Chapter 6: Enbi Arin
Li Qiu also found out to his shock that even though he could burn those tentacles with the help of his Spirit Flame, they were proved useless when he tried to burn the pale golden egg with it. After pondering for quite some time, he finally figured out the only possible reason.
The Aria quality, with his attributes in it being only a '1', it probably would not be able to affect higher levelled substances. By the time he concluded his observations, the tentacle made contact with his soul flame again <Ding! 8/38> displaying his Aria.
Even though Li Qiu wanted to burn that tentacle again but seeing as how he lacked the energy to do so, and moreover, he noticed that while his Aria slowly recovered, he started to feel more and more hungry.
"Probably my muscle mass and energy are being converted to replenish my Aria".
Li Qiu decided to eat some high-calorie food before he turned into a skeleton.
Though Li Qiu only had a towel wrapped around him, he felt that to be sufficient enough till he ate his fill and opened his door to move out.
The moment he opened the door, Li Qiu couldn't help but stare like an idiotic goldfish at the little girl who sat on a chair a couple metres in front of him as she calmly ate an apple.
"Uncle, you finally came out".
When he heard the term 'Uncle' that was used by the little girl to refer to him, it actually dealt more mental damage to Li Qiu than his incident with the ant. "At least call me big brother will ya".
"So uncle, do you have a name or should I just address you as 'uncle' and please put on some clothes," Said the little girl as she turned her head sideways.
Li Qiu resigned himself to his fate to the barrage of questions shot at him by the little girl as he began to introduce himself.
"I'm Li Qiu, I worked at...I guess it's unnecessary now and I'm only 22 years old, not an Uncle" Li Qiu clearly stressed the part about him being 22.
"So what are you called, brat?" As he noticed a hint of anger on the little girl's face, Li Qiu gained a bit of his petty dignity.
"Humph, I am Enbi Arin and I...."
Li Qiu cut her off in the middle of her intro with, "Yeah yeah, I'll just call you brat," Li Qiu picked up a few apples from a nearby tray and walked away as he ate them.
Enbi Arin, who saw Li Qiu nonchalantly ignore her and walk away, shrieked, "Where are you going?"
"To pick up some clothes of course, where else would I go?" Li Qiu retorted and walked away as he ignored her further remarks.
Though he walked away like that on her to piss her off a little bit, but, he walked neither too fast nor too far because, at the end of the day, she was only a kid who had probably suffered from the same trauma as him.
Li Qiu also felt her emotional quotient to be slightly abnormal, for, she was way too calm and composed seeing as how Li Qiu was almost on the verge of a mental breakdown.
"It might be similar to the case study I read up in a documentary about how a human brain shuts down certain emotions or memories to cope up with a severe trauma" Thought Li Qiu.
Li Qiu shrugged his shoulders when he was unable to diagnose any accurate reason for her weirdness.
"I'll just treat her nicely and probably try to distract her as much as I can and refrain from asking her anything about her past or about her family."
"It may not be the best idea, but it's not like I have any better options" As he made up his mind, Li Qiu slowly walked towards the clothing section so that the brat could catch up, when, he felt a massive force impact on his bum that made him fall face first on the cold hard floor.
"Ugh...What was that for?" As he picked himself up from the floor, Li Qiu couldn't help but glare at the brat in front of him. 'glare~' while being surprised at her monstrous strength that was clearly something beyond what a human her was capable of.
"Humph, that was your fault for acting like a jerk" Enbi Arin ignored the half-naked jerk still in his 'glare~' mode and started walking towards the clothing section.
"Sigh....Nevermind," Li Qiu, who felt himself to be mature enough to not pick a fight with a brat also started to nonchalantly walk side by side with her while trying to be as natural as possible while doing so.
"So why were you not surprised when you saw me first" As she heard his rhetoric question, the brat couldn't help but give him a look as if she was looking at a retard before sighing to herself.
"You must have noticed the existence of the internet right," The brat said.
"Yeah" Nodded Li Qiu, wondering if he had missed any hidden features.
"Then if you had seen the 'maps' section, you would have noticed coloured lines spanning different areas on the entire black map".
