Primordial Sage: Plight of Immortality

  Stone was a little angry at the beginning but in the end, most of his focus was on his body and the process of baptism. The feeling of power accumulating inside of his body was exhilarating.

As he lost himself in the meditation his body got farther and farther from the surface sinking into the bottomless pit.

There was no light from the surface but it wasn't dark either. The deeper he got the more fluorescent energy coagulated around him. Even the dark blue particles were more common in this depth and were unintentionally absorbed by Stone who was in a trance.

Those dark blue particles were visibly much superior to the regular energy flowing around and just one particle could make a visible change inside of the boy's body. If it continued this way it could make it more robust than real rocks. Of course, that is impossible as there was not enough time or energy particles for that. But that was for now. No one knows how strong they will get in the future.

The real benefit of the baptism will show itself much later once the children grow and train making their upper limit of body higher than others.

It could be said that the toughening and refining of the children's bodies is only a side-effect of the real thing!

And now that Stone came to contact with those dark blue particles he has a chance to get even more ahead of other children. The Cold Energy was absorbed through the basic meditation passively without the outer interference which means that once the human body gets saturated with the energy it won't be able to absorb the energy passively anymore. That means that those with bigger physiques and better affinities could get better results. But in the end, the difference wasn't that big as most children had similar affinity.

But dark blue particles which seem to be a higher grade of energy don't apply to this saturation! It is naturally more potent making it more invasive when it comes to absorbing. That means that as long as you get saturated by normal Cold Energy and then with dark blue particles, you can get beyond the normal limit!

That is if you can persist.

The pain of asphyxiation was actually greater than Stone imagined. His head and entire body hurt and he felt dizzy. He already had experienced suffocation before but he always managed to get a lungful breath in the end. Now it is different.

Now during the reconstruction of his body, he can't properly move and was afraid that the energy inside of him would go out of control without his 100% attention. That means that he could not go to the surface to take a breath.

But Stone didn't panic too much. He had already thought this could happen so he was mentally prepared.

The pain could be endured but the real problem was the urge to take a deep breath despite being underwater. If it was normal water it wouldn't be a problem even if his lungs got destroyed but in Kenera Lake there was the Cold Energy wreaking havoc. Breathing in the water full of Cold Energy would cause horrible consequences even to him and cause death to anyone else!

Despite his inhuman regeneration, his innards were still fragile, and under constant barrage of the Cold Energy, even Stone wouldn't be able to survive for long if they didn't regenerate in time. That would be difficult since this would break the equilibrium of herb essences and Cold Energy effectively slowing the regeneration. Thus he couldn't afford to breathe that water into his lungs where cold would spread immediately to other places. But the instinct to breathe was strong and the striking confusion and headache didn't help.

But although he almost lost consciousness every time in the end his mind cleared and his body got relieved from pain a little after a while.

The regeneration tries to keep him alive at all costs making him able to live without human basic needs like breathing, sleeping, and eating.

Of course, it comes at a cost and it is not sustainable for a long period.

But the current situation is different! While Stone's affinity with the energy isn't really great, the amount of it pouring inside of his body is still actually great despite not gulping the water down.

And since his affinity wasn't that great most of the energy wouldn't be absorbed inside of his tissues as the efficacy was awful. Most of the energy instead clashed with the herb essences which actually sped up the process of assimilating both but still, it wasn't quicker than the new energy pouring in. That means that the energy inside of him wasn't disappearing and the power of regeneration could be used as fuel for the reconstruction of the body.

It was shown several times already that his power could speed up the regeneration based on the 'sacrifice', fuel, energy, or whatever else it uses. Now that he has a kind of 'infinitive source of energy' it allows him to have an insane rate of regeneration inside the water.

........

Time passed by.

The blood around Stone was slowly dispersed and showed no signs of movement as he sank deeper into the water.

The Herbal Essence inside of him was almost used up so the conflict inside of his body ceased. The Cold Energy already stopped pouring inside of him as it was already saturated and now only those blue particles still floated to him.

His body which was already good now looked as if he was metodically trained from his childhood to be a warrior. Every muscle was strong, compact, and elastic, and together his body was radiating a 'strength'. Fortunately, he doesn't look like those bulky teenagers that most of the children in the lake were. His body was much toned and had a more athletic shape. His muscles were nicely outlined with wide shoulders and all but it would also not hinder his movement and allowed all those muscles to turn into power.

Obviously getting muscles wasn't the end of the metamorphosis. Most of his body parts were enhanced. Even the organs that were fragile before were now much stronger. He even got a little higher through this time and was already 155 cm high. But the biggest change that wasn't seen from the outside was his weight which was over 50 kilograms.

