NOVEL WEB Chapter 23: Unique Power - Absorption
Chapter 23: Unique Power - Absorption
I felt myself falling. Surrounding me was an eternal darkness. Every inch, every centimeter, every molecule, every atom, every quark was filled with his power. The infinite and eternal abyss stretched beyond the boundaries which the human eye could see. I was not physically there, it was a projection of my being, my soul. But I could still sense the overwhelming strength that filled this entire land. It ebbed, vibrated, and pulsed through the air, sending ripples of thoughts incomprehensible to anyone but me.
Twinkling lights of memories from years past dotted the world in a beautiful visual arrangement. They spoke of events that changed people, events that defined life, and events that defined how a person lived. The unlimited nuances, the minuscule detailing, the infinitesimally tiny moments in time that held such impact as to become a monumental moment of life. This is what was spoken of by the lights. The lights danced in the void with motivations known only to two.
In the center of this space, was him. A swirling sphere of unimaginable scale was next to the both of us. It seemed to stretch beyond the borders of the infinite darkness yet folded in on itself to become infinitely small. Half of it white, half of it black. This domain was the domain of the soul. This realm spoke the thoughts and truths that lie at the bottom of my heart, protected by the soul.
‘You drew me in deep, very deep.’
‘...’
‘I’m sure you enjoyed that. Seeing me lose control.’
‘...’
‘What am I gonna do? Kill you?’
‘...’
‘You exerted a lot of power in that moment to break through. If it weren’t for the spirits from earlier you wouldn’t have gotten a sliver of power through.’
‘...’
‘I’m leaving, at the very least, you won’t be able to talk to me for a while.’
‘...’
‘Go to hell.’
…
I woke up slowly. My vision was blurry and lights shined into my eyes painfully. I couldn’t process my current location. I squinted my eyes tightly and then forced them open with all my strength to force them to adjust faster.
As my vision quickly regained focus I sat up from the place I was lying in. I quickly realized that I was in the dorm room I had been assigned to with Roland, Vivian, and Violet. A blanket was draped across my body and a nearby fireplace cackled delightfully. Looking toward my left, I saw the time, 10:52 PM. I lay down again, allowing myself to be enveloped by warmth and comfort.
“You hungry?” Someone said.
I turned toward the sound of the voice. Vivian walked towards me and placed a tray with food and a glass of milk on a coffee table in front of me. She sat opposite me, on another couch.
I regretfully sat up again and tossed the blanket off of me, allowing the chill of the room to set in. I grabbed the plate and allowed its comforting warmth to spread from my fingers to the rest of my body. Vivian pulled out a napkin and unrolled it, revealing a set of metal utensils. I thanked her and began to eat.
The meal consisted of some steak, mashed potatoes, and some asparagus. I took my first bite of the steak and felt my mouth burst with delicious flavor. The juice oozed out with every bite, covering my tongue with a delicious savory fluid. Vivian was excellent at cooking, even better than I was, and I was fairly confident in my skill. The mashed potatoes were equally excellent. Smooth, flowing, and with a buttery fatness, it filled my entire body with a comforting warmth. Add onto that some well-seasoned asparagus and the meal was truly incredible.
‘Roland probably loved this,’ I thought to myself. Steak with mashed potatoes and asparagus was an extremely common meal in Ameriac.
Despite the incredible meal though, my dinner was slightly sullied by the awkwardness of the situation. Neither Vivian nor I spoke to each other for several minutes. Our empty and uncomfortable silence was filled by the sound of a cackling fire and my utensils touching the plate. Eventually, it reached a point where I couldn’t stay silent any longer. I took a deep breath and spoke.
“Thank you for helping me Vivian,” I said. I felt myself blush as the memory filled my head again. I still felt her hand on my cheek.
“Uh… you’re welcome,” she said back. She turned her head downward, hiding her face behind long hair. She nervously began to twirl her fingers in circles around her hair, looping them around and then unlooping them over and over again.
