I Evolve 10,000 Times Faster

They moved back to the cavern entrance where the air was marginally less hostile.

Emric and Renna cleared a space on the cave floor, sweeping aside ice fragments and loose stone with their boots. Renna kept glancing at the Glacial Core in Holden’s hand, her eyes wide.

"That thing is making me trippy. Is it supposed to do that?"

"It’s a Rank 3 core," Emric said. "The energy density is high enough to produce visible luminescence. Standard physics."

"Standard physics doesn’t apply to monster cores and you know it."

Holden set the Aether-Crucible on the ground between them.

The artifact was deceptively small. A palm-sized basin made of dark metal that absorbed light, carved with thin grooves that pulsed with a faint warmth.

He placed the Glacial Core inside.

The reaction was immediate.

The Crucible hummed. The grooves on its surface lit up, first gold, then shifting to a deep amber as the artifact began breaking down the core.

Then it started shaking.

The entire Crucible rattled against the floor like something was trying to escape from inside it. Ice particles rose from the core in a thin mist, mixing with the amber glow. The temperature around the artifact dropped so fast that frost crept across the ground in a perfect circle.

Emric took a step back. "The energy output is exceeding the artifact’s baseline tolerance."

"In normal words, Emric."

"It might explode."

"Thank you."

Renna moved behind Emric’s shield. "I just got these new arms! I like my arms!"

Holden kept his hand on the Crucible. His Aether-Steel fingers gripped it firmly, holding it steady as the shaking intensified. The metal was so cold it burned. He felt the temperature fighting against his Rank 3 durability, and his durability won.

The amber light turned white.

A burst of freezing air exploded outward.

fwsssssh.

The mist cleared.

Inside the Crucible, a single pill sat in the basin. It was small, round, and pale blue. Cold radiated from it in steady waves. Tiny frost patterns formed on the metal around it, spiraling outward like frozen flowers.

Holden picked it up carefully.

The cold bit into his fingers, but his body processed the energy before it could do any damage. He turned to Lyra.

She was standing a few feet away, frost-spear resting against the wall behind her. She looked calm and composed.

But he could see the tension in her jaw.

"This one’s different from what Emric and Renna took," Holden said. "Rank 3 core. The energy density is way higher. It’s going to hit harder and last longer."

Lyra nodded once. "I understand."

"Your frost-meridians are already mutated from your natural affinity. The pill’s energy is going to interact with that mutation. Could go smooth. Could get rough."

"I’m ready."

Holden held the pill out to her.

Lyra took it.

She looked at the pill in her palm. Then she put it in her mouth and swallowed.

For exactly two seconds, nothing happened.

Then Lyra’s eyes went wide.

A sharp gasp tore out of her throat. Her hand flew to her chest, fingers clawing at the fabric of her jacket. Her knees buckled and she dropped to the floor, catching herself on one hand.

Ice exploded across her skin.

It started at her fingertips. A layer of white frost rushed up her hands, across her wrists, climbing her arms in branching patterns like frozen lightning. It spread to her neck, her collarbones, the sides of her face. Her breath came out in rapid, jagged bursts of white mist.

She gasped again. Louder.

"Holden." Maeve’s voice came through the earpiece, tight and urgent. "I’m reading her energy signatures remotely through the party link. Her core is rejecting the pill’s energy. The Rank 3 frequency is clashing with her mutated meridian pattern. If the conflict escalates, her internal pathways could fracture."

Holden was already moving.

He dropped to the floor behind Lyra and wrapped his arms around her from behind. His legs framed hers. His chest pressed flat against her back. He placed his right palm flat against her sternum and his left hand against her spine, between her shoulder blades.

The ice on her skin was so cold it stung, even through his Aether-Steel body. He could feel the energy inside her. It was chaos. Two separate streams of frost energy, one from the pill and one from her own mutated core, slamming into each other like ocean currents meeting in a narrow channel.

Her meridians were shaking. He could feel them vibrating under his palms, stretched to their limit, threatening to crack.

"Holden, the rejection rate is climbing," Maeve said. "You need to stabilize her pathways now."

"I know," he said quietly.

Then he pushed energy into her.

That heat that lived at the foundation of his cultivation, the kind of energy that had thawed her frozen core months ago when they first bonded. He let it flow through his palms and into her body, slow and steady, like warm water filling frozen pipes.

Lyra shuddered against him.

"I’ve got you. Focus on my voice. Breathe."

She tried. Her breathing was ragged, uneven. The ice on her skin crackled and shifted, some of it melting where his hands touched her, only to refreeze a second later.

"The energy from the pill is fighting your natural frost," he said, keeping his tone even and calm. "It doesn’t recognize your meridians. Think of it like a transplant. The body rejects what it doesn’t know."

She gasped again. A spike of pain shot through her meridians and he felt it through his palms.

"I’m going to guide it. I’m going to walk it through your pathways inch by inch. You just breathe."

He closed his eyes.

