Chapter 255: Nothing Comes Without A Price
The two masters stood to the side while watching Jim turning one ore into ash after another.
"Damn! Never thought I would turn you into such ore eating man!" Igory couldn't help but shake off his head.
"Are you feeling better?" Mark asked as he tried to understand where all this energy was sucked into.
"I'm... great," Jim felt his body was now fully restored as his energy was half replenished. He wasn't any less amazed like the masters by what happened here.
However, his old man reassured him. According to him his soul space was nearly empty and so he needed to replenish it.
But Jim didn't fully trust the old man's words here. He was already inside his soul space and saw the amount of purified golden energy stored there.
'You got an upgrade in the quality of your energy,' the old man tried to give him one more reason.
And that gave him more reasons to doubt.
"I believe it's time for us to go back," Igory finally said while Mark gave him a side glance. "What? Why are you looking at me this way?" Igory innocently asked.
"Don't tell me you are running low on ores," Mark sneered and Igory's face changed a bit.
"I just gave him a lot," he said, "he should learn to adapt to this."
Mark raised one eyebrow while Igory ignored him. "Can you use your spells again?" he tried to shift the topic towards a thing Mark might be interested about. "Can you show us?" as Jim nodded, he requested a demonstration.
"Well..." Jim took out his sword before pointing it towards the ground. He took a deep breath before the next moment he felt a very terrifying gravitational force applying over his sword.
"What the hell...?!!" he couldn't even hold the sword for one second before it was fiercely pinned deep into the ground. He even felt a recoil in his body, which trembled violently from such a small hit.
Then a roaring wave of energy enveloped his body, forming a small yet burning ball of golden energy that totally obscured his body from the two masters.
Like a small sun appearing in this room, the golden ball kept releasing scorching flames that made the two masters quite surprised.
"Are you... ok deep there?" Mark couldn't help but ask.
"Never better," and Jim's strong voice came to make him heave a sigh of relief.
"Your energy... It got much more intense than before," Igory cared totally about another thing, "did that poison condense and upgrade your power?"
"We have no time for that," Mark cut the path over the mad dragon next to him to do more tests. "C'mon, let's go to the place of others."
Jim only took a single step when his body flew like a loose arrow and passed the two masters, startling them.
"What?!" Mark was surprised when he saw this. His clothes caught fire but he easily killed them. "His speed?" he turned to Igory who shrugged.
"Don't expect anything from me, I'm in this just like you... blind and with no knowledge at all."
"At least it's a good thing," Mark stepped out of the room where Jim was standing there motionless.
"I wonder if he got any more boost at defense," Igory slowly muttered.
"Don't think about it," yet Mark pointed his finger at him in a warning.
"Fine, I'll ask him about that later," Igory raised both hands in the air while succumbing to Mark's wishes.
"Let's go," Mark moved fast this time, "I bet all the teams arrived by now."
Jim was as shocked as them at his abnormal speed. He wasn't wearing any of his gears now, but when he thought about walking he flew.
"Try to control your power,"' Mark advised, "I don't want others outside our campus to learn about what you got."
"But I didn't do anything," Jim was confused, "I only... walked."
"I believe we should let him release that spell first," Igory suggested.
"Attack something you mean?"
"Yup," Igory answered Mark's question, "attacking is always the shortest way to get things done, right?"
Mark glanced at Jim before sighing. "Alright, hit this doll for me," he took out a yellow clay doll that was almost equal to Jim's body size.
"Won't it be... ruined?" Jim hesitated at the weak appearance of this doll.
"Don't worry, it's quite endurable," Mark reassured him and Igory could only shake off his head.
"And you were the one asking me to stop testing him," he chuckled while Mark gave him a silent glance.
"You got to share me the results of this," Igory pointed to the doll while Jim stood in between the two without a clue.
"What exactly is this doll?" he slowly asked.
"'It's a sponge doll," Igory simply said, "it can take any spell and store it for... further study."
"Study?" Jim glanced at the doll while Mark explained:
"It will allow me..." he paused as Igory gave him a threatening glance this time, "us to better understand what happened to you back there."
"And?" Jim slowly asked, while having the feeling that he wouldn't like what he would hear next.
"I have some reservations on what happened to you," Mark seemed a bit hesitant while moving his eyes over Igory's stern face and back to him.
"He had to be saved," Igory said to stop Mark.
"But at what price?" Mark slowly asked while Jim started to get a grasp of what the two were speaking about.
"Do you mean... I still have to suffer?" he slowly asked while recalling that small area of dark fog that was still inside his soul space so far.
"Well... It's not necessarily suffering," Mark seemed more hesitant.
"We don't know anything right now," Igory said directly, "so we need pieces of your power to analyze and get more data to answer such a question."
Jim realized what the two wanted to pull here, and in fact he didn't care. He was alive, and that was all that mattered to him. "I agree then," he said before pointing his sword towards the doll and simply slashed at it.
"Rumble!"
The next moment the simple sword slash he did sucked all his golden energy inside. It appeared like the sword was sucking the golden energy dry and released it in the form of a small golden white sword slash.
And that hit the doll lying peacefully on the ground before vanishing inside it like nothing happened.
"That's... good," Mark went to check the doll while Igory went to his side.
"How many slots did it take?" he asked.
"Guess," Mark grinned and Igory glanced shortly at the doll before giving his answer: "Five."
"Ten," Mark even laughed, "can you imagine that?"
"Impressive," Igory turned to glance at Jim who felt some weakness after releasing this attack.
It was something new on him, but he wasn't that weak to not keep himself standing. He also noticed the small chat between the two masters. "What are these slots?" he couldn't help but ask.
"Each doll has one hundred empty storing slots inside," Mark said while storing away his doll, "that's the highest grades of these of course."
"So my attack took ten slots? Is that ok?"
"Ok?" Igory couldn't help but laugh, "'normally attacks of first and second grade disciples can only store one slot. Five slots are the attacks caused by grade five disciples. Yours, however..."
Igory paused and Jim understood his point.
"But it drained you," Mark pointed to the flaw here, "you got to unleash your power in one hell of a strike then what? That's not good in the long term."
Jim realized his master was trying to help him here. "I will train more," Jim promised.
"You have to train harder," Igory nodded in agreement, "and you need to avoid any conflicts at this time."
Jim glanced at him in a weird way. "The academy prevents us from fighting..."
"I meant the games," Igory stopped him there, "you can't deplete your energy inside the game field."
Jim's face changed at once. "I won't stop playing," he firmly said, "'it's a game, not an arena."
"The two look the same to me," Igory shrugged before turning around, "don't say I didn't warn you."
And Jim stood there glancing at Mark who could only sigh.
"We'll... figure something out," Mark knew how dearly Jim held the ace games to his heart. "I'm sure we can arrange something with Rana."
"Don't say I didn't warn you," yet Igory said from front while moving steadily towards the direction of the forest.
"I won't stop after reaching this stage," Jim decisively said and Mark could only give him a pale smile.
"I know," Mark said, patted on his shoulders, "let's postpone this until the end of the assessment. By the way how many cores did you get from that expedition?"
And this question caused more pain. "Ahem... I think I got... couple..." Jim tried to find a way to escape the watchful gazes of his master.
"Couple of hundred?" Mark slowly asked and Jim could only keep his silence while the both headed towards the same direction as Igory.