Chapter 33: Heavy Eating

The food arrived outside the room at the same time that Karl did, on a small cart pushed by one of the staff members. They had covered the loaded plates with foil to keep the heat in, but Karl could smell it following him down the hall, and Hawk was getting increasingly excited about the idea of both more food and an improvement in his living conditions.

"Thank you for that. I will return everything in the morning." Karl informed the kitchen staff worker.

"Just set the cart in the hall with your dishes, and we will come pick it up when we clean the halls." The worker explained.

Then she walked back to the elevator, and Karl took everything inside so he could focus on eating and meditation. The food smelled delicious, and even the first serving, which had filled his body with energy to be burned off, wasn't enough to actually sate the hunger.

Once he was settled into a comfortable meditation position in the middle of the bed, Karl began to focus on the improvements to the Taming Space.

The excess energy was pouring freely from him into the space, causing the tree to grow, and the patch of grass underneath to slowly, but steadily, expand.

Once that burst of energy was gone, Karl paused to pick a plate from the pile. The obvious choice would be the pasta dish, as he knew for sure that it was a good one, and he had it devoured in a matter of minutes, while briefly wondering how much he was going to regret his over indulgence in the morning.

The energy flowed into him just as smoothly as it had the first time, and Karl poured it all into the taming space, then repeated the process with the meatloaf special.

As he finished transferring the energy from that one into the space, a feeling of fullness, like he wouldn't be able to transfer much more energy, appeared in his mind. That was a good sign that this was not some bottomless pit where he was throwing energy with no end in sight, but the space itself was far from complete.

As the space began to resist more transfer, Karl carefully moved the nest up into the tree, so Hawk could have a more natural spot to sleep, and looked at the small grass patch at the bottom. At this rate, it would take months to even fill the rest of the space with grass, much less add a sky and everything else it would need to feel like its own little world.

But the feeling of power in his body was being influenced by the abundance of energy both in his body, leftover from the meal, and from the beast space itself. Maybe he could get Sergeant Rita to test his strength next weekend, after he had more time to adjust. He might really have made it to the Awakened standard, and not just based on the attack power of [Rend].

Now that the beast space was fully sated for the moment, Karl focused on seeing what he could do with the leftover energy. First on the list, since it was food-based, was to try giving the excess directly to Hawk.

The bird's body happily accepted the power, but Karl couldn't tell if it was making any appreciable difference. It made Hawk happy, though, so it really wasn't a loss. They were partners now, and a happy partner was never a bad thing.

For the rest of the night, Karl focused on using all the energy that he could muster to empower Hawk, who had finally reached the end of his growth phase, and had started to increase only in power, but not in size.

Karl managed to finish the remaining two meals at breakfast, as Hawk was feeling hungry again, and wanted the filtered energy in addition to its meat and the daily allowance of berries to flavour his food. With the amount that Hawk ate, Karl felt like he might have restricted the consumption of junk food too much. It made a good seasoning for Hawk's meals, and it didn't hurt his appetite, so there was no real reason not to let him use them all the time.

On the way back to the room from the patio to wait for Sergeant Rita, Karl went and picked another three Mountain Gooseberries.

[Now that you're fully grown, you can have more of the berries. They won't make you stronger, but I know that they taste good.] Karl informed the overjoyed Windspeed Hawk.

[Mmm, good stuff. I will put them on everything.] Hawk agreed.

That gave Karl an idea. The meat that Hawk was eating was just plain meat. Normally, the discount cuts that his mother bought would marinate in a sauce overnight. If he squished the gooseberries into a bowl of water and threw the meat in with them, it would coat everything, just like Hawk wanted, without running them out of berries.

He would set that up tonight, so Hawk's meals would be ready for tomorrow.

A knock at the door let him know that it was time to get to work, and when he opened it, he noticed that Rita was giving a curious look at the cart full of empty dishes.

"Something changed in my appetite yesterday. It seems to be back to normal now, but I was just ravenous, and my body was taking in all the energy that it could get." Karl explained.

"That's relatively normal. It usually happens to warriors when their body advances a Rank and needs to adapt to a new power standard. I suspect that you actually made it to the Awakened Rank in body last night, or Hawk did, and the energy needed to come from you.

One of those two answers is most likely the correct one. How is his growth coming?" Rita replied.

"He looks fully grown for a Windspeed Hawk. He was growing quickly again last night while I was feeding energy into him and the space in my mind, but then it seemed to settle."

Karl called Hawk out onto the bed, and Rita crouched to get a better look at the proudly preening Hawk.

"He looks more mature now. The softer feathers are gone, and the pin feathers are larger and stronger than the last time I saw him. Your skill is brilliant. One week to bring a Windspeed Hawk to maturity. Even if your ability was just to train combat birds, I can guarantee that the Academy would still rate it as a top-notch success."