Shattered Sanity

’What is this unbelievable surge of heat that I’m feeling in my body?

Why does it feel like my blood is boiling from the inside?’

Riven wondered while making his way towards the wooden dummy, as despite the tears making his eyes blurry, he eventually found his spot and began to punch as hard as he could, just like Garron had told them to.

*Thud* *Thud* *Thud*

The pain from eating the pill numbed his mind to such a degree, that he could almost not even feel his bare knuckles smashing hard against the rough wooden surface of the dummy anymore, as compared to the inferno currently raging inside his body, the pain coming from his fists felt almost insignificant.

’Endure it....

No matter how much it burns, don’t spit it out and don’t swallow it whole....

If the others can survive this, then so can I.’

Riven told himself, as at that very moment, a child standing a few rows ahead of him suddenly collapsed onto the frozen ground.

*Thud*

The boy’s body immediately began convulsing violently while both his hands clutched desperately against his stomach, as muffled screams continuously escaped through his clenched teeth while foam slowly gathered near the corners of his lips.

”AAGHHHHHHH—!”

The child screamed while curling into himself desperately, as though something inside his body was tearing him apart from the inside.

Several nearby children immediately froze in panic after witnessing the scene unfold before their eyes, while a few even instinctively spat their medicine out from fear alone, before putting it back in their mouths before Garron noticed it.

Meanwhile, Garron merely glanced toward the convulsing boy briefly before shaking his head with visible annoyance.

”Yeah, you idiot... I specifically told you not to swallow it whole.”

Garron muttered while watching the child writhe across the ground without the slightest trace of sympathy visible on his face.

”Now deal with the pain.

There’s no fixing it anymore once the medicine enters your stomach like that.

The best thing you can pray for now is that you somehow remain conscious long enough for your body to survive the overload.”

He explained coldly while folding his arms across his chest.

”Though if you’re too weak, you might simply die instead.”

Garron concluded, as hearing those words caused several children across the training grounds to begin sobbing uncontrollably while panic visibly spread throughout the field.

”Also if you die, and give me the extra hassle of having to bury you, trust me when I say, I will mutilate that corpse before putting it six feet under.

I will crush your bones and smash your skull before dumping your remains, so if you don’t want to suffer such a horrifying fate after death..... just stay alive.”

He warned, as listening to those words, a few started to cry even harder.

Most kids around Riven’s age had still not yet fully matured into young adults with relatively stable will power, and hence, when faced with such overwhelming adversity, many began to cry while calling for their mother/father.

”Mother..... I want my mother....”

”Goddess Minerva, please protect me.”

They cried, while their screams only sharpened Riven’s focus.

’If I swallow that pill, I might die....

I can’t die until I’ve killed every single member of the Ashfang Tribe.’

Riven reminded himself, as while thick smoke escaped his nostrils with every breath, he continued to punch the wooden dummy before him harder and harder.

*Thud* *Thud* *Thud*

Unbeknownst to him, his knuckles had already started bleeding because of how hard he continued punching the wooden dummy, and yet because his mind remained numbed by the horrifying effects of the Aether pill dissolving inside his mouth, Riven could not even properly feel the damage happening to his own hands anymore.

Meanwhile, deep inside his body, the concentrated Aether flooding through his veins continued spreading wildly while his Soul Vessel slowly absorbed fragments of that energy little by little.

Of course, Riven himself had absolutely no understanding of what was currently happening to him.

Nor did any of the other children training around him.

The pill Garron had distributed earlier was not medicine intended for ordinary people.

Instead, it was a recovery pill usually consumed by Flame Rank Ascendants after battle to rapidly replenish the massive quantities of Aether depleted from their bodies during combat.

Naturally, for completely unascended children like themselves, the amount of Aether contained within even a single pill was overwhelming to the point of being outright dangerous.

The moment the medicine entered their systems, the concentrated Aether immediately flooded throughout their entire bodies violently while their still dormant Soul Vessels instinctively began absorbing fragments of that energy to protect the body from overload.

And that exact process was what slowly taught the mind how to recognize the existence of Aether for the very first time.

It was an extremely crude awakening method.

And far from safe.

However, through years of experimentation inside the Valdrak Empire, researchers eventually discovered something rather interesting regarding children forced through this process.

If the medicine was consumed while remaining stationary, most children focused too heavily on the pain consuming their bodies.

They panicked.

Overthought every sensation.

And eventually lost consciousness far more quickly.

Meanwhile, children forced to engage in repetitive physical activity while enduring the medicine generally survived at noticeably higher rates.

Not because the exercise reduced the pain itself.

But because the mind became too distracted trying to maintain physical movement to completely drown itself in panic.

Which was exactly why Garron had ordered all of them to continuously punch the practice dummies without stopping.

The task itself was meaningless.

The real goal was simply to keep their minds occupied long enough to survive the first and most violent waves of pain caused by the medicine flooding their bodies with Aether.

*Thud* *Thud* *Thud*

And while many children around him had already begun collapsing one after another, Riven somehow still continued punching relentlessly while blood slowly spread further across his torn knuckles with every passing strike.