I Think I 'Made' My First Real Friend... Friends?... Goddamn it

"… it's a flower?"

The now not-whispering collection of consciousnesses commented on seeing the source of Cari's unpleasant feelings.

A trampled flower could be seen, the life energy in it has been smushed out of its body, and all that remained was a few orbs in its crumpled body.

A petal of the flower fell off as they watched, and with it, part of its life energy left with it.

It is still managing to stay up, but most of its body is now a part of the ground, flattened, there was a footprint around it, showing someone has stepped on it.

Cari was thinking on what it should do, but the consciousnesses guessed what he was thinking and responded.

"If you want to heal it, I'm sure you can do it, just focus on your intent, and your target, and you should be able to figure out the rest"

He thought about it and agreed, he has done pretty much everything he set out to do by doing it himself and learning, but before he exited this 'special state', he asked something.

"Will I see 'you' again?"

The gathered consciousnesses was surprised when they heard this, it never really occurred to them, but they were able to arrive at a conclusion pretty quick.

"I'm the gathered memories of the energy in the area, but at the same time, I'm only together and sentient because of you, so... if I had to take a guess, I'll be mostly the same, but my memories will change with the environment, so I might change, act different based on where you are, but for the most part, I should stay relatively the same"

"Ok"

There was silence between the two, but before Cari could leave, they spoke again.

"Wait! I need to tell you something"

He halted the process of him leaving this 'special place', and spoke, "What?"

"I should tell you a couple of things, first off, you have a massive storage of life energy. You have a lot more life energy compared to other things, even for a person who's exceptionally gifted, you have an even more extraordinary amount of energy! Your energy is still climbing as we speak, if anyone were to find out, you'll be hunted without end, they'll take your boundless life energy for themselves, you can even fuel a persons evolution if the conditions are right, so you must keep your energy hidden, else you'll be put in danger thanks to others greed.

Second, while people who practice in the usage of life energy can't naturally sense the life energy in others, there are countless methods for measuring it, some with the help of tools, others with a special technique, to counter this, there's a technique that you should practice, it hides the amount of life energy a living being holds, it essentially creates a invisible shell that covers your body, not for physical protection, but for preventing any outside force from invading into your body for any reason, including checking how much life energy you have, while it is useful for multiple purposes, it isn't omnipotent, it isn't a sure-fire way to cover against all methods, just most methods, so be on your guard, you can control this barrier, so if you need to strengthen it, expand it, whatever the case is, there's the option to do it, you should have the memory of how to practice and use it, it's called "Life's Cocoon", so you know what to look for.

And finally, I think you can use this ability of seeing life energy more practically, so you should practice it, the more connected you are to the life energy surrounding you, the more ways you'll learn to utilize it in your favor, the ability to use and control unchanged life energy is bound to be useful, plus, if you practice it enough, maybe…

To summarize: Train & practice, you have multiple paths to improve your strength right now, like learning to use your life energy to enhance your physical power, learning to properly contain and circulate the energy to prolong your life and reinforce your body, although it looks like your body was born with that in-check already, there is also learning to deal with the nausea that comes with ejecting life energy with the usage of it, but seeing how you use this, let's call it 'Lifelight', without expending life energy, I get the feeling you won't need to learn it, and that's just the basics, not to even mention your own unique skills, you already have this special vision for seeing life energy, who knows what other natural abilities you have, all you need to do is discover and learn, the more you learn, the more strength that'll follow suit, I'll help you find a specialization once you get that far, for now, with the information you have now, you can start going down the road of a Life Energy User, or "LEU" for short."

"That was... heavy to say the least, no?", Cari commented

"Yeah, your right, haha, sorry about that, it's just... as I was talking, I realized more and more about the situation you are in, not once in my memories have I seen something like you, not ejecting life energy on use, nor the ability to see life energy, even you talking to me, a collected group of consciousnesses, it has never been done, you're... something new, there's just this saying here, "Most suffering comes from the failure to adapt and resist change", needless to say, new things aren't exactly welcomed here in any manner, so, your future...

Cari was listening carefully as the hive-mind trailed off, not finding the words to say, he could only say...

"I just feel like your entirely new existence may bring nothing easy in the future, to say the least."

Cari couldn't understand what it meant in its entirety, but he got the gist of it.

"So my future isn't going to be easy, huh? Well, at least that means it's going to be interesting, no?"

They were flabbergasted, is he brave or just stupid? His future was destined to be hard and treacherous, yet he just comments that it's going to be 'interesting'? Did he not understand what he meant, his future was going to be met with opposition, yet he was as brazen and ignorant as before.

Before they could comment further, he closed his eyes and started to exit this 'state of mind', the furthest surrounding outlines of trees, plants, and the like started to disappear into blackness, closing in on the little figure of the mushroom like an hazy fog, but before he could fully leave, he yelled quickly...

"Hey, what should I call you next time we talk?"

A name? They never thought of something to call themselves, they have only existed for little more than 6 hours thanks to this little one, once this was over, they would slip back into non-existence, awaiting the day Cari would call upon them once again as they only existed because of him, this is the main reason why they want to help however they can, so... if that's the case...

"You chose what to call us, and we'll be fine with whatever you chose."

"What?! You sure? Shoot, it took me nearly half an hour to come up with my own, come on, come on! Think, Thinnnnk, use that brain upstairs you think exists there."

But, just then, he had it, the name was fitting, and it didn't sound that bad either.

Just as there was nothing else in the area but him, as the dark, hazy fog closed in on him and he was exiting this 'Lifelight', he spoke.

"How about...

En."

Cari disappeared from the area.

…

En, huh?...

I like that name.