16 An Unavoidable Talk

Louis got up out of bed, albeit unwilling. Brian, Melissa and Elaine as well as Strauss and Tera Moonling (Amber's parents) were in the room. Melissa and Elaine looked the calmest in the room, while Brian had his trademark frown and a face of disapproval. Strauss and Tera were one step away from running at him to tear him apart and saving their daughter, though Brian was physically holding them back with his hands.

First things first, he looked at Elaine. "Can you heal my hands? Only the skin is burnt, so it should be fairly easy." Louis said.

Elaine sighed as she placed her two daughters onto the bed, tucking them in, as she held Louis' hands. They were charred black and completely numb, mitigating any pain that Louis would otherwise have felt. Furthermore, Louis kept his soul within his meridians and separated his consciousness from the skin around his hands, since he didn't need the pain as a signal to know how bad of a condition his hands were in.

"Couldn't you have protected your hands, like the bed?" Elaine said, sighing. "These injuries are nothing to scoff at."

"I wasn't sure if I had enough qi, so my hands took second priority." Louis said, shrugging. While he knew little of Elaine's actual abilities, her status as the former head shrine maiden was nothing to scoff at, especially since the position required both mastery of religious text, music, history and, most importantly, the ability to heal others. "As it is, I ran out of spirit stones helping Amber."

"Helping? Her spirit became chaotic and flames that exceeded the formation in her dress erupted." Tera said, breaking from Brian's grip. She slapped Louis then embraced Amber. "Mother is so sorry for leaving you to such a monster. Mother is so sorry."

Louis looked at Tera but couldn't blame her worry if she looked at the scene without understanding the preceding events, but she was not in a rational state at the moment, so he gave up convincing her. He would explain things later to her, when she realized that Amber was in no danger and calmed down a bit. Louis looked back at Melissa, Brian and Strauss.

"So, what would you like to talk about?" Louis asked. "This is not going to be about breakfast tomorrow, is it?"

"No, it's not." Strauss said, just about Brian was going to speak. "What did you do to Amber?"

"I gave her a cultivation technique and helped her through the first and most difficult step, that's all." Louis said, glancing at his hands, which were still charred black.

"Cultivation technique? Which one?" Strauss asked.

"Nine Sun Yang Emperor technique. You probably haven't heard of it." Louis said. "It will fix her immediate problem of unconsciously emitting flames, so she wouldn't need arrays inscribed into her clothes."

"How about Amelia? What technique is she using?" Melissa asked. "It's not the wind technique I gave her nor the water technique that Brian did."

"A wind and water technique: Tempest." Louis said. "I'm surprised you found out so quickly. The changes aren't so dramatic in the early stages."

"Did you modify the water technique that Shea and Carla used?" Elaine asked, looking up from his hands for the first time.

"No. I just explained the technique to them and gave them some auxiliary arrays. I'm not well versed in pure water techniques." Louis said. "There aren't any quality techniques within the library."

"Let me get this straight. You gave your sister and fiancee unknown cultivation techniques without permission; wasted all ten spirit stones on cultivation, after saying you will use it for alchemy research and you have no results to prove for it; startled everyone in the house by setting off a storm of qi; what have I missed?" Brian asked. "You do realize the consequences of your actions, right?"

"Not my fault you guys didn't understand what guiding my sisters in cultivation meant." Louis said. "I wonder how any even bother cultivates with the manuals you give. No one explains or helps them, yet you people still expect results. It is only when something foreign happens that you all coming running with questions. Do you realize just how little progress they would have made without my help?"

"No progress is better than being a guinea pig for your experiments." Tera said. "Amber won't even wake up, no matter how much I try."

"Don't bother." Louis said. "Her soul is adjusting to its new situation, it might take a day or two before she wakes up, but she's fine. Let her sleep."

"How can I trust you?" Tera said, putting her own body between Amber and him.

"Like how you been trusting me with her cultivation for the past few years. It's not like this is the first time I have helped her." Louis said. He paused for a moment. "Wait until she wakes up tomorrow or the day after, then criticize me if there are problems. I'll take responsibility then. For now, just let her rest, there's nothing you can do. Let's ask my sisters about their cultivation, if that would alleviate your worries."

