Luis nodded and started straightening his back as his dad told him to get ready to reach the next tier.
"You already got past the hard part, and your body naturally accepts aura now," Noah said.
"Your control is already good for being at the adept tier, You should have been able to tell with your fight with the Sand Strikers. Now, all you need to do is reach the next tier. You should not need any guidance but I will be here just in case."
Luis closed his eyes and focused on the cores within his body.
The darkness faded, and Luis could see two glowing cores in his body. The cores were full of aura.
One core had a reddish gold tint to it, with lightning streaks dancing outside of it, because of the Lynx blessing and the Phoenix essence.
The other core was a darker color. It was brown in color, and it felt heavy, earthly it was the blessing from the rock golem.
Each core in a person would resemble the blessings it hold.
Luis couldn't quite explain it, but compared to before, his cores felt… alive.
Luis could feel the aura way more now, unlike before. Their existence felt more prominent. The flow of aura in his cores was clearer now. He could feel how they moved and feel the warmth from them.
Taking a slow breath, Luis focused on the reddish-gold core first.
Like before, when trying to reach the next tier, Luis started with the outer shell of the core. It slowly began to crumble. Then, from inside the core, the particles drifted upward and downward outside the, outer cracks of the shell of the core. They were small in size such as the size of sand grains.
This part was easy; Luis hadn't struggled with this before, either.
Breaking the core part was always easy, but the next part was always hard.
Luis watched as the aura from the core began forming into two new cores below and above the original core. The small sand grain sized particles of aura slowly formed two bigger circles above and below the original core. The circles would first form with the other most layer with the inside being empty.
This part had always felt strange. Whenever Luis tried to control the new cores to keep their shape, they would break apart and go back into the original core.
It was like Luis had grown a new limb; he was unable to control it.
But this time, it was like the limb had always been there but it had always just been asleep. Instead of controlling a new limb, Luis was moving an old, weak injured one.
Slowly, the two new cores began to solidify until the original disappeared. The new cores were double in size but only a quarter full.
That was fine, though because when forming new cores it was their stability that mattered not if they were full or not. If a core was stable it also meant aura naturally was stored inside of it, aura would be attracted to the cores because once aura enters a person it gets influenced by the body and heads to the spot where the body instinctively already stored all the aura.
Luis was halfway done now.
Luis was now focused on the second core, the one with the golem blessing. The aura felt a bit heavier to move because of the strain it took for the first core, but it wasn't as hard as before. The core wasn't pushing back against Luis like before.
Luis repeated the same process he had done with the first core with the next core. Slowly crumbing it until the dust from it formed two more cores. Luis took his time because if he failed now he would have to start all over again.
After a long, agonizing process of slowly guiding the aura to make two new cores, Luis finally did it. He had four cores now, and all that remained was to stabilise them, another important step.
Stabilising them was the most important step.
Because the aura in the new cores still remembers the old structure of the two cores. The aura would want to go back to how it was previously trying to drift towards the orginal position and trying to rebuild back into only two cores.
The cores were trying to drift inwards to merge back again.
Luis gritted his teeth. He was almost there, all his concentration just needed to go there to stop the cores from rejoining.
Luis didn't know how long he had been doing this. He couldn't focus on the time every second, he had to remain focused on the cores, making sure they didn't rejoin.
There was only one thing for him to do now, and that was to wait.
Wait, stabilise the cores and focus.
Wait, stabilise the cores and focus.
Wait, stabilise the cores and focus.
Wait, stabilise the cores and focus.
Luis didn't know if it had been a few minutes or hours, but the aura in the cores finally started to stabilise. The aura didn't try to move to the original spot. The cores stopped drifting. Luis could feel it there was no tension anymore, like a long storm had finally ended.
The aura did not resist. It stayed there like it was home.
Luis opened his eyes.
Luis took a small breath. Looking across from him, he saw Noah smile. A smile he usually gave when he was proud of Luis.
"You did it, Luis, you reached the Advanced Tier."
Some time later
It had taken Luis a few hours to reach the Advanced Tier. Noah had left the room after Luis reached the new tier, allowing him to rest and get some sleep because the last few days had been busy.
Noah was currently outside of the house, sitting on the edge of the branch, looking at the city view. Noah was still thinking about the meeting that had happened a few hours ago, below in the secret chamber under the city.
The meeting was a few hours long, but the main agenda didn't take long to discuss, it was just the final details that took longer.
Noah passed through many barriers and corridors to get to the meeting room. The passages all glowed because of the barrier placed on them. There were no guards present on the walk to the meeting room, all the barriers opened up as Anara went through them.
Eventually, they reached the bottom, a big, round hall carved deep underground. At the center of it was a flat stone table, and a few wooden chairs seemingly coming out of the ground around the table.
On the end opposite of the entrance to the hall was the Xoliti clan deity, sat on the ground, its figure blurred by one of its blessings.
From the Phoenix clan, Noah, Isabella, Bane, and Sera sat down on the chairs.
From the Xoliti clan, Anara, Revan, and Vaerin sat down on the chairs.
Vaerin was the new person who joined them. Noah had heard about him before, he was the one who managed the resources in the Xoliti clan.
Vaerin wasted no time in starting the meeting.
"I'll speak honestly, and the Xoliti clan doesn't have enough resources to keep the Phoenix clan here for long."
The air in the room shifted at his words, tension hanging in the air.
"There aren't enough resources to feed the people or to make pendants to hide the Phoenix clan. Tracking the Black Talons' movements lately takes a lot of resources. And if the Phoenix clan is tracked," he said, taking a pause and looking at Bane,
"To back here we won't be able to survive, not against four empires. We don't have enough strength."
There wasn't any malice in his voice when he said that, he was just stating the reality of the situation.
Vaerin then contributed.
"We can hide a small number of people, the injured, elderly, and children, but the rest of the Phoenix clan will have to relocate soon."
Bane replied calmly,
"We understand that it is not possible for the entirety of the Phoenix clan to be able to live here."
Banes's voice became more resonant as he kept speaking.
"But I don't believe we need to anymore. A lot of time has passed since the Phoenix clan scattered. During this short time of peace, we have been able to rest, been able to grow stronger, reach higher tiers."
Taking a pause, he continued. "There is no point in hiding or running away forever now. The Black Talons' tracking methods have gotten better. We cannot relocate to another place in hiding, and we cannot spread out. We need to go somewhere where no one will follow us, and we need to build a new base."
There is only one place I know of where we can stay The Great Storm of Karethrall.
.....
Aura Tiers
Novice - 1 core
Adept - 2 cores
Advanced - 4 cores
Intermediate - 8 cores
Elite - 16 cores
Master - 32 cores
Grandmaster - 64 cores
Legendary - 124 cores
Mythical - 256 cores