Stars Forest, Ice Spring Lake side.
Zhou Weiqing’s body was lay on the ground in a t-shape, deeply unconscious. At the same time, his body was undergoing a strange change.
A layer of black light appeared around his body. Despite the bright sunlight in the sky, the darkness emitted from within his body covered it like a cocoon. The torn flesh of his back from Difuya’s fireball was starting to heal up at a speed discernable to the naked eye. What was most shocking was that while his flesh was healing, his bones, muscles, internal organs and even meridians were being infused with a layer dark grey energy.
It was a nearly indescribable grey colour, giving an impression that was even colder than the black cocoon surrounding Zhou Weiqing, yet still filled with a strange vibrancy and life. However, as this layer of grey slowly spread out from within his body to replace the layer of black covering him, there was a strange change in the vegetation around his body. One could clearly see the vegetation getting infected by the grey, starting from Zhou Weiqing’s body and spreading out in a 5 metre radius, causing a quick withering in the vegetation as Zhou Weiqing’s body healed faster. There seemed to be an evil influence in the air.
The dark grey mixing with the black light started getting thicker and thicker, and the atmosphere grew colder, domineering, evil and demonic, the 4 different auras surrounding Zhou Weiqing’s body. He started to shudder slightly as 3 rays of light emitted from within the black cocoon, flickering above his body. The 3 rays of light were the green, blue and silver colours from the black pearl he had swallowed earlier.
The warm rays of the sun were not able to enter the surrounding of Zhou Weiqing’s body, and on his forehead, a black word “King” slowly appeared. On his skin, a layer of black tattoos slowly formed, below that a layer of grey, similar tattoos could also be seen. The 2 layers of tattoos seemed to have form a 3D image, and they covered his whole body all the way to his face even.
This phenomenon carried on for almost an hour, until all the colours slowly faded away, sinking back into Zhou Weiqing’s body, and the tattoos on his body also disappeared consequently.
The healthy bronze skin colour of Zhou Weiqing seemed a lot paler than before, and his facial features seemed to be a lot more handsome now. His back, which had been torn apart by the exploding fireball, was now totally healed, with not a scar to be seen, as if he had never been injured there before.
After a while more, Zhou Weiqing’s fingers twitched, as he slowly regained consciousness.
As he opened his eyes, he couldn’t help but shiver in a sudden chill. Although he didn’t know what had happened as he was unconscious, he still felt a chill in his whole body after awakening. His heart was cold, and that icy feeling was extremely uncomfortable for him, causing almost an indescribable emotion in him.
“I’m… not dead?” Zhou Weiqing sat up in a sudden start. He felt his body was a lot lighter than usual, and he hurriedly lifted his hand to touch his back, and on feeling the whole, smooth skin, he couldn’t help but widen his eyes in shock.
“Was that all just a dream?” Zhou Weiqing looked around the him, and then spotted the tattered remains of his clothing, as well as the circle of shrivelled dead plants around him. It was not a dream after all.
Giving himself a facepalm, Zhou Weiqing’s memories slowly returned as clarity returned to his mind.
“That weird black pearl seemed to have entered my body?” Quickly, Zhou Weiqing recalled his last memory before fainting. At that time, he had felt a gust of cold rushing into his belly, and he had passed out from the cold and had no further memory. As for the dead vegetation around him, he subconsciously passed it off as collateral damage from Difuya’s fireball.
As Zhou Weiqing was born with blocked meridians, although he was a noble, but he only attended an ordinary commoner school which did not give explicit lessons on the powers of Jewel Masters, hence he made such a judgement error. If the first skill on Difuya’s Elemental Jewel was that strong as he had imagined, she would not simply be just an ordinary genius. Furthermore, to be able to deal that kind of damage, that fireball would have blown him into smithereens.
“What on earth was that black pearl?” Although his judgement was fully accurate, but one thing Zhou Weiqing knew for sure – he had been critically wounded by the fireball, and it was the black pearl which had healed him.
Is my moral character that good? Did a karmic miracle just happen to me? Zhou Weiqing grew more excited as he thought. Although he had quite an optimistic character that could dismiss the misfortune of his birth, but being born in such a prestigious family, he naturally had a strong desire to be strong.
As he swiveled his neck looking around, he immediately locked onto the huge Star Tree beside him as a test target.
The reason for Star Trees’ name was because their leaves were shaped in a 5-corner pentagon manner, just like a star. A 100-year Star Tree was considered full grown, and its wood was extremely strong and tough, yet did not lack in flexibility – that was why it was renowned as one of the best materials for crafting bows.
Zhou Weiqing moved towards the chosen Star Tree, and waving his fist around, he slammed his fist into the thick trunk with all his might.
“PENG!” “Ahhhhhh!” The first sound naturally was the sound of his fist hitting the tree, and the latter was like a cat which had its tail stepped on, an almost inhuman screech.
Zhou Weiqing had been afraid of pain since he was young, the thick Star Tree stood immobile, yet he was hopping up and down clutching his right fist. The intense pain in his right fist made it almost numbing, and the surface skin of the fist was scraped badly, the sheer pain causing him to hop around for almost 10 minutes before getting slightly better.
“F*ck!” The young fellow cursed as he blew on his fist. “Damned, looks like pies dropping from heaven* is not something that will happen to me.”
*TL: Sudden windfall
Luckily, he was still young, and the strength of his fist wasn’t that huge, so he did not harm the bones of his fist. After the pain subsided, he draped on the remnants of his clothing, and his outer robe from the side of the lake, before departing crestfallen.
Unknown to him, about 15 minutes after he had left the scene, on the Star Tree that he had struck with his fist, where some of his blood had been left after his skin had scraped away. The surrounding tough bark of the Star Tree started to rot, and thin layer of dark grey air seemed to dissipate into the air. 3 days later, this 50 plus year old Star Tree vanished totally from the forest. Of course, this would never be known to Zhou Weiqing.