Grand Saint Alloy

Tristan’s brain could not comprehend the last part, so he focused on the first, “How could you be a hero? That’s not possible.”

Siren narrowed his eyes. He had seen the unbelievable power that Luke had exhibited. He had cut through an elemental lord like it was a new recruit. Sure the elemental was three stacked elementals of different types, but their abilities were additive, putting its its physical capabilities somewhere around high tier five or low tier six.

If Luke could really increase his tiers beyond his potential without artifacts, this really was the only time to stop a potential threat to the Caldera. He had seen how Luke had dealt with Carl several years ago. The thought of an Elder ticking one of his triggers and getting their city annihilated was unsettling and disturbingly likely.

Luke rolled his eyes, “So, did someone turn your ears off or something? I said you are a tier one now, haven’t you noticed how the area of your metal sense has gone up by about fifty percent, thats how I noticed it in the first place.”

Tristan frowned in thought. It was true, his attention had been drawn by the metal in his surroundings. Because they were sitting on top of a mine he had not noticed the oddity of the situation. He had simply assumed that it was a situation created by the previous violence. However, his trouble with movement could be attributed to higher physical capabilities, essence did reinforce the body after all.

“Ok, say that is true, how is it possible,” Tristan thought he should be excited, but he was suspicious instead. Siren looked like he believed Luke, so something crazy really did go down in the mine.

“Are you familiar to what happens to any part of the human body that breaks and heals properly?” Luke said. Both Siren and Tristan looked blankly at him, “So neither of you know anything. When a bone breaks it heals denser and stronger, when a muscle tears it heals bigger and stronger, when a kern cracks.”

Luke motioned like he was waiting for them to complete his sentence, Tristan obliged, “you die, everyone knows that when a body can’t hold essence, it collapses in on itself. A body can’t support itself without essence to reinforce it.”

Luke sighed, “Yes that’s true, most of the time. My father found a way to side step that issue. Believe it or not he was a miner here several decades ago and during that time he found a laboratory. Many of Hardrid’s tools actually come from that excavation. However he was the only one who knew what the laboratory was for, because he ran off with the records.”

“Those should have gone to the previous Elder Forest,” Siren said indignantly.

“Sure, but I don’t care. Anyway, the body holds back about half of its true capabilities, and the same is true of the kern. What he learned was that if you were genuinely in danger that last half would be used to preserve your own life, and once exhausted the kern would crack. Your right that the body would collapse if the kern is drained. However, what if you could preserve life for the few minutes or hours it takes the body to absorb the essence needed to fix your kern?”

“I guess it would come back more robustly,” Tristan did not sound sure of himself. This was a line of thought he had never considered before.

Siren was not convinced, “I have seen scores of desperate soldiers exhausting their kerns to survive, only to die when it cracked. None of them ever survived.”

“They were unfortunate to be tier three, the more essence your body naturally holds, the greater the stress on said body,” Luke grinned, “Working for your power has perks that being born with it lacks.”

Siren narrowed his eyes, he was at the peak of tier three. That meant that the stress on his body would be almost half again greater than his soldiers. If he decided to break into tier four by absorbing the essence in his new sword, the process would be even more difficult. If he had known there was another way, one that he could accomplish by simply doing his job, he would have jumped at it.

“My father spent his days trying to minimize the effects. Its the reason why he became known as a criminal, all innovation costs something. Rail’s innovation costed lives.” Luke said, “He found that the issue was the bodies reliance on essence. It is a reliance that a tier zero kern nearly lack. In other words, if a tier zero body is at the peak of its physical capabilities and some sort of healing agent is available, survival is the likeliest outcome.”

“Is that why you kept giving me that shake,” Tristan asked. He could still taste the concoction in the back of his throat.

Luke nodded, “I kept pushing air essence into you, it made your muscles heal overnight, expediting your training. The protein shake also prolonged your life to the point you could survive on your own. Don’t worry, the next one is less dangerous.”

Siren frowned, “Next one, it sounds to me that you need to be in mortal danger, and barely survive it. Why would anyone want a ‘next time’.”

Luke shrugged, “I don’t know, Tristan, why would someone want a next time.”

Once he heard there was a way out of his circumstances a fire had lit in Tristans heart. Right now no one would grieve his death. Maybe his mother would, but Shadow Fist would make sure that she would never hear. He would not need money or artifacts, he would just need something to oppose him. With how metal kerns were treated outside the mine, he would have no shortage of people trying to get rid of him.

Tristan clenched his fist, “It is the only way for anyone like me to be anything but oppressed.”

Siren’s eyes widened. Tristan had seemed harmless, sure he had the blood of a silver devil, but what did that matter. It did not, so long as he could be controlled. The ability to increase his kern beyond his potential massively increased he potential danger, high tier metal kerns were like cockroaches, almost impossible to kill. Even if the myths were false, Siren would not be surprised if Tristan took revenge on the Forest Caldera for abandoning him.

“You see, commander,” Luke said, “Bugs do not appreciate being stepped on. Is that not reason enough?”

Tristan was exited, but he did see a flaw in the situation. If his tier kept rising eventually someone would notice, even one more tier would put him into the top ten percent of the caldera. A tier two, no matter who it was would not be able to survive a manhunt sponsored by their entire nation.

What would most likely happen was that word would get out. Elder Forest would get scared and send Shadow Fist after Tristan. Shadow Fist would get the beating of his life if he met Tristan, simply due to Tristans much more intensive daily routine. He would die if he met Luke, and despite the feelings of abandonment, that was not something he wanted.

Elder Forest would then be justified in sending out a couple dozen warriors and even Luke could not deal with that. Tristan looked up at his friend, well he probably could not deal with that.

“You think I step on you?” Siren seemed incredulous.

Siren had done his best to treat the rejects and criminals at the mine with the upmost respect. He made sure to treat everyone based on the contribution that they made, that preserved as much fairness as possible.

Luke leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, “Siren, you are only still alive because you are not that way. I had a good opportunity to get rid of any threat in the mine, no you are here specifically because you keep to your honor and your word. You owe me a life.”

Siren nodded slowly, he was a man driven by duty. Despite the fact that the elemental lord was stronger, he had stayed out of duty. Siren could have easily escaped, the lord was not after his life after all. Luke would have still dealt with it, however Siren’s conscience would not let him abandon his duty.

“That’s true,” he said skeptically, he was not sure what Luke wanted from him.

“Simple, you are about to achieve a tier four kern, find some excuse to head any guard post or military detail in our vicinity. Overlook the increase in our abilities until we can stand on our own,” Luke said, “It should be at most five years until that time.”

“You said that you needed life and death fights to progress, I will not let you slaughter random people, and I would fail in this task if you died,” Siren said indignantly.

Luke was asking him do do something impossible, however Luke simply waved his hand like it did not matter, “I never asked for protection, I asked for information suppression. If I kill someone, that’s my problem, not yours.”

Siren nodded, “This proposal is reasonable, five years of babysitting seems like a rather small task in exchange for my life, but I don’t like debts either.”