Chapter 227: Did He Just Heat Up My Talisman with His Body Temperature?
"You've been pushing yourself too hard, Boy! Sighhhh! Why are you doing this?!"
Tok Silihan grumbled under his breath as he channeled his Spiritual Energy gently, contrary to his seemingly rough voice and behavior. No one could blame him; the Boy's crazy pace scared even him. Super diligent!
"Tokkkk, I'm getting there! Seriously! Look here."
Arash moved the elder's outstretched palm on his forehead to the side weakly. He had been pushing himself with a rotation of 6 hours to 3 hours of training to rest time for six cycles regardless of day or night! Getting a fever was considered a mild repercussion with such a tight schedule for a human with below-average fitness. The elder couldn't fathom where the Boy's determination came from.
With a flushed feverish face, his eyes still shone in anticipation as he took off the fang-shaped pendant from his neck. The tiny movement already made him out of breath.
"Hold it, Tok."
Tok Silihan took the talisman from Arash and held it with confusion.
"Can you feel it heats up? It's a little warm, right? Heheheh." Arash beamed lightly. His deep exhaustion was evident.
Tok Silihan could see the smiling boy swaying weakly and shook his head worriedly.
"Sigh, yes, yes, it is a little warm. Let's get better faster, sleep, eat, then try again until it is warmer than this, okay?"
The Tok Batin was so exasperated with the sickly boy! He cursed in his mind with colorful expletives. What warm?! Of course, it's warm since it nestled inside the boy's clothes who was having a high fever! The heat naturally came from his own body temperature combined with the fever!
He didn't know that Arash just succeeded in his first attempt to pull the Spiritual Energy from the environment into the pendant! The resulting increase in temperature was so faint that the Spiritual Healer wasn't able to spot the difference.
In the end, it took a full 24 hours of proper rest and sleep to resume the seventh round.
Arash, with his doe-eyes, even managed to convince Tok Silihan to run errands for him; he asked the elder to return to the village with his smartphone to inform Hana for a short pause.
...
..
.
Lord Brother Kuro, Lady here. I have some important information to report.
Kuro heard the white Silverbanded Eagle's voice in his head while he continued traveling down a particularly large tunnel underground alone. He had instructed Gramps Alpy to retreat and return to Mommy, while Chomper had an emergency and had to return to his clansground.
Proceed.
There are signs that the Monarchs have started to move.
Kuro took a deep breath.
How long do we have before they will be upon us?
One moon away. Two moons at most.
Which direction?
South. The Sanctuary will face it first. Then, there is a possibility that the East and North East will appear too.
Kuro cursed under his breath.
Then, we must speed up our progress. No need to disturb the Mistress. She is currently in closed-door training. I will personally talk to her about this when she comes out.
What should the Territory do? Lady probed.
Continue gathering information and always keep me updated. I need to know the Southern Monarch's disposition and his intention. At the same time, gather your people. Bring all Nobles to the Serpent's Lair to be given to the Mistress. This is an emergency. By rapidly increasing the Mistress' capacity, we had a higher chance of surviving the confrontation. In the meantime, the rest should hunt and stock up at your place. The Lair will send a representative to set up an ice storage facility to keep your hunts longer. Ceased all other activities.
What of Lord Pii? The little Pii was too young to understand anything. She wasn't sure what should she do besides educating him like a tutor would.
Tell him, his vacation is over. He needs to earn his keep and stop playing dumb. Make sure he is educated enough in the ways of a Silverbanded Eagle Warrior. At least, he could be a sub incase all our Soul Brethren fail to protect the Mistress.
Kuro was dead serious.
The Serpent's Lair wasn't ready to face a higher power who controlled a region. With that in mind, he squeezed his tiny scheming brain to its maximum to find ways to increase the probability for the Serpent's Lair to emerge unscathed in two moon's time.
Oh? A lightbulb moment emerged!
He immediately contacted Shiro.
Brother Shi, you there? Is Mommy okay?
Yeah. Anything?
Please remind Mommy of her promise to impart her divine bestowal to Lord Suria. Is the dunce still lingering in the area?
I drove him home quite some time ago since he was idling around and disturbing the peace. Very well, I believe you knew better than anyone to suggest such an event. Kuro could hear a tinge of annoyance in Shiro's telepathic words. His brother really disliked the pompous prick.
Thanks, Bro. I owe you one. Tell Mommy to help the dunce at her utmost capacity, but in return, everyone who is at Noble-staged and above must pledge allegiance immediately.
... I see. We will prepare as soon as Mom is ready.
I'm sending the eagles your way too. Same reason. Make all of them submit. Get Lady to tell you the details.
Duly noted. May your hunt for the Predator be fruitful, Brother Ku.
Thanks Bro.
...
Arash observed the movement of the origin SPE within his Soul Hall Domain as they diligently coaxed his wife's rainbow-colored SPE towards his Soul Core.
