Then I stood up, went ahead, simply walking with no direction till I found a stream. Like normal, I just pulled down my clothes, checked it, and it wasn't that deep, so I just went inside, holding a spatial pouch in my hands.
I had been thinking about the beast crystal. Saying if you eat the beast meat, you will explode—what about the crystal? I wanted to know the limit to how my body heals, so I took a dagger I asked from Aria earlier, breaking a small part of the crystal, just a tiny part, just to see how my body would react. Though before I did anything, I made sure to keep the best crystal back in the pouch and took the tiny piece I had and threw it in my mouth.
At first, I got no reaction. Later on, I felt like my body was on fire from the inside. It kept going on. I could feel it. It felt like I was dying due to my body not being able to handle the energy from it. I wasn't even an Awakener and just a mortal, so my body was breaking apart from the inside.
I screamed, "AHHHHHHH!" The pain was too much to bear. I could hear footsteps hurrying my way. When I saw them, I shouted, "Don't near me!"
It felt like my body was melting. The pain was on a whole different scale. Then it went straight to my head. It hurt like hell. All my veins were on fire. I could see Aria watching me with a concerned expression. I could see Julia's worried gaze but didn't mind it. I just kept screaming. It was too much.
The twin tried to approach me. I shouted at them, "Don't fucking come near me!" And I looked at Aria, saying, "If anyone dares approach me, kill them!" Then she took out her sword, standing in front of me.
Then I heard the twin say, "We can help you reduce the pain! We can sense the violet energy running rampant in your body! It might affect your body system if we don't do something! Since you are still a mortal, it will be easier for us to pass it out!"
Then he replied, saying, "Thanks, but I don't need your help... AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Then he suddenly screamed. He tried to push the energy out, wanting to puke it out, but it went straight to his head, like it had a mind of its own. It was then he started bleeding from his eyes. All of a sudden, his vision turned dark. He tried blinking his eyes, but all he could see was darkness. Then he looked up and started laughing, "Hahaha! Hahaha! So this was the punishment! Hahaha! Fine by me! Hahahaha!"
Once he was done, he simply collapsed on the floor. Though he was losing consciousness, he still told Aria, "Protect me while I sleep." Then he passed out, lying on the ground with just his trousers, leaving his chest open, with his blood-red hair all messy due to the constant rolling on the ground.
Once silence fell, the first person to break the silence was Julia. Turning to the twins, she asked what was on everyone's mind, "Lirien, what do you mean by 'violent energy'?"
Lirien, one of the twin elves, turned to Julia, saying, "Just like I said, he probably ate something that was beyond his body. Even if it was just a lick, it will react in some way." She looked tense when she said it.
Then the huge boy, whose name was Jake, had his eyes open and his mouth wide open, saying, "So you are saying...?"
"Yes, yes, he ate a part from the Arcane Fang beast's body. Though I doubt it was from the body, because that energy is too potent to be from the body, so it's likely from the crystal itself," replied Lirelle, the other elf twin.
Then everyone sucked in cold air. No one believed it. He wanted to commit suicide, because no one in their right mind would do something like that. Aria was just looking at Lucian, didn't say anything. She had already formed her own theory, but to think he did it—she wondered what kind of madman this kid was. She had been taking care of his body for two years, and seeing him act like this... She didn't say anything and just carried his body to a nearby tree, placing him there to rest while she sat down and guarded him.
She could still hear the elf girls talking, with Lirien saying, "It will probably destroy some part of his body. No matter how much his healing capacity is, with such violent energy running rampant in him, he's bound to lose something."
After saying that, she went to join her sister in making the temporary leaf hut, while the scar-faced kid just kept staring at Lucian. After a while, he left, same with the huge boy. The only one left was Julia. She just bent down, staring at Lucian. It was already night time, so they were quick to fall asleep.
Just before morning, Lucian suddenly screamed, waking everyone up in the process. Staring up at the sky, he raised his hands, trying to see if he found anything, but all he felt was darkness. By now, he was already healed, yet still, he couldn't heal his eyes. Probably the cells in them were dead. Then he just laughed.
Then he called out Aria, who was already awake. Though she found it strange that he was staring at the sky, she still greeted him, "Good morning, young master."
Him hearing "young master," thinking he would get used to it, frowned and told her in a stern tone, "Don't call me that ever again. Just call me by my name. And from now on, you will be my eyes. It seems I lost my sight due to yesterday's experiment of mine. Is that understood?"
She replied, "Yes, sir."
Then she turned to look at the elf sisters, giving her the "I told you so" look. Then she turned back to him and asked for direction. Then he told her he had calculated it before he went blind and also marked some trees when coming. He so he asked her to follow the trees.
They all stared at him like some kind of freak, thinking he was probably expecting the blindness. He didn't reply to anyone. He took the dagger from yesterday from the storage pouch, tearing a piece of his trousers with it. Then he cut it round a bit from the leg side. After doing that, he simply wore it around his eyes.
Though not being able to see seemed like a bad thing, at least he knew the limit of how his regeneration worked. So he followed Aria, who led the way. Everyone had already stood up, so they just followed him. Then he stopped. Even if he couldn't see, his sense of smell had sharpened, same with his hearing. It took a while to figure it out. He could tell that even if the energy from yesterday destroyed his eyesight, he got all his other senses enhanced.
He was following Aria's footsteps without missing a step, so those around couldn't even tell if he was blind because it didn't look like that. Even Aria started to doubt if he was blind, because when she stopped, then he stopped. Then she moved, and he moved too, making her wonder if that's how blind people are supposed to move.
After a while, she stopped; he stopped. Then she walked all the way to his front, waving her hands around his eye area just to confirm, and he asked her, "What is it?"
She had a dumbfounded expression on her face. Even those who were behind them were already doubting if he was blind. Then she asked, "Are you truly blind?"
And he replied, "Yes. And the reason I knew you were in my front was your scent grew stronger, so I figured you were probably standing next to me or in front of me. And besides, I can hear the accurate side you move your legs to. I just followed the sound to where you stand. That's how I was able to find you and move along with you. So now, will you move on?"
Everyone had a weird expression on their face. Though he didn't say anything again, they all continued the travel. After a while, he asked Aria, "If you come across any poison-ranked plant, let me know. I noticed you've been giving me rankless plants for a while now."
And she replied, "OK." And they went on their way. He kept following. After two hours, he felt his head ringing. He didn't know why. Then he stopped. Those around him stopped too. Then he looked around, trying to understand where this ringing came from. Then he moved ahead without telling anyone anything. Then the ringing grew louder. Then he moved backwards; it grew less.
Then he wondered, "Is this some kind of beast instinct or something? Because I can feel the ringing in my head, and my body feels restless. Then there's probably an Arcane Fang-level beast there."
Then he turned to Aria, saying, "We can't follow this path. There's probably an Arcane Fang beast ahead of us. Just take a detour."