Chapter 14 - Entwined

On the aircraft, Wen's face suddenly drained of color. 

The backlash from the destruction of a piece of his spiritual energy made his head hurt. Astra noticed his expression and asked worriedly, "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing." Wen took several deep breaths and recovered his composure. "I'm alright, no need to worry."

When he and Astra were at the auction, he had hidden some of his spiritual energy inside the auction owner's body. That strand of spiritual energy had now been found and destroyed. 

The other party seemed very experienced at dealing with these tactics. His spiritual energy didn't even have any time to disperse before it was torn apart. 

Wen might have said that he was okay, but his face was covered with cold sweat. Astra found some towels and pressed his hand to Wen's forehead. 

Wen's skin was smooth and soft, Astra couldn't bear to take his hand away. 

He tried to pull back, but discovered with great surprise that he actually couldn't take his hand away. The palm of his hand was firmly stuck to Wen's face. 

And even more shockingly, the spiritual energy inside Astra's body began to stir. White wisps of spiritual energy materialized in the air around him, wrapping around Wen.

F**k… They all say that spiritual energy is an extension of the owner's mind. Did he really want to f**k Wen that much?

Astra gritted his teeth and tried to control his rampant spiritual energy. Wen also appeared to be bothered by Astra's spiritual energy. Wen's own spiritual energy materialized, it was actually not invisible this time. His spiritual energy shone with a dazzling light as it chased Astra's own in the air. The spiritual energies swirled about, trying tentatively to get closer and touch. 

What the hell was happening?

Wen swore under his breath, "Shit!"

A piece of his spiritual energy was forcibly crushed, and the backlash caused the rest of it to disperse uncontrollably. It was nothing too serious, but now, why was Astra's spiritual energy also showing signs of disturbance?

Wen closed his eyes. Different expressions drifted across his face. It was probably because his spiritual energy was too strong, the strong force of attraction caused Astra's spiritual energy to lose control as well. 

It's all good. Only spiritual energies from opposite sexes attract, the spritual energies from the same sex would only repel. The one thing that all males hated the most was the oppressive force of another male's spiritual energy, so when the spiritual energies from two males collided, they would surely repel each other. 

As long as he controlled his own spiritual energy well, and refrained from attacking Astra, it wouldn't be long before the two of them recovered control over their spiritual energies. 

Wen was about to be very disappointed by these textbook theories. 

Wen's silver spiritual energy drew closer and closer to Astra's, before it reached out a curious tendril to prod at the latter's spiritual energy. Suddenly, like a spark meeting kindling, there wasn't even a second's hesitation before the spiritual energies melded together. 

They. Melded. Together!!!

Astra let out a muffled groan and clutched his head. "Head…hurts…"

Wen bit his lip until it turned white. Shock was written across his face as a mixture of pain and shock clouded his mind. 

Wen wasn't the only one who was shocked. The other three people on the aircraft were all stupefied. 

Their mouths dropped open. Simon stuttered, "Two guy's spiritual energy…mixed?"

What in the world?!

The part of the body where spiritual energy came from was the brain! Wouldn't their teammates become brain damaged from this? 

What to do!? What could they do! Only a male and a female's spiritual energy could successfully mold together, how was it possible for two guys to do this?

They looked at the spiritual energies tangling happily in the air in front of them and fell silent. 

Apparently, everything they'd been told was a lie. 

Jiyu took a deep breath and immediately opened his computer device to search for the reason why this was happening as well as what would become of it. However, despite the vast amount of knowledge stored on the starnet, he wasn't able to find anything about two male's spiritual energies bonding together. 

Jiyu became a bit panicked. He typed up the question on the school forums and posted it, hoping desperately for someone to see it.

There were a lot of people on the starnet at this time of the day. When Jiyu refreshed the page, there were already over twenty new comments on his post.  

"I've already @'ed all the teachers that I can @. Hopefully one of them can give a professional solution."

Linus set the aircraft to autopilot and hacked into the larger information net used by the government, but like Jiyu, he also found nothing. Linus took a deep breath, his face was expressionless as ever as he spoke, "I'll contact Professor Marten's computing device at once."

"Already did it." Simon's hand shook as he pointed at the computing device on his wrist. "But…Professor Marten can't be reached right now."

