Chapter 17: Cultivation (1)

After just a few minutes of waiting, the committee members had all gathered around Lucius. He led them towards the area where they had held their first meeting and once again ordered the other leaflings not to interrupt.

"Are you ready?" Lucius asked, looking at the committee members who were currently surrounding him. They nodded in response before touching him with the tip of their leaves.

~Okay, sun rays being absorbed into my body... shared photosynthesis,~ Lucius chanted within his mind, trying to get the process started.

~Huh?~ A few minutes passed with nothing happening, there was no feeling of warmth engulfing his body, there was no notification from the system... photosynthesis did not take place.

"Is something the matter?" asked the leader leafling, realizing that something was off after they had been standing there in silence for the past five minutes.

"Just give me a moment," whispered Lucius in reply, his eyes still closed. At this point, his face was scrunched up from the sheer concentration he was putting into photosynthesis, though no matter how hard he tried, the sun rays simply would not be absorbed by his body. It was as if he no longer had chloroplasts, and instead had some sort of wall that was blocking out the rays.

~This can't be right,~ he thought dejectedly, exhaling loudly in exhaustion.

The committee members stopped touching and stood patiently, waiting for some sort of explanation.

"Lighted One, has something gone wrong?" asked the leader leafling once more. Though Lucius ignored him and kept his eyes closed, trying to focus more on the rays this time than actually absorbing them.

From what he could tell, or feel for that matter, the rays were trying to permeate his skin, however, they were being denied access. What he found even stranger was the fact that they seemed to be trying to converge at a point within his body, though it was very hard to tell since he couldn't actually visualize it and had to go off feeling alone.

"Lighted One?"

Lucius grew irritated with the leader leafling's pestering and opened his eyes.

"Photosynthesis isn't working," he said, trying to prevent his annoyance from spilling over into his tone.

"The rays aren't being absorbed?" asked the leader leafling in response.

"No, they aren't," Lucius replied, basically gritting his teeth at this point. Had the gift he was given been taken back? Or had something happened after he unlocked that new skill?

He quickly opened his skill tree and tried to get information on the skill, however, it was nowhere to be found. Where its skill symbol should've been was an empty void.

~What's going on here?~

"Have you trie-" the leader leafling was about to say.

"Can you keep quiet for just one moment," Lucius interrupted, wiping the beads of sweat that had begun to collect on his forehead.

"You guys can go back to training, I'll call you back once I've sorted this out," he said passively, before closing his eyes to focus one more time.

The committee members looked at each other before leaving, realizing that they would just be in the way if they stayed there.

"Come on, let's go," said Ghost to the leader leafling as she was leaving, though he ignored her words and sat down beside Lucius. Several minutes passed by, and all the while Lucius's eyes were closed and his face scrunched in concentration. The leader leafling waited patiently for Lucius to finish before saying another word.

"You're still here?" Lucius asked, his mind fatigued from trying to force the process.

"I want to help," replied the leader leafling, the expression on his face that of determination.

~Sigh,~ thought Lucius, exasperated.

"Okay, help then," he whispered, staring at the leader leafling. It reminded him much of his younger days, back when he still lived with his little brother. The little runt was always trying to help, though he usually only managed to make things worse. The memory calmed Lucius down somewhat.

~I wonder what Riley's doing right now,~ he thought to himself.

"Can you tell me what you see when you close your eyes? Or what the problem is exactly," asked the leader leafling in an investigative tone.

Lucius shook his head, somewhat amused by how hard the leader leafling was actually trying.

"I don't see anything when I close my eyes. It's more of a feeling. And right now it feels as if the pathways that the sun rays usually took to enter my body were blocked," Lucius replied, taking this time to think things over carefully.

"Hmm, anything else?" asked the leader leafling, deep in thought.

"It's odd, but it's as if the rays are trying to converge at a spot near the center of my body... though it's never done that before," he whispered, more to himself than to the leader leafling.

~I wonder why it's doing that,~ he thought to himself, trying to figure it all out.

"Hmm, is there something there?" asked the leader leafling.

"I'm not sure, it's like I can almost feel something, a slight warmth, though it feels just out of reach," replied Lucius. Right now it was as if he were having a conversation with his consciousness, both of them trying to solve this mystery.

"Try focusing on that," said the leader leafling, though Lucius was already ahead of him. His eyes were closed, and he focused on the center of his body where the light rays were trying to converge.

Several minutes of intense concentration passed by, though nothing was found. Just as he was about to give up, he felt a slight pulse from his core.

"There," he whispered to himself, trying to lock on the feeling. A few more minutes passed by, and he began feeling the pulses with higher frequency. Though the mental toll it took was too much for him to keep focus on it for more than a few moments.

"Did you find something?" asked the leader leafling in a soft tone.

"There's something there, though I'm not sure what," Lucius replied, opening his eyes and exhaling loudly. At this point trails of perspiration were running down his face and his entire body, it felt as if he had just run a marathon, and decided to sleep in a sauna.

"Then does that mean you've found a way?"

"Sadly, no," Lucius replied. He couldn't think of any possible reason why there would be something at his core, or why the light rays were trying to reach it.

"If the rays are trying to go to that... thing, and they can't pass through your body, then why... why don't you just move that thing outside your body?" asked the leader leafling, the pause in his sentence indicating that his brain was running on overdrive.

"That won't work, we don't even know if... wait." Though he nearly dismissed the leader leafling's advice, thinking that it wouldn't make sense, he realized that it was actually worth a shot. Perhaps it could work.