A ragged gasp tore from Kai's throat as he surged upward, breaking the surface of the viscous, dark substance that clung to him like living ink. The hyper-concentrated Temporal Energy sloshed around his body, heavy and sluggish, as if reluctant to release him. Every muscle in his body trembled, his skin prickling with an overwhelming flood of sensations: heat, cold, weightlessness, crushing density, all crashing against him at once. His breath came in sharp, uneven gulps as he dragged himself toward the edge of the vat, hands shaking as he gripped the smooth, metallic rim. Zayne stood a few feet away, arms crossed, his piercing gaze as unwavering as ever. His stance was casual, but Kai knew better, his teacher never relaxed, not truly.
"How long.....?" Kai panted, his voice hoarse, raw. His arms burned as he hoisted himself over the edge, collapsing onto the cool stone floor of the training chamber. The translucent, shadowy liquid dripped from his form, pooling around him like the remnants of something eldritch. Zayne regarded him for a moment before answering, his tone as indifferent as ever. "For me? About half an hour." Kai's eyes snapped to him, still fogged with exhaustion but sharpening with confusion. "Half an-?" His breath hitched as realization dawned. His stomach lurched. "....No. No way." A slow smirk tugged at the corner of Zayne's lips, dark amusement flickering in his ember-like eyes. "For you, however," he continued, his voice like steel wrapped in silk, "it's been over a year, thanks to the time distortion field I placed around the vat." The words hit like a sledgehammer.
Kai's entire body stiffened, his mind struggling to process the weight of what had just been said. His fingers twitched against the stone floor as he forced himself to sit up. A year? He had spent over a year submerged in that translucent void of swirling energy? Trapped in that suffocating stillness, that abyss where time itself unraveled and reformed in a loop of incomprehensible agony? His breath came faster now, shallow, uneven. His memories blurred at the edges, disjointed and surreal, flashes of that endless abyss, sensations that felt more like echoes of another life. Had it truly been that long? His body ached, but not with exhaustion, it was too strong, too conditioned. His mind felt....stretched. As if it had been forced to expand, to adapt to something beyond his comprehension.
He swallowed hard, his pulse hammering against his ribs. "You-" His voice faltered. "You trapped me in there.....for a whole year?" Zayne raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "You're alive, aren't you? Plus I made sure to put you in a dormant state to ensure you would not lose your sanity." Kai let out a bitter, breathless laugh. "Ah yes, how should I thank you my good sir?" Zayne ignored the remark and took a slow step forward, his boots clicking lightly against the floor. "Tell me, boy," he said, tilting his head slightly, "are you finally able to connect?" Kai blinked, still disoriented. "Umm....connect....with what?"
Zayne's eyes narrowed slightly. "With the external Temporal Energy around you." The words settled in Kai's mind, but before he could even think of responding, he felt it. The air shifted. A shudder passed through him as something entirely new, yet eerily familiar, brushed against his senses. His breath hitched, and for the first time, he truly felt it. The currents of time. The very fabric of existence itself. It wasn't just an abstract concept anymore. It wasn't just something he manipulated instinctively. No....now it was tangible. He could sense it, see it, as if reality had been stripped of its veil and laid bare before him. Slowly, as if in a trance, Kai lifted a trembling hand. The air shimmered.
Not in the way light bends through heat, nor the way space distorts under a Leviathan's presence....this was something else. Something far deeper. Waves of Temporal Energy pulsed and spiraled around him in intricate, shifting patterns, black streaks weaving between deep azure and ethereal silvers, forming an endless, moving tapestry of raw, unfiltered power. A sharp inhale left him. "....What the hell....?" Zayne watched him carefully, his expression unreadable. Kai's fingers flexed, and the world around him responded. For the first time, he wasn't just using Temporal Energy. He was part of it. "Alright then," Zayne said at last, "Looks like we finally move onto some real training." Zayne barely gave Kai a moment to breathe before he teleported the both of them into an open field within the Nexora.
The transition from the dimly lit training chamber to the open expanse of the Nexora's Fields was jarring. One moment, Kai was surrounded by cold stone and the lingering weight of viscous temporal energy; the next, he was stepping into a vast, twilight-lit landscape that stretched endlessly in all directions. The sky above was extraordinarily beautiful: a swirling canvas of deep indigo and molten gold, shifting as though painted by an unseen hand in real time. Stars pulsed in and out of existence, some static, others streaking across the heavens like celestial brushstrokes. A single colossal moon loomed above, cracked and fractured, its surface glowing with a haunting silver hue. Beneath its gaze, the world breathed.
