282 Spirit
Nero woke up feeling completely refreshed, though the unfamiliar surroundings had him confused for a time.The sight of a doctor put him at ease, however, when he recalled everything that had happened.
"Looks like you're up," said a nearby doctor. "Don't move while we do a final check. Once we're done, someone will come and explain things to you."
The doctor pulled out a few cards and began to check up on Nero, while Nero himself checked the condition of his body. Previously, he thought he was absolutely fine, but only now that he had rested for a time did he realise the mistakes he made.
His body was suddenly much stronger, and a doctor's evaluation would definitely reveal as much, which wasn't good. The fact that he hadn't even thought as much revealed just how mentally drained he had actually been.
There was also one more, critical piece of information he seemed to have overlooked. Virtuous Moonlight did not completely eliminate curses, but just put them in a sealed state. Whatever had happened to him was a result of a curse - that much was obvious. He had used that innate ability to save his life, but where did the sealed curse go? Was it inside his body?
He could not inspect his physical body for signs of abnormality, at least without any cards that did specifically that, but he closed his eyes and checked his internal aether. After months of manipulating it, Nero had become extremely familiar with how aether was distributed across his body.
If there was an abnormality, he should be able to find it.
Slowly and meticulously, he went over the aether distribution in his body, checking to see if everything was normal. A few times, he even manipulated his internal aether to check for anything that might be amiss, and learned two things.
First, with the newfound strength of his body, manipulating his internal aether was not nearly as effective as it used to be. It was as if the technique had an upper limit of power it could achieve, and Nero had naturally crossed that. In a way, that was a good thing. Multiple people had warned him of the dangers of internal aether manipulation, which had caused Nero to use it less, but it was still an effective tool for him. Now that he naturally surpassed what aether manipulation could do, he could finally stop using it. After a few more tests, of course.
The second thing he learned was that there was indeed something inside his body - something that displaced the aether of the region it occupied. The problem was that it was within the base of his spine, and Nero could not move it using his aether.
If he wanted to get it out, he'd have to find another way. That curse was really not something he wanted to carry around with him. Then again, if he could somehow find a way to ensure the seal on it would not break, it would be a highly lethal weapon for him to use against someone else. But, yet again, that would require him to first remove it from his body, so he was back to square one.
"Your tests are clear," said the doctor who had seen Nero the day before. She walked in holding a number of tests which she showed Nero, though he could make no sense of them at all. "You were suffering from a Spirit drain - an uncommon phenomenon among Neophytes. I don't expect you're too familiar with the application of Spirit, are you?"
"Unless you're talking about team spirit, I'm not sure what you mean," Nero said, confirming her suspicion.
"Not to worry. You're not expected to know about it either. I will, however, give you a brief overview on the topic. Spirit is a broad term that encompasses a few different meanings, but only because they are all interconnected. In essence, Spirit is a kind of mental energy that you expend to control aether and spells. Everyone has different amounts of Spirit. It hardly becomes relevant before the Mystic realm because the amount of Spirit used to control your innate ability or spells before such a level is small enough for the body to recover naturally.
"Moreover, it is very unusual to suffer a Spirit drain as you did, for most people have enough Spirit that they can comfortably go through the first three levels of being a Card Master without issue. At the Mystic level, however, each spell and ability are so strong that they put a significant strain on the user's Spirit. None of that has anything to do with you for now.
"What should concern you is why you suffered a Spirit drain so you can avoid it in the future. It would take your body about four days of continuous rest to recover naturally from a Spirit drain, so it's important to be aware of this. Based on reports, we suspect that your Spirit drain is actually a result of the Soul curse you suffered. However, it is also possible that the strain of whatever spell you used to resist that Soul curse is responsible for your condition.
"Spirit drain, seemingly, does not seem dangerous, considering you may have felt fine. But the reality of the situation is that the more your Spirit is drained, the poorer your performance index becomes and brain fog sets in. It's like when you get exhausted, your brain doesn't work as well when you're fresh. That means that the dangers of Spirit drain, at your level, is indirect death. "Of course, if you ever reach a level of Spirit depletion, meaning you completely expend your Spirit, then that's immediate death at your level. So if you ever detect you're heading towards Spirit drain, then you need to extricate yourself from that situation."
"Thanks, that's good to know," Nero said, acknowledging the seriousness of the situation. But it was just one more thing to watch out for, and even then, it was not something he was overly concerned about. Instead, there was another topic that had his attention.
"Can you tell me about the kind of attack that struck me? How can I identify or avoid it?"
The doctor shook her head, displaying her helplessness.
"I have no idea about that. If someone has reported the situation from yesterday to the command tent, then they have probably come up with a countermeasure. You should check with them."
Nero thanked the doctor, and jumped off the bed, flexing all his muscles to see how they felt. Naturally, they all felt amazing, and oozing with immense power. Considering Nero's increased physical strength, he considered shifting from a spear to a halberd, but that would be a bad decision.
Despite seeming similar to a spear, the way the two weapons were used was significantly different, and Nero had not trained with halberds before. Not to mention, they weren't all too common anyway, so the base might not even have one.
Feeling a little fortunate that no one had questioned him on his sudden increase in strength, Nero left the field hospital and made his way to the command centre, where he discovered Vanessa and the rest of his team undergoing a briefing.
Upon entering, Nero discovered that they were being briefed on their mission in the following hours. Sunrise would be in less than an hour, but instead of them, the Arcanist team would be deployed for a couple of hours, to scout and clear the path for them.
The briefing continued for a while, listing possible locations where the desired ingredients might be found, and all the locations they would be checking in short order.
It seemed he had missed the part of the briefing where they discussed Soul curses, but Vanessa filled him in. Basically, it was not something that Neophytes could easily defend themselves from.
The artisans in the base were working on an incredibly rare 0 star card that would help them defend against such curses, but it was uncertain when it would be produced, so at least for the next excursion they would have to go without it.
The briefing finally ended and the Neophytes gathered together to go for breakfast. Considering the fact that they would be spending hours and hours in Perilith, getting a good breakfast was exceptionally important.
"Hey, I'm glad you're doing alright," Daisy said, walking up to Nero. "That was really scary when you started producing black smoke yesterday."
"Yeah, I'm glad you're alright man," said Mel. "I'm not saying we can't hold our own without you, but it feels a hell of a lot safer with you around."
Nero grinned, yet scratched his head awkwardly as if the compliment was making him feel shy. Vanessa, who knew just how confident Nero really was, rolled her eyes. He was putting up a front for them to see, she could tell. The two girls getting chummy with Nero irritated her, though, for some reason.
"Yeah, you're strong," Clarissa said with a nod. "I'd love to fight you properly once all this is over."
"Do you think you could give us some fighting tips?" Noman asked.
This time, as he was surrounded by the whole group who kept focusing on him and asking him questions, Nero's smile was genuine.
From the get go, his intention had been to make a good impression, and he had achieved. From experience he knew that everyone gravitated towards the strong, so by proving himself strong, he'd gotten rid of any feeling of alienation that had existed between him and the rest of the group. Now they gathered around him on his own.
"You guys are pretty good too," Nero said modestly. "If we all train together regularly, our teamwork is bound to improve, which will raise everyone's strength."
It would also bring him closer to Noman, who would trust Nero more, but that was not something he said out loud. December release schedule