He did not know how much time had passed, however, when his eyes that had been closed for an unknown amount of time gradually opened and his pupils adapted to the sunlight that penetrated faintly through beyond the cream-colored curtains, Bai Zemin for some reason felt as if an eternity had passed from the time he opened his eyes to the outside world.
"Look who's awake. Isn't he the little scoundrel Bai Zemin? Maybe I should add big lazy to my list of nicknames directed and created especially for you."
A soft voice, almost like the singing of a small morning bird, sounded beside him.
Perhaps it was part of the magic that the hidden beauty of the voice contained or perhaps it was because Bai Zemin knew perfectly well to whom that beautiful melody belonged, but when he heard it, he felt as if all his worries instantly disappeared and every burden that constantly threatened to plunge him deep suddenly seemed to become light and insignificant.
"I'd rather big lazy. Somehow I feel that 'little scoundrel' is too much for such a pure young man like me." Bai Zemin joked with a faint smile as he looked to his side.
There, sitting on the edge of the bed inches away, a woman so beautiful that she could no longer be categorized as a human was looking at him with a small playful smile but the relief in her eyes betrayed her true emotions.
Lilith looked at Bai Zemin with her face slightly tilted down and to the right. Seeing him finally wake up after so many days, the weight in her heart finally lightened.
"How are you feeling? How's your soul wound?" She asked immediately.
"How do you know my soul was wounded?" Bai Zemin looked at her in surprise as he had never mentioned this to Lilith. However, he soon remembered who he was talking to and smiled bitterly, "Forget it, I guess it's normal for you to see through an insignificant First Order existence like me."
Lilith looked at Bai Zemin deeply and said in a serious voice, "I don't think an insignificant existence would have the ability to shake the entire universe even though it has been evolving for less than half a year."
Shake the entire universe? He was? Bai Zemin was dumbfounded and looked at Lilith for answers.
However, she gently shook her head and reminded, "First check your condition. We'll talk later... It won't be a conversation that can be finished in one or two hours."
After lowering his head to think about it for a moment, Bai Zemin realized that what Lilith said was true. If he had done something so great as to cause her to put such a serious expression on her face and her voice to sound so tense, then it would probably be a long and drawn-out conversation ahead of them.
He closed his eyes and began to study his soul. However, even after more than five minutes had passed, he found absolutely nothing strange there.
"Hey, Lilith."
"Mm?"
"How long does it take for an existence to heal when its soul is wounded?"
"... To begin with, I really want to know how your soul could possibly have been damaged since considering the purity of your Soul Power I refuse to believe that a mere normal spiritual attack could possibly accomplish such a feat. But let's leave that for later. Regarding your question, the time it takes for an existence to recover from a soul wound depends on the degree of damage."
"For example?"
"Mm... Correct. Approximately about 10 years ago, I suffered a rather bad wound in my soul due to the spiritual attack of a beast that overcame me by one stage. At that time, 3% of my soul had been injured and I needed almost 6 months to fully recover."
"..."
Six months to heal from damage equivalent to 3% of the soul? The eyes of Bai Zemin widened and he couldn't help but spit out, "Six months for so little damage? How can you be so weak?"
Lilith looked at Bai Zemin with strange eyes, and after a moment of silence, she slowly said, "Little scoundrel, receiving 3% soul damage basically means you are 3% dead. Soul damage is very different from physical damage because just as water is the essence that keeps plants alive, the soul is our essence. On many occasions, it is easier to regenerate a limb than it is to heal 1% soul damage so the fact that I have healed 3% in around 6 months is already a pretty amazing feat."
"This..." Bai Zemin was very surprised to hear Lilith's words because if what she said was true then what had happened to him could only be called insanity.... His soul was completely healed!
Lilith noticed Bai Zemin's uneasiness and as she thought of something her expression changed slightly. After everything that had happened during the past month, she no longer dared to consider the young man in front of her as a "mere" anomaly. Therefore, after considering it for a second, she asked:
"Just out of curiosity but... How damaged was your soul?"
Bai Zemin hesitated whether to tell her the truth or not as he didn't want to worry her now that they had reunited again after living many things apart. However, lies were the beginning of the inevitable collapse of a relationship; hence, Bai Zemin decided on being honest.
"I'm not quite sure but I think about 5% of my soul was hurt."
"What?!" Lilith raised her voice and her whole body turned to face Bai Zemin face to face. She looked at him with wide eyes and said in shock, "5% of your soul?! How can this be possible?"
Bai Zemin might not be aware of how hard it was to damage the soul of someone, but Lilith did and precisely because she was aware of this fact it was hard for her to accept that an Earth existence could damage 5% of Bai Zemin's soul.
