Chapter 38 - Only forward

As the monkey has dropped fully dead and the plasma was destroyed, the lighting clouds above Kyle's head calmed a little bit down and were still showing might, but further away from Kyle.

First thing Kyle did was to look at his hand that was hurting. The forced use of a higher-level technique caused his hand to be drained of qi, and it felt numb. Kyle had to meditate to recover it in order to fill it with qi again.

Next was the monkey. Kyle was sure that this monkey had a lighting element affinity, and even though he really needed to get it, he didn't want to get killed by random lighting while meditating.


Kyle collected the monkey as well as a couple of the trees bark pieces that he got off with the wave of conviction. Kyle's qi reserves were right now at 70%, and he was not in the optimal condition. 'That wave of conviction really took a toll on me. I need to move back and finally absorb the lighting element.' But just as Kyle turned back, he was shocked. The blackness enveloped the part of the forest where he came from. The clouds above were now purple in colour, and there were so many lightning strikes that area was as if a spider web was created between heaven and that part of the forest.

Kyle didn't know what to do as it was his only way to leave the forest. Going forward just meant meeting stronger beasts and stronger lightning in the heart of the forest. Going to the side and trying to go around the area with lighting was not an option either.

The worst thing was that this cloud was moving exactly into the heart of the forest. Kyle's only solution was to go forward and pray that the cloud will be moving slower than him.

Kyle circulated his qi and set out to the heart of the forest. As Kyle moved, the trees were becoming bigger and bigger with more mighty branches. As Kyle observed, these trees were most likely made out of some special wood that could absorb the lighting's power. 'Maybe these trees also have some lighting element affinity, and I will be able to use them to ponder on the lighting? Didn't the ogre say that all trees have a spirit? There shouldn't be much difference with beasts considering how much lighting these trees have consumed over the years.' Kyle now had an idea to find the biggest tree he could and try to meditate near it.

He also looked back to see what was going on with the cloud and his biggest worries were confirmed, the lighting clouds were moving faster than him, and if this carried on, he would be overtaken in a matter of a couple of hours. 'The forest is large, and I have no idea how long will it take for me to cross it.' Kyle used the lighting step and accelerated even further while waiting for some of the qi.

The main goal was to escape the rolling thunder clouds. If that was a success, he would be able to absorb level 2 monkey's energy that should be able to restore his qi reserves fully.

Suddenly as Kyle was running lighting struck the tree that was close to Kyle, and the lightning travelled from the top of the tree to the roots with some of it seeping into the earth. Kyle couldn't possibly be faster than lighting as it was at the speed of light level. He could only use all of the energy that he had available to resist the electric shock. The lighting that he got hit with was simply a small remnant of much bigger and stronger lighting. It was at least reduced by 20 times to 5%.

Kyle could not believe what was happening. Instead of hitting and burning his skin and flesh, the lighting entered his meridians and started zipping through them. This caused huge scare and shock for Kyle as his meridians were the most precious and important thing in his body together with the dantian.

The meridians at first couldn't hold the energy and were about to burst, but the pearl suddenly rotated in his dantian and released the azure force that has enveloped the meridians and the lighting tightly.

This was incredibly painful. As if someone took a needle and was stabbing it continuously to the different parts of his body. He could barely standstill.

The lighting that was at first oppressive and dangerous was now very willing and obedient. It was guided by the azure light through the meridians to the dantian with no damage caused to Kyle's body. The lightning than was about to enter Kyle's dantian. This put an alarmed look on Kyle's face. 'It nearly ripped my meridians to pieces, and now the pearl want to put it into my dantian? What games is it playing?' Kyle was about to resist until a warm pulse was sent from the pearl to Kyle's brain signalling that it was okay.

The lighting easily entered the dantian, and as it was about to touch the qi and went straight at the pearl. As it went inside of it, Kyle lost any ability to sense it. The lighting was inside some space in pearl that Kyle didn't have access to just yet.

After around a minute of lighting disappearing, it now appeared at the other side of the pearl. Now it was still the same colour and looked the same, but the main difference was that it now had a clear soul imprint inside. Kyle could feel it being very similar to his soul. The lightning also seemed to now contain some primitive mind that would let it behave as if it actually understood what was going on.

The lighting looked at the space it was in, it checked whenever there was anything of interest. It circled around the pearl couple of times and then as it spotted the 8 circles that were rotating around the one huge cylinder, it rushed straight at one of the circles. It was one that was very black at the moment and had no colour or soul.

As lighting touched the sphere, it sent some of its energy inside. Suddenly the sphere started turning from black to orange-yellow colour, and just before it was fully able to form, the lighting exhausted all of its power and stopped. It looked around and quietly started rotating around the sphere while building more energy to use.

Even though this took a while to describe, in reality, this only took a minute after the lighting strike. The energy that this lighting gave ripped some of Kyle's clothes to pieces. Also, a small fire started close to him that was put out by the leaves from the lightning trees on the ground. For some reason, they were so tough that they couldn't burn.

Kyle again looked back at the clouds, sighed and continued forward.