As it turned out, it was a good thing that Nero did not leave the hospital as soon as he woke up. That was because he only learnt later that he had been sleeping for over a day. The headline for the previous day's newspaper was not about Nero, but about the massive vine invasion that rocked the city.
The death toll was extremely high - higher than it had ever been in Nero's life. No one knew where the vine creatures officially originated from, as there was no such flora near the city itself.
The number of people assuming that it was another terrorist attack was not small, and most looked towards Dolziya, Kolar's neighbour on the east. But there was no proof, which is why there had been no official response yet.
All of that aside, the reason the attack of the vines had been so successful was because of a few traits that they had. The vines grew out of tiny seeds which would embed themselves in skin, clothes or fur.
The vines absorbed aether to grow, and their growth was drastic. On humans, they waited till the target was asleep to begin absorbing the aether to grow within the body first. After hijacking the body's ability to control aether, they began to grow outwards.
The terrifying thing was that these vines could absorb energy from absolutely anything, so long as it was aether. That meant humans, but also powerlines, potions, ingredients, batteries, aether shards or about anything else. The most dangerous thing was that if the vines absorbed enough energy, they could transcend levels in a single day!
That meant a vine that absorbed enough energy could easily reach up to the Arcanist level.
The only good news they had was that the vines could not sustain such growth. They need to constantly absorb aether from external sources, such as humans or items, or else their level will begin to fall. They were completely incapable of absorbing ambient aether on their own.
There may be more to learn about the vines, but that's what the newspaper said. Technically, that had nothing to do with Nero - except that it did!
A doctor showed up a few hours after Nero woke up with a test that reported that hundreds of vine seeds had been detected in Nero's body! Fortunately, they had all frozen to death!
Nero could only assume that he had been injected when the massive vine creature grabbed him. At that time, he had his entire body burning in his blue flame, which is probably what killed the seeds. Still, they needed to be removed.
At any other time, the removal process would have been swift and painless. But considering how the entire town of Aetherpeak had been overrun with vines, with countless vine creatures reaching the level of the last creature Nero had fought, all medical staff were under great pressure.
So while the removal process was still swift, it involved a doctor using a card that literally ripped the dead seeds out of his body, which was most of Nero's chest. Fortunately, the seeds were not buried deep or his organs would have been compromised and the removal process would have been much more difficult.
Due to a lack of anaesthesia, Nero had to endure that unpleasant experience in full. At least the healing process afterwards was quick.
But he was still kept in the hospital for two more days for observation. They knew next to nothing about the vines, so they had to be sure that there would be no more unexpected surprises.
While those two days limited Nero in what he could do, that did not mean he was free to do as he pleased. Much to his displeasure, Gabriel extensively went over the power dynamics and relationships between the many great families, and how Nero now fit into them.
Nero, naturally, took the lesson very seriously and learned everything that Gabriel taught, but his personal beliefs were somewhat different. Yes, he was most likely about to face off a bunch of other teenagers from great families, but that didn't also mean that they weren't their own people. Personal interests and family interests did not necessarily have to be the same.
He also didn't believe that the relationships were as clear cut as Gabriel was making them out to be.
When he was finally discharged, Nero left the hospital to a… completely restored and functional Aetherpeak. The infrastructure was repaired, the damage undone, supply chains restored, all of that stuff. The only thing missing were the people that died during the attack - they couldn't be brought back.
That's how it always was. Kolar, with access to the Aether mountain range, was the richest country of the six, at least when it came to resources. Under the influence of Orchardists, the mines would never run out of ores, the food would always grow and with the technology that Nova sold to them, they would always remain functioning.
That is why, at least on paper, what Kolar valued most were its people.
That's what Nero grew up believing and being taught at least. Now… he could spot propaganda when he saw it.
School resumed, but it was a little depressing at first. As it happened, the worst of the casualties hadn't happened in hostels. Most of the students had been taken over by the vines, but instead of being killed, they were being used as an endless supply of aether, which is why most of them were only brutally physically and mentally scarred.
But even if they were alive, very few students were actually in a condition to attend. Most of them were still in hospitals. That included Harold and Wendy. Instead of being taken over by vines, they had suffered injuries while fighting them off. Nero did not know the extent of their injuries yet.
Very few others came to class besides him and Gabriel. Silas had not come either, though Nero was sure he was fine. Of their group, only Vanessa was there. Nero was not surprised to discover that she had come out of the incident wholly unharmed. Stealth really came in handy in such situations.
But Nero was not in the mood to chat with friends. Now, more than ever, he wanted to get stronger. He immediately made his way to Footer, and explained in great detail how he had been able to use his ability, including how he was able to use another ice-based spell as fuel to spread the flames once they left his control.
Then he requested that they speed up his training, with the KMA tournament in two months as his goal. Two months was a short time to make considerable progress as a cardmaster, but due to Nero's limelight the school was more than willing to invest in him heavily.
Footer designed a new training regime for him that would involve eating aether enriched food three times a day, but also burning all of it off each day! Almost every waking moment of his days would be spent training. If it were anyone else, surviving such training would have been near impossible. Maybe they would have survived a few days, but not more.
Nero on the other hand… he asked Footer to make an amendment so that he could continue his classes with the chatty Ms. Zim and have a few free hours on the weekends. After all, Nero needed to learn how to make a Radix Augmentation card and hopefully make it soon.
Footer obliged, and so began the most hellish training Nero had ever experienced, and it began with breakfast.
After eating an aether rich egg, Nero began training with Footer to improve his understanding and control over his innate ability. If he had known about the fact that Snowflake could be used as fuel for Cryoflame earlier, he may have done things differently in the hostel. He may have found a way to avoid getting caught. No matter what, that day, Nero had failed.
If he hadn't been lucky then he would have either died, or turned into a vine creature. Either was an unacceptable outcome for him.
During his training whenever physical or mental exhaustion would catch up to him, and they did, Nero would recall that suffocation. He would recall the feeling of being squeezed till his bones cracked and he couldn't move. He would recall the darkness that nearly closed in on him.
Then he would pick himself back up and continue to train.
After a week went by, more students had returned to school but Nero never returned to class. By now, rumours of his training had spread, and many began to speculate over his reasons. The most popular one was that he had been secretly dating someone and his secret girlfriend had been killed, which is why now he was focused on revenge.
They were only half right. Part of it was for revenge, but another part was also for self protection. After all, he had no idea what the Dom family thought of him, or if they even knew of him before the incident. But now he was set to receive a commendation from a sage, and they had killed his brother.
Gabriel hadn't needed to point out the fact that he had probably attracted their attention, though he did anyway.