the punishment

"Lucile, get out here." Aunt Uriel shouted and started wrecking the equipment one at a time.

"It wasn't my plan… it was all David's plan." Lucile's voice suddenly came from all sides.

"so you knew all this time? You knew Mary was pregnant and didn't tell me or Hercules? You saw how miserable they were and you didn't do anything?" Aunt Uriel shouted back while destroying equipment after equipment.

"He made me do it… he said not to tell you anything under any circumstances." Lucile seemed to be very scared.

"And when have you ever listened to any of us?"

"He made me sign a soul contract with him…. He told me to tell you only after he turned 16 and the second he was I left an anonymous tip."

At the mention of a soul contract, Aunt Uriel seemed to calm down but the next second, as if remembering something, she started shouting again, "Then what about the core? You let him absorb a level 2 mythic core alone without supervision? What if he overloaded or even worse, exploded?"

Feeling shivers running down my spine I asked with a shaky voice, "There was a possibility of me exploding?"

They didn't even seem to hear me as they continued their conversation.

"Oh please, do you really think that with his diamond core and that damn legendary ring, there would be any problem absorbing a level 2 mythic core?" Lucile seemed to have lost some of his fear as he materialized a hologram in front of us.

Suddenly, Aunt Uriel stopped in her tracks and looked straight into the hologram's eyes, "how do you know that about his core?"

Like a mouse caught by its tail, Lucile struggled to cut the hologram off. However, before he could do that, Aunt Uriel stomped on the ground and dashed in a seemingly random direction.

All the while Asue and I looked at the scene in front of us with astonishment.

"What did you do?" Asue asked me in a hushed voice.

"I swear I didn't do anything… but Lucile said he extracted fuel from my core before I woke up..."

"He did what?" Asue shouted with a white face as if she had just seen a ghost.

Aunt Uriel punched the wall in front of her and it started to crumble, revealing a small secret room behind it, "Did you really think you could hide from me?"

Unable to not answer a question, Lucile answered sincerely, "I thought I would last at least fifteen minutes."

Aunt Uriel grabbed him by the ear and dragged him toward us and then threw him on the ground.

"What did you do? Tell me everything."

Before Lucile could defend himself though, Asue looked at him with disgust and said, "He extracted fuel from Alex's core."

"You... did…. What?" Aunt Uriel shouted so loudly that I swear I saw a sonic blast spreading with her as the center.

This time, she didn't even wait for a response and didn't even ask Asue how she knew about this. Instead, she directly punched Lucile in the head, sending him flying to the ceiling.

"How dare you put him through that? He could be crippled for life."

"I could have what?" I screamed, feeling like I was owed more than just a simple favor, "You said that the first time wasn't a big deal but wha…"

"The first time? The first time????" Aunt Uriel didn't seem to want to quiet down, "How many times has he done that to you?"

She didn't let Lucile say anything before taking a few deep breaths and turning around to look at us, "Kids, get out for a few seconds, I will call you back in when I'm done here…."

Asue and I looked at each other and I was about to mention the broken elevator. However, when I turned to point at it, I saw that it was back to normal.

Asue and I left without saying another word and just left.

After leaving the building, it started shaking so violently that I thought it could crumble at any moment.

"You really are dumb, aren't you?" Asue asked out of the blue.

A little hurt, I asked, "What have I done?".

"How could you let him extract fuel from your core for a second time?"

"How could I know it was so dangerous?"

Hearing my response, Asue just sighed and shook her head like she was having a pointless conversation with a dumb kid.

Ten minutes later, we heard Aunt Uriel's voice, "You can come in now…"

Upon getting inside the lab, I was surprised to see everything was back in its place, and contrary to my expectations, Lucile was fine too.

"Don't look at me like that…" Lucile barked at me with an annoyed tone, "I had to consume one of my few rank 8 potions just to stay alive thanks to you."

"Shut up," Aunt Uriel hit him in the head before continuing, "Tell me the rest of it…"

"There is no rest to tell… David made me sign the contract and I did as he told me…. As for the fuel extraction, it was completely safe since I made sure to use only the best tools for the job." Lucile explained while grabbing his head.

"How many tests have you run on him?" Aunt Uriel asked.

Lucile replied sheepishly with a proud grin, "Almost all the tests are running."

Irritated by his behavior, he received another punch to the head, "and the results?"

"I pretty much know everything about him…"

"I'm losing patience here Lucile." Aunt Uriel threatened.

"OK, OK, gosh… I was just trying to build a little suspense." Lucile said and started explaining, "his core is of the highest quality, and even before absorbing the mythic core his fuel capacity was ten times the highest recorded case.

After running some tests on the second batch of fuel that I extracted from his core after he absorbed the core, I noticed that his fuel had mutated and had the characteristics of the space element which is a rare thing since even for normal elements, fuel mutation is a one in a million-chance occurrence.

As for the most suitable job he could choose… I think he is best suited for rune smithing since he has the potential to build domains in the future…"

"What?" Aunt Uriel and Asue shouted at the same time.

"You heard me… the mutation in his fuel gives him the ability to manipulate space element to some extent which makes him the perfect candidate for creating domains."

"Ummmm... what is a domain?" I asked.

Aunt Uriel looked at me with eyes like that of a person who had just struck gold which quite frankly was scary and said, "Domains are separate spaces that can contain life."

"Don't you already have those? I even saw students using space rings." I said, remembering how Malia and Nill used the rings on their fingers to store the potions I gave them.

"That's different. They are only normal space rings and at the lowest grade of it." Aunt Uriel answered.

I wanted to ask more but Aunt Uriel and Lucile moved back to their own conversation.

After more than ten minutes of discussion, they finally came to the same conclusion.

"He is the only one who can convince that person to accept him as a student…" Aunt Uriel said.

"I was thinking the same thing. We just have to convince him… the rest will be handled if he agrees."

"Where are we going?" I asked as we exited the city and started climbing the mountain inside a hovercar.

"We are going to see Hercules," Lucile said.

"If everything goes right he might become your master," Aunt Uriel explained.

Asue who sat beside me in the backseat, seemed surprised by the fact, "But I thought he never accepted a student."

"Don't worry about that…I will handle him…" Aunt Uriel said with a mysterious smile.

It didn't even take us two minutes to get to the mountain peak where the thirteen palaces were.

The car parked right in front of the third building from the right.

Aunt Uriel got out of the car and walked toward the huge building like she owned the place.

She opened the building gates, then turned and looked at us who were still in front of the car, "are you coming or what?"

Lucile who seemed afraid for his life, just stood in his place saying, "I'm doing fine here."

"I won't let him hurt you. You had enough beating for one day… just come." Aunt Uriel stated and turned to walk inside the building, "If you are not next to me in three seconds, I will send him out to bring you in, and believe me you wouldn't want that."

Sufficiently motivated, Lucile dashed inside the building.

Asue and I looked at each other before we also started walking up the stairs and into the building.