Chapter 9 Encumbrance

It had been two weeks since Acero and Sola received their Concepts and became Levelers. Since then, they have been training every day in the early morning before the sun shows itself. Narra wasn’t present during most of those days but would supervise and make sure they were safe from afar. Sola had gotten the hang of her powers quickly, now being able to use them with her legs. Though she hasn’t reached level 4 yet, she has a good grasp of her limits and has mastered how to pace herself without getting hurt from exhaustion. Acero, on the other hand, was having trouble with how to approach his training. He could only summon the sword once. Summoning it again too soon would only cause him to exert himself and pass out. So, the hour of training they do each day was mostly Acero watching Sola train while he rested after using his power once. In the first few days, he tried lifting the sword. He gave up on it when he almost broke his back while trying. “Why not make a contract with a different tool or weapon?” Sola asked him when she caught him just watching her. “You don’t think I tried? Yesterday I tried to do it with a hammer, I even cut my palm and gave it blood and all that,” he showed her his bandaged hand. “I tried everything that the other summoners do with their summons,” he groaned. “Oh, so that was the hushed voices I heard last night., I thought you brought someone over,” she teased. “You look insane. Have you been sleeping?” She asked. He shook his head. Whenever he closed his eyes, the memory he locked away years ago would play over and over until the next day came. The bloody face of his mother and the cold eyes of her killer were burned into his mind’s eye. There was nothing else he could think of whenever he tried to go to sleep. “Hmm, you know you’re too bullheaded sometimes. Determination is good and all, but you’re trying to break through a wall by smashing your head against it. If it were me trying to get to the other side of the wall, I’d try to go around or over it. You know how much I don’t like to put in hard work when I don't have to,” she explained. Acero raised his head and looked at her with a confused and annoyed look on his face. “What the fuck are you talking about?” He asked her. “I don’t know, man! I’m just trying to give some advice. If you don’t want it, then I won’t help,” she snapped. Sola stormed off and continued her training. Sitting on top of his sword and resting his chin on his hands, he watched Sola do her new kicks that were powered by the wind. He was both jealous and proud of her for being able to use her powers so creatively. She is a prodigy, he thought to himself. It made him think about what she would do if she had his powers instead. Knowing her, she would somehow make it seem amazing. He didn’t think that it would be possible for her to use her powers with her feet until she tried it. He went over what she said before he pissed her off. Was there another part to his power other than summoning a huge sword next to him? Why didn’t contracting his favorite hammer not work? Did it need to be made from a specific piece of metal? After 20 minutes of rest, Acero was ready to summon it again without hurting or straining himself. He moved to a different part of the yard and called for the sword. This time, he made it stick to the ground vertically. He stared at it and went back to thinking. There were too many mysteries about the sword and his past before he became an orphan. Acero never knew who his father was and wasn’t sure what type of Concept his mother had as well. He had no clue as to which parent bound him to the big sword and why they did it in the first place. Deep inside him, determination and curiosity welled up. Two things that he had never felt before. Leveling and General Bulsara seemed to be his only leads to knowing the truth about his past. And out of those two, Leveling was the only one he had immediate access to. He had no idea how to even reach General Bulsara. A man like him wouldn’t spend a minute of his day explaining to some orphan from the sticks why he killed his mother. He turned around and watched Sola do her wind attacks again. “Maybe if it was someone like her,” he whispered to himself. Again, he was fixated on her. He wondered how she figured out that she could do it without anyone telling her. He turned back to his sword and tried to think like Sola. The first part of his power was summoning an object to him, the object being the sword. He didn’t know what the requirements were for contracting with another tool yet, but he was sure that he would be able to do it in the future. He thought about what the average Beast Summoner could do. They were able to summon beasts to their location to do their bidding. Acero tried to recall the last time he saw a summoner. It was during a festival in the neighboring town that they visited for a job. One of the performers was a summoner, and they were able to send one of their animals away before it attacked a kid. “Where did the animal go?” He wondered out loud. It didn’t make sense for the animal to return to a previous location. No, it wasn’t like his sword. The animal would wander around if they did that, and there have been no reports of contracted beasts popping up in a different place all of a sudden. What if they didn’t go to another location? Acero’s eyes widened when the realization hit him. He reached out for his rusty sword and willed it to go away. If he were a summoner, then it should be possible for him to do the things they do. A cloud of gray dust appeared and covered the sword. The more parts that it covered, the heavier Acero felt. But that didn’t stop him. He continued the process, even if it felt unbearable. After a while, both the sword and the dust were gone. The action brought Acero down to his knees, the weight was too heavy for him. It wasn’t a physical sensation or a mental one. His head didn’t hurt like when he summoned the sword two times in a row. The feeling was a new and alien experience for him. He knew the sword didn’t exist in the physical world anymore and that it was somewhere else entirely. And he could feel that ‘somewhere’ close to him and infinitely far away from him at the same time. He could feel that the sword existed and that he could touch it if he reached for it. Then, there was the weight. It was like he was carrying the sword, but at the same time, he wasn’t. Thinking about it too much was starting to break h;m, he could feel it. He took a deep breath and imagined that there was a room in his chest where he stored the sword. It was the only way he could come to terms with it without going insane. He opened his eyes and heard a dinging sound, but he didn’t hear it with his ears. A sudden urge to check his Level Card overcame him. Acero - Level: 2 Race: Human (Earth) Credit: 34G