The morning sun hung high above the sky, golden glow casting through the windows of Grandma's apartment.
Jayden sat at the centre of his bed with legs crossed and the bottled core placed in front of him.
"So we're finally doing this" Jayden smiled with enthusiasm.
Draco sighed. "Stop making it look like a big deal, we're just awakening a core and you're sounding like a kid who's about to go on his first one-night stand"
Jayden frowned, mouth curved in an 'O' shape like he wanted to say something but he paused, took a deep breath and reached for two large nylons at the end of the bed, both labelled 'Beast Adventures'
Part of the stuff his mom had gotten for him the previous day.
'Mom had gotten me the hundred premature water crystals I need, but I don't know how to activate a core and asking this bitch of a dragon would only get me insulted'
Draco heard Jayden's thoughts but, for some reason, decided not to reply, but then Jayden remembered he shared memories with the dragon.
He quickly searched his mind for information about core activations. He came across some other information that almost caught him off guard but the enthusiasm of awakening a core kept him concentrated.
Amongst the many ways of absorbing mana Jayden found, only one was implacable here.
Jayden brought out the core he had borrowed from the MAGEO, dark in colour and shaped like a brilliant cut diamond.
He also opened the bag of crystals. Just like the ones he had seen at the riverbank, they were shaped like marbles and jelly-like in texture, but them being made up of water and mana, didn't make them water crystals.
These were premature water crystals which were used in cultivating the wind element. Before a premature water crystal could become a mature crystal which is used in cultivating the water element, it had to go through certain processes.
Jayden began picking up the wind crystals one after the other and placing them on the wind dragon core, smiling and concentrating like a child in a chemistry practical class.
Each wind crystal placed on the wind core dissolved into it like ink put in water.
The core was dead, but with each crystal Jayden dropped on its flat top, mana awakened its contents and its colour slowly brightened until...
"Ninety-nine... hundred"
Jayden dropped the last crystal on the core, and it immediately dissolved. Now the core was pulsing with a deep blue glow that even reflected in the veins of Jayden's hand.
"Hundred crystals, isn't this too much?" Jayden said, comparing in his mind the normal amount other dragon tamers used for activation.
But there was nothing at risk since he was a third-generation tamer, still, no one said it wasn't going to be a sweat-breaking procedure.
Usually, other tamers would have to use the Mana extraction machine to first absorb mana from the crystals, then disperse it evenly throughout their body, but Jayden didn't find the words to get his mum to buy him such a machine, and he also couldn't risk using the school's public machines since his beast was a secret.
Now this was his way of improvising.
"This must be your first time, so be careful, kid" Draco warned.
Jayden stared at the core, but he didn't let any possible danger stop him. Yeah, no risk no reward.
He closed his eyes and felt his own mana flow within his body. It was like interconnected rivers of mana flowing together with blood, and their soul destination was his heart.
'Since there are no machines, I'll have to use my heart as one.'
'Send the mana to my heart through my veins and it would disperse it evenly around my body through the arteries.'
But it was harder than it seemed.
First, Jayden had to think of a way of absorbing mana rather than pouring it out like in the ceremony.
As the year's smartest students in the whole nation, it wasn't hard to figure out.
All he had to do was open his sweat pores while feeling hot inside.
He was already steaming from within because of the risk at hand, so there was no need to do a row of push-ups.
Since the body always fought for homeostasis, it would naturally absorb air from outside to cool the hot inside, and that way, the inward flow of mana was established.
Blue glow of mana began creeping up Jayden's veins. Any little mistake directing the mana and it enters an artery, which carries blood flowing away from the heart, the mana would not be well evenly dispersed, and if over-saturated in some places, it could cripple that portion of the body.
At least not as bad as mana poisoning, which would completely kill it, and that part would have to be cut off.
Imagine if it's a very wrong part?
Sweat was dripping from Jayden's temple as he fought to keep the inflow of mana as if sipping a drink with a straw without giving any breaks.
It was discomforting, but when the mana finally passed his shoulder and connected to his heart through his veins, Jayden exhaled a shuddering breath.
He didn't need to keep absorbing anymore, the connection had been established, and just like a tap, the mana would not stop the inflow until all its content had been transferred.
His breath still caught in his throat, feeling the gushing flow of mana surging through his arm and dispersing through his body like a virus until the core in Jayden's palm began to dim and eventually stopped glowing.
Jayden fell flat to the bed, breathing sharply with his gaze fixed on the ceiling.
"I-I'm a genius", he muttered, although it was fair to call himself that. He had just done what he had taken the MAGEO months or even years to create a machine which could do that.
Jayden lay down for some minutes feeling the flow of man within his body and slowly he could see his aura turning from gold to blue.
The balance between the four cores was now broken, with the wind core awakened and only when he all cores were activated, all at same level would his aura become gold again.
But it didn't take long before curiosity caught him again.
'I just feel mana flowing through me, did I really awaken a core?' He thought then quickly sat up and reached for his Galaxy Z Fold 6, the phone his mom had gotten him the previous day.
He opened an app called "Beast Stats", put it on scan mode and aligned the front camera to his eyes.
Three seconds then,
Beeeep!
The screen flickered and displayed his results:
○○○
Name: Jayden Logan
Beast: Celestial Dragon
Beast Physical grants at D-rank Tier 3: 100% increase in strength and a 60% speed boost.
Cores: Earth – Null
Water – Null
Wind – D³ (D-Rank, Tier 3)
Flame – Null
Titles: Wind Conductor (Level 1)
Title insingnia: 5/100% control over wind. You can only tell the direction of the wind.
Wind Mana Compatibility: 10/10000
○○○
Jayden smiled at the screen, although the starts were low being that with hundred crystals and more he was only able to tell the direction of the wind, but at least, when there's a start, there's always capability to create an end.
And that path, he would begin in the academy tomorrow.
"The starting line has been drawn."