‘Fuck… well this is going wonderfully.’
I nearly banged my head on the coffee table in my frustration. Why was I struggling to talk to her right now? I had talked to her during the second selection with such ease. But now I could barely look her in the eye. As I was thinking this my eyes were subconsciously drawn to her hand which had so delicately touched me in the second selection and drawn me out of my horrid mental state.
“Mark…” Vivian suddenly said.
I looked at her with a start. “Yeah?”
“What happened to you during the final obstacle?”
I froze up for a moment. I knew that I would eventually be asked this. Regardless of how emotional I may have been at the time, my actions were extreme and horrifyingly brutal. It was like I was a different person entirely. I had already prepared a response beforehand, but this event involved him. It made me uncomfortable just to think about what had happened. With a deep sigh, I told her my preplanned response.
“It was a side effect of my unique power, Absorption. I can absorb psychic energy in variable amounts.
Vivian nodded. She stared so intently at me that I nearly turned my gaze away from her. I felt like a bug in a test tube, being observed by a scientist who was watching and recording everything I did. I somewhat hesitantly continued my explanation.
“Psychic powers are linked to the brain and soul, so when I absorb psychic powers I receive influence from the brain and soul of the person I’m absorbing from. I don’t know if you noticed, but during the landmine obstacle, after the landmine blew up, I felt like a different person for a while. That was because I absorbed the land mines psychic energy, allowing my specific area to remain untouched, but it also led to me inheriting the emotional state of the person who charged the land mine. I suspect it was the principal, considering how insane he is.”
All this time, Vivian didn’t do anything except look at me intently. I couldn’t help but appreciate how good of a listener she was, although her staring still creeped me out.
“A big problem and benefit I have with this unique power is that absorption is passive, meaning I’ll draw in some psychic energy from whatever surrounding there is. Psychic energy I gain from this can be suppressed by layering my power on top of it, but in the case that my power becomes sealed away I will become fully vulnerable.”
Vivian's face instantly brightened with understanding. Passive absorption could indeed be very powerful, I’d have a larger supply of psychic energy than normal and I would always be recharging in battle. But it also meant that I could absorb unwanted psychic energy which I would then have to suppress using my powers, wasting my strength on something that I was unable to control.
“The spirits,” she said. “You absorbed the hatred of the evil spirits and when your psychic energy was sealed by the wristband you became overwhelmed.”
I nodded, smiling sorrowfully at her. I so deeply wished to tell her the whole truth, but I couldn’t. What I said wasn’t explicitly a lie, but a single detail was omitted. Him. My heart longed to speak and my soul ached for release from this secret of mine, but I could not tell her.
“Yes, that’s what happened to me.”
Vivian suddenly stood up from her couch. She breathed in deeply and walked over to me, taking a seat by my side. She grabbed one of my hands and held it in a similar position that someone would take while arm wrestling.
She fixed her eyes on me and I was drawn back to when we had first met. For a moment I had been captivated, her eyes glistened and sparkled with a brilliant glow. It made me feel more than warmth and comfort. How lucky was I, to have the opportunity to know such a person?
During the second selection that was no longer there. It was replaced by a blankness. A void that held no soul. But as I looked into her eyes now, there was something there. A passion, a fire, it was small but I felt heat.
“Mark,” she said to me, “I owe you for helping me in the second selection. If we make it into AGH, tell me if you need any help ok?”
‘Is that really all?’ I was hoping a little more would happen.
“Deal,” I said. We brought our arms up and down like we were shaking hands, the deal was set.
Strangely though, Vivian began eyeing my hand weirdly. She moved her head around it, analyzing it like a dog would analyze a new chew toy.
“Your fingers are long.”
‘...’
I was stunned in silence for a few seconds before bursting out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. It wasn’t the first time that someone had told me I had long fingers, but the situation was never like this. I grabbed at my sides as a contracting pain spread throughout my torso. Vivian too, began to laugh.
