Compared to my C-Rank consolidation—the grinding, five-Laws-and-a-consolidation push that had started my core's fracturing—this was going well.

Really well.

I felt great, and even as I dropped into my lotus position and closed my eyes, my core wasn't sending pain signals. Five Laws—plus the two I'd already consolidated to get this far—and there was hardly any pressure. The reforged core wasn't just doing as well as my original one. It was outperforming it on every level.

There wasn't time for a status check, though, and I didn't bother contacting Eugene for help. It was time for my B-Rank consolidation.

My core's pressure ramped up as I reached inside, but even at its worst, it felt like pushing through syrup, not like the overwhelming mix of lightning, shadow, and rainwater I'd had to fight last time. My C-Rank spells' inscriptions pulsed, but they didn't bend. The lower-ranked ones hardly reacted at all.

I touched Ariette's Zephyr. Mana surged from it—and from the gaps in my core's bands. I'd seen them from the inside—and when they'd been reforged—but now I understood why their design worked. As the Mana surged out, emptying my core, I relaxed. It ripped through my veins and Mana channels, but the flow wasn't torrential, and it lasted almost a minute before my Mana reserves were empty.

The five new Laws hovered near the surface of my core.

The First Law of the Hungering Abyss stated that the void hungers. My core did, too—and so did my entire being. The endless hunger for more power, more strength, more to consume was almost overwhelming. I needed it to keep my promises, defeat those who screwed with my friends, and push myself to my limits. My core and the void both hungered because of their very nature. They couldn't stop, and I didn't want them to.

Then there was Stormbreak, and the Law I'd learned from it. The storm longs to break free. The Unbroken Storm. It and the Third Law of Stormsteel were both warnings as much as they were Laws that increased my power. They both reminded me that the storm that roiled the inside of my core was the same one that had broken me before, and that it could not—and would not—be held in place. It would move. It would be free. And if it couldn't…it would destroy everything until it was.

The Third Law of the Thunderhead was next. The storm's reach was everywhere. My own reach needed to be larger, too. The Stormsteel Path was the path of a duelist—but it was the path of speed and aggression and sudden killing strikes, too. I'd been fighting like that since my lessons at Eugene's hands, but I could push myself harder. And with the change in Thunderbolt Forms's fighting style, I had a lot more flexibility to embrace that Law.

And finally, the Third Law of the Clouded Eye. Aggression begets protection. It was simple. A defeated enemy was no longer a threat. There were limits to Mistwalk Forms's defensive capabilities, and I needed to embrace the flow between aggression and protection—and the deceptive, feinting space between them.

The five Laws fit snugly inside of my rotating, spinning core, thunder and lightning echoing as they shifted into one. I breathed through it, even though the Stormsteel Core's energy seeped into my nerves like cold, slick metal. It was nothing. I could handle this. Compared to the last time, this consolidation had been easy.

I waited. Mana slowly began filling the spaces between the three combined Laws—two fully-formed, one nascent and still finishing consolidation. It took several minutes, and the whole time, my stomach and chest felt like I'd just eaten too much and couldn't get comfortable.

Then it clicked in, and I was done.

Law Consolidated: Law of Darkened Lightning Rank Increased: Rank C to Rank B

Violence. Fury. Hunger. Freedom. All-touching power. The Law of Darkened Lightning teaches these lessons, and one other: do not take the storm's power for granted. Down that path lies pain—pain you are all too familiar with, Kade Noelstra.

By embracing that pain and furthering your relationship with the storm, you have taken a step down the Stormsteel Path. Your strength grows.

Rank B Effects: 1. Your Mana and Stamina caps have increased. 2. Your skills' caps have increased.

Law Effects: 1. The number of Charges you may maintain at a time increases to seven. You may maintain two of any one type. 2. Charges last until you cross a portal. 3. Your aura has grown strong enough to forge into a shield or weapon.

The God of Thunder watched.

