One thing Azaroth discovered early with his new initiate cores was that it took essence in the air faster. He sat on his bed drawing in essence to his normal core.

As fast as it was to now take essence into his core it still didn’t make much of a difference because it didn’t fill his now large core faster. If it had been his former core, he was sure to have filled it quicker.

He stayed there for one and a half hours. He crossed his legs and closed his eyes, concentrating on the feel of essence as it entered his body. The essence didn’t have a specific passage through the body, it entered through the whole body.

But it didn’t feel like it. It didn’t feel like it was passing through your whole body and Azaroth had come to enjoy the sensation of essence passing his body like an inferior adrenaline before it entered his core.

"Well?" Azaroth said to the empty room but nothing happened. The candle continued to burn on the bedside stone table, and the stillness in the room was undisturbed.

In front of Azaroth on his bed was his sword, he had kept feeding it essence from both his cores, and he took turns on which essence to feed it.

Azaroth was getting irritated because he couldn’t concentrate and achieve the semi-consciousness state that he wished for while he was harvesting essence.

"I’m getting tired of this game," Azaroth said flatly. Nothing happened for a second then the room spun and darkness surrounded him.

When Azaroth opened his eyes he found himself surrounded by deep darkness yet he could see a few feet from him.

"What are you playing at?" Azaroth asked the darkness.

The air shifted and the darkness thickened. "Not playing any game, Azaroth. Only training."

"How’s that training?" Azaroth demanded.

Thousands of red-slitted eyes open around him, they lit up the darkness with glowing red. The red eyes all focused on Azaroth before they all closed and now a single giant eye remained.

"You should be able to reach here on your own, I was just testing it." The eye said. It didn’t have a mouth but Azaroth could hear its voice all around him in the darkness.

Azaroth stood, his sword bumping gently on his hip. He couldn’t tell if it was the real weapon or not. It looked real enough anyway.

"I can come here anytime?" Azaroth asked.

"Well, for now, you should be able to come here yourself at night but as you get stronger you could do more. So much more." The eye said.

Azaroth frowned. "Why the night?"

The eye stared at Azaroth. "That was when I’m most strongest....for now."

Azaroth shrugged. "What are we doing today?"

"Congratulations on advancing, why don’t you fill your chaos core first?"

Azaroth sat back down and started harvesting. It took a while but he got it filled, it was hard to concentrate at first with the eye staring at him but after some time Azaroth forgot about the eye as essence started entering his chaos core.

The chaos core was only half of his normal core and yet it felt so strong as it glowed softly against him mentally.

Azaroth stood and stretched when he was done. "It’s full now what should we do?"

"Your sword." The eye said.

Azaroth looked at it in confusion. "What happens to my sword?"

"We need it for your training." It said.

Azaroth unfastened his sword and raised it in front of him, raising it to the darkness.

Silence, until the eye narrowed. "What? I can’t hold it. Just drop it on the floor in front of you."

Well, that answered one of his questions, whatever the eye was it wasn’t physical. And it couldn’t hold things but Azaroth was sure it could affect things. He didn’t know which one was worse.

Azaroth dropped the sword, it made no sound as it touched the darkness-filled floor. He didn’t even know what the floor was made of. It was all darkness.

The eye was silent now, spinning in the darkness. Azaroth asked it. "What are you doing?"

"Hummmmmmm... I’m thinking about which skill to teach you! I have three skills for the chaos core but you can only start two now and start building it. The third is for when you’re more advanced." It said.

Azaroth flexed his hand, finally but. "Don’t you say the chaos core is a vessel?"

"Yes, it is, and no, you are not ready to know what it is really for." The eye said. "The skills I’m going to teach you are more like the secondary purpose of the chaos core. It also build it. Make it stronger because it must be a strong core to....." the eye closed and the darkness shuddered.

It opened again. "I’ve decided, sit down. Let’s start with the easiest. The move— shift— stir skills."

Azaroth sat. "The what?"

"Well, that’s the roughest translation I can get for you in your language.... wait... I think it’s called telekinesis here!" The eye glowed with excitement.

Azaroth had heard about it. The ability to move things with your mind. Now that’s a skill Azaroth could appreciate. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"Hummm.... but not quite. Yours is a little different but no matter! Let’s get down to it!" The eye moved closer to Azaroth. "Imagine your essence leaving your hand in threads, like small thin ropes."

Azaroth lifted his right hand and Imagined his chaos essence doing as the eye said. His chaos essence responded fast, covering his right hand in a mass of black and red.

He tried to move it into thread as the eye said but the essence did nothing but shook a little in his hand.

"Well, that was disappointing." The eye said.

Azaroth glared at it, his eyes almost the same color as the chaos essence. "Aren’t you the teacher?" Azaroth growled.

The eye shrank. "Ah....I am? Of course, I am! But you must know you are my first student!"

Azaroth sighed, touched his Chaos core, and started channeling. It was going to be a long night.