Ember doesn't stop flying through the air for almost half a minute as the final bursts of the yellow fruit wear off.
He powers down his full dragon form and we both float in the open air in our base forms while staring back at the black forest.
My body and mind feel many times sharper than they did just minutes ago, before eating this fruit, but at the same time, I feel a massive wave of exhaustion come over me as my body isn't used to exerting that amount of mental and physical force.
It feels like the withdrawal symptoms of the red and orange core. All of my raw unfiltered senses scream at me to eat the yellow stone resting in my hand that dropped from the lizards' corpse, but I can tell my mind is playing tricks on me.
I grit my teeth and let it fall into my item storage and boost my self-regeneration skill as the feeling of exhaustion and yearning for more yellow energy grows stronger and stronger.
A noticeable amount of the perception boost remains in my system even after the majority of the yellow power flows out.
I can still sense the weak presence of all of the lizards who try to hide their presence in the trees nearby.
I take deep breaths and focus on them lurking in the trees waiting for more orange-cored insects to fly by.
Far off in the distance, I hear the rattling of chains and rock breaking and shifting.
Islands are falling down to the ocean below while others are coming back up to this far more populated area.
More insects come swarming in, more fruits grow in the trees, clouds float by, and the wind whistles throughout the endless black forests on each of the islands that grow to reach high into the endless sky.
My mind wanders through my surroundings while my physical functions basically pause, only focusing on a small amount of wind magic to keep me in the air while the rest of my mana and physical functions are being consumed to constantly heal and regrow my rapidly deteriorating flesh and bones.
The insects buzz by, and the lizards never leave their islands.
The first hour is the worst, but my energy begins to come back and my fatigue fades soon after, becoming more like a calming meditation.
Over 8 hours go by before I feel as if I'm at 100% again, and when I open my eyes to look down at my body, it is still filled with traces of yellow tendrils of energy.
Ember still floats in the air about 5 meters away beside me, and it seems for the first time, I've finished my recovery process before him.
Absorbing the excess energy must have taken a lot more out of him than wielding a lesser amount did to me.
I pull out the yellow fragment from my item storage to take a look at it, and the bright glow and extreme weight on reality it gives off forces me to throw it back into my item storage the next second.
It was far less intense when I had it in my hand while still under the influence of that yellow fruit.
If I had to guess, it is equal to, if not even more potent than all of the energy I consumed just 8 hours ago.
It wouldn't be wise for me to eat this without Ember's help in controlling the runoff. Plus, the most efficient use for a surge in power would be to challenge another lizard creature while I'm at my maximum strength.
Even with these leftover threads coursing through my muscles and bloodstream, I'm still unsure if I could take out one of those monsters in a single blow again without taking advantage of a power surge.
Ember wakes up about 4 hours later and voices exactly the same idea.
"Of course, we'll simulate the strategy we just pulled off. Consuming this stone should be easier now that your body is already somewhat accustomed to the yellow threads. I won't have to absorb as much of the runoff either, maybe this time we can share it equally."
This confirms he did in fact take the majority of the burden, but a faint memory in the back of my mind of silver and golden sparkling energy helping from the most inner part of his core flashes in my mind for a moment. I get the suspicion that this added to his longer recovery time too.
He begins to shift into his full dragon form and eyes the forest, so I don't bother to pry more. We have a more important task at hand right now.
I pull my sword from my item box and we enter the forest again in search of another chameleon.
Once we find one nearby, guarding its golden fruit, I eat the yellow gem from our last kill and a surge of power that feels almost identical pulses through me.
This time, I'm capable of holding even more energy in my body and far less is siphoned out through my feet.
This creates an even denser concentration of threads in my greater form, boosting the power in my sword, and heightening my perception even further to reach far out into many more nearby islands.
My Soul Energy imbued greater form glows golden and slices through the tough outer scales of the lizard we ambush, leaving a deep wound in its side and tearing off two of its arms. Ember's claws tear through its neck as well, and the creature shrieks and falls from the tree.
We swoop back in to finish the job with a single strike of my blade to collect its stone and the golden fruit it was protecting.
Once we leave the trees and power down to conserve energy and undergo the healing and withdrawal process again, it only takes me 5 hours to recover this time.
To my surprise, even though I'm positive I took on the bulk of the divine energy this time, Ember still takes a few hours longer.
Far more tendrils of yellow energy course through both of our bodies now, and his response when he wakes up is an interesting one.
"We're ready. Both of us will be enhanced this next run. You eat the fragment, I'll take the fruit. You won't have to make contact with me, we can fight the enemy with a more dynamic approach."
When we fly back into the forest, I jump off Ember's back before we near the next lizard's branch and we fly in separate directions to ambush the creature from both sides.