As she saw Li Qiu nod in response, the brat started explaining with more vigour and confidence.
"I saw three coloured lines in the supermarket. One was mine, the other path was beyond the destroyed area which was inaccessible to me, and, your path that ended up at that room. When I arrived at the door to meet with a fellow survivor, I heard some unexpected laughing sounds which was immediately followed by shrill wailings" Enbi Arin couldn't help but give a weird look at Li Qiu after her last statement which made his face blush due to embarrassment.
Li Qiu wanted to dig a hole and hide there to avoid the gaze projected onto him by the brat who looked at him like he was some perverted lunatic.
Thankfully, they both reached the cloth section in the meantime and Li Qiu saved himself from all the embarrassment as he busied himself with finding a pair of proper clothes that managed to avoid a coating from those varied witch's concoctions.
Li Qiu found himself a pair of denim jacket, an inner t-shirt, a pair of flexible jeans and some underwear that were pristine as they were packaged in plastic covers. He went for some waterproof sports shoes which had better grip in slippery places and were also less prone to wear and tear. Li
Qiu also found himself a pair of hand gloves and a scarf.
Getting himself dressed up, Li Qiu went to find the brat who had also dressed up in a similar fashion to him who had been waiting near a trial room.
"You look a lot less hobo now that you are covered up" Though her words sounded a bit harsh but the tone of the voice she used sounded almost indifferent.
"Say, uncle, have you figured out your innate ability?" Li Qiu panicked at the sudden unexpected question that was directed to him, but, when he saw the seriousness and worry in the brat's eyes, he understood the underlying implications.
In order to survive from henceforth, they needed to rely on each other and being honest about their abilities was a better way to trust and bond with each other.
But, it wasn't as if they could trust every random person that they encountered, considering the terrible reputation that humans have made for themselves in terms of trust and loyalty.
And, by revealing about his innate ability, he could create a chance for some semblance of trust to be established between them and, since whatever he said could also be verified in the future if they fought, she would be able to put her trust in him accordingly and he in return would be able to trust her.
"Hmm, I have three innate abilities, the first is..." As he came to his conclusion, Li Qiu began to talk about his innate abilities.
"Wait-wait a second there, you have three innate abilities?" Enbi Arin almost exclaimed the moment she heard his claim.
"Yeah, I have three, I may be a bit lucky after all" Taking a look at his smug face, Enbi Arin almost gritted her teeth to dust in her frustration.
"Fine, go ahead and explain about them".
Even though Li Qiu wanted to brag about how awesome he might become in the future, but, taking her situation into consideration, he explained about his abilities in a normal but serious manner.
"That means you could see the flow of Aria and do various stuff with your flames. Though it is a bit weak in the initial stages, but, it has a diverse growth once you start absorbing other essence flames and your materialization ability.... Damn, that's literally a cheat" Enbi Arin had a look of pure envy when she came to know about his materialization ability.
"Umm, actually I got this ability when I ate a goldfish" Li Qiu explained a little bit of his experience after eating the goldfish and his incident with the ants.
"Seriously? You have been through quite a lot I guess and, by what you said, can you try to sense the essences and Aria that exist within me?" Inquired Enbi Arin as she too felt curious about how he perceived everything through his innate ability.
Nodding his head, Li Qiu activated his essence sense when, the world around him became black which enabled him to see another circuit made of golden lines in front of him, though, they looked a lot thinner than his lines since his Aria travelled through his arteries and veins while they seemed to have established a new separate path as in the case of Enbi Arin.
Other than that her Aria core seemed to be located in the same place as a Dantian depicted in Wuxia stories. Li Qiu relayed all of this information simultaneously to Enbi Arin as he observed them.
Next, he observed her mind where there existed a grey coloured soul flame unlike his blue soul flame and there was another pale golden egg with two tentacles, one travelling outside her body to some unknown location while the other only had half a coil around her grey coloured soul flame.
Li Qiu mentally slapped himself for forgetting to inform her about this whole issue of parasite but, before he could begin, he was interrupted once again, this time by a foreign voice.
"Excuse me, but could any of you please tell me about whatever that is happening around here?"
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