The Greatest Sin is Weakness; The descent into madness
When Starry came to, he was lying flat in his bed, currently feeling extremely refreshed. Looking around, he noticed that there was a beautiful girl with dark-red hair currently asleep in a chair adjacent to his bed. If his memory didn't fail him, this girl's name was Seraphine. Not understanding why she was sitting next to him while he slept, he racked his brain trying to remember what had transpired hours earlier. He remembered fighting Maelis, and eventually being rescued by Leo, but couldn't fully remember what had happened after that. He remembered that he had sustained some injuries but they weren't anything serious.
"Finally awake? For a second I was worried you werent gonna make it." Nephim said as she got up from laying on his stomach.
"Stop joking around. I know my injuries weren't that serious. At most I sustained minor internal bleeding. Coupled with the various cuts all over my body it would at most have taken a day or two to make a full recovery."
It should be noted that when one transcended a rank, their recovery rate would double or even triple. The difference between having zero virtues and being challenger ranked was like the difference between a physically unfit person and a long distance runner. Needless to say there was a massive difference in recovery rate between the two. As a tier 1 challenger ranked person, he could survive many life threatening situations that otherwise would have killed him. If his organs were ruptured, or his skin was torn, they would heal and regrow at an extremely accelerated rate. If he sustained a cut on his arm, while it would normally take around one to two weeks to heal, as a challenger, it would take only a few days.
Nephim jumped up off of his stomach and flew up to his face, choosing to instead sit down on his chest.
"You over-exerted yourself. You haven't even formed an Aura Core yet, you still tried to manipulate the ambient Aura." Nephim said, her voice cracking slightly, but she continued,"From what I heard from your sister, Seraphine, you suffered from extreme internal bleeding, Aura exhaustion, and Aura principal exhaustion."
"I'm sorry. This is all my fault. I shouldn't have allowed you to perceive the world using my perspective, or transfer some of my power to you yet. You don't even have an Aura Core and here I am thinking that you can handle even a portion of my status. We both know what happened last time I tried something like this, only this time at least it was much less intense." Nephim said regretfully, tears forming in her eyes.
"It's not your fault." Starry said, with determination in his voice he continued,"I'm the one who requested to borrow some of your power and status despite knowing I hadn't formed an Aura Core yet. I even tried to grasp some of the basic principles of Aura using your perception."
Looking up, Nephim summoned a tiny tissue and blew her tiny nose, then cleaned the tears out of her eyes.
"You sure know how to make a fairy feel better about herself." She jested, continuing,"But thanks. Seriously."
"Also. If you do something like this again, the backlash won't be the only thing you have to fear!" she said, with an anger filled tone.
"Okay. I get it. I won't do anything like this again. Next time I'll just let you watch as Maelis beats me to a pulp." Starry said, somewhat jokingly.
"You sure will." She said with full seriousness in her tone.
***
Getting up from his bed, Starry quickly noticed that it was already nighttime. It had been sometime during the evening when he had entered Lucien's body, so it must have been at least five or six hours since he had fought Maelis.
"You're finally up!" Seraphine yelled as soon as she saw that he had gotten up out of bed. She then quickly got out of her chair and hugged Starry tightly. While this came as somewhat of a surprise, it wasn't too great of a shock, as him and seraphine were fraternal twins. They were always very close, and despite his lack of talent, Seraphine willingly trained with him every single day, coaching him before his family had hired a tier 2 master-ranked tutor for him.
"Maelis went too far this time. I'll have to teach her a lesson." she said, hugging him even tighter.
"Sera, I can't…Breathe" Starry barely forced out.
"Oops. Sorry. I didn't mean to hug you so tightly." Seraphine backed a foot away before continuing,"Anyways, did you experience a breakthrough? You have a completely different vibe about you."
"I did. When I was training earlier alone in my room."
"Wait really? I was just joking…" Seraphine said, sounding extremely surprised.
"I really did."
Seraphine's face visibly regained its color as an excited expression filled her face. She then quickly hugged Starry tightly again, much to his dismay.
"I…Still…Can't….Breathe…." Starry again barely forced out.
"I'm so happy! My twin brother finally had a breakthrough! With this we can attend Luna Academy together!" Seraphine said, ignoring what Starry had said.
She stayed hugging him until he eventually went limp.
"Starry?"
