Chapter 37: Temptations I
Nero was tempted, but only made a mental note of this possibility and did not act on it. The normal way of cultivating was slow, and he had estimated that it would likely take him between one to two years to become an Initiate if that's all he relied on. Although that sounded like it was a lot, by normal standards his speed would be absolutely blazing.
There were countless students who became Neophytes long before Nero, but still did not become Initiates by the time they entered higher education. Taking five years to become an Initiate was considered average.
So it was clear that Nero was extremely talented just based on his speed alone. But Nero himself was not satisfied with progress at this pace. He did not believe that there weren't faster methods of cultivating out there. But he was not eager to begin testing new methods out on himself. He needed to do some research first.
In the meantime, he studied how the aether seemed to just appear inside his body, and how it was being absorbed. There was almost no loss of aether as nearly all of it was absorbed by him. That was both because the aether originated within his body, and because it was extremely docile when compared to ambient aether.
But he knew that there must be more to it than just that. If not, then there should have been no method faster for replenishing aether than eating aether dust. But that was not a viable method as it led to a combination of aether poisoning and constipation. This was a topic he studied every year in school so that students were constantly reminded not to try it.
Eventually, Nero felt that he had restored enough aether. He signalled Footer to let him know that he was beginning, before summoning the Cryoflame around his stomach.
It was unusual, as he normally visualised it in his hands. But the novelty of the situation did not bring about any difficulty as Nero summoned the flame starting from below his navel.
The flame summoned was much larger than normal, a necessity of the region it was summoned, and it enveloped Nero's entire torso, front and back. It felt no different than any other time using the flame, but it suddenly inspired Nero. If, theoretically, he was facing an enemy who used fire or heat based attacks, could he wrap himself in his blue flames and form an armour around himself?
The idea was appealing, but it was practically infeasible, as Nero felt the immense drain on his aether reserves from the larger flame. After a few minutes, he was once again depleted of all aether. Fortunately, anticipating the vertigo, Nero had sat on the floor cross legged before beginning the experiment.
A throbbing headache suddenly developed, and Nero sensed that repeatedly depleting his aether in a short period was not a good idea.
But amidst the onslaught of numerous ailments, there was one silver lining: the potion kept working as intended, which meant that he was quickly relieved of his state of depletion.
"It's still working," he reported to Footer, opening his eyes. But what he saw immediately startled him.
At some point, without him realising, Footer had taken advantage of his shut eyes to surround him with some equipment that was unnervingly close to touching him.
"You lasted four minutes and twenty seconds," Footer informed Nero. "During that time I tested the flame out with several different pieces of equipment. This rod," he said, pointing to the one that nearly touched his stomach, "was at 50 degrees celsius (122 Fahrenheit) while this one was at 0 celsius (32 F)."
The second rod was on his right side, underneath his folded arm.
"The one that was at 0 dropped to -2 C (28 F) in that time, while the one at 50 dropped all the way to 12 C ( 53 F). The other rods corroborate the test results. The rate at which your flames affect a material have more to do with their initial temperatures. But even so, dropping the temperature of an object from 0 C to -2 C in just four minutes is still extremely impressive.
"We will repeat this test a few more times to see if we can determine some kind of pattern or formula for the correlation between cooling factor and initial temperature of an object, but that will wait till tomorrow. We'll also have to check what the minimum temperature your flame can bring something to. This has given me enough data to compile a few different tests. You'll have a busy schedule from now on. You better get used to the feeling of running your aether dry."
"Not a problem," said Nero hoarsely as he stood up. Despite feeling abysmal physically, mentally Nero felt extremely motivated. He was finally learning about his ability, and despite its massive cost, it was extremely potent.
"By the way, you also did not detect a 50 C rod extremely close to your chest. Under normal circumstances, you should have at least felt its warmth even through your clothes. This is another thing we'll have to test. Have you lost your sensitivity towards temperatures, or was it just because of your flame that you did not sense it."
"Probably the latter," he muttered, but did not protest more testing.
"We'll find out. For today, testing is at an end. Go cultivate while the potion is still in effect. When you go to the cafeteria later, present them with this."
Footer, with his business as usual expression, handed Nero a golden and silver coupon with the initials MI on it.
"What's this?" he asked as he studied the coupon, but there were no hints on it.
"Find out for yourself," Footer said. For the briefest of seconds, Nero felt like he almost smiled. But the moment passed so quickly Nero may as well have been imagining it.
Instead of pestering him for an answer, Nero waddled out of the testing room, and made his way to a cultivation chamber.
Since he had not officially completed the basic cultivation class, any time he wanted to use the chamber he needed to let the school know and have someone there to monitor him in case of some issue. He didn't mind, since it proved no real obstacle. The school almost always had someone to assign as a monitor. After all, it was in their best interest as well if their students performed well.
After going through the process, Nero quickly settled down in the chamber and began to cultivate.
Once again, a part of him felt like experimenting if the aether from the potion could speed up his absorption of his innate card. Considering how gentle the aether produced from the potion was, and that it had not caused any issue so far, he was really tempted.
Ultimately, he gave in. He first checked to see if his assigned monitor was paying attention, which he was. Relieved to know that there would be help in case something went wrong, he closed his eyes and began his experiment.