31 The Dark Forest III Edited

Since Isha still had not returned with the potion to repair her dantian, Jayde decided to purchase more body modifications, looking through the list available, she chose the healing upgrade for fifteen points, the bone strengthening upgrade for ten points, the body strength modification for fifteen points and finally the skin toughening for ten points. While a bit expensive Jayde thought it was fifty points well spent.

Selecting to have the upgrades installed immediately, Jayde walked into the medical bay and climbed into the medical pod.Two hours later all the DNA modifications Jayde had purchased were completed successfully, and Jayde started to fell a bit more like her old self.

With her new modifications, Jayde's body natural healing ability had increased by twenty-five percent, her bone strength by fifteen percent, her physical strength by twenty-five percent and her skin had toughened by twenty percent.

Jayde was happy to find out that her skin was still soft and supple after the skin strengthening, it was just a lot tougher making it more difficult to cut.After testing out her new body, Jayde was thrilled with her new physique, and with the increase in her magical abilities due to her breakthrough, her fire spells were twice as powerful as before. Jayde also noticed that she could maintain her fire shield for much longer now as well, and she could release nearly triple the number of fireballs.

After leaving the medical bay, Jayde found Isha waiting for her hold a glass flask containing a bright green liquid.

Giving Jayde a once over, Isha smiled slightly. "Ah I see you have been busy," he said handing over the flask to Jayde. He had noticed how much Jayde physique had changed and was startled that she had managed to accumulate so many points so swiftly.

"Take this potion quickly, as the effect will fade soon, but be prepared it will be painful when your Qi pool expands," he said cautiously.

Holding the flask in her hand, Jayde took a deep breath, then lifting the bottle to her lips she quickly drank it all. To say that it tasted vile would be an understatement. It was the most disgusting thing that Jayde had ever had in her entire life — and that was saying something as once when she was stranded on a planet during a mission — she had eaten raw voles — a small stinky ratlike creature.

Isha had not been lying about it being a painful experience, as soon as the concoction was absorbed, massive cramps hit Jayde dantian, the pain became so intense that Jayde felt like throwing up. A sudden weakness overcame Jayde, losing all her strength in her legs, she had no choice but to lie down on the floor, while Isha looked on sympathetically.

Gritting her teeth and holding back the bile bubbling up into her throat, Jayde tried to breath her way through the pain assaulting her.

Cold sweat dripped down her pale face, the muscles and tendons on her neck stood out sharply as Jayde gritted her teeth to stop herself from screaming. Lost in the throes of pain, Jayde lost track of time, as she tried to just make it through the next wave of pain. Since Jayde had her eyes closed just concentrating on getting through the pain without screaming, she didn't realize that vast amounts of Qi energy flowed and danced around her, slowly sinking into her skin without her being aware of it.

After what felt like an eternity, just as Jayde thought that the pain would never end a massive tremor hit her dantian, then suddenly.

Boom!

As just like that all the pain vanished. Still feeling too weak to stand, Jayde rolled onto her back and just lay on the floor —panting — trying to gather her strength. While lying on the floor, Jayde was curious about what changes had happened to her dantian. Concentrating she let her consciousness enter her body, and directing her mind to her dantian she had a peep at what changes had occurred.

Her dantian was no longer the size of a small child's fist, it had nearly doubled in size, and the color had changed from that awful grey color, it was now a soft shimmery gold, what really amazed Jayde was that her dantian was almost three-quarters full with pure Qi energy golden liquid.

Not only had that dreadful potion of Isha's upgraded her dantian to the copper stage, but it had also absorbed and converted the Qi around her. While the price she had paid for what she had just gone through was awful, Jayde was really satisfied with the results.

After fifteen minutes, Jayde had recovered enough to return to the Dark Forest, after bidding Isha goodbye, she returned to her camp just as the sun was rising.

It had been a long but fruitful night.

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