***
Again waking up in his bed, Starry woke up to the sight of Seraphine sitting down meditating, the ambient Aura in the room flowing towards her. Although she had already formed an Aura Core, there were many different stages and intricacies that came with manipulating Aura. There were three parts a person could form or reinforce using Aura. These three parts were an Aura Core, an Aura Body, and an Aura Soul. While it was possible to reinforce all three parts, most people opted to maximize their potential in one category rather than strain their growth by trying to become stronger in all two or more categories. There were also different stages of color depending on the quality of one's Aura, ranging from black, to purple, to red, to orange, to grey, to ivory, to white. Seraphine had already formed an Aura Core at the purple standard, and was currently coalescing the surrounding Aura to form an Aura Body.
Seeing as she was deep in meditation, Starry got up out of his bed and summoned Nola, intending to get some more practice in before he went for a run. In total, he practiced for about two hours before Seraphine stopped meditating and started pestering him again. He further refined his completion rate of Void Chop back to a consistent 100%, and refined his completion rate of Blade domain up to a consistent 75%. After walking around the massive house, he took note of all of the rooms and places that existed inside and around hi s house. In total, there were 8 rooms in his house. All of his siblings and parents had individual rooms, though Seraphine would occasionally sleep in his room. There were two floors, on the first, there was a kitchen, a living room, a gym and an entertainment center, and on the second were the various rooms of his family.
After taking note of the general shape and locations of the rooms in his house, he familiarized himself with the surrounding neighborhood. In particular, there wasn't much notable about the place that he lived in, discounting the various restaurants, there were two second-rate academies in his direct vicinity. Though they weren't too important to him as he was going to be attending Luna Academy after he had passed the entrance exam, which he was now more than qualified to pass. After running around his block a few times, he returned back home.
During this time, he hadnt interacted with Maelis or Leo again, as well as did not interact with his parents, as they were currently on a business trip out of the capital city. His parents were respectively named Samantha and Reynolds.
Upon returning back to his room, he was greeted by the sight of Seraphine again meditating in the middle of his room without a care in the world. Although this sight annoyed Starry somewhat, there wasn't anything he could do. Not only was he much weaker than Seraphine, but he didn't want to sour their relationship especially because she had just saved his life.
Sitting down next to her, Starry started meditating and started attempting to form his Aura Core. Once he formed his core, he wanted to immediately start forming his Aura Soul and Aura Body as they were indispensable in combat.
Starry first tried to force the surrounding Aura to form his Aura Core, but that didn't work out. The process looked like stars being sucked into a black hole, only the black hole couldn't finish the job and would get weaker the closer it got. Next he tried to coerce the surrounding Aura to form his Core, but that didn't work either. While some Aura had come to form his Core, not all of the surrounding Aura recognized him as its ruler and as a result did not come.
Frustrated at his lack of progress, he stopped meditating, only to see Seraphine's face not even 10 centimeters away from his face, observing him. Even though he had clearly stopped meditating, she had not stopped looking him deep in the eyes, seemingly unfazed by his knowledge of her observation.
"Sera. What are you doing?" Starry asked, curiously.
"Looking at you." Seraphine said back, her tone deadpan.
"Why?"
"You feel like a different person than yesterday. Did Maelis do anything to you other than beat you up?"
"I dont think so."
Ignoring their conversation, Seraphine stayed looking at his face, seemingly looking for some confirmation that a visible change had happened in Starless.
'Whatever. It doesn't look like she's going to stop closely observing me, so I might as well get back to meditating.'
Starry then quickly closed his eyes and continued feeling for the Aura around him. At this moment, a small voice rang out inside his head, disrupting his focus.
"Need a hand?"
"No. I'm Fine."
"You could've just asked like a normal person. I would've been more than willing to help you if you had just said,'Nephim, can you help me in creating an Aura Core?' and I would have been like,'Of course'. But no. You just have to be stubborn for no reason. Ugh. Why are you like this? Whatever. I'll still help you because you are my contracter after all."
"You could've just said you'll help me because you love me" Starry said, putting extra emphasis on the love part.
"You just don't shut up do you?" Nephim said, clearly annoyed.
"Anyways. The way to form an Aura Core is not to coerce or force the surrounding Aura to form a core, it's simply to become one with the Aura. You need to feel the Aura physically and mentally, and allow it to drift inside of you, eventually forming your core. While this might take a while, I can guarantee you that it does work."
"Become one with the Aura?" Starry said. He already felt that he was on the precipice of a breakthrough regarding the forming of an Aura Core, but he was still a step away, a step that he couldn't take before Nephim explained the process to him. Although Nephim's explanation was convoluted, he could still use the key takeaways to form his own Aura Core. Thinking about forming an Aura Core filled Starry with excitement.