Melissa woke Amelia up. "Can you show us your qi?" Melissa asked.

Amelia rubbed her eyes as she nodded. Placing both hands together before slowly moving them apart. A silver qi began to amass between her palms, forming a small spherical cloud. Compared to yesterday, her qi was a shade lighter and nearly ten percent purer.

"She's already reached late stage one star martial artist." Melissa said.

Brian got up and woke Shea and Carla up. Shea produced a sphere twice as big as Amelia's with a turquoise color. Carla produced a sphere roughly the same size as Amelia's that had the same color as the water within the water park and canals, a darker blue but not yet navy blue. "Shea has become a two star martial artist and Carla is also a late stage one star martial artist." Brian looked stunned for once, but he quickly got ahold of himself. "What did it cost for them to do this?"

"Properly explaining and guiding them so they can understand it. Making fun activities that immerse them with the elements and improving their spiritual strength and elemental affinity with the clay orb I modified." Louis said. "You know, the things that you guys never bothered to do. Those manuals you give kids are esoteric, without considering their kids thought processes in mind. How do you expect children to understand them?" He looked around the room with everyone silent. "Don't tell me just because they achieved it after a month of my tutelage, you thought they did it on their own."

"We will talk about this after Amber wakes up. Either way, expect a meeting with the council of elders soon." Brian said, standing up. He looked at Strauss then left.

Strauss looked at Tera then Amber before leaving as well.

"Will my daughter truly be alright?" Tera asked.

"I guarantee it on my life." Louis said, looking her straight into the eye.

"I'm done treating your hands, Louis." Elaine said, as she released his hands and went to hug Shea and Carla.

Louis opened and closed both his palms multiple times as he slowly rotated his hands. The skin had returned its original color and regained its moisture. All of the tissues and skin were restored.

"Can you teach me how to heal?" Louis asked, looking at Elaine.

"If, after everything is said and done, my daughters are alright, then alright." Elaine said.

Within the next few minutes, the women brought their daughters away. Louis remained alone in the room. The room was truly too big for one person to stay in. He much preferred when they huddled together. He didn't mind the emptiness, the loneliness, usually but being forced to be alone made things much more uncomfortable and isolated than normal.

Louis went to take a long bath. Within it, he began meditating, restoring as much qi as he could. Cultivating could take his mind off things, especially with him so close to a breakthrough. Although none of the spiritual energy and qi remained from the spirit stone, using six of them today pushed his spiritual strength to new heights and, once he restored his qi, he could immediately breakthrough. His qi restored slower than usual, even when accounting for exhaustion, due to his bad mood. It wasn't until just before dawn before he fully restored his qi and spiritual energy.

The Nine Revolutions Spirit-Body technique wasn't like his sister's technique, where his qi would change color every time he broke through from a stage - like mid stage to late stage. Rather than color, his qi would increase in qi quantity and purity. Each hair strand of qi contained the same amount of qi his meridians could hold if they filled his meridians without any revolutions. Sadly, until he opened his lower dantian, his qi wouldn't automatically restore itself. While these hair strands of qi were easier to restore than to create, they did take much longer than the qi in the outer layer of his meridians.

Like usual, Louis tackled the wind element first before the water element. Although the manor was within the depths of the Allyn family district, this manor had guests from various families who had all four elements. As such, the entire island had an elemental array that contained the balance of all four elements.

With his strengthen soul and increased spiritual energy, which had increased about ten percent, he revolved the water qi nearly twenty percent faster through his meridians. Within two hours, he completed the fifty-fifth revolution of the wind element and finally stepped into the seventh layer. His worries seemed to wash away as his body began to relax and loosen. Then, without stopping, he began meditating once again to recover water qi. This time it was much faster, the occasional, disruptive thought about what happened last night had disappeared. Within three hours, he completed both the qi restored and the fifty-fifth revolution of the water element.

Louis dried himself off before going to bed.