Normally after such intensive regeneration his body shouldn't be so muscular and be much thinner. The regeneration didn't substitute for all the nutrients the body needed and Stone still needed to eat. The energy around also didn't satisfy this need.

It was actually the Herbal Essence inside of his body. That essence was a mix of all kinds of herbs common or rare that the 'Monster' ate during the span of three years. The amount of nutrition managed to support this Stone's baptism allowing him to gain much more than he would be able otherwise.

Finally when his body got fully saturated, Stone slowly opened his eyes. This time they didn't get damaged as they got strengthened and also gained a bit resistance against the cold.

He seemed calm as he looked around himself. There was no urge to breathe anymore. His body's constant lack of oxygen was very difficult to get through but once he got to the very own limit of his body the urge disappeared. There was still a need for oxygen as any other human but the survival instinct to breathe seemed to stop at this point.

It was very weird for Stone as even now he was suffocating. He had been in the water for a few hours by now definitively. The only reason he is alive is the constant supply of energy repeatedly regenerating his body and to some extent substituting the oxygen. But that was a temporary solution.

Stone knew he was completely at his limit. He felt his head hurt quite a lot. The lack of oxygen would already completely damage his brain if not for the regeneration.

During the baptism even his brain was baptized by the Cold Energy and Herbal Essence making it stronger but it was still extremely dangerous since it was even more fragile than other organs.

Others won't go through this stage as Kaoran always pulls them out before the Cold Energy gets through completely. Actually in this case the skull was a really good shield against this kind of energy that gets only passively absorbed and it takes a long time for the energy to continue after toughening the skull itself.

But most people don't get to that point as usually their affinity is too low and the energy won't get that deep. That also means that most of the children only have enhanced muscles after baptism. Only after growing up will those children spread out the leftovers of the Cold Energy into the rest of their bodies toughening them further. And that is only after years of vigorous training.

But Stone's situation was diferent. Stone got the energy spread out equally in his body completely absorbed thanks to the herbal essence and that poisonous paste Kaoran created. The bones, joints, organs... The brain. All of them were equally baptized and refined.

While the basic baptism with Cold Energy can basically make any body part tougher, the refinement that Stone went through will completely nourish it and rebuild it from scratch.

That was beyond careless even with the regeneration he has. But in this case, it wasn't Stone's fault, not really. He was after all just 11 years old boy who had just little education about herbalism.

It could be said that it was Kaoran's decision from the beginning that led to this. Of course, he took this risk with a calm mind. He knew that Stone could survive brain injury. After all, he saw it when his head was caved in when he fell with the stake. Yet he not only survived but was actually awake for some time until his energy ran up.

But still, he didn't bet on it as he watched Stone during the baptism the entire time. He used his spiritual eyes to watch him and his internal conflict. He saw everything and as someone knowledgeable in medicine he was sure that Stone's regeneration could in truth negate all side-effects the injuries could do.

Even now he was surprised by that insane degree of regeneration. He even felt that the regeneration got a little stronger by the end! If that was actually true...

Just how strong it will become in 10 or 20 years?

Kaoran took a deep breath. While he wasn't that much calculative when he took the kid in, now he realized that the entire tribe profited!

Kaoran was thinking about the bright future of the tribe but then immediately ceased his thoughts as he had things to do. He then jumped into the water and dived deep into the water to take Stone out.

As his weight and density got higher he was sinking deeper and deeper and now was tens of meters below the surface. With Stone's depleted strength swimming up was impossible. But he was calm since he knew that Kaoran would fish him out...

'Huh..?'

But Stone who waited for him got distracted by something. He was extremely deep in the water in a very special state of mind and felt like he was hallucinating. Deep down below him, he was seeing flashes of light. Those flashes were always very brief but the light it radiated always lit up the entire bottom of the lake. But not in a blue color like that of Cold Energy. It was pure golden and it was very beautiful. Stone didn't know what this mysterious light was but he was completely captivated by it. He even felt that his headache decreased in that moment and he fell into tranquility he never felt before.

That was until Kaoran caught him from behind completely surprising him.

Kaoran didn't waste the time and immediately started to swim towards the surface not even looking at the bottom. As if he didn't see that light. But how could he not see it when he even got the ability to see spiritually? Kaoran explained to him that he was also born with gifts the same as him. But his gift was centered around the ability to see and hear the spiritual beings and energies. With his decent spiritual talent, he was perfect for the shaman's position.

So obviously there was no chance he wouldn't see it. But that wasn't on Stone's mind anymore as he slowly started to lose consciousness while looking at the golden lights flickering at the bottom of the lake...