The following days, Nero once again fell back into his training routine. Even though he was growing extremely fast due to the aether rich food, Footer always found new ways to exhaust him and tire him out.
But beside his immense physical growth, Nero also discovered that his intense routine benefited his cultivation as well. By Tuesday of his second week, Nero had reached 2% absorption!
Although it was not intense growth, it was the first time he had made measurable progress, and he hadn't even been spending much time actually cultivating. This was just a passive result of the copious amount of aether that was flowing through his body, not only due to the food he was eating, but because of his training as well.
To respect Silas' privacy, Nero did not share details of his card with anyone, but he did use it before one of his training sessions with Footer. Although he did learn a lot about his ability, it was not as fruitful as he expected.
Unfortunately, his ability did not have a fixed or consistent cooling effect that could be measured. How rapidly his ability cooled something down depended not only on the object's original temperature, but on how much aether it contained.
Unlike how his mothers Snowflake acted as fuel for his fire, other objects resisted his flames, even if they were icy in nature. It was strange because they were not able to find any other item, aether rich or deprived, that acted in the same way. Instead, they always used their aether to resist his flames.
That is what led them to eventually begin testing against cursed objects. This was something Nero would normally need to wait a long time for, and gain great proficiency with his innate ability before he could do. But due to his unique circumstances, not to mention the fact that Nero got the subtle feeling that neither Footer nor Ms.
Zim cared all that much about what they were supposed to do, Nero got the opportunity early.
They had to go to a restricted part of the school that was in another building and under the highest level of supervision. All cursed objects, plants, and animals were kept there. In individual prisons.
It was an interesting yet intimidating place, because although the building was tiny, and inside it Nero could see the individual prisons. They were all blacked out, so he had no idea what was inside. But he could feel the immense amounts of aether radiating from the building.
Eventually, he was brought to a testing room, where the cursed items or creatures would be brought to him.
"We're going to start out with something basic," Footer told him, standing behind Nero. Instead of his regular ruler, though, Footer was holding a baton just in case the situation went out of control and he needed it. Nero, too, was not allowed to make direct contact with anything here, and had to use a weapon as an intermediary.
A guard wearing thickly padded armour brought in a box on a cart, and carefully slid the box in a designated spot in the centre of the room.
"Don't let the precautions scare you," Footer said, his eyes fixed on the box and his voice devoid of any emotion. "The vines you faced are a lot more dangerous than anything you'll be facing today. So just focus on the tests."
Nero nodded, and tightened his grip on the spear handed to him. By now, he had learnt how he was able to light the fire just on the tip of the blade instead of the whole spear. Within a small range, he could control where the flame appeared on an object he was touching, like a projection of his own body. However, the farther the flame was lit, the more energy it consumed.
But at the moment, Nero felt like he was bursting with aether, so it wasn't a problem. He fit the tip of the spear with his blue flame and waited for the box to be lifted.
A few moments later, the box levitated up seemingly on its own, revealing a potted plant underneath. Nero could not identify which specific plant it was, but was able to determine that it was a type of fern.
It was lush green and showed no abnormality of any sort, sitting absolutely still as one would typically expect from a plant. But Nero was not naive. It was most definitely cursed, he just didn't know what specific type of curse it was.
Regardless, he slowly pushed his spear forward so that the flame would touch the plant. The point of the test was not to hack the plant with the spear, but test how his flames affected curses.
The moment the flame touched the plant it released a sizzling sound and the flame began to dance rapidly on the tip of the spear, as if it was resisting being put out. Nero felt a strain, and the flames began to use a marginally greater amount of aether to stay burning.
After about twenty seconds, the sizzling stopped and the flame turned to normal, and began to spread to the plant.
"That's enough," said Footer. "You can withdraw the flame."
Nero did as instructed, and tried to observe for any changes, but could not tell if anything had changed at all. He was naturally not using Arithmetic Perception because, regardless of how useful it might be, he had to save it for his card crafting.
But while he was not using any spells, that was not true for Footer.
"It's very curious. Your flame combated the curse first, and was unable to affect the plant until the curse went dormant. Only once the energy from the curse disappeared did it begin to freeze the plant. If this pattern continues, you may be able to use your flame for purifying purposes, even though that's not its original trait. But, keep in mind, it did not completely purify the curse.
It only used up its energy. Further testing will be required to determine if it can eliminate the curse without affecting the plant, or if it needs to kill the plant entirely to achieve that. For now, we will move onto the next subject."
"Is cursed energy the same as aether?" Nero asked curiously. It was something he had not yet covered in class.
"Not at all. During your higher education, you will have classes that study the various traits and behaviours of aether. But, in general, it can be summarised to be filled with vitality, or vital energy. Anything with aether becomes more active, or reactive, and in general tends to add or contribute to its environment.
That remains true even for extremely volatile things containing aether, such as different kinds of fires. Even if they burn things, they leave behind especially rich fertilisers in the form of ash.
"Curses, however, are completely different. We do not have a strict definition of cursed energy, because its behaviour is random and does not always follow strict patterns. But, seen on a broad scale, curses consume things to grow themselves without providing any benefit to their environment.
"As such, we can estimate that cursed energy is energy that is formed when a curse consumes something. It is harmful to us, though that harm may present in different ways. Sometimes it's more obvious than others. Like I said, we cannot easily predict how curses will behave."
"But we still categorise curses, right? Even if the behaviour is random, don't we have any prediction guidelines to go by at all?"
"The thing with that is, there is no unanimously agreed upon standard by which to judge curses. The one used in school to teach you is based on how curses manifest, and in what situations you may encounter them. The problem with teaching with such a method is that curses may still manifest in ways contrary to what you have been taught. So, in a way, your knowledge sets a trap for you to fall into.
That's why you wait till higher education, or military training, to learn some identifying traits that usually indicate a certain type of curse behaviour. You are then also taught the appropriate precautions in case the analysis fails to give the proper result.
"The reason you're not taught such classes in high school is because its syllabus is too vast. Right now, your curriculum is centered around teaching you the general basics. There's typically no need to get into such matters. Now enough chitchat, we're going to continue testing. We have 13 more plant types to test on, and then we're going to move onto cursed objects.
Tomorrow we'll test on cursed creatures, and the day after that… Well, if the tests go well up until that point, you may test against abstract curses. If you manage to make it to that class, it will be an interesting experience for you."
Nero only nodded. One way to identify a cursed plant was the sizzling he encountered earlier. He would see if the other plants reacted similarly. This may be an easy way to locate curses!