One of the mutated plants in Nathan"s cottage garden was a delicate looking tree with no leaves, but transparent fruits shaped like tear drops and sparkling like crystals as the sun cast it"s light upon them. Although Ren Zexian had long since noted the thin spiritual energy within it"s roots, thin trunk and spindle branches, it had been quite pure and without taint, so Ren Zexian had never considered it further.Yet now, one of those teardrop fruits was lying upon the ground, unbroken by its fall yet crackling with lightning that seemed to be trapped within it"s sh.e.l.l. Ren Zexian surrounded his hand with spiritual energy before tentatively reaching for the crystal. There was no change in the core lightning, it didn"t attempt to leap to his flesh to burn him, so he carefully lifted it from the ground. The crystal had well and truly trapped it in its midst.
He pa.s.sed the crystal to Dexter, who looked wary, but took it from his hand with trepidation. Feeling no pain nor heat, just the tingling of static upon his palm, he shivered as his inner sea began to react to it. "What do you think?" Ren Zexian asked him and the other man looked at him, the surprise upon his face apparent to see.
"It"s effecting my powers," Dexter admitted in awe. "I feel like... I think that if I meditated with it, my cultivation would be greater."
Ren looked speculatively at the crystal fruits. There were about ten or twelve upon its branches at first glance, not a large amount and each completely precious if his theories were even remotely close to being true. "We need to speak with Nathan about the crystals," he decided. He would not offend such a priceless specimen with his rising greed. Both men glanced at Tyler who grumbled about being a messenger boy, before leaving to persuade the boy to come to his personal garden.
"What are you thinking?" Dexter asked him curiously. But Ren Zexian simply smiled and answered;
"We need fire or a flame, not created by myself," Ren Zexian mused.
Nathan came into the garden having been encouraged by a carrot and stick method, if the carrot could be considered answering Ren"s summons and the stick considered something occurring within his cottage garden to one of his precious plants. He hurried in, his eyes landing first upon Ren Zexian before flickering about the garden to see if anything was out of place. He sighed, there was no sick plants to fend for, no deceased ones to mourn. And so he returned his attention back to the man with the long black hair of silk.
"Nathan," Ren Zexian called to him in his soothing voice and Nathan closed the gap between them without thought. "Has this tree ever shed its crystals?"
Nathan glanced at the simple tree with its sparkling fruits and shook his head. When the tree first lost its leaves, he had been sad, thinking that it had died. But when he had placed his hand upon its thin trunk, he felt like he had a.s.sumed wrongly that the tree was dead. He did not know why he felt this way, but decided to leave it be. And then slowly had those teardrop crystals developed upon its branches.
Each had resembled a bead of dew, at first, poised at the point of dripping from the branch, but not actually doing so. And slowly, one by one the crystals grew, stopping at their current size before a new one began to form. It had taken the first crystal almost a month to grow, but then as his waters permeated the soil about its roots, the crystals grew more rapidly, perhaps one growing in a one week period. But the last time he counted, there had been ten. The rains must have caused more to grow overnight.
"Would the tree allow us to take a few?" Ren Zexian asked him and immediately, the boy directed this thought at the tree, placing his hand upon the bark. The tree shivered beneath his touch and five crystals dropped only to be caught in Ren Zexian"s swiftly moving hands. If his theory was right, letting them fall to the ground would be a waste. "Thank you," Ren Zexian bowed to the tree, even as he clasped the precious fruits to his chest.
Nathan was more physical in his appreciation, filling cupped hands with his water before pouring it to wear he understood the roots grew.
*****
The five crystal fruits were placed upon the table of the small cottage as well as the one holding lightning in its core. Dexter had never been inside the property before, he glanced over the slightly worn wooden cupboard doors and the simple counter top with its belfast sink and old school rayburn oven close by. He frowned, in thought. Did... did Nathan know how to use that thing? They"d a.s.sumed the one in the main house"s kitchen was ornamental, left during a revamp of the kitchen seeing as they had a modern six hob, two oven and a grill electric range installed.
