Chapter 147 - Preparation

Two days…?

As his silence stretched on and his thoughts whirred, Brock witnessed the ritualist’s expression becoming impatient. The dim light emitted by the runes flickered once more. He breathed out and rubbed at the making of a beard. It was nothing more than messy stubble he found lacking the motivating to remove, but it helped him think.

That’s… not a lot of time to prepare…

He’d heard of what occurred within the trials. What he hadn’t heard much of was the average power levels of those within. Who would he need to be wary of? Who should he avoid? Were there people there stronger than him? Lacking proper preparation could ruin everything. Although, the contents of Zin’s ring would certainly help.

Proper preparation could make or break his success, that he knew.

While he couldn’t exactly grab his mother and bring her back to King’s Cavity with him, if he could make contact with her, he’d be able to find out where she had been before initiating the trial. All people returned to where they’d been prior once it ended, so he’d be able to get Jane to send a unit of Shadow Scouts to retrieve his and Harry’s mothers.

“Thank you,” Brock met the closed eyes of the elderly woman as she looked just about ready to yell at them to leave, “Really. I mean it.”

“Whatever.”

He chuckled and led Harry back toward the front room, “Have a good day, grumpy.”

“What did you call me, you-?!” A wall of solidified aura blocked off the doorway and rendered the sounds of her hoarse snarl quiet. The sheer use he’d discovered with aura manipulation was… startling. And it was all thanks to Silence of the Abyss, without it, his ‘Spirit’ would be useless.

In a companionable silence, the two walked through the streets. Brock was impressed at humanity’s ability to bounce back in the face of tragedy. That wasn’t to say Adelaide’s populace had just downright forgotten about it, however. Every now and then, he caught sight of people placing vibrant flowers upon splotches of crusted blood.

The final resting places of those dear to them. Darkness. Pain. The sound of his skull splintering. I… I could have been one of those old blood smears…

Sighing, he tore his eyes away from the sight and pressed forward. Beside him, Harry threw it a curious glance and him a side-long one but didn’t comment on it. Instead, he nudged Brock in the side, enough to make him stumble and opened his mouth to speak, “So… you’re gonna do it? The Trial?”

Brock’s eyes fell from the ravaged city skyline and down to his friend’s own, “Yeah. I… well, we don’t really have any other choice, do we mate?”

Silence once more fell between them, Harry nodding slowly. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he held himself back. Brock was curious but didn’t press him to. They turned at the street corner, and the city centre came into view. A dozen or so scouts were transporting supplies to armed guards while onlookers watched.

“Brock… can I ask you a question?”

The man in question looked at Harry, and shrugged, “Sure. What is it?”

“Why… why did you never take the E Grade Trial? You hit level 100 in your Ascendancy months ago,” he looked away for a brief moment, as though he was embarrassed, “you could have done it with me and Fon.”

“I assume Erin was there too?” the boy, blushed and Brock chuckled. Then the humour faded and he too found his eyes looking away, “I didn’t do the Trial… because I was scared.”

“You were scared?” Harry said with an incredulous expression, “I’m an E Grade, and I know you’d still find a way to beat me somehow. You’re not just powerful, dude. You’re resourceful too. Those people in the Trial should be scared of you.”

Brock huffed a breath out from his nose, masking his urge to snort, “I wasn’t scared of the Trial. I was scared… I was scared of myself. I didn’t want to give myself more power than I already had. I just wanted to settle down, relax and forget about how brutal our lives now are.”

The sensation of phantom pain enveloped the back of his skull. He resisted the urge to reach back and check for blood. For splintered bone and splattered brain, “And I guess… before any of that, I just wanted to find a way to accept being me…”

Afterwards, Harry didn’t respond, and Brock glanced at him, “…Harry?”

“Ummm… woah dude. That… was deep. I thought you were going to say it was because you hated us.”

Brock tilted his head, “what?”

Harry waved it away, “don’t worry. Look, I don’t know what you’re going through dude, all I know is something happened while you were away, and you haven’t been the same since. But if you’re struggling to accept yourself…”

Hissing out a breath, Brock looked away. He didn’t like revealing a delicate side of himself like that. Harry continued, “My Ma always said that ‘it wasn’t about what you’d done wrong, but what you were trying to do right’.”

“You’re mum actually said that?”

“Well, she saw it on a motivation poster on google. But she did say it.”

“Right…” Brock… genuinely felt that was good advice from Harry, surprisingly. It wasn’t about what you’d done wrong, but what you were trying to do right. And that’s all I’ve been doing since the System came. Trying to do right.

He resisted the urge to peel back his skin and glimpse at the darkness underneath. Even with that monster inside me.

As they approached, the group of scouts recognised both of their auras immediately; Brock’s because almost everybody in Meiyo and KC knew it, and Harry’s from the times he’d worked on missions with them. The kid got restless if he wasn’t doing something, and apparently, killing monsters and doing ‘quests’ scratched that itch for him.