However, it was precisely on this point that Lilith was wrong; no one had hurt Bai Zemin's soul except Bai Zemin himself.
"It is not like that, Lilith." He shook his head and said somewhat embarrassed, "No one hurt my soul.... I self-injured it while abusing too much of a skill I recently obtained."
"You... What did you say?" Lilith felt her heart clench as she muttered in total shock: "A skill that should be part of your soul damaged your soul? That definitely doesn't make sense."
Skills learned through scrolls obtained after defeating an opponent were immediately fused and converted into runes that with the power of the supreme entity known as Soul Record were blended with the soul of the subject in such a way that said skills and soul were basically one. Therefore, if a skill damaged the soul then all the reasoning Lilith had learned throughout her life would collapse, and probably all the Higher Existences would be shocked to learn that the foundation of what they thought they knew was actually as weak as a paper base.
Bai Zemin naturally understood what Lilith was thinking since he himself had thought about it before. However, he knew the reason why his soul had been wounded.
"Actually, it's not the skill's fault. As I said, I overloaded areas of my soul by molding the soul at will." He said as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
But Bai Zemin did not know that what he had just said were words that would immediately make him a lunatic in everyone's eyes or a genius who should be recruited or killed immediately by any of the major factions of Higher Existences.
Overload? Mold? Lilith's pupils twitched fiercely as a theory began to take root in her heart.
"Show me this skill you are talking about." She inquired in an extremely urgent voice and extended her perfect hand.
Lilith didn't even wait for Bai Zemin's reply as she took his hand while staring at him. However, Bai Zemin was so surprised by this attitude of Lilith that for an instant he froze not knowing what to do as this was the first time he had seen the ever composed Lilith this anxious.
"Bai Zemin!"
Lilith's voice woke him up and he subconsciously shared his Third Order Regeneration skill with her.
As the green letters representing the records of the skill Regeneration began to appear across Lilith's retina, she watched them very carefully for fear of missing something. At first, there was nothing too far-fetched, but when Lilith reached to read the second activation her breathing stalled.
Now, she finally understood how Bai Zemin dared to say what he said before.
"You... You...." She looked at the young man sitting at a close enough distance to appreciate every detail of his face and used her free hand to point at him while her mouth moved non-biasedly but with no real purpose.
Seeing Lilith like this, although Bai Zemin felt that his small vanity had been fulfilled as he expected to surprise her greatly with his newly acquired skills, he was also very worried as a Sixth Order existence should not be surprised to such a magnitude by something a First Order existence had.... Unless that First Order existence had something that a First Order existence shouldn't have.
But in fact, Overlap Regeneration was not a skill that a First Order existence should possess. No... No one should possess such a skill; at least no one alive.
Bai Zemin's Regeneration skill was already unlike any Regeneration-type skill Lilith had seen before as this skill allowed him to possess practically enough Stamina to make a mockery of any army that tried to wear him down.
But Overlap Regeneration... It was on another level.
"How... How did you get this skill? Wasn't it that ape from the university?" Lilith asked still in shock.
"...Yeah... The ape I killed back then managed to regenerate from all the injuries it had suffered but when I killed it the skill I obtained was completely different." Bai Zemin answered.
Seeing Lilith at a loss, Bai Zemin really started to worry.
"Lilith, what's wrong...?"
Lilith took a deep breath, but no matter how hard she tried, it was not possible to calm her heartbeat. Therefore, she had no choice but to explain while her emotions were in total disarray.
"Overlap Regeneration is a skill that allows you to take stat points and add them to another stat almost with total freedom. Do you know what this means?" she asked in a serious voice.
Bai Zemin frowned and after a moment he hesitantly replied, "It means I am able to modify my soul?"
Lilith nodded and said word for word, "Right. Now, tell me what happens when a novice becomes proficient in modifying a vehicle and is granted all the necessary means with which said vehicle was built."
"Build another-" Bai Zemin suddenly stopped abruptly and his eyes twitched as he looked at Lilith in shock.
"Creation." Lilith took a deep breath and her pupils twitched in sync with Bai Zemin's as she slowly said, "Overlap Regeneration. That second activation, I heard of it before."
How could she not know of this skill when one of the people most dear to her tried all its life to find it; this person went so far as to try to obtain the Spirit Goddess Firmament Fragment whose power was said to be able to modify souls to a certain extent.
Unfortunately, that person failed and with this failure all hope came crashing down.
"Maybe I'm completely wrong but I dare to bet my life on this." Lilith looked Bai Zemin straight in the eyes and said in a serious voice, "Bai Zemin, at this rate, there is a possibility that at some point you will be able to bring the dead back to life and even create life just by thinking about it."
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