บท 54: Tonic food

Sam closed his in concentration as he placed both of his palms on Sky. He started observing the fire poison in his body. According to Sam's classification of this fire poison is Passive and Unstable type which leads to attack the recipient.

He concentrated all his energy on the fire poison and observed its up to the level of the spirit particles. Then he took a deep breath and just like how he did with metals to form them into powder, he manipulated the passive spiritual energy forced the molecular structure to collapse and converted to fire spiritual energy.

"CWWWAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR" Sky opened his eyes and screamed on top of his lungs as he took the full brunt of the fire spiritual energy on his beast core and internal organs. Yanwu, Watt and Falck were all startled and trembled when they heard Sky's painful cry.

But Sam didn't dare to let his concentration slip away. He needs delicate control over the spiritual energy in order to not make it effect Sky. He controlled the spiritual energy and let it enter from one hand and directed towards his spiritual core.

Meanwhile, in his spiritual core. In the transparent globe, the wisp of golden flame and golden light are floating in between the spiritual energy. Sam concentrated and divided the space into two with an invisible barrier such that golden flame would be one side and the light would be another side. The energy he took from Sky right now through one hand is entering the core from the side of golden fire and merged along with the fire spiritual energy, then it flowed along and met with the barrier where it converted to the light spiritual energy with the help of Sam's spiritual core ability. Now, instead of refining this excess spiritual energy, he directed it out in its light elemental energy form and let it out from another hand as he started healing Sky from other side.

In this way, he is healing Sky, with the help of the very fire poison that is meant to harm him. Sky stopped his painful screams after sometime as the fire elemental energy that ran rampant stabilised a bit and flowed towards Sam's hand and the effect of the healing from the light elemental energy, he soon felt some relief. Night passed. Sam is still standing rooted in his spot. He is sweating profusely as he furrowed his brows in full concentration.

The lesser the amount of fire elemental energy became, the higher concentration he required. The nerves on his forehead popped over and blood started to flow out of his nose. His face turned pale and he is soaked in sweat. But he didn't dare to divert his attention. He stood there are continued on healing.

Soon, there is no pain on Sky's face.it is replaced with relief. The obvious burns on his body started healing. The feathers got their lustre back. Slowly, it regained its vitality.

Sun is high up in the sky, when Sam looked finally finished the process. He fell down immediately as he fainted. Yanwu quickly caught him and slowly laid him on the floor. It looked at Sky and Sam and then flew out of the cave. After a while, he came back with some dead animals, which he hunted just now. He saw Watt taking care of Sam, by cleaning his blood over and laid a blanket to make him sleep comfortably. Sam woke up a few minutes past noon, to see the Yanwu and Watt are grilling the meat, his stomach rumbled with hunger. He walked to them and picked up a piece of meat and took a huge bite.

They are having a peaceful meal, when a big rumbling sound came from behind. Everyone turned around to see Sky opening his eyes with a rejuvenating glow.

{Can I have some too?} Sky asked as he slowly made his way to with his body which is larger than Yanwu a bit and sat beside them. He took a piece of meat and started gobbling on it.

After the meal, Sam stood up and said. "Tomorrow is the tournament. I have some scores to settle today, you guys stay here till then. If any shadow mice come here, don't eat them up and hear what they say." He said to Yanwu and turned towards Sky. "You just recovered. Rest properly and we can talk after I am done with dealing some things." He looked at Watt and said. "Cultivate properly." Then he left the cave and went back to his mansion. Today he has to collect some debt.

Sam went to the Artisan tower on the way and bought a claw type and weapons for both hands, the he took a private forge and made some modifications. He pulled out the original claws and replaced them with the claws of the Golden Blood tiger.

"I will make do with it until I make myself some quality ones. He made sure that they are comfortable and placed them in the storage. Tomorrow is the day of tournament, so he was pretty sure that Principal is going to make send someone to remind him.

His guess was right. When he arrived at the mansion, the extra guy came to send the message and was leaving. He looked at Sam with a doubtful look before leaving. Sam entered the mansion and was greeted by the people who are about to prepare for the tournament.

He met with Jack and Shawn and they moved to their room to have a private talk.

"We took care of the two lackeys." Jack said as soon as they sat down.

"I will take care of the rest. Did you make a deal with that extra guy?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, I made a deal for 5000 spirit stones." Jack said with a smile. He is satisfied with the deal. But both Shawn and Sam were looking at him as if he was an idiot. Shawn didn't know that Jack made the deal only for 5000, that is why he was shocked by revelation.

Sam looked at Shawn and said. "Why didn't you go there?"

"He said he would take care of it and I thought he would really do." Shawn said with a dejected expression.

"What is wrong?" Jack asked a bit confused.

