Chapter 341: The Power on His Side of the Bond

Chapter 341: The Power on His Side of the Bond

The demonstrator’s forearms turned gray.

It happened in about a second. A dull, stony sheen spread from his wrists to his elbows, and the skin underneath went rough and mottled like weathered rock. He raised both arms in front of his face, and the instructor swung a weighted training staff into them with a crack that made half the front row flinch.

The staff bounced off.

The demonstrator lowered his arms and flexed his fingers. Behind him, his beast hadn’t moved. It was a broad, shaggy ram with curling horns, lying on the mat with its legs folded under it, chewing calmly.

Jin leaned forward in his front-row seat. The change was familiar enough to make him glance at the ram, checking that he hadn’t missed a command.

That’s Harden, he thought. Or something like it. On a person.

"An assimilated skill," the instructor said. She was a small, brisk woman carrying a clipboard. "Rank 2 gives him his own version."

"The ram hasn’t activated its skill," the instructor said. "He has. Before Rank 2, an ordinary tamer uses energy through their Soul Talent. You have a small natural reserve, and your talent draws on ambient energy, but you can’t freely store and circulate it. Your talent is the bridge; its function limits what crosses."

A girl two seats down raised her hand. "My cousin can gather energy already."

"An Astral Energy-type talent?" the instructor asked.

The girl nodded.

"That’s the exception," the instructor said. "Those talents allow conscious gathering, refinement, and temporary storage before a Bond Core forms. It helps with awakening. It doesn’t guarantee the result."

She turned back to the demonstrator. "Again, please."

He hardened his arms a second time and took another strike. Then a third. On the third, Jin noticed the sheen arrive a fraction slower, and it didn’t reach his elbows.

"And again."

The demonstrator raised his arms. The gray crept to his wrists and stopped there. He lowered his arms, breathing harder than before.

"I’m out," he said.

"He’s out," the instructor agreed. "Three good uses and a weak fourth. That’s what his current reserve and control allow with this version. Another tamer could get a different result. Watch the limit, not just the successful uses."

The demonstrator walked back to the ram and put his hand flat on its neck.

Nothing visible happened for nearly half a minute. The ram stopped chewing. The demonstrator’s breathing slowed. When he stood up again, he looked steadier.

He hardened his arms once more. The sheen came up clean, all the way to the elbow.

"Transfer," the instructor said. "Beast to tamer, consciously, through the Bond Core. He took thirty seconds to recover perhaps another use and a half, with some energy lost along the way. Can you count on having that time during a fight?"

She waited while the demonstrator checked his ram.

"Your beast can replenish you, but both reserves have limits. You also have to learn to manage the transfer while doing everything else a fight demands."

A boy at the back asked whether the tamer’s version was as strong as the beast’s.

"No," said the demonstrator, a little ruefully. "Mine’s just my forearms. Ram does his whole body." He rubbed one wrist. "It started at Basic. It still mostly is. It’s mine, though. I’m the one who has to get better at it."

"The variation still resembles the original," the instructor said. "But your body, talent, and affinities help shape it. You’ll have to train it yourself."

Jin thought of Glitch’s Harden and the hits it had helped him survive. His avatar had used it thousands of times. Jin had watched, chosen the moment, and given the command.

He’d never done what the young man on the mat was doing with his own arms.

The instructor drew the breakthrough on the board in six lines.

Rank 1, 9-Star → eligible to attempt.

First beast supplies most of the energy.

Tamer’s Soul Talent forms the bridge.

Foundation: condition, harmony, Quality, mastery, resources, execution.

Result: Bond Core. First Bond Awakening complete.

Second active slot opens.

"Eligible means eligible," she said. "Not promoted. Some people sit at 9-Star for years because their foundation isn’t ready, and they’re right to."

Jin raised his hand.

"If the first beast’s been hurt recently," he said, "does that change what it can give?"

"Yes," the instructor said. "The first awakening places a heavy demand on both partners. Unresolved damage can make it fail or leave a poorer foundation. That is why recovery comes before preparation." She held his eye. "Has somebody qualified assessed the beast?"

Jin nodded. "We’re still working on it."

"Then keep working on it," the instructor said.

He raised his hand again.

"The second slot. If someone already has a second beast contracted—when does it start counting?"

"When it’s moved into the slot, and when it’s developed enough for its own threshold." She looked at him. "You’ve got a second beast?"

"A bird. Small."

"The slot opens for her. That doesn’t mean she automatically matures, and she doesn’t contribute a skill to the first assimilation. That’s your first beast’s skill, and only one." She paused. "After that, you can develop her place in the bond. She’s still going to need the care and work appropriate to her body."

Jin thought of Flicker that morning, perched behind Glitch’s horns and watching a moth on the stable window. She’d leaned forward whenever it moved, then settled back without taking flight.

He wanted her strong enough to follow that moth without having to stop halfway. The thought pleased him more than imagining another beast on a match sheet.

"Why do people come out different?" asked the girl who’d raised her hand earlier. "My cousin and her friend both made Rank 2 the same month. Her friend’s much stronger."

"Their foundations are one place to look," the instructor said. "Development and training matter too. Have you heard of Core stripes?"

She drew a circle on the board and drew lines across it.

"Every Bond Core forms with one to nine stripes. More stripes help with stability, capacity, and energy efficiency. They make later advancement easier." She looked around the room. "It doesn’t put a ceiling on you. People with low stripe counts have reached high Ranks. It takes them longer and costs them more. And no amount of money buys a guaranteed number. You can only build the best foundation you can and see what forms."

"Can we see his?" someone asked, nodding at the demonstrator.

"No," the instructor and the demonstrator said together.

"Stripe counts are private," she said. "Professional information. You don’t ask, and you don’t tell unless you choose to."

Somebody at the back muttered something about talent grade. The instructor heard it.

"Talent grade affects the bridge," she said. "It’s not the whole story. I’ve seen C-Rank talents form good cores off a well-prepared beast, and A-Rank talents form poor ones off a rushed foundation. Don’t decide your result before you’ve built it."

Nobody looked at Jin. He noticed that, and appreciated it.

He walked back to the stable block slowly afterward, thinking.

He’d stayed behind to ask one last question: when did they actually choose the skill?

"After your first beast’s breakthrough evolution has stabilized," the instructor had said. "The bond presents what’s compatible. You make the choice then."

"Does the evolution change its Quality?"

"Sometimes. Never count on it. Its development shapes the result."

Jin had thanked her and left with questions squeezed between his notes. He would need another page before an attempt.

His real talent was EX-Rank. What did that mean for the bridge? He kept that question out of his notes.

There was another problem he could ask about openly. The demonstrator had needed practice in his own body, regardless of how well his ram used the original skill. Glitch’s thousands of avatar repetitions hadn’t been Jin’s repetitions.

He hadn’t found anything in the Engine that let him inherit that practice. Perhaps forming a Core would change something; he didn’t know. Until it did, he would have to prepare for learning normally.

Outside the stable, he flexed his fingers and tried to imagine the gray sheen coming over them. The demonstrator had called himself a beginner and then let an instructor hit him with a staff.

I have already had enough staff lessons, thanks.

He opened the academy’s course list anyway. Under cultivation, there was an introductory block for newly awakened tamers. He saved it beside Thornwatch.

One offered money. The other offered a chance to stop needing Glitch every time someone came close enough to hit him.