‘I think it’s all right now,’ I thought to myself.
The flame in Vivian’s eyes was beautiful. I could see in it an unbreakable resolution and a powerful trauma. They mixed a merged, forming the sparks and heat necessary to set her will ablaze. It was saddening though, for the methods that had brought her to this point were horrific.
But there really was merit in those methods. I had full confidence, that she would pass the application.
…
The next day we received information about the results from the second selection. In total, 132 applicants were eliminated during the final selection, leaving only 68 applicants. The first obstacle eliminated 12 applicants. The second eliminated 31, the third eliminated 31, the fourth eliminated 17 and the fifth eliminated 41.
‘The principal said that the slower 100 half applicants would be eliminated, but it looks like that was unnecessary.’
I shook my head, I had underestimated AGH completely. Their application was meant to weed out any individual who wasn’t prepared to be an elite hero. To pass the second selection an applicant needed unshakeable willpower. However, AGH’s track record of consistently producing elite heroes proved the effectiveness of the application. Everyone who qualified to take the application at AGH was already a genius, having reached B-Rank by 16, but the difference between an A-Rank and a B-Rank was large, and the difference between A-Ranks and S-Ranks was even larger. Yet a massive 50% of AGH students ended up reaching S-Rank, a statistic only 4 other schools globally compared to.
“Mark you ready?”
I snapped back into focus from my brainstorming and turned around to face Roland. We stood in the middle of an abandoned city set. AGH had opened up an arena for the applicants to use as a form of preparation before the third selection, which was a tournament between applicants. Roland, Violet, Vivian, and I had flipped coins to decide who would fight who since each applicant was only allowed one session per day.
On all sides of us were buildings mimicking a real-life city, from the asphalt to the concrete sidewalks to the stores, and the cars, everything was intricately detailed to perfectly mimic a real city. We only got one street though as there simply wasn’t enough room to allow for more. Faintly, I could hear the sounds of a battle breaking out between other psychics. Violet and Vivian were probably among them.
“I’m ready Roland,” I said, taking a fighting stance. Roland mimicked me, although he was obviously not trained in any form of martial arts. His hands hung too low and his legs were too close together. Luckily my father had insisted I take basic martial, providing me a small advantage.
Both of us stood still, neither willing to move. I felt the wind blow lightly and my hair got tossed around. Pebbles were blown away, moving on the ground like ants. Up above us a flock of birds rapidly flew away, frightened from the surrounding battles. The wind now began to blow even harder, in fact, it increased at a surprisingly violent rate. I began pushing against the wind to retain my footing.
‘Something isn’t right…’
It was when I observed Roland carefully that I realized what was happening. I saw him smile as I suddenly felt a massive gust of wind send me flying into a nearby building. As I crashed through the window of the store I formed a shield to surround my body, protecting myself from falling glass. Roland had started the battle the moment the wind started blowing. He used the elemental manipulation of air to increase the wind speed to the point where I was blown clean off my feet. He was an elemental specialist, I should have expected that.
I leaped out of the shop with a ball of energy in my hand and my body wrapped in psychic energy, immediately looking towards where Roland was earlier. To my dismay, however, he had vanished. As I looked around the ground beneath my feet suddenly cracked open and I felt Roland pull me downwards.
‘Shit!’
I seized the arm he had grabbed me with and pulled him towards me. He shot out of the ground like a bullet and I felt myself get pulled awkwardly along with him. We spun uncontrollably in the air and crashed onto the ground. I reached out to the ground and manipulated the earth to form a bat for me to use. Before Roland got up I filled it with psychic power and swung. The reinforced bat slammed into Roland’s side and I felt cracking through the bat.
Roland screamed in pain and slammed his fist onto the ground. A pillar of earth shot up from beneath him, lifting him back to the surface. I smiled inwardly, unlike with Jerricho I had a chance to beat Roland here. This time, I had a chance at victory.
End of Chapter 23