various long tables and mundane decorations. The entire room was completely illuminated by lights on the ceiling, and coupled with the sunlight from the window walls, it left barely any room for shadows to be seen. To the far right, the food counter could be seen, operated by a yellowish humanoid behemoth with multiple eyes all around it's head in a straight horizontal line.

There were many people in the cafeteria at this point. Almost half of the regulars that had passed the tests and the crown game were here, making the cafeteria quite lively.

As they walked to the food counter, someone called out to them.

"Mr. Winston! Mr. Zarhan!"

They looked towards one of the tables. It was Amon waving out to them.

Winston waved back and Zarhan nodded tesly. Amon was already seated with a plate of edibles. And so, Winston and Zarhan took theirs and went on their way.

Winston wasn't too knowledgeable about the cuisine so he let Zarhan order for him as well.

The cafeteria using points is a bit unfair for us... Winston lampooned. That's right. The cafeteria used points. Points were earned by passing tests and fulfilling certain quotas in them. Basically, a regular's performance determines how much points they get.

Though it is practical. He shook his head, not thinking about it anymore.

However, luckily for them, the crown game was not without it's advantages. The participants, along with the starting number of points given to all the regulars, were given bonus points for their performance.

Meaning they were not the previous completely broke them, but now, the present less broke them.

Taking their respective plates, they went ahead and sat down along with Amon.

"Good morning." Winston greeted.

"Good morning!" Zarhan boisterously declared.

"Good morning to you too!" Amon said enthusiastically.

With that, they engaged in some conversations about the tests and tower; the idle chatter among the regulars. However, to Winston, it was free information. As someone that came from the outside information was a must have.

"Wow... you're very knowledgeable about these things..." Zarhan droned with a subtle expression.

His eyes appeared a bit lost.

"Yeah." Amon said, stuffing his mouth with food. "You can find all sorts of things on the Box."

Winston raised a brow.

"The Box?"

Amon stared at him.

"You don't know about the Box, Mr. Winston?!" He exclaimed.

"Umm." Winston felt that he had messed up here.

"I seem to have heard about it. Though I never bothered to find out about it." He replied with a relaxed tone.

"Oh. I see." He nodded. "The Box is a platform for all lightbearers to sort through and share information about the tower. You can find practically anything on there!" He explained. "It's basically a blog for the light bearers!"

Winston appeared to be intrigued.

"How do you access this Box?" He asked.

Just then, Zarhan broke out into a short laugh.

"Pfft! You don't even know how to access the box?! Even I know that?" He declared.

"You do?"

"You do?"

Both Amon and Winston asked with a judgemental stare.

"Of course I do! It is accessed through light houses! Those floating cubes like things! Besides that, it can also be accessed through pockets, but the information is limited!" He screamed. At that point, their table received a number of stares from the other regulars.

Winston ignored these stares, so did his other two teammates.

The rest of the breakfast went without any other interesting things being shared, yet still somewhat informative. The best thing about it was the Box Amon had mentioned.

Mentally, he decided to check it out upon returning to his room.

Finishing the breakfast, as Winston reached his room, he took out a small pin like object, blue in colour. It was something he had stolen from Zarhan's attire. Although the other party wore casual clothing, his shirt held many small pin like objects, blue in colour. They were pretty to look at but not of significant monetary value, something he gleamed from his Marauder potion ability.

As he sat down onto the bed, he could not help but look at this potion digestion again.

Damn... no matter how I look at this, isn't this a bit too fast!? He exclaimed in his heart.

Yesterday, as he stole the crown, all of his potions, The Seer, The Marauder and The Apprentice, all of them had been digested almost to completion!

If he had to put it into numbers, he would say that almost 97% of the potion had already been digested!

He supported his arms with his legs and leaned forward in contemplation.

In essence, it shouldn't be too out of the ordinary. After all, there were multiple people watching along with a ranker, a figure close to at least a high Sequence, if not a angel. Winston concluded. Though it was hard to judge the level of rankers, he felt that they might be at the level of the demigods, with the upper echelons being at the level of Angels.

He sighed.

The Sequence 9 of the Error Pathway is called Marauder. In essence, it can be considered as a raider or a plundered. Meaning the acting method for the Sequence 9 should be reliant on feedback from others.

If it was something like Thief, then I may not have gotten the same result, considering as to how thieves are associated with secrecy and silence. Heh. Stealing a crown in front of such opposition and spectators turned out to be the optimal condition for acting.

To be honest, the only reason that I can think of that I didn't digest the potion right then and there is because I didn't consolidate the acting principles of any potion.

Winston felt it was possible.

With the discovery of his rapid potion digestion, he also discovered that digestion was shared across all of his sequences. Meaning, if any digestion occurred on the Seer potion, it would occur simultaneously on the other two potions as well.

Meaning, if at any point he hit a wall in the digestion of any one potion, he could just start on the digestion of the other potion, circumventing the problem all together. Along with that, it also meant that he could act on all the three pathways at the same time, boosting the digestion speed exponentially.

The last 3% of the potion, I can digest it by using the principles of the Seer pathway that have already been established by Mr. Fool... Winston smiled in expectation of the future.

It seems Sequence 8 will be coming sooner than I expected...

~~~

A/N: Throw some stones.

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