Astra felt that his current state was quite abnormal. His consciousness faded in and out as pain and pleasure alternately flooded his brain. The influence of his spiritual energy on his mind was too great. Astra's spiritual energy and its new 'friend' played about happily, completely unconcerned about what kind of effect Wen's much more powerful spiritual energy would have on Astra.

The conversation happening right next to him took several seconds before his mind registered that Linus was speaking. Astra curled his free hand into a fist and dug his nails into his palm. This feeling was too bizarre. Even though it was painful, it wasn't an unbearable kind of pain, but it still left his mind feeling muddled. The shock of pain from his nails pinching into his skin gave him a moment's clarity. "What…happened."

Wen was much more affected than Astra. The strength of Wen's spiritual energy could be considered as the highest within the Empire, even far beyond it. His spiritual energy had never mingled so closely with another's, since his distrustful nature had prevented him from letting any female's gentle spiritual energy too close. Wen also loathed other males' spiritual energy. At the moment, he was under a lot more pain than Astra was.

Even the pain of having a piece of his spiritual energy diced was nothing compared to this. 

The three teammates that had scoured the entire starnet without finding an answer were about to be driven crazy with panic and worry.

Countless message notifications popped up on Jiyu's computing device, but none of the messages that he received contained any useful information.

"According to research, male spiritual energy has at least three times the attack power and toughness compared to female spiritual energy of the same level, and female spiritual energy has over three times the flexibility and stability as male spiritual energy. Because of this, only members of the opposite sex can fuse their spiritual energies. The situation you're asking about, with spiritual energies from two males molding together, is most likely a mutual attack mounted against each other that would result in massive damage to their spiritual energies. In other words, they are likely to incur lasting brain damage from this encounter."

This information seemed extremely legitimate. Jiyu and the rest of them had already considered the worst possible outcome. Astra and Wen's pained expressions also seemed to show that they were experiencing an unimaginable level of pain. 

But in reality…

Wen's face was flushed as sweat dripped down his face. His teeth sunk into his lip so hard that he tasted the metallic flavor of blood in his mouth.

He lowered his head and hid his face.

For some reason unbeknownst to him, the pain that he was feeling was infused with a spark of pleasure. He didn't dare try to decipher the feeling, the best he could do was try his best to act like he was in pain. 

Because it didn't look like Astra was experiencing the same complex mix of sensations as he was.

"No." Jiyu hardened his resolve and forcibly calmed himself down. "Let's go to the Jade planet. The Mercy Lake there has something special in its water that would make spiritual energy disappear for a while."

This was the only way to prevent the two of them from giving each other brain damage!

The small aircraft had a spacetime warp device, but they only had enough fuel for one jump. It was reserved as a last resort escape measure, but Linus and Simon didn't even hesitate as they programmed the coordinates. The two of them breathed a sigh of relief after they were done. "Astra, Wen, we're all good! You don't have to become idiots!"

Become an idiot, my ass!

Astra buried his face into the sofa, his short, dark hair was already soaked through with sweat.  

His body heated up as his sense of smell was entirely taken over by the heavenly scent radiating from the male lead, until sweat soaked through the inner layers of his clothing. 

Such a delicious scent, yet nobody else seemed to be able to detect it. 

F**k…

The scent that enveloped him was slowly robbing him of his sanity. 

Thankfully, the spacetime jump was faster than he had thought. A quick moment later, Linus had already found an empty clearing to park their aircraft. 

After they opened the door, a slow breeze drifted inside. The scent that was driving Astra mad finally lessened in intensity as it was diluted by the air from outside. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. Wen also just happened to look over at Astra. Their eyes met, but the two of them looked away almost immediately, as if burned by the sight of each other. 

How could this male lead be such a tease without even trying?

The spiritual energies around them steadily grew as more and more spiritual energy leaked out of their bodies to tangle in the air between them. 

No one knew how much area Wen's spiritual energy would cover if all of it was materialized, but the amount of spiritual energy that Astra had was obviously lesser than Wen's.

Even though Astra's spiritual energy was nothing to laugh at either. 

