Cyrus Solaris
I had to make sure my team won the next challenge. Solmane's news had reignited something in me, something I thought exhaustion had smothered.
In my room, I munched the berries. Within a few minutes, the fog in my brain lifted, and the fatigue weighing on my body was lifted.
Now it was time to prepare.
I didn't know what I needed for the next group test, so I felt getting some work done in my Nexus wouldn't hurt.
Closing my eyes, I let slow, steady breaths leave my body. My heart rate slowed, and a faint vibration spread through me.
The mental image of a glowing silver cord dangled before me. Imagined one hand after another taking hold of it. I pulled myself up, and a faint sound, a pop, whispered in my mind.
Now floating above my physical body, I willed my astral form to float towards the swirling portal above my astral tattoo.
Entering the dark expanse, I zipped past the six floating islands made of stardust to meet my favorite floating orb.
"Welcome back," Dox said, as the light coming from his orb flickered to life.
"Thanks for having me."
"Don't thank me, this place is yours. What can I help you with?"
"I'm ready to see my last node."
"As you wish.' In a sudden flash, my astral body was now floating above one of the islands in my nexus.
On the floating island, a large crystalline structure that branched like roots from a plant sparkled like sunlight on a glacier. It had been a while since I've examined my stellar pathway.
Seeing how my pathway split out like branches from the base rune reminded me how much I had to go to become powerful.
I lowered my astral feet, landing on the soft island. I hovered my hand over my first rune, which took the shape of a crystallized triangular dipyramid, and embedded cosmic energy into it.
The structure opened, revealing the three nodes that the rune housed.
Two nodes were mastered, now glowing magenta, and one remained white.
"Go on, activate it," Dox said, coaxing me to continue.
I did as he asked. When I imbued the node with cosmic energy, the meaning of the node translated itself to me. This one was called tidal forces.
"You look excited?" Dox said.
I paused for a moment. "It's because I've actually been learning about this in class."
"So this should be easy for you then."
I gave Dox a side eye, "Since when have any of these resonance trials been easy?"
"Considering how often you failed this summer with Gravity Well Minor. I would be inclined to agree with you."
"You really know how to drain the fun out of things."
"Fun doesn't help you ascend."
"Whatever, beam me over to the pool of reflection."
My astral form quickly thinned like a particle of light, and with a mere blink, I was standing in the pool of reflection. The stardust shifted under my feet while I waited for Dox to start the resonance trail.
Then, in the center of my cosmic training ground, stardust began to clump together and form a cube.
"The first test of this node teaches you how to command the force of compression, or in simple terms, push. You may now begin."
From what I learned in Professor Rhandall's class, tidal forces occur when gravity pulls more strongly on one part of an object than another because of differences in distance. For an object to be compressed, it must be perpendicular to the force of gravity.
But knowing the theory and putting it into practice are two very different things.
I stood in the pool of stardust, stumped. I tried using my gravity well, minor and major, to mess around with the cube.
But they didn't get the desired effect.
I looked over at Dox, "Any help here, or are you just gonna watch me struggle?"
Dox flickered to life, "I'll give you one hint. Then you are on your own for the rest."
"Fine," I said, rolling my eyes.
"You are looking outward for the result and not inward. Remember back to your first ever resonance trial."
My astral form flickered as a deep sigh left my lungs. I hated vague statements.
Why couldn't things be straightforward? But I did my best to follow Dox's recommendations.
I remembered that I had to absorb cores for my black hole core to grow. Following that train of thought, I knew the bigger the mass, the more gravitational force it would exert in space.
That's when it hit me. I wasn't using my greatest tool, which was Gravisense.
When I let the sensations flood my mind, I didn't focus on the cube first. I focused on the ripples in gravity surrounding me instead.
The indentation in the fabric of space was deep for someone of my size. And I never felt it or paid much attention to it until now. It made me wonder why my body was able to hold such a large amount of mass and be relatively unaffected.
Even though I hate Dox's vague points, I see the reasoning. There is a connection between all the moving parts of this unknown constellation's abilities, and I had to understand them in my own way to make the best use of them.
Graivense still active; I paid attention to the gravitational force I exerted. The force slightly pulled the indentation in space created by the cube towards me.
Then I noticed how the sides of that indentation in space started to push in. Looking at the sides of the cube, I noticed how the right perpendicular side was beginning to push in. It was slight, but it was there.
How am I going to do this?
I sat there staring at the object for who knows how long. Then I visualized pushing the indentation from the side.
The cube's push back was stern against my will, desperately fighting back with its own gravitational force. It felt like magnets of the same charge pushing against each other.
This was pushing me to a new limit. The more I willed my visualized hand to push, the more strain it put on my mind, depleting my cosmic energy quicker than expected. This was much different from a gravity well minor. Pushing the bump in space upwards was much easier than fighting against another tidal force itself.
I stayed in the pool of reflection for as long as I could. But my astral form started to flicker rapidly, indicating my cosmic energy reserves were waning.
"Dox, I think I'm done for the day," I said, sitting down on the surface made of stardust.
"You did well today. This node is the toughest out of the three. But I have faith you will figure it out soon."
"Words of encouragement are new," I pushed off the pool of reflections' surface and glided towards the swirling exit of my nexus.
Once back in my body, I noticed my watch had a few messages. One was a message from Headmaster Naga, stating that our next test is in a couple of hours.
Which was just my luck.
The other was a group message from Sora, stating she wanted to have a meeting.