"Do you feel any different?" Mark said, though he already knew the answer to come:
"Yes, I feel more... aware?" Noah said hesitantly, his eyes closed and his mind wandering inside his body, navigating through streams of blood and a weaving forest of flesh and tissues, all in order to pinpoint the change that had occurred.
"Naturally, you do," Mark voiced, a pondering gaze resting on the still, sitting boy before him. He himself remembered when he had assimilated his own spirit root and the fascination towards the heightened senses. It was not only the energy perception that rose, all senses rose together alongside it, reaching inhumane levels; though each and every person with Blessings could be considered inhumane.
"There is a shining thing in my Core," the boy opened his mouth, his voice much more certain now. "It's pulsating, like a living being's breathing, and its warm!" He continued, surprise and delight painting the young face. "It's putting pressure on the walls, though," he uttered, cringing in discomfort. It felt like an itch that he could not reach, lingering just beyond.
"Oh, yeah, your core is going to burst," Mark said without hesitation, his face the perfect example of a poker face.
Noah's eyes shot open, panic radiating like two suns from the deep blue abysses. "What do I do!" He shouted, scuffling to get to his feet.
Seeing Noah's reaction, Mark could not restrain from laughing, his whole body convulsing with every heaving cackle. "Calm down," he wheezed, now finding it hard to breath properly. "You're not going to explode," he managed to say, Noah now staring at the man before him whose hands were pressed against his abdomen, a new fit of laughter threating to take over.
"First lesson as a disciple," Mark started, still troubling to get words out properly, "the spirit root, the thing in your Core, is a being that needs space and most of all energy. The pressure you're feeling is from the root yearning for energy." Mark looked up, Noah still staring at him in shock, "are you even listening?" He asked, reaching forwards and waving a hand in front of the child's abnormally calm eyes.
"Huh? What did you say?" Noah said, his eyes coming to focus, pupils shrinking.
Sighing, Mark sat down on the path, his cloak melting into the darkness beyond. "As I was sayi-" he stopped mid sentence, an astonished gaze locked at Noah's eyes: the child had zoned out again.
Turning to his own master, Mark broke his gaze on Noah and met the old and wise gaze of The Deer, "am I really that boring to listen to?"
Expecting a lecture on how to properly educate someone younger, Mark got quite taken aback when he heard the short, one worded answer laced with boringness and disappointment coming from his master:
"Yes."
"What...?" He spoke in defeat, his voice almost a whimper. Looking back at Noah, his eyes widened when he noticed the child's face scrounging in pain and discomfort. "What's going on?" He asked The Deer, his voice now solid and tense, worry lighting up his black eyes.
"His Core is-" The Deer got cut off by the child suddenly giving voice to a shout:
"My Core is exploding!"
This time, it was Marks turn to break out into panic. With a movement too fast to track, he stood before Noah, a hand pressed on the part of the child's abdomen that housed a surging storm of volatile energy.
Inserting a part of his mind, Mark began to scurry through the storm, navigating it with masterful precision. Finding the brightly lit up Core, he slowed down, assessing the situation.
Situated in the eye of the raging storm of pure white energy, Noah's core shone in a bright red light. The suspended figure of the spirit root could be seen through the sun-like body of light, its root-hairs protruding far and wide, pushing against the wall of the Core.
The storm of white energy was a result of the spirit root trying to force Noah's Core into absorbing more energy than it could contain, leading to the now rampaging energy around it. The spirit root's root-hair was the way it absorbed energy, and thus why they were trying to force their way through the wall of the Core: the source of the blinding pain and pressure Noah currently felt.
Beginning to weave the violent winds of white energy, Mark's mind started the process of calming the storm, making it more susceptible for Noah's core. By taking large chunks of energy and reversing their trajectory, he slowly made the speed of the storm lower, the counteracting of the reversed winds resulting in the equalisation of velocity.
Guiding the calmed energy, Mark enveloped the Core in its pure mass, allowing the root-hairs to absorb the plentiful nourishment. What Mark forgot to consider was the already odd situation of Noah. Since the boy had found his spirit root before even receiving his first Blessing, which was unheard of, it was bound to be special... right?
And sure it is. Suddenly, the hairs expanded, doubling in size. What was once a steady and consistent flow of energy entering the Core was now a fast, uncontrollable stream. It could be compared to having a drop of water enter every minute and then suddenly allowing several litres to enter in the same amount of time.
The blanket of energy which had been like an endless source of nourishment could now be seen shrinking with the bare eye.
Mark's mind tensed, focus making his secondary body sweat. Losing control over the mass of energy, it struggled free, fighting its way towards Noah's unprotected flesh and bone.
'Damn it,' he thought, spreading his consciousness to fully see the fleeing energy, he began to slowly wind it together. This time, instead of shaping the energy into a blanket to cover the Core, he compressed it. Mark compressed the energy for a long while, shrinking the size further and further. When the density almost approached singularity, the verge of creating a black hole, he slowly and carefully guided it towards the widened root-hairs.
But during his time of compression, the root-hairs inside Noah's Core had coalesced and formed a large, very wide hair. Sensing the dense ball of pure energy, it began to shift in that direction, growing longer and longer, stretching the Core as if it was newly melted glass.
When Mark turned around to feed the Core, the tension had grown too large and with a comically perfect "pop", like a balloon, it burst.