He had gotten better after a good rest and had resumed his seventh round two days ago. Right now he was on his eleventh round.
The 'bricks' he made have gotten quite a lot, but still pale in comparison to his wife's efforts.
The illusory Bellflower bridge became clearer by day, thanks to the bricks fitted on its surfaces and pavement.
Incidentally, Arash could see the whole layout of the translucent bridge but could not see anything beyond that. Only total darkness. Arash was sure there was something there, just that his vision was limited only to the bridge and no more. He imagined that was where he could find Hana's Soul Hall Domain.
From afar, he could distinguish the difference between his and her SPE bricks spreading over the structure at random.
His was glowing with a faint bluish light and crowded more around his end of the bridge, while hers radiated pastel rainbow-colored light as they dominated the other side of the bridge with a few lingering on his side. No bricks were formed at about one-third of the bridge, hence the solid structure was actually disjointed.
Arash had tried placing an SPE brick in the middle of the empty space, but it just wouldn't form. After several tries, he gave up and continued adjusting the bricks bit by bit to fill up the bridge on his end. He did try placing one in the middle of Hana's bricks too. It worked, but since Hana's bricks appeared faster than his, the spot he selected was always taken and the SPE he laboriously compressed to turn into a brick dispersed.
It seemed that Hana couldn't control the brick formation from her end like him. Hence the randomness of her brick placements.
From the translucent outline of the Bellflower bridge, Arash could roughly estimate that Hana's bricks dominated the bridge by about 60%, give or take, while his SPE bricks were about 15%, leaving only about 25% to be finished.
No matter how much Hana tried to slow down her trickle of Soul Power, they still couldn't stop her leftover unabsorbed SPE from forming bricks, leading to the current situation.
Arash simply wasn't competent enough with SPE manipulation. His Soul Core's absorption rate left much to be desired as well. Arash was forced to acknowledge that the power gap between him and Hana was immense. However, as someone mature and experienced, the situation did not fret him to the least; he simply had to implement contingency measures and do what he could without wallowing in his inadequacy.
He felt his smartphone buzzed.
Time's up.
Arash moved his fingers slightly.
True enough, Tok Silihan immediately took action. The soil covering his body automatically loosened and flew up to the side revealing the immeasurably fresh air. Arash wasn't the least bit surprised since he was used to Tok Silihan's unimaginable prowess. Instead, he chuckled in his heart at the elder's overprotectiveness and care.
"Thanks, Tok. Give me a moment to clean myself. After that, let's eat." He grinned sheepishly.
Tok Silihan stared at him deeply for a moment. Arash could see the mixture of emotions in the elder's eyes as if they were trying to convey something, hence, he waited.
Tok Silihan let off a deep sigh after the long wait as he elected not to say anything but to just nod slightly. "Alright, Boy. Today, I want rice with the yellow gravy. The last three boiled eggs are mine."
"So mean! At least leave me one, Tok!"
"No way, you let me wait day in day out like this. Additionally, the eggs are the ones I brought here. Be grateful."
"Sorry, sorry." Arash deflated meekly.
Arash walked towards the tree where he slipped his water dipper in between the branches and scooped some water from the little pond. He took a small towel and proceeded to wipe his face first before the rest of his body.
Once done, he poured the now-murky water at the base of a stunted bonsai tree with tiny purple flowers.
"That's a relief. Now, let's start cooking a bit." Arash looked around for the pot to start putting rice.
"No need, I already cook the rice. Peel the eggs now. All three."
"Okay, okay." Arash chuckled lightly. Sometimes, Tok Silihan was a bit petty in the cutest way. He thought that those petty comebacks would affect Arash subtly, but truthfully it didn't.
They sat down cross-legged opposite each other, poured a spicy smoked beef in turmeric coconut milk RTE pack on top of their own pot, and ate blissfully; Tok Silihan, with three eggs, while Arash with none.
"How long will we be here, Boy? Jaya told me the foreigners were here last evening. We should get going today."
That shocked Arash quite considerably. He thought he still had time!
"But, but, I'm not done yet. Still got some ways to go." Arash pleaded. The bridge needed a few more days to complete.
"Did you notice that you've stayed here for six days? You said you love your kids. Are you sure you want to prolong staying here?"
Arash looked so distraught and distracted as his mind was preoccupied with who-knows-what. Tok Silihan shook his head as he observed this stupidly studious boy.
"You only have one day. Last three sessions. Make it count. This old one couldn't delay the foreigners anymore. You've told me you could activate the talisman already, right? Use the remainder of this time to make it heat up to this mug here."
Tok Silihan shoved the mug of warm instant coffee into Arash's palm.
"Remember, this warm. Then we'll be good to go. I'll teach you the next step at my haya after we settle the rich boy's treatment."
...