Kade Noelstra wasn't his only Paragon or disciple. He wasn't even close to the most powerful. And normally, Eugene's attention was on dozens of worlds—some tiny portal worlds no bigger than his own, others rivaling or dwarfing Earth. There were so many people to keep track of, so many cores slowly growing as they moved along the Stormsteel Path.

So many potential conflicts between his pupils and rivals to orchestrate or avoid—whichever was best for the growth of those cores.

Godhood—the true kind, not the kind of power Eugene had now—awaited.

But occasionally, Kade had his undivided attention.

Most recently, he'd had it for his conflict with Yalerox and the weeks after that. Such a long period of time was unusual. This was more typical; even Eugene couldn't usually spare weeks of time, but an hour here and there? That was acceptable. And Kade might not be the most powerful of the God of Thunder's pupils, but he was the one with the most potential.

His core was interesting, for one thing. The break was expected, and so was the reforging. But the shadow mage's influence was only growing, and the addition of Stormbreak to the kid's skill list was going to force him into difficult positions. Difficult positions were where the growth really happened, and the God of Thunder was convinced that Kade had what it took to survive any situation he could devise for the kid.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Now it was time for the aura.

Auras were always interesting. Like the shadow mage had said, there were no common rules for an aura's forging process. But the God of Thunder knew a few things, and one little morsel of information was the real reason he'd removed all the other distractions—by force, in the case of an unfortunate S-Ranked supplicant whose core had tasted like lime. There was no such thing as a generic aura. Every single forging was different, because every single aura reflected its user. Not simply the skills and Laws that had pushed them to B-Rank, either.

No, they reflected the user's innermost being. The parts they didn't, and wouldn't, show anyone else. The shadow mage, for example. She'd lived her life sheltered and then terrified of her own father and his goals for her. That was reflected in the anxiety and fear her aura created.

"Almost there, kid, Eugene said to himself as Kade started forging his aura. "Almost there. Keep it up for a few more minutes, and you'll be home free."

He watched and waited impatiently to see what Kade's innermost, most private thoughts and feelings would reflect onto his aura when he was done.

I knew nothing about the aura-forging process.

It was a mystery to me. Ellen hadn't been able to tell me anything useful, and neither had the Governing Council's library. It wasn't that the information was hidden either; unlike the existence of Paragons, B-Rank auras were a well-known, documented phenomenon. I could find lists of them, and every delver over C-Rank had one. Most of them were simply walls of force that a delver could throw out or retract at will, but even then, the exact mechanics for how that worked were…

Confusing. That was the best word to describe it. Confusing.

"Almost there, kid," the God of Thunder's voice echoed in my head. "Almost there. Keep it up for a few minutes, and you're home free."

I wanted to reach out for advice on what to do, but before I could, his presence disappeared. The meaning was clear. Either because Eugene wouldn't help me—which was likely, given who he was—or because he couldn't, he was disengaging from my aura-forging.

Fine. I'd just do it myself.

Ellen's aura had taken the form of fear and anxiety. Angelo Lawrence's and Deborah Callahan's were both walls of force strong enough to flatten portal monsters and delvers. My own aura would almost certainly reflect the storm inside of me.

But when I reached inside of myself to start…whatever this was…that's not what I found. Inside of my core was the storm, yes. But deeper within it was a void space. Not a shadow space. An absence. The lack of something.

I touched it—or I tried to—but my fingers slipped right through it and into the whirling maelstrom around it. It wasn't just that it wasn't anything. It was that it was, in fact, the presence of nothing. A small mote of nothing in the center of my being.

For a long time, all I could do was stare at the nothing. I tried to grasp it, then to brush my hand against it, but no matter what I did, it simply hung there, an untouchable void. And, after a while, I started to ignore it—at least physically. Mentally, I poured my energy into understanding not what it was, but why it was. Why was there a void in my core?

It didn't make sense. The Stormsteel Core was filled to the brim with a whirling, angry maelstrom of black cloud and arcing lightning. There shouldn't be space for emptiness. The only way that would be sustainable was if the storm needed it.

