"... Essence Shielding. You might also call it shielding or shield. It’s all the same." Kael said.

"It’s a fascinating concept because shield appears differently with each person, some are a dome, some are partial, and some shield are even so little. Shields have even been used for offensive" Kael shrugged.

"Why is that? Why does it take different shapes?" Stallus asked.

"You should know that the study of the Awakened and essence is still rather... still new. The history of the Awakeners is still so short. No possible definite reasons have been found, some say it is a reflection of your soul." Kael said.

"Well? What are we waiting for? Let’s try that first!" Alex said.

Kael whirled to face Alex.."Try what exactly? Do you even know anything about shielding?"

Alex scratched his head, smiling sheepishly. "Isn’t it when you use essence for shielding?"

Kael snorted and pointed his finger at Alex, a small fire whip darted and smacked him on his head.

"Ow!" Alex shouted, rubbing his forehead.

"Just listen. The essence shielding... hope you are feeding your weapons with essence?" Kael waited until they all nodded confirmation before he continued. "The essence shielding is manifesting your essence outwards for defense. Instead of putting it over your body, you expand until it takes its desired shape."

"I have mastered this. Shield!" Fire bloomed around Kael, a solid block of fire like hot metal the length of the Captain himself. The shield was narrow and long, a few inches above Kael, covering only his body.

"As you can see, my shield is for protecting only me, I can’t protect any other person with this. This is why dome or sphere shields that can expand a whole room were considered rare as they can cover a team." Kael dissolved the shield and it went out with a small pop.

"Can we do that?" Catena pointed at Kael.

"You will," Kael answered.

"Will? I thought we were learning basic skills now?" Stallus asked.

"No. Basic skills or techniques are those skills you should at least expect from any Awakeners. That doesn’t mean you will master it at your level." Kael said.

"Why show use then?" Alex grumbled.

"So you will be aware of it. And to answer your question, you will start once you attune your core to your technique since the shield needs to take your technique characteristics." Kael stopped in front of them.

"Attune?" Stallus asked.

Azaroth hadn’t heard about how that was done before but he had a suspicion that it would be like changing a core to fit a technique. Like his chaos core.

"Attunement is when your core becomes the technique you want to study. Let’s take for example my core is known as fire core and it has the power of fire." Kael said.

"Is that all it does?" Catena focused on the Captain even though his eyes were half closed.

"No. It means you can’t do any other kind of technique." Kael said.

Azaroth could feel the shock spread through the room, so that means Azaroth would only be able to do fire technique..seems limiting but he had his chaos core.

"But why!" Alex shifted where he sat.

"That’s how it has always been. Once your core is keyed to a technique you can only do skills on that technique but fear not a lot of these techniques are very similar. Like the relationship between water and ice. Or earth and gravity. Wind and lightning." Kael counted on his fingers.

The Captain continued. "There are a lot of sub-techniques to be found in any technique. You just have to be smart about it."

Stallus narrowed her eyes in concentration before throwing her hand up in frustration. "I can’t think of anything relating to crystal."

"Really? What about sand?’ Alex said.

Which sub-techniques do chaos have? Is telekinesis part of it? The eye said he could learn to move things without his hand so that must be one of the sub-techniques of chaos because Azaroth doubted that was what chaos was. Azaroth had no idea what the chaos technique was supposed to do.

"....sand? I don’t think so, Alex. What about you?" Stallus asked.

Alex turned up his nose. "I don’t need any sub-techniques! Not when I am the sky ruler!"

Stallus sighed.

"Don’t worry yourself. All would be revealed as you advance and train, and study your technique manual you’ll come across a lot of sub-techniques." Kael said.

"How do we attune our technique?" Azaroth asked. That seems to him the most important thing here because everything now depends on having a technique core.

"Very simple actually. Your core right now is very eager to learn and adapt. This is the only time you can attune, once you pass this level it’s not possible again." Kael said.

"And what can you do with such core that don’t have technique?" Stallus asked.

"Well, you can go into enchantment or creating artifacts since you have raw pure essence that any Awakener can use," Kael said. "People who choose this path usually do it with the full knowledge of what they were getting into."

How powerful can raw essence get you? Azaroth wanted to know. "Is it useful in a fight?"

"Not in particular, I’ve heard that it makes essence forging powerful though. More powerful than any other techniques except the techniques that deal with body strengthening of course." Kael said.

Azaroth frowned, that doesn’t seem particularly powerful to him. A powerful skill would tear through body forging and it was not like the other person would not have body forging too.

The enchantment part didn’t appeal to him since it’s mostly for defensive and Azaroth didn’t plan on taking a lot of defensive positions in the future.

The artifacts seem interesting though, a lot of well-known Awakeners have artifacts and weapons. Azaroth hadn’t seen one before but he had heard how powerful artifacts could be, he wouldn’t mind having one himself.

He wouldn’t mind having an enchanter either, they seem like a useful bunch to have around. Even the Inferno Legion keeps them.