Chapter 25 : Revival
"Young? Young Jade?" Spark's voice was the first thing Young heard as he came back to his senses.
"Did it work?" Young asked as he struggled to sit up. He failed miserably however, as it felt like his entire body had been shredded a dozen times over. Every muscle felt spent and at the same time spasmed uncontrollably.
"Stop moving. You injured yourself. For a moment your heart even stopped beating. I'm surprised you're even alive at this point."
"Heh. That's because the master of the Jade family is hard to kill." Young whispered jokingly, though tears were now running down his face due to the pain racking his body.
"How much of the pure lightning did you use in that last attack -- I'm just curious."
"Psh. Not enough enough to make mention of. Maybe less than 1%." Spark commented.
"Wow. It's that potent hmm?"
"Yes. And that wasn't the full power. In order to prevent the lightning from ripping your body apart, I had to lower its potency greatly. The energy inside of you easily Grade 9, the highest, most pure there is. Your body can only handle grade one safely. Grade two will cause you pain, while Grade three -- as you saw will most likely kill you in your current state."
"I see."
"That's… all you have to say?" Spark asked.
"What else needs to be said. I got them all, right?" Young asked.
"Of course, you guided the raw energy splendidly."
"Good. Then.. is it okay if I rest a bit?" Young asked as his speech slowed slightly.
"Yes, of course Young Jade, master of the Jade family. Most loved by all in the land."
"He he." Young chuckled as he passed out once again from the pain.
"Now I must heal your body again, and quickly." Spark said as he focused on the work of healing Jade's thoroughly battered body. Due to the state of Young's body he was forced to keep his heart beating while simultaneously healing internal injuries. This took the longest. Spark neglected to tell Young that he'd already been out for 12 hours after the battle. Now that the internal injuries were sufficiently healed he could move onto muscle and tissue regeneration which took significantly less time.
"Still, I never imagined that he would make so much progress in such a short amount of time." Spark remarked as he took a good look at Young's current progress.
"I also never expected that an Aged Beast would make its way to this cavern. It must have been chasing the pure energy within us. This is definitely a problem.." Spark remarked to himself as he busily worked to fix Young's body.
"It's sooner than expected, but I will have to risk the first baptism." This was something Spark didn't want to do, because the reality was a baptism was the process of taking on a great deal of pure energy in order to relieve the seal. With it, Spark would be able to function for greater periods of time and rest for less. The only problem was Young's ability to withstand the strain upon his body.
"If it's Rank 2 energy then he should be okay taking… hmm. 2%, no.. 1%. Even that much will alleviate the strain significantly. Ideally 5% is better but.. *sigh* " Spark couldn't help but feel somewhat annoyed. Although his memories were clouded, and most of them gone completely -- he couldn't help but feel as if a situation like this was beneath him.
"For better or worse, it seems as if we are stuck together." Spark lamented before he stopped thinking and began to focus on his work wholeheartedly.
-------------------------------------------------
"Rise and shine. Sleep time is over." Spark's voice echoed in Young's head, forcing the latter to rise.
"Hmm? I'm still tired."
"I know, but so am I and I can't keep watch over you any longer-- unless we increase the amount of time I can function. It's earlier than I'd anticipated, but for now I think it's time to begin escaping this ravine."
"Okay. How do we do that? I checked it out earlier and there's no way for me to climb or leap out."
"You're going to bound out, and I will teach you how. It will be simple with some practice. But… there are a few things we must deal with before we even get to that point. One of them is the first baptism." Spark replied.
"Baptism? I've never heard of that."
"Mm? I suspect you wouldn't. Its something only high level practitioners would need to worry about. Essentially, it's when you begin the process of accumulating a high amount of pure energy within you.
The idea is to first, amass the energy, then contain it and finally pull it within you. For you, since you've already accomplished the first two steps, you need only do the last. But that's also problematic…"
"What's wrong?"
"Because, during a baptism if I limit the energy too much it will tire me out. I will need to cut off a portion of the energy and trust in your skill to handle it. Of course, if things get too hairy you could just try to redirect the excess like we did against the Giant Grub but… as you've seen…"
"It could kill me."
"It will kill you. The amount of energy I used to kill the grub was roughly four times less than the amount you would need to absorb. The good news is, you can do this at your leisure, provided you train your qi enough to create a casing to hold the energy."
"So like...a materia ?"
"Well….yes. Actually, exactly like that, except you'll be handling a much larger amount of energy."
"So when do we start?" Young asked as he got to his feet.
"You just woke up. You're willing to start right now?"
"Well, yea. I'm tired of eating mushrooms--honestly. I need some real food."
"HA HA HA! Ahh, surprisingly simple answer. But it's as good as any."
"Naturally. I'm the master of the Jade family." Young said as he folded his arms and smiled.