Chapter 4052 Inducing Variance In The Wolf And The Turtle
Chapter 4052 Inducing Variance In The Wolf And The Turtle
A week later, exactly seventeen days from the time the covenant was formed.
On the eleventh day, Davis finally administered Eternal Bloom Vine's dewdrops and Nethergrave Black Rose's thorns into Fenren's body.
Everlight collected the ingredients, and she gave them to Davis. She still had a surplus, so there was nothing to worry about.
Davis held about three dewdrops and nine thorns, an equivalent amount to balance the evolution process, but for now, only one dewdrop and three thorns were administered.
Fenren was suffering day and night in his abode. His entire body turned black right now. It was like poison, slowly devouring his life. His wife Renfa Jadelight wasn't aware at all as she only thought Fenren was training with his friends. They couldn't let her know either since she was pregnant and wouldn't be able to bear the stress if she saw Fenren in this state.
Davis watched this state closely for over two days. Each day, he administered an additional three thorns. He watched his friend suffer for so long that he almost hastened the administering of the dewdrops and nearly put Fenren's determination to waste.
Fenren barely caught Davis's wrist, stopping him.
"I can endure more… this isn't the limit…" Fenren said with clenched teeth, his gums bleeding. His voice was hoarse and weak, as though he was an old man on the death bed.
His breathing was laborious, and he quivered like a sickly person whose fever had reached the limit.
Davis dropped his hand and sat back down on the table, closing his eyes. His expression was one of hesitance before it turned full of respect.
"Understood."
After that word, he opened his eyes and never took his gaze off Fenren, waiting for the right moment to administer the dewdrops.
That time arrived on the noon of the third day, and after performing the evolution technique on Fenren, Davis left, leaving him to the care of the others like Soaren and Everlight, who might save him if the process failed and he was going to die.
When Davis walked outside, Myria was waiting for him.
"I found a method to make Andiron a space-karma-attributed turtle."
"I still haven't." Davis sighed.
These past few days were really shitty for him since he had to watch his friend suffer through a grueling treatment without anesthesia or whatever that decreased one's pain. He could only imagine how those thorns caused him pain and even organ failures. Although it was something they chose to undergo, and he made fun of them, he wished he really had a better method.
Hopefully, he wished those dewdrops made it easier for him. The result would be out in a few minutes.
"That's fine. If your theories are correct and if they succeed on Fenren, then it is a surefire way of making Andiron possess karmic energy."
"Oh? What is it?" Davis asked.
Myria seemed to be considering what words to use before she explained.
Sometime later, Davis nodded.
"Let's go with that then. If it fails, we'll build a monument to Andiron for his sacrifice."
"I'm right here." Andiron reminded them from the sides.
Davis and Myria smiled lightly.
Andiron's brows twitched, not knowing what they had planned for him as they spoke through soul transmission.
He was already getting cold feet after seeing what they had done to Fenren.
Actually, most of the boys were here because they were all worried about Fenren. They had also heard his miserable cries and seen his suffering. It chilled them to the core, unable to understand how one can withstand them while still being conscious.
It was death energy attacking the entirety of the body and was considered to be a poison that most healing pills or healing-type energy could not cure.
Where would cultivators go if they got scratched by the Nethergrave Black Rose's thorns? They'd be dead within a few days or weeks, depending on their cultivation.
There was no saving them unless it was a Saint or a Saintess trying to save them. Their healing arts are the only thing in the world that could be said to have reached the apex in terms of curing ailments and all kinds of injuries.
Fortunately, the dewdrop's energy was life energy, which countered the thorn's death energy, so they knew Fenren could be saved. His life and death weren't the problem as there were literally three Saint and Saintesses here, but if the evolution failed after all the suffering he went through, then that would really make them disheartened.
Nonetheless, after some time, he was also taken away.
He felt sacrificing himself in a battle was better than being made to suffer like this.
"Don't cry, Andiron. You are a part of us, so entrench your heart and-"
"No, I don't want to!"
Andiron turned around and ran. He was a Patriarch, but he wasn't hot-blooded nor someone who led the way. He was fairly strong, which allowed him to become the Patriarch, but the only thing going for him was his wits. He was more of a tactician than a warrior.
He wanted to explain, but his vision went dark the next second.
The next thing he knew, he was chained in the center of a formation in a chamber. His eyes groggily opened, but it was full of despair. Yet, he didn't let out a word as he seemed to have accepted his fate. He waited for his suffering to come obediently.
But sometime later, he noticed a sprout growing on his own body.
His eyes turned wide as he saw a shoot emerge from his heart. He had no idea what this was, but he knew that something was implanted in him.
Days passed. It slowly grew out of his body, but as a result, his body also got thinner little by little until he became nothing but a dry husk that seemed to be devoid of blood.
At this point, it was the fifteenth day. The shoot seemed to have fully emerged as it sprouted a small bud.
Davis finally appeared from nowhere in this empty chamber and began using his life energy to boost the growth rate of this bud and also kept Andiron's life at bay, not overly healing him but also not letting him die, allowing him to be a constant source of energy for the bud.
The bud slowly sprouted into a purple flower with all kinds of strange patterns, almost forming different faces when seen from different angles. They contained all emotions, all the way from joy to sadness and even indifference.
"So this is the Fickleweaver Karmic Lotus… but not at the same time…"
Davis couldn't help but sigh in awe. The flower really bloomed, as Tia said.
Indeed, this was not exactly a plan that Myria had fully thought out because Tia was also involved. Myria had gone to ask Tia for advice on Karma Laws, but Tia actually gave one of the many Fickleweaver Karmic Lotus seeds that needed to be planted to grow new ones.
Only, the Fickleweaver Karmic Lotus wasn't something that could be grown easily since it needed a lot of karma. No, it wasn't karmic sin or virtue. Just pure karma that is shared between living things, the energy flowing between the karmic threads that connect people.
It needs to be showered in such karmic energy and also had other requirements, making it rather difficult to grow them with just life energy alone.
On the other hand, Tia knew something that even Myria didn't know, or even Dalila for that matter, unless she researched it with her own hands rather than reading information on it.
It was that the Fickleweaver Karmic Lotus wasn't just fickle but also greedy for turtle blood.
Why? It was because no one had been able to discover what exactly the Fickleweaver Karmic Lotus was absorbing and were not able to replicate it in order to nourish it.
However, Tia knew it was absorbing the relationships of all kinds of entities, feeding on their karma. Particularly, it rejoiced when it chanced upon a turtle because, through its magical beast core, it could feed upon the turtle's karma stemming from its ancestors, allowing it to feed on high-grade karmic energy.
Implanted in Andiron's heart and using the formation, it was feeding on not only his blood but also his karma with his nearest and furthest ancestors. It grew like a parasite yet was all the way intended to repay him.