Emperor Takeshin's smile was brilliant.
Somehow Akira had managed to irritate and impresse him in just the right way, and now he was irritably impressed.
"Hehehehe. Good. Very good." Emperor Takeshin's sharp gaze studied Akira with a fervent intensity.
Akira smiled back at him conspiratorially, as though he was satisfied that he was able to use the Emperor's own words to gain some sort of advantage.
The double intrigue was the perfect cover for the secrets that he wanted to keep - that he was a time traveller of sorts with a strange immunity to the current world's psychic energy.
That within his veins stirred a power from a different time, untouched by the rules of this one.
After a couple of minutes, Emperor Takeshin finally chuckled and reached into his robe. He casually pulled out a small glowing sphere from within.
"How about I give you this?" the Emperor said smoothly, "If you manage to secure the Port of Yokohama for me?"
His smile never faded.
But Akira's entire body went cold.
A delicious thrill shot down his spine.
He didn't blink. Didn't move. Didn't let even a muscle twitch.
But inside, he was stunned senseless.
His senses screamed.
They were telling him that without a single doubt, the glowing sphere was singularly the purest and densest Lightning Energy Essence he had ever seen in his life!
Just looking at it made his blood thrum.
Akira was extremely sure that if he was to be allowed to devour that Lightning Energy Essence, the same thing that happened with the energy he received from Princess Sora would happen.
A Lightning Energy Core would form in his body. And he would be able to wield the strongest and purest form of Lightning Energy. Not only that, his body would continue to devour from the Lightning Energy Core bit by bit, until all of his body cells were saturated with Lightning Energy "Factories"!
And that was the problem.
A heavy sense of crisis slammed into his chest. His instincts blared at full strength.
What were the chances?
That the very thing he desired most… the advanced element energy essence he had been seeking… would appear so casually in the palm of a man who could erase him with a word?
A man who just happened to possess perfect mastery over all nine basic and advanced elements?
Akira forced himself to breathe evenly. He knew that the second he exhibited the slightest surprise or desire for the glowing orb, his secret would be out.
Because at that moment, his suspicions were confirmed.
Like him, Emperor Takeshin was able to detect and devour Energy Essences. That was why he had the perfect mastery over the 9 elements. There was simply no other way that he was able to achieve such a legendary feat.
Was he to believe that the Emperor had such dogshit luck to be born with such a perfect set of elemental mastery?
It was a physical possibility, but a statistical impossibility.
If that was the case, then he was most probably the same as him, a traveller from a different time and a different reality.
And this glowing orb, this Lightning Energy Essence, was bait.
A beautiful, glittering lure cast into the still waters of Akira's disguise, meant to draw out even the faintest ripple of reaction.
And if Akira so much as twitched with desire… His secret would be out.
Akira stared at the glowing orb for exactly one heartbeat. No more.
Then he blinked slowly, as if unimpressed, and tilted his head ever so slightly, letting the flickering blue light wash over his face like it was nothing more than a curiosity.
"A Lightning Energy Bomb? A lifesaving trinket?" Akira muttered, feigning disinterest as he sighed softly, the breath escaping like a disappointed breeze. "It's good, but…"
He let the words trail off, a subtle performance of underwhelmed curiosity.
"You can sense that it contains Lightning Energy?" Emperor Takeshin asked, raising a single brow.
"Shit. Am I not supposed to be able to detect it?" Akira thought to himself in alarm. "All in then."
"Easily." Akira replied in an unimpressed tone. "Surely, Your Majesty has many little toys that a young man like me would find useful? A spare divine weapon, perhaps, or a free pass to view and select one little thing from your treasure vaults…"
A sharp snort broke the silence.
Captain Colossaria, standing like a monolith next to the throne, folded her arms with an audible crack of leather gloves.
"Divine weapon? Free pass?" she scoffed. "Boy, your appetite's bigger than your brains. I'm the 13th Captain of JINKOKU and I've never even seen His Majesty's divine weapon. As for the treasure vaults? I don't even know where they are."
She turned to Akira with a smile that made his skin crawl.
