Nero nearly lost his composure as he observed his innate card at the end of the night. He had spent some time killing the roaches in various ways, testing not only how the condition of the body affected how much aether he could absorb, but also how he could use the card most effectively.
As it turned out, as long as he used the card on himself, its effect would stay active for a few minutes. Within that time frame, whenever he touched any dead roach he would absorb the vitality from it. Alternatively, he could directly target the body, and absorb the vitality from it remotely.
Predictably, the better the condition of the body, the more vitality he could absorb. Though another important thing he noticed is that the effects of the card weren't subtle on the body. It almost always withered and crumpled, and in case the body was frozen, shattered.
Moreover, if he used the card on a target from a distance, the vitality transferring from the body to him would be detectable in the form of aether fluctuations. So this was not something he could casually use in front of people.
Perhaps that's why his father recommended he use plants for this, since it would be expected for him to kill any plants in his way. Oftentimes, killing them resulted in the destruction of their bodies anyway, so no one would be able to tell if Nero absorbed their vitality.
Nero thought of countless ways in which he could use this card to help him speed up his innate card absorption. Once he was done with his experimentation, he decided to keep trying to make the card. Since he had the time and the ingredients, there was no point in trying to limit himself to just one of the cards, so he began once more.
His second attempt resulted in failure right at the very end, although Nero strongly suspected that the failure was due to contamination of the ingredients in some way rather than his own mistake. But he was not yet skilled and experienced enough to make a definitive judgement. Fortunately, his third attempt succeeded, and he ended up with 2 Radix Augmentation cards.
Nero then destroyed every remaining ingredient. It was a waste, but he could not risk any chance at all for someone to deduce what ingredients he used.
Once he was done Nero was about to leave to get the few hours of rest he could manage before his 6 am meeting with the commander, but on a whim decided to see how much of his card he had absorbed. It was a completely impulsive decision since he only recently reached 8% and had not spent enough time absorbing aether to have made a difference.
Which was why he was completely unprepared when he realised that he had, in fact, absorbed 9% of his innate card!
That difference of a single percentage stopped him dead in his tracks because he knew full well how difficult it was to make any kind of progress. For it to take weeks would be considered quick, and for it to take months would not be unusual.
One could argue that his progress had been extremely rapid so far as well, but that could be justified. If he spent all day everyday working out and exhausting his aether reserves and refilling them, and over a period of weeks such a routine helped him speed up the absorption then it was justified.
In a way, everyone could find out such a way to increase absorption speed, but how many could commit to such a rigorous routine even if they knew the benefits? But did he just replicate those weeks of progress by killing a jar full of roaches? Actually, to be exact, a mere 91 roaches!
But then Nero stopped himself from over-thinking. He refused to believe that the card would be so effective that just a few roaches could increase his absorption amount by an entire percent. If that were the case both his parents would be sages by now.
No, the most likely answer was that he was already on the verge of increasing the amount, and the roaches had just been the final push. Regardless, the card had already proved its worth!
If he could continue this progress, then it would take him only a few months before he became an Initiate. It might even be possible to reach that level before an entire year as a Neophyte was completed.
Nero paused, and had to think for a moment if such speedy progress was advised. Would it attract the wrong kind of attention? Since he was in the spotlight now, he needed to reevaluate his plans.
Regardless, he would first at least get close to the limit of Neophyte before thinking about when to enter the next realm.
Nero cleaned up the room and finally got to his bunk just in time to get four hours of sleep. It was not ideal, but with only three days left before deployment it was important that he crafted the card.
At exactly 6:00 am Nero reported to the commander's office, which was not hard to find. All he had to do was ask someone. He was not surprised to find Bael in the office as well, grimacing. Clearly he knew something and wasn't happy about it.
What the commander had planned ended up being a very strange experience. Apparently, back during his early years in the army, there was a tradition if two recruits fought or developed a grudge. The day after the fight, they would buy each other breakfast as a sign to bury the hatchet.
There were many such traditions in place which were an informal way for the army to ensure that relations between soldiers don't deteriorate too far. It could be ignorable at the lower levels, but an Arcanist or someone stronger with a grudge against a fellow comrade could end very poorly for everyone involved.
So, basically, the commander skipped over the purchasing part of the tradition and wanted the two to have breakfast together, and talk things out. But after making his wish known, he left them, bringing an awkward silence in the room.
But Nero was not one to care but awkwardness and immediately began eating, and made some polite small talk. Bael too attempted to not be entirely obnoxious.
All in all, once breakfast was over, Nero was free to go, though he wasn't exactly sure what to make of the incident. He didn't have much time to consider things either, since he was once again summoned so that his briefing could continue.
He was then briefed about his second mission, which would be a joint mission alongside many other teams to wipe out curses and any obstacles in what the army was guessing was a research facility. The research facility was currently enshrouded in fog, so there was no way to know what they could expect.
The briefing for the third mission was strange. The major used a card to embed the details of the third mission in his brain, but they would only be revealed at the appropriate time. He did not know what that time might be, but the excessive caution that the major was taking hinted at the fact that it was especially important.
The rest of the day Nero spent studying documents and memorising various details about Lumina that he might need to know. It was not easy, since many of the documents were redacted. It seemed like, for whatever reason, the army did not want too many details about what the Eldrim were actually like to spread, which was strange.
Two days before deployment, Nero finally got his hands on the names of his teammates for his Fire squad. He had forwarded the names of people he wanted on his team to the major, but there was no guarantee that he'd be able to facilitate his request.
Much to the disappointment of Nero and Silas, Silas remained on Bael's team still. He did, however, manage to get Gabriel, Wendy and Harold on his team. Besides them, there were two more members in his team, one of whom was a private with the designation Jackal.
Nero had met Jackal before during his training, since Jackal's innate ability greatly complimented his own. The two had trained extensively together, and so their teamwork had improved tremendously.
Moreover, Jackal was an army asset. He had not shared the details of his background, but from what Nero could gather he had basically been in the army from birth. Some orphans whose parents had powerful, extremely useful or extremely dangerous abilities were kept and raised by the army, which was common knowledge. Nero could only guess that Jackal was one of such people.
That left the last member of their team, Remi. Remi was also an army asset, but from the folder Nero got on her, it did not seem like she had any combat capabilities at all!