The field itself was a paradox: grass that wasn't truly grass, but flowing strands of energy that ebbed and pulsed like a living tide. With every step, Kai felt the currents shift beneath his feet, recognizing the familiar rhythm of Temporal Energy woven into the very foundation of this plane. A faint wind stirred the space around them, not natural air, but something else....a ripple of time, slipping forward and backward in seamless oscillations. Zayne walked a few paces ahead, the hem of his coat brushing against the glimmering terrain. He came to a stop atop a small incline, arms crossed as he cast a glance back at Kai, who was still drinking in his surroundings.
"It's not real," Kai thought, swallowing hard. But that wasn't quite right, was it? This field wasn't just a creation, it was a construct. Zayne exhaled sharply, pulling Kai's attention back to him. "Still in awe? Good. Means you're starting to understand." Kai blinked, his focus sharpening. "Understand what?" Zayne's ember-like gaze burned into him. "That manipulation of external Temporal Energy is the cornerstone of a Time-Keeper's true strength," he said, his voice measured, deliberate. He lifted a single hand, fingers curling slightly. Kai's breath caught as the world around Zayne responded. The very air quivered. The strands of luminous energy beneath them pulsed once....then rose. Waves of time itself coiled around Zayne's form, wrapping around him like a serpent of shifting color. Deep violet arcs crackled through the mist, rippling outward in slow, controlled bursts.
"The Drakon Dankana is no exception," Zayne continued, his tone unshaken as the energy around him twisted. "It is not a technique you simply wield. It something you can only master when you become one with it." Kai's fists clenched as he watched the effortless precision in which Zayne commanded the raw, untamed force of time itself. It was nothing like channeling his own internal energy. This was not self-contained power: it was the environment obeying him. A slow smirk played at the edges of Zayne's lips. "Tell me, boy....can you hear it?" Kai frowned, unsure what he meant at first. But then...a whisper. Not a voice. Not a thought. But something deeper. A hum, a vibration, threading through the air, through the strands of energy beneath him, through the entire fabric of this world. It was almost as if it was.....alive.
Kai's breathing slowed. His heartbeat synced with the rhythm. The power he had barely begun to grasp in the training chamber now called to him. His fingers twitched. The air rippled. "Good," Zayne murmured. "Now then, you must learn to command it. Have it assist you, just like an extension of your own body." Zayne exhaled, the sound barely audible over the low thrumming of Temporal Energy swirling around them. Then, with a simple wave of his hand, the air before them fractured like splintered glass, sending ripples cascading outward. From the distortion, shapes began to emerge, first as shifting silhouettes, then as defined forms solidifying into existence. Kai's breath caught.
The targets weren't just inert dummies. No, these were grotesque, nightmarish replicas of Leviathans, each one crafted with haunting precision. Towering behemoths with jagged, thorny exoskeletons. Serpentine horrors coiling upon themselves, their gaping maws lined with endless rows of jagged teeth. Multi-limbed wraiths, their elongated bodies pulsing like living phantoms, shifting between form and formlessness. The air around them was heavy, dense, a suffocating weight pressing against Kai's senses. It was like standing in the presence of the real things.
Zayne studied Kai's reaction with sharp, calculating eyes. "They are nothing more than projections," he said, his voice even, almost bored. "But they're not just illusions. These constructs are forged from external Temporal Energy, woven together to mimic the presence of actual Leviathans." Kai swallowed, still tense, his fingers curling slightly. He could feel it! The residual pressure radiating from each dummy. The energy within them wasn't their own; it was borrowed, tethered to this realm like puppets on invisible strings. Yet, despite knowing they weren't real, something primal in his mind still screamed at him to move, to strike, to fight.
"Tell me," Zayne continued, his gaze never leaving Kai, "can you sense them? Truly feel not just their form, but the energy within them?" Kai hesitated. At first, all he could register was the sheer weight of their presence, like standing too close to a thunderstorm, where the air itself crackled with static. But then.....he closed his eyes. He focused. And the world around him shifted. It wasn't just about seeing the Temporal Energy. It wasn't just about knowing it was there. It was about understanding it. Feeling the intricate, ever-moving patterns that made up these constructs, how each thread of energy pulsed in a rhythm, how the waves of time wove around them in unseen currents.
It was like hearing a song he had never known existed, yet somehow recognized. His eyes snapped open, glowing with a bright azure light. Zayne's lips curled slightly. Approval. "Good. You're learning. Now, we can take it up a notch."