A short conversation followed, mostly just them asking for his autograph. One of them sneered at him and outright refused to be anywhere near him and Harry, probably being someone from Minerva’s camp. Recently, she’d been endeavouring to gain enough support to snatch the role of leader from his sister.

If not for the fact that she was probably one of the strongest people on the planet and certainly far stronger than him currently, he’d have paid her a visit and told her to quit it. He didn’t care if Jane succeeded Hiroto or not, but she clearly cared about it a lot, so he’d do his best to make her life easy.

Perhaps fortunately, she had recently disappeared. Went out on a mission to scout out the strength of Harakat’s Teeth over at the top of Russia and never came back. Of course, Brock knew it could just be a ploy to get people’s guards to lower, as she commonly went missing.

In the end, they scouts calmed their admiration and stored their autographs within their shadows before finally warping the duo back to Meiyo. It was at the hub that Brock parted ways with Harry.

He needed to prepare.

**

Considering that the landscape varied massively during the Trial of Evolution - reports ranging from vast tundras to a sky filled with floating islands – Brock knew he needed something for every eventuality. If he failed to find his mother now, it could be weeks or even months of back tracking for the scouts to locate them when they returned.

Sure, it wasn’t the end of the world, but the monsters were slowly getting stronger – a phenomenon attributed to an organ all of them possessed that converted atmospheric energy to level growth – and he feared for her safety. She might become an E Grade, but a month she wasn’t safe in Meiyo, or King’s Cavity was a month she could die under their cruel reality.

And all that is why Brock was now looking over a warehouse filled with everything. Machines that produced oxygen, boots that created localise gravity and allowed walking on walls, even shields, fire resistance clothing and ski gear. All it took was one call to Hiroto and his scouts had transported everything from everywhere.

He recognised some of James’ machines, probably having been shipped from Alice Springs, or even many of the herbs and potions grown and produced by the laboratory in Canada. It did strike him with guilt knowing that Amara was the head of that laboratory, and he was rather afraid that she had left a note within the supplies somewhere.

For the most part, he was fine for any biome that was fire or ice related, as he had his Augment of Sparks to cool or melt, though he did fear evolving it and making it unusable. He shrugged off his jacket and glanced at the plates of Insulator Armour that were strapped to various points of his body.

Donte had made it for him at his behest, and aside from being scarily durable, the metal had the capabilities to absorb and store the energy released by his Augments, essentially acting as batteries. Currently, they were inert, although he made sure to remind himself to charge them with Sparks before he left, just in case.

The energy within would be controllable, and as it was already created, he could still manipulate it with his Augment.

With a thought, all of it was stored within the ring hanging around his neck from a new chain forged of Orichalcum. He’d long emptied all of Ur’Kahn’s stuff from it and given it away to budding cities that couldn’t afford to purchase or trade for anything better.

As for the range of it, he’d found out a while ago that he could conduct the ring’s spatial capabilities using his own aura. Of course, it wouldn’t work on anything already owned or in contact with another’s aura, but for this like this, it save immense amounts of time. If I had to touch every single fucking thing here, I think I’d kill myself…

His ring was about four slots away from being completely full, but he was now prepared for every eventually he could think of. He wasn’t taking any chances here.

Maybe two days… was a lot of time to prepare…

It had taken Hiroto only three hours to scrap everything together, which still left another forty-five for Brock to bide. He still needed to retrieve the bracer weapon Donte had finished for him all those months ago, and perhaps say goodbye to everyone, although the Trial took a month to complete once it started, so he wouldn’t be gone for too long anyway.

As far as he knew, only one Trial had been shorter than that, and that had been because one man had eliminated every single person in the sub-dimension. The Earthlings that had entered hadn’t even gotten a glimpse of who or what had killed them, and most of it was speculation. That alone was the main reason Brock was so wary of entering without any knowledge of the participants.

If others could hide their auras like he, Mio and Minerva could, then what was stopping other, potentially horrifying foes. His humble beginnings were clearly out of the ordinary, but he’d be foolish to suspect that other people’s weren’t. He knew he wasn’t special.

He was just lucky.

After leaving the warehouse and thanking the two warriors standing guard, Brock decided to return to KC and get some sleep. It was only around midday, but he’d expended the little social energy he’d had left and was fucking exhausted. It was more than just physical fatigue. It was like his entire mind and soul were sluggish.

And it feels like shit.

His cap and mask returned to his face as he was warped back, and his aura was easily reined back into the heart that radiated it. No one really noticed him as he walked, as the masses weren’t aware of the exclusivity of aura masking nor did they bother to keep their senses on constantly, although the guards did shuffle as he passed them by.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately for him at the time, it seemed news of his appearance had spread. At least they won’t bother me. If I have to speak to one more pers-

“Oh! Brock! There you are!” a booming voice cut over the bustle of the street, and as everyone recognised his name and glanced to the most suspicious looking person present – him – Brock’s hands found a place on his face.

It had to be fucking Anastasia.