75 Unravel 4 - Proof (2/2)
For that process, the Zen energy from the Original's body had started performing their original purpose and started to reform the body and forcefully removing the black substance through the pores of his skin, hence the intense pain he experienced before.
Although Stigma was left in malnourished like state when he woke up, his new body had been completely cleansed and little negative energy, but left him in an extremely weaken state
On that note, before reaching the First Tier, Stigma had unintentionally survived through the use of his skill: 'Soul Eater' by absorbing foreign Zen energy around for him to walk and even swing an ax.
Zen energy by itself was called life energy or the a living being's aura.
Cleansing the body of dangerous elements was one of its original purpose while strengthening the body through Cultivation training was the secondary purpose found by Cultivators and Heavenly Beast to survive confrontation.
When Stigma finally ate some Heavenly Beast meat, his body started to slowly absorb the remaining Zen energy in meat, eventually nourishing his body and organs and by absorbing the souls, his mind had started gaining instincts and change from acting like a man into fighting like brute or a beast[5].
Felix on the other hand had believed that Stigma was influenced through narcotics by his parent, so he was worried for Stigma safety. Being born from a Cultivator who abused his life with narcotic cultivation will lead to multiple complication like damaged meridians or worst - a shorten life span.
****
After their conversation, Felix left to meet with his group, thus leaving Stigma and the assassins to stay behind the tent until the morning.
Comparing incidents had to be postponed as Stigma should not stay up for too long and will continue tomorrow.
Once morning came, Veil and the leader left for their mission, while Han stayed behind to watch over Stigma.
But even with seeing the morning sun, Stigma continued lying down on his bed as he felt the conversation last night was beyond him, but it only made him realize the original must have been through so much hardship than he could ever imagine.
Hilda comforted him, while Kirin lied down on his chest to sleep yet Stigma recalled what happened after the conversation.
Before Felix left, Stigma revealed that he had fought with a cultivator named Wade, along with him using enhancing drug that increasing his strength during the fight.
When narcotics were involved, Stigma remembered the number of bodies inside the cave may not only be victims of brutal death but from also overdose, which sent a shiver down his spine then gave up the remaining vials including Wade's arm he wanted to research on.
Once Stigma revealed the items, Felix expression became darker from the new information and along with the item originating from the black market - The Berserker Vial.
Although Stigma was hiding such dangerous items, Felix's expression shortly changed once he recalled their position at the time and told Stigma that both sides made a mistake and all was forgiven and confiscated the items.
With the unknown danger from outside, Stigma was in a dilemma to stay in the tent or leave to investigate, so he weighed his both options.
'....should I go out off the market, no doubt many are going to leave right now from the sudden tremors, so why bother lounging around. Or should I wait for Veil and the leader and ask their opinion. Professionals have a better point of view than an amateur.'
Even when an hour had passed, Stigma could not decide on what his next move will be and decided to read some of the books he had won. Unfortunately, the books he had were not labeled properly, forcing Stigma to look through the small pile of books to find the first volume to read in order.
Even with Han providing assistance, it took over three hours for Stigma to finally organize the books but he eventually found the first volumes among the books.
Yet Heaven played a cheap trick on him when Felix and the female assassins returned, forcing Stigma to hide all the books while grumbling and felt that three hours of his life had been wasted for nothing.
”Now then, Stigma, you and I are leaving later on for the meeting. But before that, can you perform a treatment for my men.”
”? I will try, but Senior Felix, I'm still new to this - healing method of mine, so please don't expect that I can handle lengthly procedures or give full recovery to anyone.”
”But of course, I have brought two men who volunteered and are waiting outside when they heard my story. They are willing to test whether the others should try your method.”
Stigma nodded his head without hesitation, yet was never told what had actually happened when the men had heard about his ability.
When the men saw Felix's arm finally moving after so many years, many volunteered without hesitation as they trusted him.
But when Felix told them that Stigma is still a beginner, he had chosen two men for him to practice on, but the news alone gave the men hope for their clan's survival - no matter the danger they had to encounter.
When Felix called in the two men, both sides greeted each other and Stigma started with his procedure when they sat down.
Even with a number of gazes at him, Stigma did not break concentration and continued.
*Bing!*
[Host has absorbed the lighting elemental energy, processing....]