His 10,000x processor mapped her entire meridian network in under a second. Every pathway. Every junction. Every damaged and stressed point where the two energies collided. He could see the pill’s energy as a bright, aggressive blue stream, pushing against the softer, deeper blue of her natural frost. The two colors swirled around each other like oil and water, refusing to mix.

He started with the pathway in her right arm. The simplest route. He pushed a little of his warm energy ahead of the pill’s flow, coating the inside of the meridian like insulation. Then he nudged the pill’s energy forward, guiding it along the coated path.

The pill’s energy fought him. It was wild, rank 3 wild, carrying the primal fury of the Glacial Tyrant. It didn’t want to be guided. It wanted to destroy.

Holden held it steady.

He walked it down her arm, through her shoulder, across her chest. Wherever the pill’s energy passed, her natural frost surged up to meet it. Each collision sent a tremor through her body. Each time, Holden was there, his warm energy acting as a buffer between the two forces, slowly, patiently teaching them to coexist.

Sweat formed on Holden’s forehead despite the freezing temperature. His 10,000x processor was running at full capacity, tracking thousands of individual energy interactions simultaneously.

Emric and Renna stood at the edge of the cave.

They didn’t speak.

Renna was speechless, her usual stream of commentary nowhere to be found. She watched Holden hold Lyra, his hands glowing faintly with warm light against the ice crawling across her skin. She watched Lyra’s face contort in pain, then slowly begin to relax.

Emric’s arms were crossed. His shield rested against the wall behind him. He studied the energy patterns visible in the air around the two of them, and for once, he had no statistics to offer. No analysis.

He just watched.

The process took eleven minutes.

It felt like hours.

One by one, the pathways opened. The pill’s energy stopped fighting and started flowing. Lyra’s natural frost stopped rejecting it and began absorbing it. The two blues merged gently.

The ice on Lyra’s skin began to melt.

Water droplets ran down her arms, her neck, her jaw. The frost on her face receded, pulling back like a tide going out. Her skin, previously pale white with cold, flushed with color.

Her breathing steadied.

Holden kept his arms around her. He could feel her heartbeat now, strong and steady in a way it never was before.

A long, slow exhale left her lips.

A stream of freezing mist poured out of her mouth like frozen breath, rolling across the cave floor in a thin layer before dissolving.

Her eyes opened.

They were vibrant blue now, not pale like they used to be, but glowing with an inner light. Her irises literally shimmered in the dim cave, casting faint blue reflections on the ice walls around her.

She had done it.

Rank 2. 3-Star.

Lyra leaned back. Her body settled against Holden’s chest, her weight pressing into him. Her muscles went slack. The tension, the pain, the struggle of the last eleven minutes drained out of her all at once.

She didn’t say anything for a moment. She just breathed.

Then, quietly: "That was the worst thing I’ve ever felt."

"I know." His arms were still around her. "It’s over now."

She turned her head slightly, just enough that he could see the edge of her glowing blue eyes. "You walked that energy through my entire body."

"Yeah."

"How?"

He shrugged gently beneath her. "I’m very stubborn."

She let out a broken sound. It wasn’t a laugh, and it wasn’t a cry, but it held all the exhaustion of what she’d just survived.

She reached out and grabbed his hand. Her fingers were cold, but not the freezing cold of before. This was a calm, settled cold that belonged entirely to her.

"Thank you," she said.

"Anytime."

Renna’s voice broke the silence.

"Is she okay?"

Holden looked up at her and Emric. Renna was hugging her bow to her chest for comfort. Emric stood right next to her, looking uncharacteristically soft and unguarded.

"She’s okay. She broke through."

Renna exhaled. "Oh thank god."

Emric uncrossed his arms. He looked at Lyra closely, taking in the glowing eyes, the settled energy, the faint shimmer of Rank 2 power rolling off her skin.

"Remarkable." Then, quieter: "Well done, Lyra."

Lyra opened her mouth to respond. Nothing came out. She closed it, nodded once, and squeezed Holden’s hand instead.

Holden helped her sit up. She was steady. Strong. The exhaustion was there, visible in the slight droop of her shoulders, but beneath it was something new. Something solid and unshakable.

She stood.

Holden picked up her spear and handed it to her.

She held it loosely at her side. The cold energy from her body flowed into the weapon naturally, and a thin layer of frost crept along the shaft.

She looked at Emric. Then Renna. Then back at Holden.

"Team Soup," she said. The faintest smile crossed her lips. "A squad of Rank 2 Elites."

Renna snorted. "You’re really going to keep calling us that."

"It stuck."

"It’s a terrible name."

"It’s our terrible name."

"Not bad for a group nobody wanted," Renna added. Her usual energy was creeping back, but softer now.

Emric straightened. "For the record, we’re roughly four times stronger collectively than we were at the start of this expedition. Maybe more."

"Conservative is your thing, right?" Renna said.

"It’s the responsible approach."

Holden stood up and dusted ice off his knees.

"Alright. it’s time to go."

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