34 The Crystal and the Daggers (1/2)

*Warning: There may be an infodump of sorts near the end from a very talkative dagger.*

”Where am I?” I said, my mind was confused as I felt a sense of fatigue wash over me – it was the first time in months I had felt this fatigued, it was the same feeling of fatigue I was used to after a night of partying.

My body felt weak and heavy as I struggled to move it, even my eyelids only opened barely with incredible effort – my body ached as my entire being was in pain, I barely managed to glimpse a look at the place I was in before my eyelids involuntarily dropped again and wouldn't open despite me trying to open them.

The room was spacious and I was sprawled on the floor, something I couldn't tell due to my entire body being numb to anything but pain – I could feel my nerves had been damaged by whatever had just happened.

'Is this a result of my body not being able to withstand moving through space?' I made an educated guess based on what had just happened and my own knowledge from the novels I had read – it made sense that I wouldn't be able to withstand moving through space itself with my cultivation as is but it came at the cost of nearly killing myself.

'Hopefully, that guy doesn't discover whatever it was I went through…' I could only silently pray in my heart, I had no idea if he would be able to withstand it himself but on the off chance he does, I would be the one to die.

I continued to lay on the ground, I estimated that at least an hour had passed and yet I still couldn't move – my core had been working none stop circulating energy to heal my wounds but they seemed to get no better, every time I healed one nerve another would rip open again.

Like a puzzle I had to heal them in the correct order, failure would mean starting over from the beginning and an incredible amount of pain bearing down on my soul.

Another three hours passed…

I was slowly beginning to figure out the 'sequence' I had to work in to heal my body but it was a long and tiring project, after a while I was even becoming bored of it but it was the only thing I could do other than rest, god knows how long these injuries would take to heal if I left them to naturally.

A day passed…

'Two more… It's a fifty/fifty chance…' I thought in my mind, my 'freedom' was within reach I could only put my trust in luck and…- 'Aghhhhh' I screamed internally again, it was a pain I was naturally familiar with by now, I felt my nerves rip open once more.

'I was so close…' I wanted to break down and cry but I couldn't even do that – what even is this situation? Why won't they just heal like a normal person's nerves would! I wanted to scream in my heart but I knew wasting time was pointless at this point.

'One more time…' I said and began to circulate my energy to heal my wounds once more, this time determined this would be my final attempt before I could finally be free from this brief hell I had been subjected to.

An hour later…

”Finally!” I shouted, my throat felt incredibly dry but it was so pleasurable to be able to move my body I couldn't help but laugh through the dryness.

”Now where the hell am I?” I said aloud, I had spent the last few hours on the floor of this room knowing nothing apart from it being pretty huge.

In the middle of the room sat a crystal on a pedestal, every so often the crystal would shimmer a different color vibrantly as it went through every color of the rainbow before repeating itself once more – I noticed that it had lingered significantly longer on black than any other color in its spectrum.

”What are you?” I said, looking at it with interest – it was the first time I had seen something like this but, I was cautious as I approached it. If there was a rift in space leading to this room which was somewhere I could only assume was in the palace still from the familiar building style it most likely had something to do with this thing.

With impatience, most likely from the hours I had spent lying on the floor, I threw aside my patience and replaced it with intrigue as I reached my hand outwards to put it on the crystal.