Chapter 10: One Of Three Options

A hundred and thirty five centimeters. By unsheathing his resolve and going all out, Zax actually extended the reach of his Soul Sense's radius by an additional five centimeters.

This achievement was far from expected, almost unprecedented. Not only his Soul Sense surpassed the reach of the common C level Mist User, Core Breaker, at the moment of his advancement, even at its current level, which in soul energy was equivalent to F level Mist User, it still was in its growing period.

The reason for that, although unknown or maybe was just of little importance to Zax, was the shock that he suffered merely six hours ago or so.

"Hmm ... I can feel it, the environmental essence of this cave". The microscopic particles, which were invisible to the naked eye, floated in the air, embedded the soil, stones and vegetation. To interpret the past of each particle was beyond Zax's abilities, at most he could perceive an obscure hunch, an idea – like the one he had of cave zero eight's lethal environment essence – of what roamed cave zero thirty nine in the other nine months of the year.

Nevertheless, Zax rejoiced. The environment essence of cave zero thirty nine was not in any way tyrannical, on the contrary, it was quite placid. "If beasts live in this cave they must be very peaceful. In cave zero eight..." Zax shivered. If he will associate the beasts with the environmental essence, then cave zero thirty nine was the burrow of rabbits and cave zero eight was the den of tigers.

A sudden realization dawned on Zax. "If it's not the environment essence that made me ... act rashly. Then, could it be the Earth's Cores?" Zax gazed upon the backpacks of Merly, Anet. Inside each of them was one brownish Earth's Core. "At first I thought that it was the environmental essence that fooled my Soul Sense to think that inside and beneath the rock there was a cluster of Earth's Cores. But it doesn't explain why I didn't locate the third Earth's Core Weysey found. If it's not the environment essence..." Zax rehearsed his hypothesis. "Then it must be the Earth's Cores!"

"Zax", Serah called him. "Zax!" She raised her voice.

"Serah?" Zax's gaze traveled impassively from the three backpacks to Serah's flushed face.

"Well, are you coming or just keep standing there?"

"Ah ... Yes!" Zax answered hastily. He was so focused on the three backpacks that he did not notice the growing distance between him and the rest of the group.

"What were you daydreaming about?" Serah asked. Amusingly she, too, was a few steps behind everyone. Closest to her were Mi, Merly and Anet who seemed to talk about school. And at the front were Dane, Weysey and Zushi who also talked about something.

"Nothing", Zax replied. "Just thinking about Earth's Cores, you know..."

"Hmm ... are you sorry for not choosing one when you had the chance?"

"No". Zax answered simply.

Though Serah already knew that he was not the type who has a temperamental personality, with the subject of Earth's Cores on the line even a leopard might change his spots. Be that as it may, Zax was confident in his friendship with Serah. Did he not give her a premium account card of the "greatest game in the whole wide world", Mocca Kart, less than half a year ago? In this particular case, even if he met Serah for the first time in his life five minutes ago and gave her the premium account card she would have been so awestruck, she would have let him open a second in game character and choose his own kart!

"Then, is it about the thing that big sister Zetsa taught you in order to find Earth's Cores?"

Zax hesitated to answer. Lying to the whole group and lying to his best friend in the face was entirely different.

"I'm right". Serah proclaimed. "Why do you still want to use what big sister Zetsa taught you? You tried before and yeah, you found three Earth's Cores, but you also wasted us five hours, not to mention that when you went wild and broke your fingers!" As his best friend, Serah, clearly, was without restraint when she reprimanded Zax. And she would have done so even if she received one of the three Earth's Cores.

"Sorry..." Angry Serah reminded Zax of angry Zetsa. Avoiding her stern eyes, Zax, at least, was grateful that she did not ask about what his big sister "taught" him to find Earth's Cores. "Could big sis have not told me because she thought that using Soul Sense to search for Earth's Cores will be straining? Or is it because she has known that Earth's Cores can distort the mind and perception of a Soul Sense?"

Seeing how Zax lost himself in thoughts right after apologizing, ticked Serah off. "Whatever", she sneered and grabbed his left hand. "Daydream what you want, just keep up the pace!"

"No Earth's Cores here either". Zax was disappointed. When he just started to search with his Soul Sense he managed to find two Earth's Cores and a bonus one in just ten minutes. Apart from his original goal, Zax wanted to find an Earth's Core to see how his Soul Sense will react to it, but he had two difficulties. The first one was that Earth's Cores were not as abundant and easy to find as he initially hoped. The second difficulty was his Soul Sense, ten to fifteen minutes was the longest that he could sustain it before having to rest for about the same length of time.

Sweeping his eyes for maybe the fiftieth time at the two backpacks ahead of him, which belonged to Anet and Merly, and then shaking his head in disapproval. "It's not the same as back then. Is it because they were moved or touched?"

The two Earth's Cores, hidden inside the inner pockets of the two's backpacks, had a lingering sensation that repressed the natural essence, which previously reigned around the Earth's Cores, and little by little resembled the presence of Anet and Merly when they were within the domain of his Soul Sense.

Zax waited for two more minutes and resumed using his Soul Sense to search.

"Water?" Zax sensed. Through the trees roots that entered and exited the domain of his Soul Sense, as he and Serah followed hand in hand the rest of the group, Zax grasped the obscure origin of the water in the trees roots and could tell that in the direction that they were heading was a large water reservoir. "West of us ... a lake? Hard to tell. But up ahead I'm sure, less than a hundred meters, behind those trees there is a flowing river". Of the latter part he was certain.

As his Soul Sense indicated, roughly a hundred meter behind a small grove was a narrow river. Alongside the river and in it were hundreds of participants. The many participants numbered, more or less, a sixth of the event's participants. So many that nobody batted an eyelid at the group of eight that Zushi led.

"They are searching here..." Merly pointed to the obvious. "There is the group from before!"

The hundreds of young participants search for Earth's Cores within the calm water of the river or at its banks

"Excuse me", Zushi turned to a boy not far from it.

"Yeah, what?" The boy walked barefooted along the river's banks. His eyes were fixated on the muddy earth.