Jonah was filled with a sudden energy. His hunch felt right – like a key clicking into a lock he hadn't even known was there. Every instinct in him screamed that he couldn't afford to be wrong. Not now. Not when he was this close.
He hurried to sit cross-legged on the bed. The sheets were silky and clean, way too fancy for someone like him. It made the memory of the dirty, cracked floor from the subway tunnel stand out even more. He tried not to let that distract him.
The soft hum of the mag-train became a distant buzz as he closed his eyes and let the world slip away. He cast his mind back, far back, into the choking dark of the collapsed tunnel.
But this time, he wasn't just remembering what happened.
He was searching for something.
He pushed past the adrenaline and the fear of the fight. He ignored the stinging pain of the deep cut on his arm. He focused on the moment just after, when the Crystalline Beetle lay broken at his feet. He focused on that strange, icy-cold energy he had felt seeping into him from the dying creature.
He found it. A faint feeling still there inside him, like a hidden memory in his own being.
Now for the hard part.
He shifted his focus from the memory to the mental Workshop. The dark, empty space greeted him like an old, silent friend. Before, he had tried to create something within it. Now, he tried to pull something into it.
He focused on that cold feeling within himself and pulled.
For a moment, nothing happened. He gritted his teeth, sweat beading on his forehead. It was like trying to pull a thread that was woven into the very fabric of his being. He pulled harder, his will focused into a single point of action.
And then, something gave.
The nine headed golden beast on his arm hummed, a low vibration that ran from his wrist to his shoulder. It wasn't painful, but it was powerful. A power source opening.
Inside the mental Workshop, a tiny, faint mote of glowing silver light was pulled hard from the mind's view of his body. It broke free and floated gently into the center of the dark and empty space, swirling like a captured snowflake.
Jonah's breath hitched in his chest. He had done it.
As the silver mote stabilized, a line of clean, clear text appeared in his mind's eye. It was not a thought or a feeling. It was pure, raw information, as clear as the text on the datapad.
[Crystalline Beetle Essence x1 Acquired]
[Properties: Earthen, Sharpness, Fortitude]
Jonah's eyes shot open. He stared, unseeing, at the blank wall of the train car, his mind spinning as a flood of understanding crashed over him, delivered by the power itself.
Everything suddenly made sense.
He wasn't a Manifestor, who created power from their own soul. He wasn't an Elementalist, bending fire or wind to their will. He was neither of those things.
His power didn't create from nothing. It was the ultimate form of scavenging. It absorbed the spiritual and biological blueprint of defeated beast – their "Essence", and used them as raw materials.
The pain from the Awakening Pillar hadn't been a defect. The Pillar had poured pure chaotic energy into him, forging the Workshop in his soul. And the fight with the beetle hadn't just been a fight; it had been his first, unwitting harvest. The cold energy he'd felt wasn't shock; it was the absorption of the beetle's essence.
A giddy laugh burst out of him. He wasn't a dud. He wasn't a half awakening. He was something else entirely. Something new. Something the books didn't even have a name for.
He was a Beast Weaver.
The great joy made him dizzy. But a moment later, the cold truth brought him back to earth. He focused on the Workshop again. The silver mote of essence was there, beautiful and glowing. It was his. But the space around it was still just as empty.
He now had his paint.
– the Essence, with its properties of earth, sharpness, and fortitude. He had the raw material to build something strong and sharp.
But he still needed a canvas.
The knowledge came to him easily, just as it had before. The essence was the blueprint, the code. He needed a foundational core to write that code onto. A Genesis Core, as the primer had called them for. An object of hidden, undeveloped power.
He had the what. He had the how.
He just needed the where.
He was still a scrapper from the Undercroft, on a high tech train with nothing to his name but the worn clothes on his back and a scrap bag full of junk.
Genesis Cores were rare and expensive. Traded in black markets or passed down through bloodlines. He couldn't afford one. He didn't even know where to begin looking.
His fingers curled around the edge of the bed. The hum of the train returned to his ears, louder now, more annoying than ever.
He had found the door, yes. But he had no key.
The Workshop was working. The system was real. He had the first piece of the puzzle in his hands.
But without a Core, he was stuck.
It was like being handed a sword blade but no handle.
A motor without wheels.
A dream without a road.
The knot of anxiety returned. He had solved the first mystery, only to be confronted by a second, much more difficult one. He was on his way to an Academy where he would need to prove his worth, and he had no way of doing that without a critical missing piece
He was so close. The answer was right there, a new world of possibility waiting for him. But he was still a kid from the ruins, standing on the outside, looking in.