Living Life As A Game: Through And Through
/ Living Life As A Game: Through And Through 30 A Change In Affinity
Towards Atid's reaction, Sun didn't have much to say. He just kept quiet and let his foster father do as he wished. Sun had already expected to be found out since to everyone in the dojo, he was known to be the only person without Inner Strength. The moment his Dantian was restored and Inner Strength was cultivated, it would be impossible to conceal the matter; unless of course, Sun somehow managed to cultivate more power than everyone in the dojo before appearing before them.
Eventually though, Atid seemed to be so shocked that he blanked out, so Sun had to wake him from his stupor, by pulling away from his grasp and asking "You done looking? You're not hallucinating… My Dantian is healthy now."
"Healthy? We both know what your Dantian's condition was just yesterday! What do you mean I'm not hallucinating?! H-How can you be so calm!?"
Silence… Sun just kept his mouth quiet regarding anything and everything related to his Dantian's restoration. He wasn't feeling too good about having to withdraw information from his foster father. But, as someone very familiar with how much damage just possessing knowledge could bring, he firmly held his tongue to avoid giving away what he considered to be Elizabeth's most important secret; her skill in Accupoint.
Atid could tell from his experience with Sun that asking about the situation would get him nowhere, as his foster son could be stubborn at times. But he knew that if Sun felt it was better to avoid talking about the change to his Dantian, it was probably for a reason. In any case, he knew Sun's character to be someone who wouldn't do any harm to the people he cared for. So, after throwing the thoughts of how it was possible for Sun's Dantian to come out of that shattered state it had been in for years, he asked Sun "Let's ignore the matter of how your Dantian was restored, and focus on testing what you have affinity with..."
"Huh? You already know I have affinity with fire. What sense would there be in testing for my affinities again?" Sun was confused since Atid knew for a fact that he had fire affinity, way before he was cast away from his family.
Atid said "I don't know… I mean your Dantian was healed out of the blue… and I can sense from the Inner Strength within you some hints of a foreign type of energy..."
"Mhmm? Alright, let's do it..." Sun extended his hand to channel his budding Inner Strength into Atid, to let him manifest the elements of his Inner Strength and determine his affinity. Normally, affinity could not be visually seen unless one became a Pawn level practitioner themselves. However, if one knew of a practitioner with a cultivation greater than that of a Soldier, they could let said cultivator use their superior control over Martial Qi to fuel their Inner Strength and manifest the elements before they themselves developed Martial Qi.
Atid held Sun's hand and in his other hand, a mass of pure and neutral Martial Qi began to congeal. The white mass started to warm up the air above Atid's free palm before eventually combusting into a blazing wave of flames. Up until then, it was as Sun expected; a superior affinity for fire. However… as time passed with Atid feeling like there was more to Sun's elemental affinity, the color of the fire that burned above his palm began to grow unstable.
The air around Atid's palm which was being combusted into fire began to warp and the fire started to hue-shift into a golden color. The change was extremely slow so it took over a minute for the naked eye to notice. But, as the fire kept changing, becoming more unstable and warped, letting out sparks of luscious gold, and burning at increasingly hotter temperatures… Sun grew equally concerned as Atid would not stop the testing.
They had already confirmed that his innate affinity for energies had changed, but since they couldn't tell what the new element present in Sun's system was, the test continued. Normally, it would be pretty easy to tell what affinities a person had as the manifestation of the affinities would always yield obvious phenomenon.
But Sun's additional element just made his already existing fire affinity a bit stronger and more chaotic. There had never been a case as bizarre as Sun's, at least that either he or Atid knew of. As a result Atid kept increasing the intensity of the Neutral Martial Qi he was generating to better understand the properties of Sun's second affinity.
Sun, having a better and natural understanding of this new affinity as it belonged to him, felt increasingly uneasy as he could tell that the fire Atid was creating with the use of his Inner Strength wasn't just burning hotter and more wildly. But, he couldn't tell exactly what it was that his fire was doing, only knowing that something very bad would happen if Atid lost control or pushed the fire much higher.
At one point, when the fire started to blink, Sun's misgivings for continuing the test surpassed his desire to understand the nature of his new affinity. Thus he shook off Atid's hand and he said "Sto..." Unfortunately, because he broke contact with Atid so suddenly, without giving Atid the chance to slowly power down the fire that by this point had grown to be insanely potent, the unstable mass of flames went out of control.
An explosion, comparable to that of couple sticks of TNT going off at the same time, shook the entire dojo and shattered the windows of the buildings adjacent to the dojo. Sun didn't quite manage to see what happened, as Atid moved to shield him from the blast. But, Atid saw the whole event transpire with eyes wide open.
The fire didn't just explode spontaneously and outwardly like that of a typical explosion. Rather, all the energy that unstably burned in Atid's palm, just before Sun shook his hand off, converged into a sort of singularity with all the energy gathering into a single point before the explosion took place.
As a result, the blast was much more powerful than Atid imagined, and even he got significantly wounded. He used the majority of his Martial Qi at the moment of impact to shield Sun, his eyes, and internal organs, leaving only a pitiful sliver of the total Martial Qi he could summon on such short notice for the rest of his body.
Atid was left with dozens of abrasions, scratches, and cuts to his back and forelimbs. The floor and ceiling all around him was caught on fire as aftermath. Yet Sun stood near perfectly safe as Atid had taken more than 90% of the damage that would have landed on him.
Atid separated from Sun and converted his Martial Qi to water, hurriedly putting out the fire in the room, lest it spread and cause even more damage to his dojo. In complete disregard for the unsightly appearance he had, Atid managed to put out all the fire before the first barrage of dojo residents gathered, concerned and ready to address the cause and outcome of that loud explosion.
Elizabeth, naturally came to see what happened and unlike the majority of the dojo members that were either weak from the sight before them or concerned for Atid's state, she just squinted her eyes as she took in the sight before her. The floor in the center of the room had shattered and burned along with the ceiling and Atid looked like he had crawled out the depths of hell from all the blood that was dripping off his back. Sun just stood in the center of the room still dazed by the sudden explosion and people were running all over the place trying to help with whatever they could.
After acclimating to such a disturbing scene, Elizabeth calmly retrieved the needles from her purse. It was an action that went completely unnoticed to all the panicked people running around the dojo in an effort to help out. But Sun however, seeing Elizabeth moving in to expose her Accupoint skill finally sobered up.
He honestly felt that Elizabeth was too naive, either for thinking that Atid was wounded to the point of needing "Martial" Accupoint or for not hiding the existence of that godly skill more carefully. But, he wouldn't stop her if her intentions were to apply the skill to Atid. That didn't mean that he wouldn't put in his best effort in damage control. So, Sun quickly kicked everyone out of the room and locked the doors.
Naturally though, many ignored Sun's seemingly malicious actions in stopping people from helping the dojo master. However, his panicked and nervous look at Elizabeth's actions were what caused Atid to ask those unwilling to leave, to do so. And as a result, the room was quarantined before Elizabeth did anything too ridiculous.
Chapter end
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