The Essence Flow-Chapter 139: Essentia Is Memory

The Essence Flow-Chapter 139: Essentia Is Memory

Towan flopped backward onto his bed with the enthusiasm of a falling tree, the fresh linens puffing up around him in a cloud of lavender-scented air. "All right," he announced to the ceiling, one arm draped dramatically across his forehead. "So class starts at nine, and we gotta get up at seven to shovel down cafeteria slop?" His toes wiggled contentedly against the footboard, already half-settled into sleep's embrace.
"Exactly." Elliot didn't look up from the timetable, his fingers methodically arranging their belongings across the polished oak dresser. The new dorm smelled of beeswax and sunlight—a far cry from the mildew-scented entry-level quarters they'd endured the last few days. A satisfied hum escaped him as he slotted their practice gloves into perfect alignment.
His gaze drifted to the window where golden afternoon light spilled across the grounds. Beyond the glass, the emerald training fields stretched toward distant duel arenas, their white boundary lines crisp as fresh parchment. "We got a nice room, huh?" The observation came out softer than intended, colored by memories of shared cupboards and cracked plaster.
From the bed came a muffled snort. "Yeah," Towan's voice was thick with impending sleep, one eye already surrendering to exhaustion while the other fought a losing battle to stay open. "The best one so far." His fingers curled into the plush quilt—real down feathers, not the straw-stuffed burlap they'd grown accustomed to—as his breathing deepened into the rhythm of someone determined to enjoy every privilege their hard-won flags had earned.
Morning light streamed through the cafeteria's arched windows, painting checkered patterns across empty tables as the small group settled in. The usual breakfast clamor was conspicuously absent—only the clink of cutlery against porcelain echoed through the vaulted space.
"I expected there to be more students..." Towan mused, his spoon hovering over a bowl of honey-drizzled oats as he scanned the near-deserted hall. His voice carried farther than intended in the quiet.
Sylra's teacup met its saucer with aristocratic precision. "There are only first years right now." A delicate sip. "We start two weeks before everyone else to get accustomed to the academy." The unspoken
obviously
lingered in her lifted eyebrow.
Towan chewed thoughtfully on the information along with a mouthful of warm bread. "Yeah, makes sense," he conceded, flakes of crust tumbling onto his plate.
"So..." He swallowed hard, chasing the dry bite with a gulp of milk. "What's our first class?" The question came out slightly muffled by his second, more ambitious mouthful.
Elliot turned the schedule toward him, finger tracing the embossed text. "Essentia Theory & History 1." His nose wrinkled slightly at the dense course description beneath. "Seems quite heavy."
Rellie's teaspoon froze mid-stir, sending ripples through her tea. The liquid darkened ominously, much like her expression. "It is." Her crimson eyes grew distant, reflecting some unseen tome of nightmares. "I read the book needed for the class and..." A shudder ran through her small frame. "It's quite extensive." The way her fingers tightened around the cup suggested "extensive" was a criminal understatement.
The classroom yawned before them like a cathedral to forgotten knowledge. Towering stone walls disappeared behind cascading tapestries—some depicting anatomical charts so precise they seemed to breathe, others showing ancient battlefields where warriors wielded Essentia like living storms. At the room's heart, a chalk circle large enough to contain a grown man pulsed with dormant runes, their faint blue glow syncing with the rhythm of distant footsteps overhead.
Towan collapsed into a back-row chair with all the grace of a sack of potatoes, his forehead meeting the polished oak desk with a dull thud. "Oh yeah," he groaned into his palms, voice muffled by wood and disillusionment. "Exactly how I imagined training to be. Notebooks and whisper-chanting professors." His head lolled sideways, one eye peering blearily at the elaborate diagrams. "Where's the blood? The drama? The near-death experiences?"
“Try using that one brain cell of yours and listen for once,” Sylra said, taking a seat beside him with all the grace of a queen stepping onto a throne, arranging her parchment with military precision. The quill she placed beside it looked sharp enough to draw blood.
The classroom yawned before them like a cathedral to forgotten knowledge. Towering stone walls disappeared behind cascading tapestries—some depicting anatomical charts so precise they seemed to breathe, others showing ancient battlefields where warriors wielded Essentia like living storms. At the room's heart, a chalk circle large enough to contain a grown man pulsed with dormant runes, their faint blue glow syncing with the rhythm of distant footsteps overhead.
Towan collapsed into a back-row chair with all the grace of a sack of potatoes, his forehead meeting the polished oak desk with a dull thud. "Oh yeah," he groaned into his palms, voice muffled by wood and disillusionment. "Exactly how I imagined training to be. Notebooks and whisper-chanting professors." His head lolled sideways, one eye peering blearily at the elaborate diagrams. "Where's the blood? The drama? The near-death experiences?"
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Sylra's chair scraped across the flagstones as she settled beside him, back straight as a dueling saber. "Try using that one brain cell of yours and listen for once," she murmured, arranging her parchment with military precision. The quill she placed beside it looked sharp enough to draw blood.
At the lectern, Professor Kaelin's finger traced invisible patterns in the air. Essentia streamed from her fingertip like liquid starlight, forming glowing equations that hovered mid-breath. When she spoke, her voice carried the quiet certainty of mountain springs carving through stone:
