Torq watched as Runthral formed the last crack in the floor. Now, starting from twelve different points on a circle, the cracks spread to the centre and expanded wide. The centre was a circle with a metre in radius, where Torq had been chained to the floor.
He watched the cracks spread around and cave in a deep hole, destabilising the part he was chained to. As his platform grew more and more unstable, wobbling while on the verge of collapsing, Runthral's snarky voice resounded.
"Why don't you plead during your final moments?"
"I will," Torq expressed in disinterest, "When it's my life's climax."
"This isn't," He spoke as the floor collapsed underneath him. As the ground broke off into chunks, they pulled at his limbs in different directions. The chains to his legs and hands were anchored to different falling fragments of the original floor.
As they fell and bounced over the cliff section in the cracks, they tugged at the chains, which pulled his limbs in every which way.
"Man, I didn't want to waste a day." Torq groaned as he fell, making a split second decision. His facial skin peeled off and promptly turned into a Pet of himself.
Primary Nature–Daily Pet!
Theoretically, Torq could create as many Pets as he wanted, given he made one every single day. However, he could only treat one Pet as a Spirit Weapon per day. Only after the day resets would he be able to use another Pet as a Spirit Weapon.
Being able to treat a Pet as a Spirit Weapon implied supplying it with Prana and making it behave like a living being. Their storage was an issue, as once charred up fully, they occupied the same mass and volume as the original.
He was capable of storing them in his Nature slots. At present, Boiboi's three Nature slots were empty. That meant Torq could store three Pets in Boiboi's slots in total. The limitation of still being able to use only one Pet per day still applied here.
It would seem like a disadvantage at first. However, the primary principle behind Daily Pet was that once turned into a Pet, it was available 'daily.'
For example, Torq had a Melcarp Pet before. Even though it was killed by the Manic Bludder, once the day changes and the ability gets reset, he'd be able to create it once again, for no additional cost.
In essence, the law of conservation of mass is applied to all the created Pets. Even when the Melcarp Pet is killed, and its body gets consumed by other creatures, the digested mass is still considered a part of its body's original composition.
When Torq creates the Melcarp Pet once again, all the particles part of its body once will get reverted to their original form–irrespective of the physical and chemical changes done to them–and vanish from their existing spots.
They would all gather before Torq and condense into the Melcarp Pet once again. In essence, his Primary Nature was a broken ability and one of its kind, capable of reviving his Pet daily.
Of course, this logic applied only to the Pet that was treated as his Spirit Weapon. The rest, when destroyed, couldn't be recovered.
Torq wanted to prioritise the completion of his Empyrean Snapper Pet, which was why he didn't focus on getting any other Pet. However, since the situation forced his hand, he created a Boiboi Pet.
There was only reason for doing this: Boiboi's Prana capacity was at 17 currently. But after the whipping session, he had expended all his stored Prana for healing the wounds.
Boiboi Pet, however, consumed Prana from Torq's real body, which was full of Prana, and had a capacity of 1200 units. That meant Boiboi Pet could draw from a Prana reserve of 1200 units.
Consuming sixty units of Prana to finish forming, the Boiboi Pet produced a sphere of water by drawing in the moisture content from the air. This enveloped the two of them and cushioned their fall.
Shortly after, the water sphere streamed upwards to form a slide, with a fierce upper current. All Torq had to do was to stand on one end of the slide and he was pulled to the top by the water current. He landed on an intact piece of floor between two cracks.
Half the cracks had closed by now, as Runthral was busy running a circle. By the time he finishes the circle, all the cracks would have closed shut, which was supposed to crush Torq.
"What?" Runthral skid to a stop, incredulously watching Torq land on the surface.
Chains stretched from his limbs, with their other ends seemingly severed by high pressure water. That was the doing of Boiboi Pet, as Torq's present position was well within the Pet's Spirit Weapon range.
"You wanted to kill me?" Torq snorted and sprinted towards Runthral, "Come, kill me now."
"S-Shit!" Runthral turned around and kicked the ground, which behaved like a wave and carried him forward at a pace surpassing his sprint.
"Don't run, you COWARD!" Torq roared, stopping promptly upon realising he wouldn't be able to catch up to Runthral by foot. 'He sure moves fast.'
'Subtle Terrain Domination…' He spat out in frustration, 'If I had that power, I would never feel the need to run away, no matter what.'
"Incompetent bastard, doesn't even have the brain to kill a weakling." He cursed and retracted his steps to arrive before one of the cracks. At a depth of four metres within, a platform of water had been created, with its edges shaped like a spike and wedged into the earth. Standing on the platform of water was the Boiboi Pet.
Torq lifted the Boiboi Pet using psychokinesis and made physical contact with the latter. The moment they touched, the Boiboi Pet vanished, now stored in Boiboi's Primary Nature slot.
"This isn't enough." Torq clutched the vial given by the Boiboi Pet. The other party had carved it out of stone using pressurised water. Stored within it was the Low-Grade Elixir. It was still leagues off from the result he was expecting.
"That idiot," Torq chuckled upon noticing the eight students lying unconscious on the floor, "He left them behind in his hurry to flee."
He quickly approached them and collected the rest of their tears, "Waste, it all went to waste!"
In the time it took between the students getting separated from him by Runthral and him catching up to them, most of the Spirit Container shards in their tears had reverted to Prana and dissipated.
Only faint traces remained behind, which wasn't sufficient in the slightest. 'I can use the Skill of Spirit Elixir on the Boiboi Pet every day. But it still wouldn't be enough.'
"I can only wait for another opportunity." He groaned and observed water flooding in from the stands, "That idiot's actions lured in a horde of Pranic Beasts."
Torq waited a couple seconds to see the silhouettes of the invading Pranic Beasts. "Troitail?"
'Fighting them in the open is suicide.' Without a moment's hesitation, he sprinted towards the dorms, 'Collateral damage from their ability will be higher in the dorms.'
The collapse of the dorm's stone walls and floor were bound to harm the Troitails more than any other location in the Academy. 'Besides, their attacks release water.'
Once the Troitail finishes its attack, it creates the perfect environment for a Cooter Clansman to retaliate. As he rushed to the dorms, Torq noticed the instructors calmly move towards a misty sphere that had appeared at the top of the stadium's walls.
Once the instructors rushed into the misty sphere, there were no signs of them anymore. In a matter of minutes, all the instructors had vanished from the Academy of Accumulation.
"Instructors! Please save us!" A small group of students who had been watching Boiboi's punishment from the stands banged on the misty sphere, unable to budge it, "Please!"
'The Instructors probably won't interfere until all the Troitails have been dealt with.' Torq analysed and increased his sprinting speed to the limit, hearing loud rumbles from behind, followed by cold splashes of water.