Chapter 82: Mistakes Were Made

The moment that the spider egg hatched, the two Beast Spaces in his mind were nearly torn apart, with a third trying to form, and the imbalance between the complete space and the incomplete one was not allowing them to find a common distribution rate to form the third space. "I need high-energy food, whatever you can get," Karl informed Alice with a pained wince, feeling like his head was going to explode. "What is happening?" The mage asked as she sent a message on her phone to the others. "Both of them hatched too close together for me to equalize their living spaces. It is trying to create a third space in my mind, but the second is not ready to be split, and the first can't give up the energy that it already has. I need that energy." Karl demanded. "It's on its way. Just hold on for a few more seconds, and we will get you something." Alice explained. The reserves for Hawk were almost all raw meat, which Karl would have a horrible time digesting, but there was some roasted chicken in there, which Karl pulled out as a stopgap measure until he could get something with more energy. "Does it have to be meat?" Alice asked frantically. "Anything with an Awakened energy level or better," Karl replied as the energy influx from the chicken flowed through his body. Jodi rushed in with a bag from the truck and began pulling out supplies until he got to the prepackaged meals. "These are all Ascended Rank meat for the main course, and the other dishes should be decent. They're made for Commander Rank Elites on energy-intensive missions." He explained as he tore the first pack open and handed it to Karl with a spoon. A cold ration pack was not exactly fine dining, but it was edible enough, and the energy flow was enough that the immediate pain was fading, while a sense of mental stress was settling in as a third space began to form. Both of the hatchlings were drawing immense amounts of energy from him, and even after Karl did his best to feed them what power he could absorb, it wasn't enough. "I need monster blood and large amounts of magical plants for the new beasts. I think that things will stabilize once they are fed and not drawing energy straight from me." Karl explained while otherwise completely focused on feeding himself and keeping his focus well enough to stabilize the newly formed space. Magical plants were something that they had plenty of since the plants didn't have to be edible to humans. Daniel brought back what appeared to be an entire hay bale, while a few minutes after that, Jodi returned with a five-gallon pail full of blood. The shrub was put into the newest area, as the baby Cerro seemed to be the more placid of the two, while the Bloodbath spider took its name literally and accidentally fell off the rim of the bucket into the blood before climbing back out to drink more carefully. "You need to keep eating," Alice advised him as Karl began to relax. That made him open his eyes and look at his hand as he reached out for more food. "What the hell? What happened to me?" He gasped as he looked at the skeletal, thin arm in front of him. "You tell us. You suddenly started to wither, and it's still ongoing, though not as fast as it was at first. You look like hell." Alice replied. Karl dug into what looked like a set of plates from the buffet, piled high with whatever could be grabbed, and tried to form his thoughts. "The monsters don't share a space the way that I expected them to, or rather, they can't. I didn't realize that until the third one hatched and bonded. It needed to form another mental space, and I wasn't prepared. It drew the energy it needed from me, and it looked like I barely managed to keep up. If the beasts hadn't been hatchlings, they would have needed more energy to stabilize a space at their power level, and I would most likely be dead right now, or one of them would have broken free. There is a cap on the size, but not on the power density of the first space that I have reached. But there is a minimum requirement to bond properly with a new pet; I know that now. One separate mental space, with as much or more stored energy than the creature being bonded has. In the future, it would be best to keep going with hatchlings unless I have time to form a space for them in advance and stock it with massive amounts of energy. But right now, I need a lot of food for growing beasts and to try to recover what was spent. I don't even know how long that will take. Have any of you ever seen anything like this before?" Karl explained. Jodi frowned. "I have, but it was the result of a hostile spell, not a backlash from an ability. It looks like there are dangers to overextending yourself in this way. But are the two new beasts stable?" Karl inspected the Beast Spaces. "Yes, they are stable, at least for now. They are going to need some time before they're ready to begin training, but they are stabilized." "Then our priority is to get you back into functional shape. We will help you eat and try to regain energy tonight, and then in the morning, we will determine if you need to be hospitalized until you can regain enough of the lost mass to be safely moved back to the Academy." Alice informed him with a pitying look on her face. "I guess I had better get to work on my recovery then. What do we have for higher-ranked foods? I will let you know when it's too much for me to digest efficiently." Karl sighed. "Start with this salad. It might taste awful, but it's the most potent in the group. It was prepared for us to recover quickly from injuries, so it has healing properties and a Commander Rank base." Alice offered. Karl took the first bite, and energy flooded his system at a rate faster than anything he had ever experienced, then began to drain into all three of the Beast Spaces as fast as he could eat. It took immense focus to keep some of that for his own body, but after a few bites, he was getting the hang of splitting the energy four ways. The mental strain of the new spaces was diminishing as the energy influx became greater than the beast's need to draw from him to stabilize their early growth, but the pounding headache that Karl had was only getting worse. It felt like someone was kicking him in the skull from the inside, but he had no idea what he should do about it. Then, after a few minutes and three of the four salads, Karl found the reason. A new voice broke through the pain and whispered in his mind. This food is good. Is there more?