The house was upside down, the family of four mobilized to help the mysterious unconscious person found outside under the thunderstorm. Having woke up her parents to help her move the creature's body, her father quickly recognizes with experiences that it was actually a living man.
Without criticizing the weird taste of his daughter anymore they quickly made him enter, putting him on the couch. Lor had, in a matter of second lighted up the fire again with the help of his energy, warming gently the already cold body.
-"He must be exhausted, I can't see any visible wounds, truly a marvel no beast tried to eat him on his way here!" Cilis said while looking at his body with great curiosity, her hand touching the bare skin, trying to feel what lay under.
- "If it's not an internal one... it's indeed really surprising to see him alive, his body seems really too sturdy for a man this young, and this peculiar trait of his...I wonder..."
- "What do you think dad? Could we save him? I have never seen a man this black, I really thought it was a creature of the night !" Méline was pressing a warm wet towel on his front, cleaning up the mud that was present all over the body.
- "I think it's highly unlikely for his skin to be naturally black like this. It's not a natural black color, as if it was injected under the skin... See how it practically like polish onyx when you remove the mud! " Erik answered deep in thought.
- "He seems to be around my age, I never saw him before," said Lor with a renewed interest, unlike his often placid character.
- "Shhh, not this loud, look at his wrinkle on his front, I think he should have a headache, we mustn't be too noisy, also Méline, go search for a bowl of soup from yesterday, he should be hungry too!" the motherly ton of Cilis was heard again.
Fetching the small chicken stock, Méline let her brother quickly warmed it with his energy, thinking it was really handy to be able to do this sort of thing, longing for the day she could.
When the smell of the soup floated in the air, a small shiver could be seen on the body's nose.
- "Look, it moves! He is obviously hungry, quick quick, put it delicately in his mouth !" Even Lor's father was contaminated by the joyous mood.
Approaching delicately the spoon to fed him, Méline let small drops fall on his mouth, instantly disappearing. A second later a deep breath could be heard followed by powerful stomach noise.
-"Hehe, he is just a young famished man, he must have fainted because he couldn't hunt in the forest and didn't know which herbs could be eaten or not. Such an unprepared child, he is a little too reckless! " Erik was beginning his father's speech too show his children that going alone in the forest could be really dangerous.
- "Or he didn't have the choice and fled from something, look, he didn't have even a weapon or anything besides this muddy scarf around his neck and a stiff partially destroyed underwear..." Lor was quick to rebuff his father, not willing to admit the threats of the wilderness, knowing doing so would result in a distant exploration for him and his sister of it. His sister blushed at the mention of the nearly naked man.
- "Tchh, How do you..."
- "Aheu, cough, cough"
-"He is awake !!" Méline, Lor and Cilis interjected at the same time, not bothering with what Erik was going to say anymore.
Alix, open his haggard eyes, no thoughts were present in his mind but the hungered ones. He tried to fetch the small bowl only for his hand falling on the couch where it was before.
- "Look he wants more, quick, Mel, fed him," Said his mother not bothered by the angry glare her daughter had as if saying "What do you think I'm trying to do?"
Having been fed the entire bowl, the hunger in Alix didn't reduce one bit, but his strength didn't allow him to remained awake and he sound dive in another slumber, glad and frightened at the same time to be taken care of by people he didn't seem to know.
The following day where spend approximately in the same way, the little peace of the family, broken by the unexpected visitor. Someone would always be looking at him, checking that nothing goes wrong and that if he ever wakes up he could be nourished.
He was soon wrapped up in warm clothes too worn out for Erik to wear them anymore. He didn't want this naked young man looking quite beautiful without his strange skin condition to be in this state around his daughter. A father could be overprotective sometimes but Alix was grateful for this small gesture in his confusing mind, allowing him to retrieve a bit of humanity.
He was waking up approximately four of five times a day, the same during the night which was quite taxing for the family. Fortunately, the rain didn't stop yet so Erik could help them, not having to work in his forge.
He was lasting longer and longer with his eyes open but for now, no word had gone through his lips yet. The family was a little perplexed, feeling that his consciousness wasn't back, his eyes devoid of intelligence.
- "I don't understand, why did he not wake up completely, his body seems to be in a good state if a little starved but he should be awake by now, no mum? "Lor had tried injecting energy in the body as he did with his sister sometimes to heal small wounds, but his energy disappeared as if nothing happened, and no change could be seen.
- "Mental wounds could be hard to heal, and we don't know what he suffered exactly, lets time make its wonder, its the sole thing we can do"
And as we say, "always believe in a motherly love", little by little under the great care of this loving family, Alix's situation was slowly improving, his eyes beginning to sparkle a little, his movement when awake allowing him to hold the forks or the plate.
It had been a week since Alix was found out during the night, and today, the rain finally stopped with some sunshine's ray lighting the whole house. Under the beautiful light, Alix's condition appears clear for all to see, his black skin clearly not natural, black veins pulsing under the skin as if alive.
Erik automatically startled, approaching him to look with great interest. Touching the skin and feeling it with his energy clearly more developed than his son's, he began to understand a bit of the situation.
He had always maintained a reserved profile against this foreigner, not trying to heal him up with his energy, after all, he was an apex Condensation level, someone at the top in this remote area and he knew people could be deceptive.