Before he could enquire, Nathan had grabbed an oven glove and opened one of the small doors to reveal the smouldering fuel inside. He added a couple of pieces of dry wood to the fire and slowly, the wood caught fire. Ren Zexian watched him for a moment, having asked the boy to produce a flame for him, then almost casually tossed the crystal into the burning fire.
Nathan yelped as the crystal disappeared into the fire, then after a moments hesitation, grabbed a pair of cast iron tongs in order to fish the crystal out of the fire. Ren Zexian"s hand gently landed upon his shoulder, but the boy did not flinch from it instead finding himself savouring the warmth of it, distracted from saving the teardrop fruit from the oven"s flames. "Give it a moment," Ren Zexian said gently, before removing his hand, not wanting to push the boy"s limits and not realising that the boy would allow him to rest it there longer.
They watched the fire for a minute, noticing that the flames were dying, despite adding plenty of fuel, so Nathan added a bit more wood, which caught alight rapidly before its flames too died. The fire was going out. More wood followed in an attempt to keep the oven lit, the flames would roar brightly for a moment, the heat immense, sweat beaded upon their skins while much of the wood turned to ash within the next breath.
After a while, the fire began to stabilise, the flames not burning so hot and not flickering unstably. Ren Zexian took the tongs from the boy and nudged the fire until he found what he sought. Within the tongs he held the crystal, completely unharmed, but with a tiny flickering flames burning brightly inside of it. He placed the crystal not on the wooden table, for they could not tell how hot it would burn, but on the stone cutting board on Nathan"s worktop.
Ren Zexian then reached for it as tentatively as he had for the one holding the lightning inside of it. It was not unbearably hot, but Ren Zexian could feel the heat inside of it. He could also feel the crystal as a whole now resonating with his core. "Tell me about how the crystal"s grow," he urged Nathan, who was only happy to talk about his observations as he watched the crystals form on the delicate tree. A satisfied smile grew upon his face, his blue eyes sparkling as he indulged in his favourite subject, Ren Zexian listening attentively. Dexter couldn"t help but smile himself over the warm scene.
"I think I understand," Ren Zexian said finally.
"Well do explain, because I am clueless over here," Tyler mentioned as he looked gingerly at the two crystals which should not exist in his mind that was still ruled strictly by science. While he could not explain himself why he could produce water from thin air, he had always a.s.sumed that there was a scientific explanation for it. It was why he could not except that his abilities could be affected by something "spiritual". G.o.d and ghosts did not exist in his atheist mind.
"This crystal is formed of the essence of the tree and the spiritual energy it draws from the ground into its roots," Ren Zexian explained. "It manages to filter through itself a very pure energy, there are no impurities with the tree itself. Because it has shed them and the energies incompatible with it into these crystals it formed as it produced them from its branches."
"Then why not drop all of the crystals?" Tyler asked.
Ren Zexian shrugged. "Perhaps it is using them to absorb light energies from the sun, in turn using that energy to supplement what it takes from the ground. Also, it is unlikely to want to drop the crystals if they are likely to steal the spiritual energies it wants for itself. Cultivators are greedy creatures, the tree would be no different."
"Wait," Dexter blurted out. "You are trying to tell me, that that tree is cultivating?"
"Of course it is," Ren Zexian said, surprised at Dexter"s sudden outburst. "It is in the nature of all forms of life once they obtain enlightenment to attempt to cultivate strength and ability... isn"t it?"
Neither Dexter nor Tyler had anything they could say to refute his words, mainly because they were dumbfounded by them. Ren Zexian turned his attentions onto the empty crystal husks. "Now, lets see what occurs if I do this..." he murmured as he grabbed one in his hand. The crystal flared brightly in his fist, causing the three other men to glance away or be blinded.
When the light dimmed, they turned back to see Ren Zexian"s knees give way and the crystal with a dark ferocious flame inside of its core fall from his loose fingers onto the flagstone floor. He chuckled slightly. "Wasn"t quite what I expected," he mumbled, before collapsing to the ground.