"Essentia is memory." The words resonated in their bones. "It is the impression your being leaves upon the world, and the means by which the world answers you back." A flick of her wrist sent the glowing symbols rearranging themselves. "It has existed long before cultivation systems, elemental categorization..." Her eyes gleamed like polished obsidian in the dim light. "...or ranking boards."
Elliot's pen froze mid-note.
(...Did she just roast half the academy system in the opening minute?)
His gaze darted to the ceiling, half-expecting the Headmaster to come crashing through in outrage.
Professor Kaelin's crimson robes billowed as she turned, though no wind stirred the chamber. "Who here," she asked, her smile sharp as a freshly honed blade, "can tell me the three post-Corruptor breakthroughs that redefined the use of Essentia for non-practitioners?"
Kaelin turned, crimson robes fluttering with ghostlight. “Who here can tell me the post-Corruptor breakthroughs that redefined the use of Essentia for non-practitioners?”
The forest of raised hands swayed—Len's rigid precision, Sylra's effortless grace, Rellie's tentative reach—each a testament to their differing approaches to knowledge. Professor Kaelin's finger became a compass needle, landing unerringly on Len with the certainty of an arrow finding its mark.
"Essentia-powered tools," Len answered, her usually steady voice betraying the barest tremor. The words left her lips like carefully measured ingredients in an alchemist's formula. "Where the person doesn't need to use Essentia directly and just channels it through their weapon."
Kaelin's chalk snapped against the board in triumphant punctuation. "Exactly. Good answer." The compliment, though professional, carried the warmth of a mentor recognizing a kindred analytical mind.
Her chalk flew across the slate, conjuring a sword so lifelike its edge seemed to gleam. "Scientists like Selene or Rheon—" the names rang with reverence, "—pioneered this movement to arm those severed from Essentia's flow." The chalk transformed into an artist's brush, shading intricate circuitry along the weapon's grip. "This conduit bypasses the user's limitations," she tapped the detailed hilt, "granting even the ungifted a whisper of power."
The lecture hall's air hummed with captured attention as Kaelin's free hand gestured broadly. "Naturally," she continued, her robe sleeves billowing like crimson wings, "the tool's effectiveness mirrors its wielder's understanding." Swift strokes now populated the board with dueling figures—a brute's clumsy hack beside a duelist's fluid lunge, a tactician's measured thrust contrasting with a berserker's wild swing. Each style trailed unique Essentia patterns, their glowing afterimages hanging in the air like ghostly instruction manuals.
(Wait...that's actually interesting.)
Towan's fingers stilled on his doodle-covered parchment, his usual restlessness momentarily forgotten. The revelation settled in his mind like a puzzle piece clicking into place—
(I didn't know Rheon or Selene engineered such things...)
His gaze drifted to the intricate chalkboard diagrams, now seeing them through new eyes.
Professor Kaelin's voice dropped to a hush heavy with historical gravity. "These weapons were forged with one purpose—" Her chalk circled the sword's core in a glowing spiral. "To arm every last soul should the Corruptor's shadow ever darken our world again." The runes in the floor pulsed faintly, as if stirred by the ominous name.
Across the aisle, Elliot's thumb absently rotated the silver band around his finger. The metal caught the light strangely—too bright for ordinary silver, too cold for simple jewelry.
(I guess some technology remains hidden...)
His mind flashed to the legends of Lytharos—the Essentia-less prodigy who'd carved his name into history with nothing but this same type of ring and sheer, burning talent. The grooves under his fingertips thrummed with untold potential, a silent promise whispering:
What could you become?
The lecture unfolded like an ancient scroll—each revelation peeling back another layer of Essentia's turbulent history. Professor Kaelin's voice wove through the hall, painting vivid tapestries of the Corruptor Wars with her words. The chalkboard became a battlefield, diagrams of meridian channels transforming into strategic maps where spiritual cultivation clashed with existential threats.
Rellie's quiet voice occasionally pierced the hum of discussion, her crimson eyes alight with insights that made even Kaelin pause mid-explanation. Len contributed precise corrections about noble house contributions, her fingers tracing invisible energy pathways in the air as she spoke. Sylra's comments cut straight to combat applications, her fan snapping shut to emphasize tactical points. Even Alira, typically reserved, offered surprising observations about rural Essentia practices that made the professor nod approvingly.
Elliot sat motionless as a scholar's statue, absorbing every word with the intensity of a scribe preserving forbidden knowledge. His notebook filled with feverish diagrams, each stroke of his pen capturing nuances others missed.
Towan, meanwhile, had transformed his parchment into a gallery of doodles—heroic stick figures battling what might have been the Corruptor (or possibly a very angry chicken). His chin propped on one hand, he alternated between stifling yawns and squinting at the ceiling as if hoping for a practical demonstration to come crashing through it. The historical dates blurred together in his mind, though he perked up whenever Kaelin mentioned particularly violent battlefield tactics.
Through the arched windows, the sun completed its slow journey across the sky, casting elongated shadows of the students across the rune-carved floor—some leaning forward eagerly, others slumped in resignation, and one Towan-shaped shadow in the back making elaborate hand puppets against the wall.

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Chapter 139: Essentia Is Memory