"Your Majesty, let me smack this greedy little punk upside the head and be done with it. If he fails to get into the Royal Academy, send him to me. I'll peel him apart piece by piece and find out all his little secrets…"
Her grin widened.
"...in one very painful week."
Akira swallowed. Hard.
The saliva felt like a rock going down.
He was truly afraid of the damn big sized pervert of a captain who loves to do research.
He didn't doubt her for a second. He could already see the glittering scalpels. Hear the scribbling of research notes. Smell the antiseptic doom. All in the name of her scientific pursuit!
"Here. This should be a good enough compensation for all of your efforts, right?" Emperor Takeshin chuckled and reached deeper into his robe. From within, he pulled out a simple, unmarked silver ring and placed it on his left palm.
As it stands at that moment, the Lightning Energy Essence was on his right palm, and the ring was on his left palm.
"Spatial Ring. That's plenty for you, boy. Take it and be grateful." Captain Colossaria growled.
Akira blinked and nodded in agreement.
He had no idea what a spatial ring was, but having experienced moving into a separate space created by Princess Yuki, he had a rough idea of what it did.
"Sounds good. A life saving measure and a spatial ring. I guess I could do worse than that." Akira sighed deeply as though he was consoling himself for taking a bad deal.
Emperor Takeshin smiled… and then slipped the ring back into his robe.
In one smooth motion, he tossed the Lightning Energy Essence straight at Akira.
The orb sailed through the air like a slow-moving comet, crackling faintly with contained power.
"You can keep this… life-saving lightning ball." the Emperor said, laughing as though he'd just played the punchline to a private joke.
"Hahahaha!" His laughter echoed, strange and booming, filling the chamber like rolling thunder.
Then he waved his hand.
A firm but gentle gust of wind enveloped Akira and quickly pushed him out of the room.
Akira stood motionless in the corridor, the heavy doors behind him sealed tight, as though the Emperor had locked away the last laugh for himself.
His face turned black immediately.
"Bastard! He did it on purpose! He gave me the Lightning Energy Essence knowing that I can't devour it unless I want to reveal my secret to him. He is torturing me! Bastard!"
"Can't absorb it. Can't throw it. Can't even look at it without remembering that smug bastard's face. I guess it'll have to stay as my trump card."
Akira sighed again and stuffed the supreme treasure into his pocket.
Just as he was about to release his grip on the Lightning Energy Essence…
BOOM!!
A wall of searing heat smashed into him from the left like a cannon blast.
The marble floor cracked under the force. Air rushed out of his lungs.
The world blurred in a wave of fire.
"What the hell?!"
His hand reflexively clenched in shock.
Crack. Whoosh.
The Lightning Energy Essence orb shattered in his palm.
Raw lightning exploded from his hand in a blinding flash of electric-blue light. Sparks licked the air, snapping with razor-sharp edges, and in the space of a single heartbeat, the Lightning Energy Essence rushed into his body like a tidal wave of power.
His veins burned with white-blue fire. His skin vibrated. His bones thrummed like struck tuning forks.
A small amount of around 1% immediately scattered and dispersed into his bloodstream.
It laced itself into his cells, merging silently, precisely.
He could feel it syncing with the network of Ice Energy already integrated inside him, threading itself into the very architecture of his being. Each cell it touched pulsed once, then settled.
The energy factories within his cells had gained a new product line - Lightning Energy.
The remaining 99% dove straight into the center of his body where his Ice Energy Core already spun silently like a glacial jewel.
There, beside it, a second light bloomed and condensed into a sphere of pure Lightning Energy.
Electric arcs zipped through the core of his chest as the Lightning Essence compressed, spun, and finally stabilized into a glowing, swirling nucleus of raw elemental power.
A Lightning Energy Core.
It settled directly beside the Ice Energy Core, like two celestial grapes hanging from the same divine stem.
One shimmered with pale, serene blue.
The other blazed with pulsing white-gold lightning, arcs of raw voltage dancing across its surface.
The two cores hovered within the energy nexus at the heart of his being, balanced yet distinct. Twin sources. Twin weapons.
"... … … Fuck."