Emilia watched as Ling Xiao disappeared into the water. Even though she appeared calm before him she was still worried about what could happen.
From the very beginning, only one petal has been used at a time. But for him, she used two. Holding her hands together all she could do now was hope that the plumeria spirit did not lie to her.
The moment Ling Xiao was dragged into the water he felt a terrifying pressure descend upon him. The pain was too much, way more than he had expected. He watched as his skin slowly began to crack and blood began to seep out.
It honestly felt like his body was about to explode at that very moment.
After silently enduring the pain for 5 minutes Ling Xiao couldn't stop himself anymore. He could only open his mouth wanting to let out a blood-curdling scream but that didn't happen as the moment his mouth opened the golden lake water flooded straight down his throat.
With the entrance of the lake water, a crazy transformation began happening inside his body. Ling Xiao could barely hold on to his sanity at that moment. The pain was just unbearable. He could feel his organs being crushed and remodelled, and his bones felt as if they had turned liquid for a moment before they began slowly hardening again. The entire process was vividly clear.
At that very moment, Ling Xiao wanted nothing more than to just pass out. He couldn't take this pain anymore.
Just when it felt like his body couldn't hold on anymore, a large mass of glowing green Vines appeared before his eyes. Even though his eyes were not as sharp as usual underwater he still noticed a silver colour on the tips of the vines. That was the last thing he saw before he was forced into a semi-unconscious state.
Even though his eyes were closed and he couldn't control his body, that didn't eliminate the pain he was feeling. He had never felt anything as painful as this in both of his two lives. His body felt like it was being stabbed, and drilled into and his insides felt like they were being crushed and sucked out.
His mind finally couldn't take it anymore and it forcefully shut itself down, going into an almost protective state. As if his nervous system was forcefully cut off from his brain Ling Xiao suddenly couldn't feel pain anymore, his body and brain even though still connected were like two separate entities now. Since his spirit was no longer strained, he was finally overcome by exhaustion and he passed out.
The remodelling didn't stop just because the host passed out, instead, it increased rapidly. Without brain resistance, the plumeria could now work to the fullest of its abilities.
The bones were remoulded and refortified laced with a white glow on them. Now that all the impurities in them were removed, his bones now looked porcelain white. All the old scars on his organs from injuries and bullet wounds were washed away making them look as good as new. his muscles became tougher while more flexible and his skin stronger. If there was a way to measure the body's optimization then one would have noticed that Ling Xiao's body now had at least twice the strength of a top special forces soldier. Before the apocalypse even began Ling Xiao now had the strength a person would normally have once having reached Level 2 baptism during the apocalypse.
Emilia and Ling Qin only had Level 1 strength since they both only underwent baptism with one petal. Even still their strength would be more potent than others of that same category since the plumeria did a better job at toxins extraction than the Ganria blood did.
The ganria blood itself would leave behind some toxins as well which combined with impurities already in the body would weaken the body a bit from the inside. The awakening of abilities also didn't come with a complete body remodification as the plumeria could.
Another benefit that would come with the baptism would be easier access to the elements compared to others. Their remodified bodies would make it easier for them to absorb the elements into their bodies.
What people didn't discover even until the time Ling Xiao or Emilia died was that when people underwent the first awakening a dantian was born in their bodies. According to each person's aptitude, an element-sensitive dantian was granted to them. Each person would get an ability based on what element their dantians were most sensitive to.
And with each breakthrough between stages, the dantian would become bigger, allowing them to store more energy hence the increases in power gap between each stage.
As for Emilia, Ling Xiao, and Ling Qin, after undergoing the baptism their bodies had become stronger and with fewer impurities so once the apocalypse began not only would their dantians be bigger than everyone else at the same stage but their energy control would be even easier. The amount of force they would be able to release would be even greater.
In other terms when everyone else started with a relatively normal size swimming pool of energy they would have an Olympics size pool with cleaner water. They didn't need to undergo the process of purifying their energy since their bodies would automatically do that for them.
On the surface, Emilia kept pacing back and forth glancing at the lake every few seconds. She didn't know what Ling Xiao was experiencing at the moment but she could only imagine that it was at least twice as painful as when she and Ling Qin had undergone the baptism since he was using two petals instead of one.
What she didn't know was that with each petal increase, the pain would increase about five times. So while she had experienced two ounces of pain Ling Xiao was undergoing 10 ounces of pain. Bone grinding and body melting pain with a little touch of frostbite pain.
After 30 minutes a giant whirlpool began forming in the centre of the lake. and slowly rising from the centre was Ling Xiao's body. Once his body had risen above the water a wave rose from the other end of the water and gently carried his body to the shore.
"Ling Xiao!" Emilia exclaimed as she approached his body, now lying on a bed of grass next to the lake.
"Ling Xiao. Hey, are you okay" Emilia asked shaking him lightly.
"Hey, Ling Xiao wake up! Why are you not responding" Emilia began to panic. Even after calling out to him and shaking him desperately for two minutes straight, he still wasn't waking up. The only thing that was allowing her to keep her sanity was that she could fill his heart beating through his chest and could feel his breathing through his nose. Five minutes slowly went by but he still wasn't waking up. In panic Emilia could only do one other thing except continuously shake him, she began to desperately call out to the plumeria spirit.
After not getting any response only then did Emilia remember what the vine had said the last time they met. To call the vine she needs to throw one of the flowers planted next to the lake into the lake.
The moment this memory resurfaced, Emilia immediately put Ling Xiao and crawled towards the flowers as fast as possible. Standing didn't even cross her mind at all. The moment one flower came into reach she roughly grabbed it and shoved it into the lake. Seconds later a white glow shone from the position the flower entered the lake with and the golden vine slowly rose from that position.
"What's the reason for calling me out so soon? It's barely been a day since we last met. 24 hours haven't even passed yet. A voice transmitted into her ears. With the tone of voice it used Emilia could hear that the vine was annoyed but even then she wasn't in the mood to attend to its feelings at the moment.
"Who cares if it hasn't even been 24 hours, just look at him! Can you just look at him and tell me what's wrong!? Why isn't he responding? What's wrong with him? Hurry up and take a look" she said really scrambling back towards Ling Xiao.
"mxm don't shout at me," the vine said as it moved towards him.
"that's close enough" a branch grew out of the Vine and wrapped itself around his arm
" Did you use two petals at the same time?!"
" yes, I did what you told me. You said that I could use more than one petal for the baptism, did you not?"
"yes that's what I said but I didn't say you can use it at the same time. I just said you could undergo more than one baptism and yet you used two petals at the same time do you understand how painful it is? His brain has literally disconnected itself from the rest of the body! If it wasn't because of the power of the petal that is still flowing inside of him this man would have been dead already" The vine grumbled
"Is there something you can do? Can you save him? Please save him." she begged panicked
"it's not that hard but next time don't do something so stupid. Undergoing a baptism two times separately is fine but two petals at the same time?! That's just asking for Death! I only help you out this one time, make sure that you don't do this kind of thing again
the branch that was wrapped around his arm began to have a soft white glow, and soon after this glow spread along the rest of his body. The light became brighter and brighter until Emilia couldn't look at him directly.
This whole process lasted for just about 30 seconds, and then the glow quickly receded.
"Okay, I'm done," the vine said retracting the branch and heading straight back into the water not giving her a chance to say anything. Emilia opened her mouth wanting to comment but just then Ling Xiao sat up gasping for breath.