But seeing the condition of the young man, being himself an honest man, he could not allow the boy to suffer more because of his prejudice.
- "You should be able to hear me, young man, even if you can't answer, listen well, what I'm about to say is vital for you to get better. You seem to suffer from a surplus of a certain type of energy in your body that is stocking under your skin and in your whole body in its primal forms."
- "You mean the black thing under is skin is energy?" Lor was stupefied, not believing it.
- "Yeah, this young man doesn't seem to know the method to assimilate energy in his body, he crudely absorbs it without letting it correctly fusing with his body, resulting in this peculiar condition, mobilizing his body energy to fight against it, using his body resources instead of benefiting from it !"
- " You mean he doesn't follow the Abraxas law but had still succeeded in absorbing energy?" said Méline, pouting a little at the idea that an unknown young man had bested her without even knowing the way.
- "Knowing the Abraxas isn't actually a frequently seen thing in this remote area and if our village didn't own a rare inheritance, no one here would probably know about it, but you are right, his condition his actually quite rare, not many should be able to do what he had done !"
- "But how can he live like this, this black energy seems really unfriendly no?"
- "I don't know, but what I do know is that I can help him by sharing the method to absorb it, so please, be quiet, he won't be awake a long time, I must be clear and short."
All the family was around the young man, not daring to make much of a sound as Erik began slowly explaining the Path to Immortality.
"As you probably know, there is energy in our world, a lot of different kinds of energy actually. Each living being can absorb it but The Abraxas allowed us to take the most optimal path leading to the states of gods. You should know about gods, they were like us a long time ago but succeed in shedding their mortal envelope to an immortal one. I won't go too deep in detail there because I actually don't know the process of it, never having seen the following steps."
Stopping ten seconds or so to make sure what he said was heard and understand, Erik looked at Alix's eyes that were now brightly lit up, sign that he was waiting for what would follow.
"Your body can actually let a limited quantity of energy flowing freely in your body, difficult to mobilize, not really your own. In the worst case, it could even develop its own consciousness, taking your body over. Fortunately, you are not at this stage yet! To freely absorb it, you must practice a breathing technique called the Cells Absorption Breathing. Each cell in your body can absorb a limited quantity of energy by an organelle called the Energysomes. "
Seeing the anticipation look in the young man before him, Erik smiled a little, remembering the first time he learned about this.
"The quantity of Energysomes in your body can define your level of talent, but don't worry, at the end of the mortal level, it is said that talent doesn't matter anymore even if I don't really know why! This breathing energy technique, making the energy circulate in your body and concentrate on a particular area in your body can allow this spot to absorb this energy in your cells' organelle."
Making short sentences as to not lose his little audience, Erik was also reminding his family of the path they had to take.
" It's called the Evaporation stage when your cells will contain this energy in a highly gaseous state, allowing you to mobilized it when you want. When all your cells are full, you attain the apex of this state and must begin to transform your energy in another state, the Gaseous one, but that's for later."
Alix was now listening attentively, the words succeeding in catching his entire attention even if he could not express himself well for the moment.
"You already have the energy in you, you just have to will it to circulate at a given place, the one you want. Each person has its own preference for this and it won't affect your future path but full cells are more efficient so it kind of impact your ability to fight. A hand's muscles full of energy is a lot more powerful than one without. Don't forget even one area in your body. If you do, after having broken to a new state, you will have a part forever late by one level compared to the rest of your body."
While listening, Alix had already tried to mobilize a little bit of the Dark Emanation in his body, willing it to his brain, trying to upgrade it to improve his consciousness. Bit of Dark Emanation started to concentrate on the central region of his brain, flowing within his blood.
These tiny waves making up the Dark energy soon began to take a more tangible state forcing against the cells walls. Slowly, some of it succeeds in going through the wall, pushed by the high concentration which wanted to balance itself from one side of the walls to the other.
Floating in his cells plasma, it was soon captured by a weird organelle looking like a deflated bubble with thick lining, completely empty inside. When the energy went through, it started to inflate, accumulating it until its limit was reached. There was a considerable number of it in just one cell, if Erik could saw it, he would be surprised.
In most cases, there were five to ten Energysomes per cell. With great talent, you could go up to probably a hundred in rare cases in this remote area. But here there were more than a thousand of them, created when his body was restructuring during his mad swallowing of energy in the abyss.
There were strange-looking Energysomes next to the normal ones, they were emerald green and numbered in the thousands too but new ones were appearing under the stimuli of this incoming energy. It means his talent was good, to begin with after his atrocious experience but it was even slowly improving with the absorption of the Dark Emanation.
The bit of energy he tried to mobilize before was sufficient enough for ten cells, making him tried to mobilize a larger amount of it.
"Evidently, when you began to feed your cells in one area, you mustn't try another one before finishing it. It could prove to be harder to do it, retrieving the ones you missed, the concentration necessary to nourished them more important. It the same process in all the different states and you can't change your order of feeding so you must think carefully about which part of your body you want to begin with. "
Alix's eyes flashed with unwillingness, he just started feeding in a hurry his brain to improve his sluggish mind, probably making his whole combat ability taking a toll in the future.
"Well, I have already a powerful body, it will protect me during the time I absorb all this energy. It didn't even decrease one bit after using it to feed a thousand cells or so! Such a fearsome concentration!"