Slowly and carefully, the naked Barry searched the cavern. All signs pointed towards the fact that the two Druks had been here only a short while ago, but had just left. Maybe they had finally been attracted to Ptolemy and the rest.
What he didn’t know was that Goli had summoned all the strongest beasts living in his territory for the upcoming war. They had managed to avoid the Druks by only a few minutes.
Whatever the case, they seemed to be safe for now, but just barely. Barry had none of his treasures with him, they had been lost, except for one of the gloves he previously wore and had melted right into his hand.
They didn’t have any medicine either. All Barry could do was submerge himself in the spirit water to help accelerate his healing, and when he felt strong enough, he would start to look for a way out.
Contrary to what one might expect, Barry was not actually being greedy for the spirit water and was just doing whatever he thought the best thing was to escape because… HE WAS IN AN INSANE AMOUNT OF PAIN!
The fact that he wasn’t yelling and groaning around despite the condition of his body, wincing at the slightest movement, was a testament to his determination, as well as how afraid he was for his life. His only thought right now was how to get back to the camp.
But, without any medicine, and without a mystical Inn that would heal all their wounds to retreat to, recovery was slow.
Soon, the cavern became so quiet that the sound of Lex’s breathing could be heard like a concert.
As for Lex, his situation was complicated. Being squeezed like a lemon while also being burnt like BBQ prepared by an amateur cook, all the while having his mind bombarded with the most intense stimuli he had ever experienced, was not really enough to kill him. Maybe if he had stayed in that situation a while longer, he would have died, but currently he was only wounded.
Due to the special condition of his body, it was not so easy to kill him or hamper his recovery. For all intents and purposes, a majority of his wounds were only cosmetic. Furthermore, since the experience he had undergone was extremely intense, as a function of Regal Embrace, his thoughts and feelings about the experience had been packed away in a corner of his brain until he was strong enough to handle them.
This didn’t mean his memory was erased. It just meant that when he thought back to the experience of being cooked alive, he would only feel emotionless.
So, Lex was alive and not in mortal danger. Then what was his current situation? He was extremely, severely physically exhausted, and so had fallen asleep. It would take him exceptionally long to heal – or it should have if his body was only operating under the influence of the Regal Embrace.
But, while it only appeared like a tattoo on his back, in truth, his body was housing a World Seed Lotus. The most basic function of this Lotus was to create a 5 star world, but was that it? Was such a function enough for the seed to this flower to be considered rare in the entire universe? That would be like saying 5 star worlds were rare in the universe, which was not the case.
But while the other functions of the Lotus remained a mystery, just its ability to create a world, any world let alone a 5 star one, was more than enough to give the Lotus the energy to help heal a simple Qi training human body.
But it could not create something out of nothing. So it began to absorb the bits of metal from the lava that had welded onto Lex’s body, into Lex’s body. It absorbed the melted remains of the Fancy monocle that had covered Lex’s left eye, into his left eye. It absorbed the spirit water into Lex’s body to replace some of his blood that had boiled away.
It absorbed the ash from the numerous acorns Karom had given Lex into his body. It absorbed the clump of metal that had once been the Heavy Harley. And, when it discovered that all of this was not enough, slowly and steadily it began absorbing the unusual alloy that filled the walls of the cavern around Lex.
To the Lotus, these were just ingredients, and all it had to do was use them in the best possible way to create whatever it wanted. As a creator of worlds, this was as natural to it as breathing was to humans, so it did not even need to use all its attention for this matter. 99% of the Lotus was still asleep and only 1% of the infant Lotus worked on Lex, which is why it was taking so long to begin with. Otherwise, had it fully woken up, it would have taken mere moments.
But this ended up working in Lex’s favor, as such an abrupt recovery would have alarmed Barry.
So, for the next six hours, the duo remained where they were, silently recovering. After six hours, Barry still had not recovered enough to come even close to his full strength, but he was too nervous to stay in the Druk lair any longer.
He picked up Lex’s body and, for a moment, wondered why Lex’s body felt heavier than he remembered. But he attributed the change to his own exhaustion, to be honest, he was still amazed that Lex was even alive.
He used a technique to engrave some markers into the walls here, so that he would be able to find this place again, and quickly made his way out one of the many exits. He no longer had his treasures to detect ore density and the like, so he could only go down a path blindly, hoping for the best.
*****
Midnight Inn, In front of the lazy river.
Rafael Carter Bravi, son of King Hanson Marlo Bravi IV, slowly stood up from his wheelchair and grinned. As he took his first, unsteady step towards the lazy river, he felt a sleeping tiger within him waking up. He had not come back from the future to laze around. He had come to dominate.
Much like the first literal step he had just taken, it was time to take his first step towards his new, glorious future.