Soulforged: The Fusion Talent-Chapter 182— Tether Drain

For a time, the academy was swamped with the impending changes that new faces were about to appear in the school. It was a very jarring development—jarring for the instructors who had to restructure lesson plans, exciting for the students who craved any disruption to their routine monotony. Most of the academy’s administrative resources were redirected toward making the foreign exchange program a reality.

Incidents like Gregor’s death were sidelined completely.

The investigation had been perfunctory at best. A first-year butler’s son, killed in a Tier 2 Shroud deployment. Tragic, yes. Unusual, no. The recovery team had noted the throat wound, filed their report, and moved on. Others like Lady Harrow has her complaints absorbed by the administrative machinery and quietly ignored. Theodore Selaris had retreated from any direct confrontation, his enforcer’s death teaching him a lesson about underestimating the outpost recruits.

The academy continued forward, indifferent to individual losses, focused on the larger political maneuvering that the Senate had imposed upon it.

Bessia felt that indifference acutely.

She’d just become an Initiate—something she’d worked toward for months, something her squad had celebrated with genuine joy—and already the academy had moved past it. Her advancement was a footnote. A statistical data point. One more Fledgling successfully filtered into the Initiate rank.

But for her, it was everything.

The power was still new, still foreign. Her Soul Talent had evolved the moment she’d broken through during those final desperate minutes in the Shroud. Self-Healing, which had kept her alive for six brutal hours, had expanded outward. Now she could extend that gift to others.

She’d tested it carefully over the past week. Small wounds on squadmates who trusted her. A gash on Duncan’s arm from training. Burns on Bright’s hands from an Artifact Refining accident he wouldn’t explain. Each time, she’d felt the energy flow through her rather than from her own reserves.

It should have been effortless.

It wasn’t.

Healing others taxed her greatly. Not in the same way combat did—not the muscle-burning exhaustion or the gasping breathlessness. This was different. A deep weariness that settled into her bones and refused to leave. After healing Duncan, she’d slept for fourteen hours straight. After Adam, she’d barely been able to focus in Combat Fundamentals the next day.

Celestine had noticed. Her roommate was perceptive that way, kind in a manner that still surprised Bessia despite weeks of their cohabitation.

"You’re pushing yourself too hard," Celestine had said one evening, watching Bessia struggle to stay awake during their study session.

"I’m fine."

"You’re not." Celestine had set down her notes, genuine concern in her expression. "Healing shouldn’t drain you like this. Something’s wrong with your technique, or your build isn’t optimized for—"

"I said I’m fine."

Celestine had let it drop, but Bessia knew she’d been right.

The problem gnawed at her. She was supposed to be indispensable now. The squad’s healer, the support specialist who could keep them alive when everything went wrong. But if every healing session left her useless for a day afterward, what good was she?

She needed a solution.

That’s what brought her to the library.

Bright had mentioned it weeks ago—casually, in passing, the way he mentioned most things that turned out to be important. The academy library had an entire section dedicated to core abilities. Comprehensive documentation on known cores, their effects, their synergies, their costs.

"Half the battle is knowing what exists," he’d said. "The other half is figuring out what fits."

Bessia had taken his advice to heart.

The library was massive, three stories of reinforced shelves holding thousands of volumes. Most students ignored it entirely, preferring to rely on their instructor’s guidance or conventional wisdom passed down through their noble houses.

But Bessia wasn’t from a noble house. She didn’t have centuries of accumulated knowledge backing her choices. What she had was merit points, limited options, and a problem that needed solving.

She spent hours skimming through catalogs, cross-referencing healing-type cores with her existing build. Most were prohibitively expensive or incompatible with her Plant Manipulation. Others seemed redundant—why would she need Enhanced Recovery when her Soul Talent already provided that?

She was about to give up when she found it.

The entry was buried in a subsection labeled "Symbiotic Transfer Abilities"—cores that facilitated energy exchange between sources. Most were uncommon, a few were rare. One was listed as obscure.

Tether Drain.

Bessia pulled the volume from the shelf and flipped to the detailed description.

Tether Drain enables the creation of figurative energy tethers between willing subjects or compatible organic matter. The primary tether anchor (user) can establish secondary anchors in other living entities. Energy can be drawn along these tethers, transferring vitality from secondary anchors to the primary anchor or to designated third parties.

Common applications include combat medic roles where the user tethers themselves to a life source or domesticated animals, drawing upon their vitality reserves to sustain healing efforts in extended engagements.

Documented limitations: Maximum of three active tethers. Range limited to approximately fifteen meters. Unwilling subjects cannot be tethered. Drawing excessive vitality from secondary anchors will kill them.

Market value: 320 merit points (obscure classification due to ethical concerns regarding forced vitality extraction).

Bessia read the entry three times, her heart beating faster with each pass.

This was it.

