The induction ceremony went as I imagined it would. Awakened Rock spoke about the responsibilities and challenges that awakened would have both in the dream world and the waking world. He then let another professor talk about what the sleepers would do in their time between now and till the Winter Solstice.
Afterwards, all the sleepers were arbitrarily put into groups and sent into a waiting room where they would stand by till it was their turn to be interviewed.
I followed Master Jet's advice and tried to stay as calm as possible before the interview. It was quite easy since I could stare at the biotracker on my wrist and binge watch my playlist of Mongrel's fights.
When it was my turn to be interviewed, I gave honest answers without giving away too much information.
"Could you describe your first trial to me?"
"Supersized ants."
"How did you achieve the goal of the trial?"
"There were other dream realm warriors who helped me, so it was easy."
"What is your aspect?"
"Body enhancement" That was the only lie I told the entire interview. Well, not exactly, I still didn't know what my aspect could do.
I would try my aspect later in my dorm room.
The dorm room given to each sleeper was small, but it was larger than I expected. It was smaller than my own room back home but I had enough space to move around and stretch.
The room was furnished with only the basic and necessary items needed for a person. There was a white rectangular bed that hugged the wall to my left and—to my left—a dull metal table with a chair, a bookshelf, and an alarm clock.
On my bed, there was a gray tracksuit with lines of white. Even though I hadn't tried it on, It looked to be perfectly my size. It probably fitted my limbs properly for practical use while also leaving enough breathing room to be comfortable, at least that was what I hoped.
There was also an electronic tablet, which when I turned on, showed me a list of classes I could choose from. From what I remember of the induction ceremony, the professor said the sleepers could freely explore classes that were already in session before deciding to choose one. The time we were allowed was two days, which seemed like plenty of time.
I decided to hold off on the course selection. I dropped off my duffel bag near the door to my dorm room, right next to the bathroom entrance. Rolling my shoulders, I took off my biotracker and kept it on one of the shelves of the metal table.
There were two main matters to attend to: My flaw and my aspect.
I had been racking my brain around my flaw, [Four Humors], ever since I got in the PTV with Soul Reaper.
First, I wanted to know what the effects were for depleting each quarter of [Four Humors].
[Essence] was simple, it reduced how much essence I had. It was annoying but it was the only one that didn't have a direct threat to my life. However, it absolutely hindered my abilities as an awakened.
Depleting [Mind] reduced my reaction time but also made me less aware of my surroundings. I had selected [Mind] during the induction ceremony, and while I could hear the professor talking, I couldn't really understand what they were saying. [Mind] also seemed to numb my five senses after a certain amount of time.
[Energy] confused me at first, but I figured out quickly that it was tied to the control of my body. When [Energy] was being depleted, my body's reactions to the commands I gave it were slower than usual. After about an hour, I couldn't move my pinky finger at all no matter how much I internally ordered it to move. I imagined at some point, I would become paralyzed if I depleted [Energy] for long enough.
Finally, [Blood]. When I started depleting [Blood], I didn't feel any effects, even after ten minutes. I stopped the depletion after twenty minutes.
I didn't know what [Blood] was doing for me, but I didn't want to wait long enough to find out. That fact it wasn't clear to me even after an experiment is what made it dangerous. Anyway, I was sure I would find myself in an unfortunate situation where I would have to deplete [Blood] for a lengthy period of time.
I also figured out an important part of my flaw—the spell could display the metrics of each of the [Four Humors].
Blood: [ --- --- --- --- -- ]
Mind: [ --- --- --- --]
Energy: [ --- --- --- --- --]
Essence: [ --- --- --- --- -]
The metrics seemed relatively accurate, they each displayed how much I had used. From what I could roughly calculate, an hour of use depleted one bar of humor. So that meant 5 hours was my limit for any of the humors.
I often hear how the spell runes are formatted in a similar manner to a video game interface. Seeing these bars that displayed how much of each humor I had brought more credibility to the idea..
I sighed, I was done with summarizing the tedious nature of my flaw to myself. Now comes the fun part.
I put my hand on top of the metal table. I knocked on it, once, twice. I nodded, confirming its toughness.
I had watched a documentary on the Awakened Academy before. In it, there was a section about what the Awakened academy was most proud of in their academy. To everyone's surprise it was tables that were placed in every room of the academy that they were proud of.
Apparently, the dull metal table was made from a special and unique blend of mineral alloys found in both the waking world and dream realm. During the documentary, they showed an ascended master with a strength enhancing aspect punch the metal table.