I slice a gaping hole through its neck while Ember tears long claw marks through its torso from the opposite direction. The combination of our forceful attacks tears the lizard in half and we claim its crystal and fruit as a bounty.
Once we leave the forest for safety again, it takes less than 3 hours for both of us to recover.
My vision gets clearer, my senses are sharper, and the orange aura around me is now tinted yellow.
Even without turning on any of my buffs or perception skills, I feel all of the enemies within dozens of kilometers around me.
My air steps through this construct feel so light and easy, yet powerful and destructive.
Days pass as we continue to farm lizards, completely annihilating every single one that lurks in the bottom few kilometers of the forest on this island.
Ember and I manage over 30 kills and absorb every one of their fruits and stones before targeting the next one.
The resting time we need in between fights falls to less than 15 minutes, and my aura has turned almost completely yellow-golden.
As we fly upward to reach one of the nearby islands to go hunting again, it feels like the full power of the aura that surged out of me during my first fruit consumption is active at all times.
I feel as if I'm aware of everything within the yellow domain filled with threads that pulse from my body.
Although every time I use this power to become stronger and boost my perception, some of the yellow threads that could be aiding the growth of my core are expelled, it's such a minimal amount compared to the gains I get from killing the next lizard.
By the time the lower layer of the next island is completely cleared out, the surges of yellow energy stay in my system long enough that I can store fragments and fruits in my item storage for later while taking out my yellow-cored prey in a single slice.
Ember and I even split up and farm the islands separately as more days pass.
My strength grows more and more, and my aura of perception does too, reaching out hundreds of kilometers in my greater form now, showing me many more islands both above me and off in every direction.
Both of us eat hundreds of yellow fragments and fruits, and I store far more in my item storage as I end up speeding through entire islands before a surge runs out.
Eventually, it gets to the point where eating a fragment hardly changes anything. There's just a tiny feeling of progress that I get every time, so I continue to push through.
My core still remains orange, and every moment that I'm not eating fragments or fruits, I'm losing small amounts of yellow threads. My entire body, mind, and being is saturated with the energy.
This is far more than I ever had to do for the orange or red awakening, but I can tell there is a very rewarding end in sight.
Not only is the amount of energy needed to complete this process alarming, the amount of time it's taking is too.
I've spent over a week working on my yellow core, meaning my time in this construct is about three-fourths of the way over.
Ember and I both know this, so we clear out the densest populations of lizards in the bases of islands and multitask by continuing to absorb energy and climb upward.
The further up we climb, the more densely packed the islands get and there are even some obsidian forests that merge together and their black branches and trees combine to push higher into the sky.
Whenever I get close to the branches or their trunks, the feeling of extreme danger still rushes through my psyche. Even with my recent increases in strength, my intuition still screams at me not to touch the trees.
Not only this, but the temperature of the construct gets hotter the further up we travel too.
More stray threads of orange and yellow divine energy float through the air, making it easier to siphon extra energy just by breathing, but it also makes me wonder where it's coming from...
Every once in a while, it appears like there is a glimmer of a bright green thread intertwined with some of the yellow stray tendrils. However, every time I fly over to try and look at them up close, they always fade out of existence, making me wonder if it's just my mind playing tricks.
The lizards glow brighter yellow in these higher trees, and their overall strength and speed increases slightly, however, my own power has been rising too so I hardly notice.
Eventually, the pressure in my body from absorbing the yellow cores hits its breaking point, and both Ember and I float down to the outer edge of a nearby island to allow it to take place.
We absorb even more fragments and fruits, and let the energy flow through us while solely focusing on regenerating our bodies and staying conscious.
It is similar to the red core awakening that enhanced my senses and base stats to a great degree, intertwining with my skills, and it is also similar to the orange core awakening, weaving itself into my muscles and bones to make my body unbreakable.
However, it pushes everything to a much more extreme level. It intertwines me with the threads themselves, making my mind one with the environment around me.
My body becomes even heavier, bending the space that I interact with, but also gives my muscles a surge of strength to counteract this and make me feel as light as a feather on my feet. My mind evolves too, grasping the capability to touch, perceive, and manipulate matter a great distance away as long as the divine energy is part of my aura.
A pulse of yellow energy comes from my forehead as I open my glowing yellow eyes and I finally see this construct through the gaze of a fully awakened yellow core.
I take in a gasp of fresh air and stand to my feet, then look up toward the sky.
My gaze spreads out through my new reality, seeing the lizards and the floating islands with much more depth.
However, I freeze when I notice what is making the air so dense with excess divine threads, and the environment so hot up here...
In the furthest point of my newest enhanced senses, I finally feel where the tops of the obsidian trees end. Above them, a pair of enormous green eyes stare down at me filled with no malice, but pure curiosity.
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Author's Note:
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