For the next ten hours, he attempted to 'become one with the Aura' and although he had made some progress in forming his Aura Core, he was only about 10% completed. It was evident to him that this process was going to take about fifteen days to complete. Luckily, once the Aura stopped within his body, it mostly stayed inside, halting his completion of the Core, but stopping him from losing a significant amount.
Once he stopped meditating, he noticed that Seraphine was dressed in her pajamas sleeping peacefully in his bed. It was already morning, and he had to get up to train with 'Master' or else Maelis would likely come and punish him again, or worse, his master would beat him to a pulp.
Upon closer inspection of Seraphine, he noticed that Nephim was hovering slightly above her face, holding a small black object. Walking closer to inspect, he realized that Nephim was holding a black marker, and was drawing funny designs all over Seraphine's face.
"Nephim. Just what do you think you're doing?"
"Uh oh. Busteddd." Nephim said jokingly.
This wasnt a laughing matter though, as once Seraphine realized she had the marker drawn all over her face, she would pin the blame on Starry and likely take revenge. Although revenge might also come in the form of having silly designs all over his face, this was nonetheless a punishment he was not willing to accept.
He quickly grabbed Nephim by her wings and removed her from the site of the incident. While Nephim didn't like him grabbing her by her wings, she could do nothing as he placed her on top of his right shoulder.
"Neph. Don't move off my shoulder or I won't talk to you for the rest of the week."
Although Nephim was annoyed by this situation, she complied albeit with a pouting expression on her face.
Looking around, he grabbed some face cleaning wipes out of a drawer on his desk, and slowly moved his hand closer to Seraphine's face. He then slowly cleaned her face up, Seraphine seemingly remaining unaware of the whole situation. Once he finished cleaning half of her face, Seraphine abruptly woke up.
"Mmm. Starry? Why are you on top of me?"
Looking down, Starry noticed that he was indeed on top of his sister. This was an even more undesirable situation, and he slowly got off of her.
"Hmmm? I was? I just finished meditating and tried to climb into bed."
Seemingly buying this excuse, Seraphine got up out of bed and walked to the restroom.
'Damn! I'm finished.'
Sitting down on his bed, Starry gazed up at the ceiling accepting his fate, waiting for his impending doom.
"You little rascal!" Starry heard from the restroom, followed by fast footsteps up to the bedside before Seraphine picked up a marker and forced herself on top of him. He offered little resistance, as it wasnt worth provoking her even more. She then scribbled over his face for the good half of a minute before stopping.
Seraphine then admired her work for another minute before getting off of him and walking out of the room.
Starry then walked into the restroom to see his face depicted as a bunny, with buck teeth below his lips, and three long whiskers on each side. Starry sighed and then tried to wash off the design, to no avail.
'What. Why is it not rinsing off?'
Quickly walking back into his room, he inspected the marker that she had written with to discover that it was a military grade permanent marker, which would last for about a week before being able to be washed off. This meant that for about a week, he would be stuck with silly bunny teeth and whiskers drawn all over his face.
'Nephim you little rascal! Always getting into trouble! That's it. I won't talk to you for a whole week. Have fun being alone.'
"Hmph." was the only sound that Nephim made before flying off of his shoulder back into his room.
'Whatever. Soon enough she'll come to regret messing around.'
Starry then hurried downstairs into the large backyard, seeing Maelis, his master-ranked tutor, and Seraphine waiting for him. His tutor's name was Ryan, but he wasn't allowed to address him as anything other than master until he had completed his Aura Core.
"Finally you have come down. We waited ten minutes for you! Five hundred pushups right now!" Ryan said, completely ignoring the bunny face drawn on Starry.
"Awww. You look so cute with those little bunny whiskers." Seraphine said, barely containing her laughter.
"I thought you had locked in and started seriously training but it seems that I was wrong about you." Maelis said, her tone extremely cold.
In response to Maelis's statement, Seraphine punched her square in the stomach and said,
"This is for beating up Starry yesterday!", then punched her again, this time slightly lighter saying,"And this is for disrespecting my bunny drawing!".
Maelis attempted to defend herself but failed, and stumbled backwards. She looked at the both of them with contempt before walking up to Ryan.
"Sorry about that. Someone woke up on the wrong side of bed today, am I right?" Seraphine said jokingly.
"Maelis really must live on the wrong side of bed with how she acts every day." Starry said, struggling to complete the five-hundred pushups he had been tasked to complete.