Kapitel 16: Hellish Pain

Arvell held the black-coloured gem to his eye and gazed at it inquisitively.

'Status.'

[Status Information]

Beast Core Species: Blood Rabbit

Beast Core Rank: Early First Rank

[A Beast Core harvested from a Blood Rabbit.]

This was of course not the first time he had seen one, as he had grown up in the royal palace.

The Beast Cores he had witnessed in the past were all far rarer and more expensive than the one he currently held.

The one he had was a beast core of the lowest rank, as the blood rabbit was only at the early first rank like himself.

Each beast species had its own unique Beast Core, so while two beast cores of the same rank may appear to be the same, their uses could vary greatly depending on how they are used.

Beast Cores were typically used with rare herbs and other treasures to form elixirs that mages used to improve their Mana Cores and their Mana Hearts.

While using elixirs significantly helped in refining Magic Cores and Mana Hearts, they were often quite costly.

To acquire an elixir you would need to gather the ingredients and then get a skilled alchemist to form the elixir for you.

Taking in the chance of failure, the price of the ingredients, as well as the price that the alchemist charges for making the potion, the overall cost was more often than not too expensive for normal people to buy them.

However, that was mostly the case for higher grade elixirs.

Grade 1 elixirs were not that expensive due to the abundance of rank 1 beasts, the high chance of success when making the elixir, and the abundance of the supplementary ingredients.

Novice alchemists normally crafted these, so their prices were not too high either.

Since Arvell had a rank 1 Beast Core, he would be able to make a grade 1 elixir if he commissioned an alchemist.

Lykos suddenly spoke up.

'Why commission an alchemist if you can make it yourself?'

Arvell thought for a second.

'Since you're saying this while knowing that I can't do it, you are going to teach me correctly?'

'Precisely,' Lykos responded.

'Even if I don't have fire magic?'

'Heh,' Lykos snorted, 'fire magic was just a placeholder that humans used since they couldn't use Aether nor Nether. This of course is not an issue for you.'

Arvell felt that if all of the alchemists around the world were to hear this, they would cry tears of blood for all of their effort being equated to a shoddy knockoff of the original thing.

'However, before that, you need to first form a Nether Body. While it is perfectly possible to become an alchemist with just Aether, even if you become the greatest alchemist of all time among humans, it will be nothing noteworthy compared to an alchemist who uses both Aether and Nether.'

'I see. So I will form my Nether Body now then. How long will it take? It took me only a day to form a Nether Core.'

'While you took only one day to form your Aether Core, this will prove to be much harder so I can't accurately tell you. All you should know is that It will be far harder than forming an Aether Core. Even death would be better than undergoing the process of refining a Nether Body.'

Arvell clenched his hand and remembered the sensation of regret he had while he bled out. He swore that he would do anything to gain power. He would gain enough power to get back at those who wronged him and dictate his own life. No one would control him anymore!

'It doesn't matter how bad it is, I don't care how hard of a process it is. I will acquire Nether! I can handle anything that comes my way. If I don't, I can only blame myself for being weak.' Arvell resolutely proclaimed.

Lykos smiled widely.

'That's the spirit! Don't forget that feeling. You will need it to withstand the pain that will come with it.'

'Pain?'

'To use Aether, the wielder needs 'concentration' and 'resolve'. Both of these are tested when refining an Aether Core, as it prepares the wielder to use Aether by training these two aspects of their mental fortitude.'

Lykos walked in front of Arvell and sat down in a lotus position while facing him.

'Using Nether is somewhat similar, but not the same. Since using Nether deals with Life and Death, your body will be reconstructed completely by 'killing' the weaker parts of your body with death energy, before using life energy to heal those body parts back stronger. This process is repeated numerous times and slowly but surely it will make your body far stronger than before. The main downside of this process is the pain that you must undergo while refining your body. 'Killing' your body parts with death energy is far, far more painful than anything you have ever experienced.'

Arvell instinctually touched his chest and felt up the area where had been stabbed.

Even before being stabbed there two days ago, he had been attacked and stabbed there as a kid.

While he never had a scar from the injury, he had been traumatized for a few months. Even the sight of a sword would give him a nervous breakdown.

Only after spending time with his older twin siblings did he overcome his trauma of the sword and recover.

Though that was five years ago, Arvell's thought about the pain he experienced as a kid from the injury.

Due to the adrenaline rush, he didn't feel much pain from the sword in his gut, but since the injury he had when he was a kid wasn't fatal, he was able to stay conscious and experience the full brunt of the pain.

Arvell instinctively shivered when remembering that pain. While he was resolved to go through with it, his body wasn't.

He clenched his shaking hands into a fist and squeezed it hard drawing blood.

This appeared to forcefully calm down his body as it stopped shaking completely.

Arvell up at Lykos with resolute eyes.

'Let's start.'

Lykos began directing Arvell on how to form a Nether Body.

'To reach all of your body parts with Nether, you need to use a way that lets Nether transfer to your entire body. While many methods have been tried, the most efficient method was using your bloodstream. The bloodstream is linked to all of your body. Everything from your brain to your feet is connected by your bloodstream. Arvell if you choose a place that would serve as the best place to transfer Nether through your body via the bloodstream, where would it be?'

Without hesitating even a moment Arvell replied.

'The heart of course.'

'Correct. Due to this, the first step for Nether refining is to gather all of the Nether in your body into your heart, and then send the Nether through the bloodstream to the different parts of your body. Following that, allow the Nether in your bloodstream to invigorate your body and let it deconstruct and then reconstruct it. Simple enough right? While the process is quite taxing, it is quite simple. Just like Aether refining.'

Arvell closed his eyes and began feeling for the nether in his body. He found blood-red particles that held a little similarity to the sky blue particles that were Aether.

'This must be Nether.'

He slowly got the particles in his body to concentrate in his heart, which took a good hour and a half.

After Arvell finally gathered all of the Nether particles into his heart he finally allowed them to enter his bloodstream and spread to the rest of his body.

Only then did he truly experience hell.