*Bing!*
[Name: Stigma Falsus
Age: 10
Rank: Unique (I)(Early stage)
1000 / 10000
Strength: 150
Agility:170
Vitality: 250
Zen Reserves: 1500 / 1700
Skills:
Essence Reader(IV) 55%
Poltergeist (III) (1) 75%
Soul Eater (IV) 50%
Taboo(III)45%
Demon's Soul 5%
*
Current Souls Absorbed: Soul of Impurity (I), Wolf Soul (II), Snake Soul (I), Stag Soul (I), Bear Soul (I), Eagle Soul (I), Bull Soul (I), Boar Soul (I), Monkey Soul (I), Cheetah Soul (I), Rabbit Soul (I), Rat Soul (I), Goat Soul (I), Bat Soul (I)
*
Pure Energy: 220%
Grudge Energy: 104%
Wrath Energy: 140%
Fire Energy: 330%
Earth Energy: 125%
Water Energy: 320%
Wind Energy: 120%
Light Energy: 80%
Lightning Energy: 50%
Metal Energy: 10%
***
Stock Piled Souls:
Soul of Wrath:(Complete - 100%)
Snake Soul: 80%
*Familiars:*
1. Dusk (I)(1) (1700 / 2500)
2. Brunhilda (I) (1500 / 3000)
3. Kirin (I) (270 / 2000)
*
'Oh, looks like a few skills leveled up without me realizing...even my familiars are getting stronger....good to know.'
Although the process took longer than expected, Stigma found that both men had similar injuries like Felix with the paralysis status, while emitting a faint yellow aura on one of their limbs like their were infected.
Like before, Stigma had to carefully pull out the foreign element on their limbs without harming them, thankfully his training with the water and oil showed the results as the process was smoothly in progress.
When the procedure was done, both men felt the lost sensation of pain after a long time, they realized they were almost healed and gave Stigma a hearty hug then went to inform the others.
Unfortunately, Stigma had informed them that he did not have the stamina to heal more than two people and had to continue in the following days.
Before the left, Felix eventually warned them that they needed to adjust themselves for the following days to be fully healed like he did.
When both men left to their tent, Felix and Stigma could hear shouts of joy near their tent and could only sigh from the commotion with a smile.
Stigma was about to relax, but Felix soon informed him that they were going to meet with Emily shortly so a messenger will come over, so he had to wash up.
During their wait Felix told Stigma about a peculiar event that happened in the market when the earth quaked appeared and all those present listened.
Like its namesake, the Slave market has a number of slaves ranging from young to old, male and female servants that are bound under a contract like seal.
Without the permission of their owner, a slave cannot move upon their own free will, but that is solely from a humans standards.
Due to demands, most slave markets tend to stoke up on powerful beings such as human cultivator and Heavenly Beast.
Because of their natural strength and the idea of harming their new owners, both beings needed to be heavily sedated to be docile for every buyer in mind, but in turn weakens their strength greatly.
Unlike Human Cultivators, Heavenly Beasts are unpredictable as they follow their instinct and will need ten times the amounts of sedatives to finally calm down, where are the former was far more docile as they have the ability to think.
During the earth quake, some of human slaves were injured but stayed obediently inside their cages, while the Heavenly Beast started showing unusual but violent behavior of trying to break out of their cages.
Causing the personal watching over them to start panicking from their actions and ran off.
Only to return once the earthquake had ceased and found all the Heavenly Beast stayed in their cages, the personal had found proof of their action from the damaged cages and speculated that a disaster was about to appear so the beasts were trying to run away.
When Stigma heard the news, he speculated that the Heavenly Beast acted similar to how animals react to a natural disaster, like a volcano erupting, forcing every Beast residing in the vicinity to run off to safety.[6]
'The question is, what were they running from?'
Stigma found the story to be odd as Kirin stayed beside him and did not panic, Hilda gave her testimony that even during the earth quake, the blue wolf did not even wake up and slept beside his bedside.
Although they wanted to continue their topic, the messenger finally appeared with Stigma following behind Felix into a different, only to find Emily with a tired expression from what appeared to be working overnight.
'What the hell happened?'
”Oh, Sir Felix, apologizes to my poor appearance as a large work load fell on my responsibility. May we end the meeting short as I need to recover shortly.”
”Of course.”
”I have two news to inform you, what would you like to hear first, the good news or the bad news. I also have a job for you afterwards that includes Stigma to participate.”
When they asked for both news, Felix and Stigma realized the market was in danger.
[1] dental procedure - never expected that China actually had any dental activity around the 6000 BC. Always thought they were the type who only focused on herbal medicine or medical food, like tea and ginger treatment.
[2] Yin and Yang - something about a balanced diet. Use this for reference, but I'm not going to deep into this idea. Site:
[3] I tried to think of a difference reference for the salt but let's face, there is no point smelling salt as there is no scent unless you want to smell sea water which makes no sense to me.
[4] Basically the rare candy cheat in pokemon games in where players use a lot of rare candies to force evolve the pokemon to their final evolution route.
[5] In all honesty, I always wanted to read a light novel where the protagonist is a beast in a fight rather than fighting like martial artist.
[6] I saw a documentary once about animals being the natural warning signs of natural disasters, like an incoming earthquake. I find that natural events in real life can happen in a fantasy world so hope you understand.