When the banquet finally concluded, Tristan practically collapsed into his bed. The hours of dungeon crawling and constant stress finally taking his final toll on him.
’Man I would really love a massage right about know’
He slept dreamlessly for twelve straight hours.
When he woke, the countdown had officially begun. He had exactly one week until the Flamecrest Academy entrance exams.
He didn’t waste a single hour. After instructing his maid to bring his meals strictly to his private courtyard, Tristan went straight to work. His first priority was figuring out the exact parameters of his unique skill.
He might’ve known some overreaching information but, physically using reave, especially with his low reserves, really required some hands-on testing.
Over the next two days, sitting cross-legged in the grass, he tested his limits.
The results were both incredible and incredibly restrictive. Given his abysmal essence capacity, he could actively use Reave about five times a day before his core completely bottomed out, leaving him with a splitting migraine and a bloody nose.
More importantly, he discovered a hard cap on his storage.
He could only hold a maximum of three concepts at any given time. He visualized it like an inventory hotbar. If he held three concepts, say, the Light from a lantern, the Heat from a candle, and the Hardness of a stone, and then tried to Reave a fourth, the skill didn’t fail.
Instead it operated just like a queue. The newest concept forced itself into his "hotbar" by completely overwriting and destroying the oldest concept he had. First in, first out.
He also tested the casting speed. Concepts he had already Reaved and understood, like Light or Hardness, were practically second nature. He could rip them from an object in barely two seconds. But when he tried to Reave something entirely new and abstract, like the heat of a torch, it was a brutal mental struggle. It took almost thirty seconds of unbroken, agonizing focus to pry the concept loose. If his concentration wavered even slightly, the skill failed entirely, wasting his precious essence.
Once he understood his abilities, he moved on to the most agonizing, low-tech, yet valuable form of training available to him.
Running.
Tristan huffed and puffed as he constantly ran laps around the courtyard.
"Feel... like... I’m... dying..."
Running wasn’t exactly the flashiest or most technical thing Tristan could improve at, like swinging a sword. But Tristan knew the brutal reality of Awakened combat. Afterall, in his "fight" against the fallen monsters if his stamina had been better, perhaps he didn’t need to use as much essence, or he could’ve kept running without getting further injured. If a fighter had terrible natural stamina, they were forced to burn precious essence just to keep their legs moving and their lungs pumping. By building his endurance perhaps that essence could be saved for his unique skill.
Unfortunately, Tristan’s body was a disaster.
The original Tristan had lived a life of lethargic luxury, heavy drinking, and absolute physical neglect. And Tristan, the gamer who had taken over his body, hadn’t exactly been a marathon runner in his past life either.
’Curse my drinking habits’
The first day, he made it three laps around the sprawling courtyard before collapsing into the manicured rosebushes and dry-heaving until his ribs ached. His lungs felt like they were packed with burning glass. His legs felt like lead weights.
’Am I really this pathetic’
Day after day, he forced himself back onto the cobblestone paths. He ran until he tasted copper, rested, and then ran again. By the fifth day, the brutal regimen was actually producing marginal results. It seemed that his awakened body was helping him adapt faster than Tristan previously thought was possible.
He wasn’t the only one noticing the changes.
From the second-story balcony overlooking the courtyard, Diana had been watching him carefully all week.
Initially, she had just been keeping an eye on him to ensure he didn’t do something catastrophically stupid before the exams.
’Which to be fair, I guess I can’t blame her for’
For years, Diana had viewed Tristan as a walking liability. She didn’t hate her little brother , but wasn’t exactly happy with his demeanor.
But watching him over the last week... he was a completely different person.
The sulking, self-pitying drunk who had embarrassed their father at the Sandrose whiskey incident was gone. Now there was an awakened who was training his hardest to improve. He had kept his snarky, cynical attitude, which Diana privately admitted was highly entertaining when it wasn’t directed at her, but his core mindset had fully shifted since his Awakening in the dungeon.
On the evening of the sixth day, Tristan was lying flat on his back in the courtyard grass, staring up at the darkening sky, his chest heaving as sweat poured down his face.
A shadow fell over him.
"Your breathing is erratic on the turns," a calm voice noted.
Tristan cracked one eye open. Diana was standing over him, dressed in casual training leathers, her arms crossed over her chest.
"Good evening to you too," Tristan wheezed, not bothering to sit up. "I was trying my best to role play a dying animal, glad I didn’t miss the mark."
Diana snorted. "You strike with your heels when you get tired. It jars your knees. If you keep doing that, you’ll blow a joint out before the exam even starts. Stay on the balls of your feet, and regulate your exhales to match your footfalls."
Tristan sat up wiping the sweat from his forehead, a slight smile blooming. "I’ll keep that in mind, thanks sis."
Diana stared at him for a long moment, her piercing golden eyes unreadable. Then, she reached into her jacket and casually tossed two thick, leather-bound books onto his lap.
Tristan winced as the heavy tomes smacked against his thighs. He looked down. The covers were completely blank.
"What are these?" he asked, running a hand over the worn leather.
"Pointers," Diana said coolly, turning on her heel to head back inside. "The first is a breakdown of the standard Academy scoring metrics, stripped of the usual bureaucratic nonsense. The second is a foundational primer on essence cycling."
Tristan stared at the books, a genuine smile breaking across his face.
"Hey, Diana," he called out.
She paused, looking over her shoulder.
"Thanks," he said sincerely.
"Don’t thank me," she replied, her tone perfectly flat, though the faintest hint of a smirk played at the corner of her mouth. "Just please don’t die next week, I refuse to wear black in the summer."