Why would the storm need emptiness? I pondered that for a long time. For what seemed like hours. And eventually, the answer hit me in Stormbreak. The positive and negative energy fields.

The empty space wasn't empty at all. It wasn't nothing. It was the opposite of the energy-filled storm that filled my core. The opposite of the explosive, electric power I wielded. A negative zone. Just like with Stormbreak, the thunderhead in my core needed a negative for its positive. Lightning couldn't arc through the sky without it. So my aura…

My aura would need to embrace that.

I had a path forward. The forging could finally begin.

The first thing was to hammer the negative space into some sort of shape. The three Laws I had—the Law of Darkened Lightning, the Law of the Stormcore, and the Law of the Shadowed Storm—gave me the tools I needed. Their litany of words flowed through my head as I struggled to shape the void space into what it needed to be. Aggression. Inevitability. Rage. Deception. On and on and on I worked, not sure what the shape would be, only that it would be a shape when I finished.

And it was. When I stepped back, it definitely was a shape. A human-sized shape that seemed to mirror my body, completely made of nothing.

No. Not a mirror. This was broader at the shoulders. A beard. Strong jaw and eyebrows. Short-cropped hair. I couldn't make out colors, but I didn't need to. This wasn't a mirror at all. In fact, the model for it hadn't been related to me by blood.

But it was Dad.

I stared at the broad-shouldered shape of my stepfather. It didn't make sense; Dad hadn't been a void in my life. If anything, that had been Alessa. Mom. But when the time came for me to shape my aura, I'd chosen Dad instead. What did that mean for my aura? And for the negative space?

What did it mean for me?

And what was next?

There were too many questions. I couldn't answer any of them right now. And Ellen would have just laughed at me, or acted concerned, and told me I was hesitating. I knew what I had to do now.

I stepped into the negative space. I didn't reach out and touch it or try to understand it. I just walked into it. And as I stepped forward, the aura formed around me, covering my skin like a blanket. It moved with me for one step. Two. Three. And then it was gone, shrinking away until it was completely inside of me.

My eyes opened.

Ellen was asleep on my bed. Jessie was nowhere to be seen. I took a moment to breathe, still cross-legged on my floor. Then I pulled up my status.

User: Kade Noelstra Reforged Core, B-Rank Stamina: 87/440, Mana: 25/550

Skills: 1. Stormsteel Core (C-10 to B-01, Unique, Merged, God-Touched) 2. Thunderbolt Forms (C-10 to B-01, Altered, Merged) 3. Mistwalk Forms (C-10 to B-01, Altered, Merged) 4. Cyclone Forms (C-10, Altered, Merged) 5. Stormlight Bond (C-10, Altered, Merged) 6. Shadowstorm Battery (D-05, Altered, Merged, Dual) 7. Stormbreak (D-01, Unique)

Path: Stormsteel Path Aura: Negative Space Laws: First Law of the Stormcore, Law of the Shadowed Storm, First Law of Darkened Lightning

B-Rank was mine.

And I'd done it without leaning on the God of Thunder. He'd helped me repair my core, but I hadn't needed his advice or assistance to finish the B-Rank trial. That had been all me—me and my friends. And the Laws I'd learned and consolidated weren't what he'd expect, either. The Law of Darkened Lightning couldn't be correct for the Stormsteel Path.

"It isn't. Neither is your aura, kid. That's not anything to worry about, though. It'll serve you well. It's too bad it works directly against the fighting style that one of your Laws wanted to push you toward. Then again, if you'd wanted to be a mage, you wouldn't be walking the Stormsteel Path, would you?" Eugene asked in my head.

I ignored him. Of course he was watching, and a conversation would have been interesting, but Ellen was asleep, and I had more important things to do than talk to Eugene.

My aura, for one thing. I needed to see what it really did. Maybe that would help me understand why I'd gotten it.

Aura Learned: Negative Space

A zone of negatively-charged energy covers the area around you, increasing the damage your lightning-based spells do to nearby enemies. The closer you hold the aura, the more potent the damage increase.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.