Chapter 56: Essence and Emulsion
Soft tapping sounds of droplets of blood pooled on the table, Lidien’s hand shook uncontrollably from the pain in his Sparkline in his arms, including his exploded fingertip.
If not for Lidien’s evolved physique that could match a Hell Stage Demon, his arms would have exploded up to his shoulder from the destructive force of the unrefined and chaotic Elemental Essence he couldn’t control.
Though Lidien’s eyebrows met in his anger towards Azer... for not informing him that he needed to also adjust his Sparkline to match both kinds of Verve,
He still smiled, disregarding the oversight... as he stared at the destructive power of the released verve from the Coreflux.
’The power of Humans to match the Blessed and Demons is worthy of being called as such...’
Lidien giggled, along with his non-stop dripping blood... and it turned into manic laughter, making all the people watching in awe gulp as they stared at his madness from the window.
Yet, Alva... immediately ran and went inside the carriage, panicked.
"Master!"
As she stood beside Lidien who was laughing non-stop.
She held his hand, making Lidien abruptly become stupefied by her action...
"Master... let me treat your wound..."
Then she tore a piece of her skirt and tied it around Lidien’s index finger with great care.
Lidien stared at her with questioning eyes, then glanced at his finger with a tied cloth stopping the bleeding.
"It’s okay Alva... I’m fine. Get back to your post, and tell Mad Dog to march faster, for the disturbance I’ve made will be the allotted time before the storm."
Alva held his gaze, biting her lower lip as a storm of unspoken thoughts warred in her eyes... before bowing to Lidien and exiting the carriage swiftly.
Lidien watched Alva run toward the front, shouting to proceed with haste before another batch of beasts attacked them.
’When was the last time someone put me first before themselves?’
Then a helpless smile touched Lidien’s face while shaking his head with disbelief.
’Yeah... it was when Lily chose to save me rather than herself.’
Lidien retrieved a healing potion from his space ring and drank it in one go.
As the efficacy of the potion slowly got absorbed by his body, he felt a ticklish sensation from his arms towards his exploded fingertip.
Lidien removed the cloth covering it, and watched his flesh and blood slowly knit itself, as he felt the verve in his liquid state Coreflux rapidly emptying, until it consumed the verve that came from his spiritual essence.
The potion was a double-edged sword... it forced the body to metabolize verve at an alarming rate to fuel the regeneration. The more severe the wound, the more verve it consumed...
And, if someone didn’t have verve in their body, it would consume life force... which, if not stopped, could lead to death.
Ironically, it contained a small amount of Vital Essence, one of the conceptual forms of the Essence of Life.
After Lidien watched his flesh and blood knit, he felt something deep within his soul unlocking, however... it wasn’t enough to fully open it.
The sensation was gone as quickly as it came. Unsure of what it meant, Lidien could only shake his head and sink into his chair... watching the caravan march peacefully in the darkness only lit by torchfire and moonlight.
It was almost an hour of rushed march when the magical beasts came back again to attack the caravan...
Another set of different kinds of beasts from monstrous flying bats and owls, to crawling snakes and ants attacked them non-stop.
However, the soldiers and the slaves, who had experienced the attack first hand, and the momentum that Lidien brought with his destructive force, kept the morale high... as they continuously marched with dead bodies in their wake.
Lidien was meditating, uncaring about the chaos outside... absorbing Elemental Essences that had been depleted when he drank the potion to heal his wound.
But this time, he wasn’t solely absorbing it into his lower abdomen and storing it.
He felt that the Elemental Essence formed like a gas, slowly and freely moving in his lower abdomen... as he focused, he tried mixing it with his spiritual verve...
Though it could flow the same way, parallel to each other, it still didn’t mix... as if it was water and oil inside a container.
A few hours passed, no matter what Lidien did, even thinking of how emulsion worked, still didn’t help him combine them completely.
’Dreamflow couldn’t contain Elemental Essence, so Coreflux will only form from Elemental Essence alone without any other essences in it...’
Looking back at his arms, Lidien sighed as the thought of them exploding flooded his mind.
’I didn’t know those muscle heads would let me use their motto...’
Steeling his resolve, he took a deep breath and smirked.
’No pain... no gain.’
Lidien flooded the Gaseous state Elemental Essence with his Spiritual Verve... since it wasn’t a real and liquid Coreflux yet, it couldn’t purify it into a verve and still acted as a raw essence.
Then, he used his abundant spiritual verve to sheath the raw elemental essences, forcing them to flow through his Sparkline in the same pathways as his blood, while activating his Incite of Blood.
Though he couldn’t see the Elemental Essence with his naked eye inside his body, he only based it on the burning sensation he felt in his Sparkline.
Gritting his teeth from the agony, as his body, if not covered with his cloth, would show his blood vessels bulging.
The circulation of the elemental essence in his body was slow, as he wasn’t used to controlling his spiritual verve acting like a conveyor for it.
And, as an hour stretched because of the pain he was enduring from his sparkline, while maintaining his focus not to flood it with elemental essence and accidentally make it explode... He felt his body, the sparkline, and everything... was slowly getting used to the new energy present in his body.
Then...
A soft knocking sound came on the wooden door.
As Lidien abruptly stopped the circulation of elemental essence... the pain brought him back to the reality of the Bone Orchards.
Calming himself, he controlled his spiritual verve to store all the elemental essence present in all parts of his body to his lower abdomen, stilling it there.
Xyon entered the carriage after Lidien asked him to come inside.
And stared at Lidien’s pale face with crimson eyes, as he tried to endure the rotting smell that came from the black and viscous pungent liquid he was bathed in.
"Master... Mad Dog said Ma’am Lily was waiting at the front."