Savage Awakening 585. Boot Camp (VI)

The Sage gave him a wave. “Take a look in the Astral Plane!”

When Zane did, he saw this translucent shining image shrouding the plate—an image of the plate, blown up a thousandfold. He saw the impact it made, the force it exerted, in how much it shone.

It all felt quite clear to him.

And he had to thank the Sage—that little tip turned out to be more useful than he’d expected. At first, Zane had thought Pure Size just magnified the impacts of whatever it touched. He’d mostly thought that because the plate crushing down on him wasn’t actually changing physically, just the feeling of it.

Now he was realizing that wasn’t fully the case.

One look at the Astral Plane, and he knew he’d gotten it backward. Pure Size didn’t just work on impacts. The Concept affected something far more fundamental. For a few seconds, he struggled to put a name to it, even as he set himself against the weight.

Then it felt like another little piece of the puzzle snapped into place.

‘Presence’—that was the right word for it, he felt. That was what Pure Size really worked on. The impacts he saw were just the consequences of it.

And somehow he knew, going off that impression, that if he dented a chunk of that invisible continent—even if he didn’t touch the plate directly—he’d dent that plate too. He’d be denting its presence, which made up some fundamental part of the plate itself.

That… made a lot of sense, actually.

He had a feeling that if he looked in the Astral Plane as the Sage punched another Kaijuu, he’d see a kind of ‘mech-suit’ in the Astral Plane shrouding the old fellow’s fist. A ‘suit’ that looked like the fist, but far bigger, and made of Law and essence.

The plate crushing down on him kind of wore a mech-suit of itself too.

There was much to discover, it turned out. And his guess was kind of right—just because he felt a kinship with Pure Size didn’t mean there wasn’t still a whole lot to learn about it.

He hadn’t really expected to grasp the Concept instantly. The thought only made him more eager to figure this thing out. Something about being good at it already, and making progress this fast on ‘getting’ it, felt quite motivating.

The Sage shouted something, and Zane snapped out of it a little.

“Give me an update, lad!”

Zane gave him another thumbs-up.

Then, on second thought—

“Just a bit more,” he said.

“What was that?”

“More!” he grunted.

That seemed to get through loud and clear. The Sage cranked the giant lever up a few notches, and it felt like the plate’s size shot up a good 25%.

Zane staggered a step before righting himself again.

He was quite pleased with that decision.

The feeling of Pure Size came through even stronger now. It’d felt clear before, but now it was like the Law itself had grown heavy, been put before him in fine resolution. He felt more insights stark in his mind, imprinting on some part of his soul, almost... He knew the moment that crusher stopped, the feeling would stop. But he’d come away with something too—an impression of the insight, like what was left after a mold was driven into clay.

He felt determined to lock that impression down.

It’d started as a test of the machine, but things had gotten a bit out of hand. Though he didn’t mind. These things just tended to happen with his training sessions with the Sage.

How’re things looking? roared the Sage. By now, the clanking mostly drowned him out.

Zane just asked for even more; he felt he could still handle it. The Sage blinked, then laughed. He said something like, alright, lad!—followed by what seemed to be words of encouragement. Then he cranked it up yet another notch.

And now the plate felt like it’d shot up to the size of several moons.

Then Zane just felt inundated by the feeling of Size. That awe and grandeur of all that vastness crushing down on him…

It felt, in that moment, like Zane was holding up the world. Not just the weight of it—the feeling it made in his mind.

He was pleased to see that that Pure Size feeling kept scaling one-to-one.

This all felt very different from learning Starfire. He was gaining insights from it, but it also felt like this thing was literally crushing the Law into his mind and body.

He had to say, he was enjoying himself quite a bit. He had to give it to the Steelheart Elders who’d designed it. They definitely knew what they were doing.

Though, with how things were going, he did have to spare a thought for his physique.

He’d been so wrapped up in Law, he’d almost lost track of the incredible forces going through him.

His muscles were pumped to their limits, tight against his skin—he could see veins standing out stark all over them, a pretty clear sign of hard exertion. Though it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

He was kind of surprised he could still lose himself in Law with his body working like this.

It was usually hard to focus on anything but the weight when you were lifting heavy. Though in this case, the Law was the weight, in a way, which probably helped.

How’s that? mouthed the Sage.

Zane still felt pretty up to the task. Quite sore all over, oddly, but still strong.

He felt he could still handle quite a bit more, actually. And a sense of Pure Size was quickly solidifying in his mind. At least the basics of it.

The other odd thing was those little pinpricks of pain going through him. His muscles still felt quite good, if, again, quite sore. But he was noticing some odd signs of wear along his bones—these micro-cracks sprinkled through him, stuff that he’d never really seen before…they weren’t healing like he’d expect. He wasn’t really sure what to make of them. He wasn’t sure what could’ve stressed his bones that much; he’d taken forces like this before and come out fine.

He figured just a little more and he’d be good for now. One more hard ‘stamp of the mold,’ so to speak, another strong impression—that had to be enough to get started with the whole ‘loading it into his physique’ phase.

It definitely wouldn’t be enough Concept to make his fist continent-sized yet or anything. But right now, he just wanted to solidify that first bit of insight. Then he’d figure out just what was going on with his physique.

…He was almost certain one more effort wouldn’t end up breaking himself. Unless those cracks meant a lot more than he thought.

It seemed pretty unlikely, but...

He squinted at them in the Astral Plane. Don’t you do it.

He was pretty sure it’d be fine.

With that, he signaled what he wanted to the Sage—just a bit more.

The Sage obliged.

***

The Barbarian Sage was damned proud of his lad.