"How did you even come up with the price?" Sam asked with a wry expression.

"What do you mean?"

"Jack, he took 1500 just for the trip to Falcon cliff city. Why do you think he took that much money? Because, they will have a chance to get a spot, which is almost impossible unless someone played their hand properly. Then a guaranteed spot. How much do you think we can sell it for?" Shawn asked with exasperation.

His friend is a genius at fighting. Then why is he not even a little bit intelligent at these ways of world.

"Forget it." Sam sighed. "I will take care of everything. I need a favour. Make a big pit around six feet long, 2 feet wide and foot deep in the yard and tell everyone in the mansion, not to come out to the yard at night." Sam said and left. He walked towards the inn and he entered the inn opposite to the one Principal, Eisen and the rest are staying. When the sky turned dark, they came to eat their dinner and Principal is giving a speech and telling them not to make them nervous. Eisen is fidgeting his finger and was completely out of sorts. When he was finally done, he immediately went to his room and locked the door. He is feeling tense. From the past two days, his lackey and his brother got attacked mysteriously. He had a feeling that he is going to be in danger. Just when he was about to take a step forward towards his bed.

*Crack* a glass breaking sound could be heard. A red vapour filled the room and before he could know what happened, he felt a little dizzy and his reaction speed slowed down.

Just as he tried to calm down and get control of the situation, a black figure stood in front of him and that figure opened a scroll suddenly as a big orange coloured magma like thing hit him and entered his body, the sudden change hit made him faint as he felt a burning sensation inside his body.

After sometime. Eisen opened his eyes, he felt a searing pain inside his body and when he tried to move, he felt like his body was tied up to something. He was laid down on something and tried to look around to see where he is and who took him here.

Suddenly a flame lit up and a figure came into his sight. When Eisen saw who it is, he immediately fell into despair. The thing he most feared happened. He tried to struggle and use his spiritual energy, but he felt his blood burning and he stopped.

Sam looked at him with cold eyes. He has his two panthers on his side as he ran his arms across their fur and snuggled into him with warm expressions. But when Eisen saw this scene, he immediately felt shocked and confused. Sam slowly stood up and walked towards Eisen, leaving the panthers with some food.

"How are you feeling Eisen?" Are you warm enough?" Sam asked as an evil glint flashed across his eyes.

"Sam, please leave me alone. I apologise. I will compensate you with a huge sum of money. My father is rich. I will ask him to pay you a huge ransom. Please, Sam just let me walk away." He said in a trembling voice as he felt his body burning in heat. His spiritual core is completely infected with the poison. He felt pain and distress at the same time.

Sam just chuckled. It is too late Eisen. Don't you think? You dare attack my friends and you expect me to release you for just some ransom." Sam said in a sarcastic tone.

Eisen felt his throat run dry. He regretted pissing this guy off. He tried to struggle again.

"Don't bother struggling. It will only increase the pain you feel." Eisen stopped as soon as he heard it. This fire poison is what Sam collected from Sky. Even though the amount is small, he used the vestiges of the fire spiritual energy spread inside the cave to enhance the poison for the past days while he treated Sky.

"I really admire your stupidity Eisen. Of all things you could do, you have to piss me off time and again. You dare hurt my panthers? Then I will use you to assist them in breakthrough." Sam said and threw a small fire ball towards him.

Eisen closed his eyes in fear, but the expected impact never came. He slowly opened his eyes as he felt a burning sensation in his back. He opened his eyes and looked at Sam's evil smile. He felt despair looming over him.

He was laid over a pit filled with fire. He is being cooked alive. The thought itself made him fall into abyss. Sam took out a bottle of red liquid from his storage and started pouring all over Eisen and said.

"I don't want my panthers to get used to human meat. That is why I made this special cocktail of beast blood to mask over your scent. You, Eisen will be tonic food for my panthers and assist them in breakthrough. Thank you for your service". Then he flipped Eisen over to make his front side to touch the fire.

Eisen screamed on top of his lungs while he was being flipped like a chicken wing.

"NOOOOOOOOOO."

"Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaseeeeeeee."

"Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmm"

But the rest of the mansion wasn't able to hear his screams because Sam laid a formation to conceal everything that is happening here. Sam only stopped his flipping when Eisen has a final breath left.

"Medium rare. You guys can dig in." Sam said as he tossed Eisen over to the two panthers.

The two panthers immediately started eating as they smelled the scent of the various beast blood, while Eisen himself lost all the energy to even scream in pain, when he felt the teeth and claws tearing his seared flesh apart being eaten alive. Then before his last breath, he heard Sam's voice.

"Don't worry, you won't be alone. The Piranha will also join you soon enough." He died after he heard these words with a lot of regrets.