She could tether herself to plants—her Plant Manipulation already gave her an intuitive connection to vegetation. In combat situations, she could grow or locate suitable plant matter, establish tethers, and draw upon their vitality to fuel her healing without exhausting herself.

The ethical concerns didn’t bother her. She wasn’t planning to tether unwilling humans and drain them dry. Just plants. Renewable, expendable, abundant.

The price, though...

She pulled up her merit balance on her academy bracelet. The interface flickered to life, displaying her remaining points in cold numerical clarity.

387 merit points.

She’d been saving them. Hoarding them, really, uncertain what she’d need them for. The Tier 2 Shroud deployment had been moderately lucrative—she’d received points for surviving the full six hours, bonus points for reaching Initiate during the trial, and a substantial reward for her defensive performance in the central plaza.

320 points would leave her with only 67.

But what else was she saving for?

Bessia closed the book and carried it to the librarian’s desk, a severe-looking woman who processed the core ability purchases with mechanical efficiency.

"Tether Drain," Bessia said, sliding the book across the desk. "I want to purchase it."

The librarian barely glanced at her. "Merit transfer or currency?"

"Merit points."

"320 points. Confirm?"

Bessia hesitated for only a moment. "Confirmed."

The librarian scanned her bracelet, and Bessia felt the subtle vibration as the points were deducted. A small crystalline vial was retrieved from a locked cabinet behind the desk—the physical core, extracted from some Crawler and processed for human integration.

It was smaller than she’d expected. About the size of her thumbnail, translucent green with faint veins of darker emerald threading through it.

"Integration instructions are standard," the librarian said, handing over the vial. "A private chamber is recommended. Expected integration time for this type of core is one to two hours. Side effects may include nausea, temporary vision distortion, and minor hemorrhaging. If symptoms persist beyond twenty-four hours, report to medical."

Bessia took the vial carefully, cradling it in her palm. The core felt warm, almost alive.

"Thank you."

The librarian had already moved on to other tasks.

-----

Bessia returned to her dormitory and found it empty—Celestine was likely at her own elective. Good. She didn’t want to explain this yet.

She sat cross-legged on her bed, the vial resting in her open palm. Integration was always unpleasant. She’d done it once now—Plant Manipulation when she first became a Fledgling.

Each time, the core had to merge with her soul, rewriting part of her fundamental essence to accommodate the new ability.

Each time, it hurt.

She uncorked the vial and tilted it back, swallowing the core in one quick motion.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the pain started.

It wasn’t the sharp, stabbing agony of a wound. This was deeper. A crawling sensation beneath her skin, like roots burrowing through flesh. She gasped, doubling over as the core began its work.

Her vision blurred. The room tilted. She tasted copper.

And then, beneath the pain, she felt a connection.

Thin strands of energy extending outward from her core, searching, questing. She could sense the potted plant on Celestine’s desk—a decorative fern that her roommate fussed over constantly. The tether found it naturally, drawn to the life force within.

Bessia didn’t consciously establish the connection. It happened instinctively, her Plant Manipulation and the new Tether Drain core synergizing immediately.

The fern’s vitality flowed toward her in a thin stream, and the pain receded slightly.

She could feel it. Feel the plant’s life force bleeding into her, replenishing what the integration was consuming. Not much—the fern was small, its reserves limited—but enough to ease the worst of the discomfort.

Six hours later, when Celestine returned to find Bessia unconscious on her bed and the decorative fern reduced to a withered brown husk, there were questions.

But by then, the integration was complete.

-----

Across the academy, in the combat training halls, Mara executed her fifty-third repetition of the evening.

The training dummy absorbed her strikes without complaint. Twin daggers flashed in precise arcs, each movement calculated for maximum efficiency. Her Clear Mind core kept her focused, emotionless, analyzing each strike for flaws.

Left dagger—throat. Right dagger—kidney. Pivot. Left dagger—spine. Right dagger—heart.

Again.

And again.

She was still a Fledgling.

High-tier, yes. Probably the most technically skilled Fledgling in the entire first-year class. But still Fledgling.

While Bessia had just broken through to Initiate.

While the rest of her squad had advanced months ago.

Mara didn’t resent them. That would be irrational, unproductive. They’d earned their advancement through capability and fortune. She was simply... behind.

It was a growing concern.

Not because she feared being useless—her performance in the Tier 2 Shroud had proven her combat effectiveness regardless of rank. She’d survived through skill where higher-ranked students had died through incompetence.

But advancement wasn’t just about survival. It was about growth. About pushing past limitations and expanding her potential.

Every day she remained Fledgling was a day the gap widened between her and her squadmates.

She needed the right push.

But she didn’t know what that push was yet.

So she trained.

One day at a time.

The dummy’s synthetic flesh showed the accumulated damage from hours of repetition. Deep gouges where her daggers had struck the same locations over and over, carving pathways through resistance until the movements became automatic.

When the threshold finally came, she would be ready.

Until then, she had nothing but time and discipline.

Mara reset her stance and began the sequence again.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​