Just seeing him standing there, bearing all that size—and he looked like he was doing well with it, too! Just a look at him, and you could tell he had the strength for it. And if he knew the lad at all, judging by the look on his face, Zane was already on the verge of that first bit of Law breakthrough.

The impressive bit was just how long the lad had been under there.

Everyone knew the lad had stamina for ages. But four hours standing under a crush of that magnitude, burning that kind of essence and Bloodline…

The Sage was a little surprised he wanted even more after all that. But the lad looked determined.

So the Sage heartily cranked that lever.

About six minutes later, there came a CRACK!

And the next thing the Sage knew—he’d only looked away for a second there—the lad was flattened.

“…Eh?”

He frowned, coming up closer. “You alright there, lad?”

He had to admit it was always a possibility, what with putting a Divine Profound-grade physique under that kind of extended pressure… he’d still thought the lad would pull through, though. Just as a matter of principle.

Typically his philosophy was not to step in in situations like this. He never wanted to cheat Zane like that, take away his chance to get back into the fight and all.

“C’mon, lad!” he roared at Zane. “You’ve got this—it’s just a little damned steel, I’ve seen you take down far worse than that!”

Zane grunted in defiance. But he seemed pretty crushed.

The Sage heard a few more cracks and decided maybe it’d be good to crank back the press. It was a tough call in times like these, and he knew Zane would never want him to do it. But you had to keep your disciple safe. The Sage wasn’t the most educated on master-disciple best practices. But he still took seriously that it was the job of the Master to look after his disciple’s well-being.

The Sage headed on over and hauled that several-hundred-ton press off the still-flattened Zane.

“You okay down there?” said the Sage.

Zane groaned again—something like, knew it—which put a grin on the Sage’s face. The lad was doing just fine. He was definitely alive, at least—couldn’t dispute that. “Alright, on your feet, now!”

He slung the lad’s arm over his shoulder and hauled him up. Zane did seem a bit dazed, which made sense considering how much force had been on him near the end there. It would’ve been enough to pulverize a great deal of T0 Empyreans.

“Walk it off, now, there you go,” said the Sage amiably. “You’re doing great, lad! There we are... You were looking so good down there! What the hells happened?”

Zane blinked and shook his head a bit. His brow furrowed. “I’m not sure. I felt pretty good too, actually.”

“Looks like a bone broke on you,” said the Sage.

“Something in my leg,” said Zane, nodding. “There were these tiny stress fractures. I think it’s just my body. My durability, at least. I’ve never really had a problem with physical toughness before… I think when you go higher up in Empyrean, though, peak Divine Profound’s just not enough. I definitely had the muscle strength to keep going, but after my leg gave out, I fell over. Couldn’t really save it after that.”

“Figured. Well—can’t be too disappointed, holding on for that long,” said the Sage easily. “It’d be hard not to get a few stress fractures after that.” 

“How long was I in there for?”

“Just about four and a half hours.”

“…” Zane blinked. This seemed like quite some news to him. He considered his newly mended leg and also his still-mending spine. “That… makes a lot more sense, actually.”

“It happens. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

For a second, they considered this new information. Then—

“I did figure out the basics of the Concept, though.”

“Did you, now!”

The lad nodded again, looking quite pleased with himself.

“Attaboy, lad—good godsdamned effort!” The Sage just marveled at him. He’d never seen a study as quick as the lad before, especially when it came to these physical Laws. Now, the Sage himself was known as something of a quick study. But there was just something about Zane that seemed built for it.

“Right then.” There was a pause. “How’re we feeling? You hungry?”

“Sure, I could eat.”

****

The Sage’s idea was for them to take a quick snack break before they made their way to the final station, which worked for Zane.

He felt a tad bit woozy, but the insights were still fresh in his mind.

He was pretty sure that crush had shattered his spine briefly and also destroyed quite a few internal organs. But with Prime Blood fueling his regeneration these days, it was nothing a quick break couldn’t fix.

He remembered telling Reina about how his training sessions with the Sage typically went. He mostly remembered her being horrified.

“Zane…” She’d looked torn. At last, she’d settled on—“…If he ever decides to take on another disciple, you have to tell him most men can’t just walk off a broken back. Please.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he’d told her. He hadn’t really thought about it that way before, but he supposed it could be a lot.

He quite enjoyed the Sage’s training style, personally. He’d told Reina he’d let the Sage know if it ever got to be too much for him, too. But he’d never felt that at all.

…He wondered if that said more about himself or the Sage.

In any case—most of the damage this time had been his fault.

That’d really been four and a half hours?

Time did pass pretty fast when he was deep in comprehension, but still.

No wonder he’d felt so strange back then…

…Even he wasn’t sure how he’d kept standing that long, now that he thought back on it.

He never felt like he trained that kind of extended strength endurance. Maybe he was just naturally good at it? It would make sense, with how much high-grade Titan Rhino blood and body parts he had… he supposed he was naturally quite good at most stamina-type feats, so it wasn’t all that surprising.

He’d learned something new about his body. He’d take it.

“—the second part,” said the Sage cheerfully. Zane blinked. “What’s up?”

“Just the loading process,” said the Sage. “You’ve got the Foundation Stone in your core already, haven’t you?”

“I do, yeah.”

“Then all you’ve got to do is load every new little bit of Law insight into your physique. Then it’s a short step to learning how to wield it however you want. I’ll tell you this, lad. Usually, the loading’s the short bit. For most talented folk, learning Pure Size takes centuries—loading it in’s usually just a decade or two, taken altogether. Just based on what we saw today, though, it’s hard to say which’ll take longer for you.”

The Sage gave him a head ruffle. “…Damned brat!”