Simon and them looked at the giant ball of energy suspended in the air in front of them, finding it extremely hard to believe that this amount of spiritual energy came from two people whose scores were under 2000.

But what made them even more shocked was that, from beginning to end, neither Astra or Wen had shown any signs of tiring. 

Awesome…

Mercy Lake was the most famous lake on Jade planet. There were no guard posts around the lake, because the special quality of the water only appeared under the unique atmosphere of the Jade planet. Once the lake water left the planet, it became plain water.

But at the moment, in Wen's eyes, there was nothing in the world more beautiful than the lake in front of him. 

The two of them didn't even take their clothes off. They immediately jumped into the lake, submerging themselves completely into the water. The silver-colored flecks floating in the water surrounded their bodies. Soon, their rampant spiritual energies began to dissipate bit by bit. 

The two of them breathed a collective sigh of relief. 

The alluring scent coming from the protagonist was finally gone. 

But now there was an awkward atmosphere between them. 

Wen didn't dare to look directly into Astra's eyes. His gaze slipped from Astra's face as he tried to reason with himself. The sensation of pleasure and elation that he had felt back there were just other symptoms of his spiritual energy running rampant. 

Maybe the Empire's research on spiritual energy wasn't detailed or complete enough. Maybe it was supposed to feel that weird when the spiritual energies from two males mixed together. Spiritual energy was like a mysterious chemical compound, no one could guess whose spiritual energy would form a reaction with whose. 

It was still quite awkward.

Wen finally convinced himself with his reasoning, and recovered his composure. Even so he still felt that it was best if he didn't look at Astra.

Very awkward.

Jiyu took out a woolen blanket from the ship. "There's only one, the two of you will have to share."

Astra, "Let me soak in here a bit more, the water's really comfortable."

"Really?" Simon was curious. He stretched out a finger to touch the water. 

"Even though Mercy Lake's water makes spiritual energy dissipate, there's some benefits to the water as well," Jiyu explained as he sneaked a glance at Linus, who tiptoed behind Simon. "Especially for people like us who haven't learned how to direct spiritual energy yet, the water here can…"

Simon asked, completely oblivious to what was about to happen, "The water can what?"

Suddenly, Wen and Astra swam farther away. Simon was still confused. "Why are you guys—" swimming out so far?

Before Simon could finish his sentence, Linus shoved him into the water with a splash. Ripples spread from where he fell. 

Jiyu continued calmly, "—can relax muscles and make the body feel very well-rested. Long term use can also heal old, hidden wounds."

The splash made when the well built youth sunk into the water also soaked the edges of Linus and Jiyu's clothes. 

Simon waded in the water, feeling so wronged. "Come at me face to face! You're bullying me!"

Once the risk of brain damage had been resolved, the rest of the team reverted back to their usual mischief as they played around, foolish and giddy with relief. They cupped water and splashed it at each other, cursing and swearing, laughing at the expressions on their teammate's sputtering faces when a particular splash of water caught them unaware. 

They laughed with the innocence of youth, the sound carried far from Mercy Lake, soaring in the breeze in its airy mirth. 

Astra looked on, and then suddenly dove underwater. He swam to Wen and grabbed the other boy's ankles, then yanked the unsuspecting Wen underwater with a sudden, forceful tug. 

Wen, "!!"

Astra's hair drifted in a halo around his face. His grin was full of mischievous glee, like a naughty child with a secret. 

The particulate matter in the lake water dispersed about them like dust motes, shimmering under the light from above. The sight was as magical and beautiful as a galaxy of stars. 

The feeling of discomfort from a moment ago disappeared in an instant, leaving behind only a sense of awe at the beautiful sight. 

Wen laughed. Air bubbles emerged from his mouth and floated upwards towards the lake's surface. He pointed at Jiyu and Linus, who were still standing on the shore, and mouthed to Astra. "Let's pull them down."

It was rare to see Wen acting so playful and energetic, like a youth without any care or worry in the world. Astra gave him an 'Ok' signal and nodded.

The two of them surfaced to take a deep breath and quickly ducked underwater again. Before Linus and Jiyu could react, Astra and Wen quickly swam to the shore. Each of them grabbed one person, and dragged the only two members that had remained dry into Mercy Lake. 

"Astra! Wen!"