"You...bastard!" Runthral clutched his face in shock and stumbled back by a couple steps. His stellar recovery rate had already regenerated his peeled facial skin by the time he could process what had happened.
Eyes spewing hate, he glared at Torq, only for the latter to shut the door in response, "Bye, my unfortunate brother."
"Boiboi!" The walls churned like water, moving ahead like tentacles to target Torq as Runthral roared in anger, "I’ll kill you!"
"You BAS..."
"Sumatra, your blessed..."
The walls reverted to their original state, as a panting Runthral stood within the confines of his room, having broken out in cold sweat. He looked around in a hurry, worrying the world around him had turned monochromatic.
Only when everything seemed normal did he heave a sigh in relief, raging a few seconds later upon seeing Torq leaning on the door frame and eyeing him with a wide grin, "You...damn...!"
"Careful, brother." Torq sauntered into the room, now fully confident Runthral wouldn’t attempt anything stupid for the time being, gripped by fear, "You don’t want me doing that again, do you?"
"This time, I might fully unleash it."
"What...what the heck are you? Are you truly Boiboi?" Runthral grasped at straws, shouting in paranoia.
"Whoa there!" Torq waved his hand in a hurry, "Don’t go labelling me with nonsense out of an inferiority complex, alright?"
"I can do what I do merely because I am talented enough to do so." Revealing a faint grin, Torq performed a mild salute and walked away, "Do whatever you want with that information. Leak it to the Clan or investigate it yourself. I couldn’t care about it in the slightest."
"However, don’t interfere with my cultivation, alright?" Torq closed the door shut behind him, "Since I only have a month, I’m getting a bit desperate."
Gah!
A few seconds later, Runthral slumped on the ground, panting in exhaustion, as if he had been battling for days at a stretch. Staring at his trembling fingers, all he could manage was a whimper.
Then, he curbed his emotions, biting his tongue in an effort to rely on pain to ease the tremors his body was experiencing, ’I...I won’t let this slide!’
"You..." He glared at the door, "I’ll kill you and reclaim my stolen talent!"
"Aargh!"
A few minutes of walk later, Torq reached his dorm room. Within the door was a porous cylinder containing water. It had been refined to be his Spirit Weapon. So, as long as Torq seeps his Prana through the pores and reaches the water within, he would be able to control it.
And by moving the water through a series of channels using psychokinesis, he could open the door.
The door was twenty centimetres thick, too tough for any student to overpower it with force. Hence, it created a safe dwelling space. Since the water within the door had been refined into his Spirit Weapon, only Torq could open the door. This held true for every student with their respective room.
’Runthral is the only exception, since he could just walk through the door as if it were made of loose sand.’ Torq thought, ’Even he’s capable of something like that.’
Entering the room, he closed the door shut, "A bonafide Deity can move in ways one wouldn’t even notice them in action."
He recalled the Empyrean Snapper that had silently moved its ten-kilometre-long neck in a flash without stirring up the surroundings in the slightest, "Only an existence on that level is worthy of worship."
The dorm room wasn’t anything grand but was spacious enough. The floorspace spanned a length of five metres and a breadth of four metres, with a corner sporting a polished slab of granite, meant for sleeping.
There was a table protruding out of the wall, made of stone, and the chair was similarly made too. Even though they were all made from stone, their interiors had been hollowed out without compromising their structural integrity.
Moreover, they all looked like they had been polished by endless water currents over decades or even centuries, like the rocks found at river beds. "A Cooter Clansman having expertise with Mystic Mist Art needs only a few minutes to carve such stone furniture."
"In a month, I too ought to reach that level." He took a seat, feeling the surface was not only smooth, but also generated a type of faint warmth only rocks could. It made him feel at peace, which would work wonders while building his Spirit Container.
Taking a few minutes to admire the place, Torq peered out of the window. All that stared back at him was the window of another dorm room. He had been given the worst possible location in the dorm, "While that unfortunate brother of mine can gaze upon sea waves all the time."
He grumbled for a few minutes to satisfy his inner grumpy self and then set to work, taking out Runthral’s facial skin from his sleeve.
Primary Nature–Daily Pet!
Any piece of the target’s skin would do the job. Facial skin was only better in that it saved a few units of Prana during the formation of the Pet’s body. Ideally, the most cost-effective method was to rip off the entirety of the target’s skin.
The next best thing was facial skin. And the last option was whatever patch of skin he could get from the target. This option wasted too much Prana during Pet’s creation process.
Pet was the term used to address the product of his Primary Nature of Daily Pet. His Primary Nature allowed him to create one Pet a day. Since he had already created a Melcarp Pet today, he would have to wait a day to create another one.
However, that didn’t mean he couldn’t stockpile facial skins earlier, ’Runthral is the most emotionally disturbed today, since his underlings are still in a coma.’
"That’s why I could target him and walk out unscathed." Torq grinned, "Had it been anytime else, I would be getting whipped for an entire day."
On Sumatra, thanks to the existence of Prana, a rule came into effect. Only existences capable of carrying Prana were allowed to live. That prevented microorganisms from thriving on the Continent.
And as the body part of a Gold Grade existence, Runthral’s facial skin wouldn’t degrade even after decades had passed. Of course, it was no different from an Elixir for Iron Grade Pranic Beasts, who would swarm the place to consume it, when given the chance.
"Well, no one’s entering here without my permission." Torq began to meditate, focusing on Mystic Mist Art to start rebuilding his Spirit Container.
At the Spirit Stage, a Spirit Container had to be formed to house every unit of Prana. These fragment Spirit Containers, one hundred in number, would fuse into a singular whole, which was an indicator of a human reaching the Body Stage.
Spirit Containers were stabler at the Body Stage. But in the Spirit Stage, emotional disturbance caused them to shatter easily. Moreover, the higher the number of Spirit Containers, the greater the strain produced on each.
This meant, at the higher levels of the Spirit Stage, even casual anger created chances for a Spirit Container or two to shatter.
Torq didn’t have to worry too much about it, as he had a better handle on his emotions. Even if he were to crash out, his Spirit Containers wouldn’t be rattled too much. With that in mind, he began to build his Spirit Containers, ’I currently have 18 of them. I need another 82 in 30 days. That’s not feasible without ingesting an Elixir.’
"Well," He eyed Runthral’s facial skin and grinned, "That’s why, this is my cheat."
"Even if you’re the weakest of your kind, my unfortunate brother," Torq got up, intending to head to the Canteen once again, "You’re still a Deity."
’I need lots and lots of Prana to make an Empyrean Snapper pet.’ He groaned a little, "Guess I’ll be shuttling between my room and the Canteen every few hours."