In one of the training facilities in the Cadet Academy’s special ward, Wolfton gripped his sword steadily. Beads of sweat ran down his face as he stood with eyes closed, focusing intensely. His metallic blade glinted purple.

  A faint hum filled the air as glittering dust gathered around the sword but it burst apart in a sudden flash of light just as quickly as it formed.

  Wolfton fell to his knees, breath uneven.

  “You’re progressing really fast. Just a week has gone by and you’re already this close to finding your frequency. Being talented must be nice,” Raven said, sitting on a raised platform opposite him.

  “Like you’re one to talk,” Wolfton replied between breaths.

  “I can’t believe you mastered that trick I taught you in a matter of days. You’re a monster, you know that.”

  “I’m a slow learner,” Wolfton muttered. “It takes me five minutes to extract shadow essence from a dead body. You get your spark essence in seconds.”

  “I had to train for months.”

  “And you did that with nothing but your anecdote as a guide. You’re the talented brat here.”

  Wolfton chuckled.

  After their humiliating defeat at James’s hands, the two had sworn to grow stronger, fast and challenge him again in six months. They shared techniques with each other, each trying to outpace the other in a friendly race for power.

  Wolfton had taught Raven a method to gain shadow essence without relying on core shards.

  “Every champion draws power from a celestial energy to use their abilities,” Wolfton explained. “Each celestial’s energy is different, but all of them share a fundamental base — essence.”

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  “Essence is the core energy or intrinsic force that defines a being’s nature and fuels its abilities. It’s the underlying power that shapes identity, strength, and presence. But how it manifests depends on how someone perceives an element.”

  “For example, the celestial I champion uses fire and electricity. The two got lumped into one and became Spark Essence, the core attribute of my abilities.”

  “Yours is tied to shadows and darkness. So your energy source could be Twilight Essence, Shadow Essence, Eclipse Essence, Dark Essence, Night Essence, and so on.”

  “Hm. So celestials and their champions with similar powers have different essence names, even though the fundamental principle is the same?” Raven asked, hand on his chin.

  “Yes and no,” Wolfton said.

  “While the principle is the same, each person or rather each celestial, perceives the element differently. Nyx might see shadow as simple darkness, existing with or without light. Erebus might see it as primordial nothingness that assimilates all concepts.”

  “Interesting… So even if they use the same element, their interpretation shapes their essence, giving it a unique name. Makes sense.”

  “Ever wonder how you get essence from core shards?”

  “Let me guess,” Raven said. “Since essence comes from a unique interpretation of an element, everything, living and nonliving, should contain a little bit of every element. What we extract from core shards is the compressed portion of the element we have affinity for. The rest gets expelled or converted into mana.”

  “You… Never mind.” Wolfton sighed.

  “You’re right. We absorb the elements we have affinity to, while the rest gets expelled as latent heat. And if someone absorbs a shard aligned perfectly with their element affinity, they get double, sometimes triple the essence depending on their mastery.”

  It made sense to Raven. Sharing affinity with a shard would naturally increase essence gain.

  Still… he wondered whether he had gotten extra essence from the Beastodon core shard he had recklessly absorbed. It had shown affinity to shadows, just like him.

  But he doubted he got any bonus. The system had punished him hard for absorbing a Mystic Beast shard before his body was ready. The more he thought about it, the more painful it felt.

  He had wasted something priceless.

  “Right now,” Wolfton snapped Raven out of his thoughts, “I want to teach you a trick to get more essence apart from core shard absorption.”

  “Like you said, everything around us, living or nonliving, carries a bit of every element: fire, water, earth, air, light, darkness, shadow, heat, ice, mist, and so on.”

  Heat is an element? Raven wondered.

  I guess it’s about perception. Lots of things besides fire produce heat… so it stands as its own element. Makes sense.

  “We can extract a small amount of essence from dead organisms by resonating with the element we want,” Wolfton continued. “Let me show you.”

  A dead boar lay in front of them. Wolfton stretched out his hand, and small sparks ignited along the boar’s body and shot into his fingertips.

  “See that? The boar is dead, and its core shard, which is usually linked to the soul, is gone. So why do you think I got a reaction?”

  “Because the core shard isn’t the only container of condensed energy,” Raven answered. “The body retains a bit too. Even after the shard is gone, residual essence still lingers.”

  “You mentioned resonance earlier. Sounds like finding mana frequency to form an aura. All I need to do is look for my element, shadow, and sync with it.”

  Raven stretched out his hand toward the boar.

  Nothing happened.

  Wolfton smirked, ready to tease him, but Raven’s face had turned completely focused.

  Ten minutes passed.

  A wisp of shadow rose from the boar’s corpse and flowed into Raven’s fingertips. Raven smirked.

  “Took a while, but I got it. Thanks, Wolfton.”

  Wolfton sighed in resignation.