While the table did dent, there was no other damage to it. It was quite impressive, especially since it was a master who had hit it. Though the table probably couldn't survive multiple hits from an ascended, it could easily withstand the attack of a sleeper and awakened.
Still, why a table out of all the things they could have made? Well, the academy said that it was the best shape they could make with the alloy which made no sense to me. But really, what made sense anymore when the nightmare spell and the dream realm was involved?
I went to my duffle bag, zipped it open, and pulled out a pair of scissors. I slowly brought the blade of the scissor to the tip of my index finger, and holding my breath, I made a small cut.
The tip of my finger started to bleed, leaking a glistening red bubble.
I was careful bringing my finger to the metal table, making sure it didn't fall onto the floor.
My first aspect ability, [Blood Purge], was described like this:
[Your blood is lethal to enemies.]
But what exactly did the ability do? Poison was my first thought and it wasn't a bad power, it had plenty of uses and could be vital in bringing down enemies.
But while that sounded good, I felt that a supreme ranked aspect would be more than poison—then what about corrosive acid?
Sure, it wasn't as versatile as poison could be, but it made up for that with its pure destructive power. It also agreed with the aspect description of [Slaughter King] about how the enemy would come closer to death the more I bled.
But that was all speculation, I would know once I actually tried my aspect ability.
I had chosen the metal table as my target since I imagined it could handle whatever my blood did. After all, how can my aspect ability destroy a table that even a master had trouble breaking?
I pointed my index finger, still bleeding from the tip, at the table top and activated my ability.
The tip of my finger exploded, pieces of flesh and bone splattering all over the room making me take a step back.
A dark, crimson streak of blood burst out of my exposed finger. It pierced straight through the metal table and cracked the floor where it hit.
I screamed and then immediately clamped my teeth, muffling the sound.
I clutched my hand with the exploded finger and hissed. I looked at the tip of my finger to see that it was now half its original size.
It was as if my finger had been ripped off by a rabid animal, exposing shattered bone, pink flesh, and white veins that looked like the roots of a small plant.
The searing pain was unlike anything I'd ever felt. The nerves throbbed, sending shockwaves of pain up my arm through my torso, and straight into my brain.
"Aa-Damn it, damn it-Arghhh.." I groaned, my heartbeat racing from my gorey injury and the river of pain raging through my entire body.
I cursed under my breath as I looked around my room, stained with blood and flesh stuck to the walls.
How would I explain this…?
No, I needed to fix myself first!
I looked back at my finger, which was now pouring a small waterfall of blood.
I ran to the bathroom that was next to the door of my room, I frantically struggled with the door handle until I was able to unlock it.
I dashed inside and turned the faucet on, and dunk my finger under the water. I yelled, finding that the pain skyrocketed.
Clutching it, I realized how stupid I was. Why wouldn't it hurt having cold water blast straight onto my bare nerves and veins! Not to mention that it probably worsened the blood gushing out of my finger.
My vision started to blur. Damn it, was I gonna die from blood loss—and on my first day back from the dream realm?!
While searing hot pain blinded me, I spotted a stack of white towels on a rack. I pulled them with my non-bleeding hand and tied it around my bleeding finger.
I saw the white towel dyed red where it made direct contact with the injury, but I also noticed that it was slowing down.
I leaned against the wall of the bathroom and fell down to the floor.
"Please. Please-please-please…"I repeated, I begged, wanting for all of it to stop.
…
....
After a few more agonizing minutes, it ended. I had lost so much blood that half of the towel was red with it.
Though I should have kept on applying the pressure with the towel over my hand to stop the blood, I felt an odd inclination to take the towel out.
It wasn't logical, but for some reason, I slowly peeled off the towel.
Viscous gobs of blood were pulled from the folds of the towel like red spiderwebs. Even though I wanted to look away, I kept on pulling on the towel.
Finally, I saw my finger, completely coated in dry blood—but I wasn't bleeding anymore.
Actually, all the flesh and bone that had been scattered by the explosion of blood had now been regenerated.
If it weren't for the lingering pieces of gore around my dorm room, I would have thought I had hallucinated all the pain and red.
My finger was back…was it because of [Higher Healing Factor]?
I never actually tried out the power of that attribute of mine yet. I suppose that was the only explanation to what had healed my finger back to its original condition. That said, I didn't expect to find out like this.
While I wanted to get up and clean up the mess, I found that I couldn't move my legs or arms. Even if my wound was healed, that didn't mean that I had recovered from the sudden loss of blood.
"Well…shoot."
That was how I spent the first night at the Awakened academy, knocked out inside my bathroom.