To use the Flame of Evolution, one simply had to cover their entire body with energy and ignite it. The ignition method was a little specific since it's burning good karma around the user, but after that, maintaining it was pretty simple.
On the other hand, Flame of Regression was harder to use. Not only do you need to make sure no energy is coming out of you, but you also need to be using the Flame of Evolution together with it.
One requires you to exude energy to burn, while the other requires absolutely no energy to work properly. It was a conundrum for the users, even for Primo himself.
However, there's a workaround to this. And that is to use it on the hands and not on the entire body. The only drawback here is that since the Flame of Evolution doesn't cover the entire body, the user needs to control the energy it creates and channel it around manually.
I focused energy on my right hand while making sure that my left hand was void of it. This was a difficult stunt to pull off, especially if you're not used to multitasking. It was as hard as using both hands to draw precise portraits at the same time.
After I succeeded in doing it, I then did it in reverse, focusing energy on my left hand while leaving my right hand completely devoid of it. I continued this exercise many times, alternating the concentration of energy, until I could pull it off without much delay.
"Great! Now, let's try..."
With the first setup, where the energy was gathered in my right hand, I tried to ignite it and start the Flame of Evolution. However, every time I tried to do so, the flames quickly died out. Just like when trying to start a fire with wet sticks, the flames refused to kindle.
"Weird..."
I tried again and again and again, but as expected, it all failed. I can't help but scratch my head while trying to figure out the cause of the failure. I tried using it again, but this time I stopped what I was doing with my left hand. And, as expected, the flames quickly caught on and lit up.
"So if I try to focus on my right hand while voiding energy on my left, it fails?"
If it's like this right from the start, it looks like I'll have a hard time learning it after all. I sat down on the ground, cross-legged, and tried to think of a way to achieve success for the next trial.
After further analysis, whenever the flames started to light up on my right hand, the energy produced quickly caused a backflow and rushed to the left hand, which was devoid of energy. This causes my mind to probably lose focus for an instant as I adjust the energy levels again automatically, causing the failure.
"Well, finding out the reason for failure is progress in and of itself."
I nodded to myself, praising my own achievement.
After addressing the problem, the rest should be simple. I just need to make sure that the energy produced doesn't rush to the other hand! To do this, I added an intermediary step to what I was doing before.
First, after gathering energy on my right hand and emptying the energy on my left, I create an energy circulation path around the parts allowed to have energy. In other words, I cut off the energy circulation to my left arm entirely.
Then, while staying conscious of the energy circulation, I ignited the Flame of Evolution again. As soon as the flames lit, I made doubly sure that the energy followed the energy cycle that I had created.
"... Success!"
And finally, I achieved my first victory. It was still half the job, but hey, progress!
After seeing the flames burn for a while, I quickly turned it off and checked my Karma once more. Just in that short instance, I lost another one percent of my good karma.
"... I wouldn't get the repercussions yet anyway, I guess?"
When you get bad karma to attack you and you weather it through, you will temporarily have a peace treaty with fate for a while. The greater the danger you survived, the longer the lull in the punishments.
The last one I got was the maximum penalty, which was 100% bad karma. This means I have a lot of time left before fate blasts me with something deadly. Counting from the start, maybe two weeks at most... Wait, how many days have it been since then?
Right, today's the thirteenth day... My punishment is coming soon.
"Should I postpone training...?"
An estimate is just that—an estimate. With how I'm nearly two weeks after the last punishment, it wouldn't be weird if it suddenly reared its ugly head when I least expected it. For example, accidentally activating the Flame of Regression while the Flame of Evolution was turned off.
"Right, right, just like this..."
Looking at the burning black flames on my left hand, I nodded my head. Then, I quickly turned to my right hand without any flames.
"..."
What happened?
Did I use the Flame of Regression? When? Ah, sh*t, I need to turn it off!
Even with my entire arm devoid of energy flow, the entire energy inside my body was quickly pulled into the black flames and turned into nothing. In just a split second, all of my internal energy got sucked into it, making my vision turn.
My consciousness is fading, but before that, I quickly closed my palms and extinguished the flames before muttering the sealing phrase in my mind. The black flame rapidly faded until my palm was completely visible again, with no more flames in sight.
"..."
My body slammed down to the ground. Although I was about to faint, I felt relief. After all, I managed to avoid the worst-case scenario and turn it off in time.
---
When I opened my eyes, a white ceiling spread before me... No, it wasn't the ceiling, but the floor.
"Is this a dream?"
I tried speaking, but my voice didn't come out. Looking down, I don't even have a body. It was like I was using a VR headset without an avatar, moving around the space like an invisible player.
"This is definitely a dream."
I convince myself of this since thinking otherwise would just make my head hurt.
Having nothing better to do, I tried moving around. It felt like I was flying, having no legs and all, and just floating around while moving. As I traveled around, I realized that the floor was actually not pure white. I tried coming closer to it and was surprised.
"Is this a television or something?"
The floor, or rather, all the tiles comprising the floor, were like a small TV screen that shows random scenes of random people. At first, I thought it was irrelevant to me, but after I glanced to one side, I saw Ember on one of the screens.
"What?"
Curious, I approached the specific screen and watched. There, Ember was cradling her head while having six books around her, with her clones reading them all simultaneously. Before her, an incomplete magic circle was drawn. I haven't seen Ember draw magic circles before, so this must not be something from my memory or anything.
"Don't tell me..."
I tried looking around, searching for the other girls' screens, and quickly found theirs nearby. Rather, it was right beside Ember's. Everyone, including Goddess Zeta and God Zeshion, was clustered in a small area together.
The scene showed God Zeshion healing the girls one after another. It seems like they failed to defend against his attacks again. Goddess Zeta was watching over Ember, who was working on that magic circle. Seeing the scenes, I was finally convinced.
"This... Is real-time imagery?"
I don't know what this white space is, but I'm guessing each screen in here monitors one specific person or being. Just watching them doesn't really give me anything or any advantage, so I just shrugged (I don't have a body, though) and continued looking around.
While scanning the scenes on the screens, I found Guren, who was scratching his head while trying to process documents. Lady Luo was out drinking tea while staying in a beautiful gazebo surrounded by flowers. Oh, she turned toward me. Don't tell me she noticed me looking at her even through this. A woman's intuition is scary.
I even saw Ying Yue with Wan Li and Wan Er going around the Seimei downtown and buying things. Clothing to be exact. Fancy-looking ones.
As I was slowly starting to enjoy looking around, especially at those scenes where scantily clad bodies or plain nude women were shown, I found a familiar and hateful face.
"Noir!"
We haven't heard news or sightings of him anywhere since he escaped the previous sealed space. After that, he completely vanished, like a bubble that popped.
"But to think he's there..."
I haven't seen it yet, but judging from the view and the unfamiliar architecture, there's only one answer.
"Noir is in a neighboring king's castle!"
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