106 Preparing for Battle

"Okay so how do we kill these things?" Jayde asked her low-pitched voice steady.

Isha smiled and his eyes held a glint of admiration. Most people might have buckled under the strain of what Jayde was about to face, but Jayde had just shown what she was made of. She was willing to step up and take on this daunting task, not for glory or any personal gain, but because it was the right thing to do.

Leaning forward Green said: "Well we have good and bad news with regards to this, which would you prefer to hear first?"

"Hit me with the bad news first," Jayde said bracing herself.

"The Demonic Nematomorpha have psionic powers to protect themselves from attacks, they have three major attacks, one is a psionic blast, that will deal mental damage to their attackers, and the other is a psionic vampiric attack, which will drain their attackers' magical Qi, and lastly a mind link attack — they can create a mentally link with their attackers, which can let them overtake and control their attackers."

Jayde, face blanched with horror listening to Green's bad news.

Seeing Jayde's pale face, Green smiled gently with sympathy.

"There is some good news," she said.

"The spell that Doha gave to Yinxin, will destroy the worms, but the moment she starts to weave her spell, the worms will be aware of the threat and retaliate. The only way for her to succeed is for the two of you merge using your bond. You will then have to take the brunt of the attack, while Yinxin attacks and destroys the breeding colony."

[No! Jayde that is too dangerous,] Yinxin said her voice laced with concern.

[Yinxin, this might be the only way.]

[Jayde you are only a Knight of the 11th Class, and you are talking about bearing the brunt of thousands of these things attacking you, we have no idea what the repercussions of such an attack would do to you.]

"Master, what would the repercussions of such an attack be?" Jayde asked calmly. Yinxin had brought up a valid point, and Jayde wanted to know exactly what she was in for.

Green scratched her neck. "We are not entirely sure, but Isha thinks if you increase your Qi pool to silver and breakthrough to Bishop you should be able to handle the attacks, your mind block is already powerful enough that their mind link will not work on you."

[Jayde they not even sure what will happen, this is too dangerous,] Yinxin said.

[Yinxin we don't have any other choice.]

"Jayde we also have three spells that will assist you," Isha said handing over three scrolls to Jayde.

For a moment surprise captured Jayde tongue, tilting her head to the side, Jayde looked at Isha.

"I thought that you couldn't give me anymore spells?" she asked curiously.

A flush crept along Isha cheeks, clearing his throat, Isha coughed slightly.

"There are certain loopholes where I can overstep my boundaries, this situation happens to fall into one of them."

Cocking her eyebrow, Jayde decided not to push the issue. Opening up one of the scrolls, Jayde read the beautiful calligraphy on top of the scroll.

{Earth Dragon Ward}

The scroll detailed a spell that would allow Jayde to call upon the earth to create a powerful ward around herself and Yinxin. This ward would make it difficult for any psionic or magical attack to bypass the ward. This spell would buy Yinxin and Jayde time.

Opening up the second scroll, this scroll contained another earth-based spell called {Essence of the Earth}.

The Essence of the Earth would call upon earth spirits to infuse their power with Jayde, granting her additional strength and magical power.

The third scroll was also an earth-based spell called {Earth Dragon Strike}, this was a powerful attack spell that would drain the energy from the target.

Jayde was surprised that all three spells were earth-based since she had just unlocked her earth affinity and hadn't time to practice any spells.

"Isha is there a reason why these are all earth-based spells?" she asked.

"Both wood, light and earth element spells contain life, with is an antithesis to Demonic Nematomorpha, so any spell that uses these elements will have a far greater impact than any of the other spells."

"Oh."

"Also when your mind merges with Yinxin your fire ability will increase the effectiveness of her spell," Green stated.

"Really! How come?"

Green explained that certain elements were complementary to each other, while some were adverse. Fire complemented earth and wood but was adverse to water. Earth complimented fire and metal but was adverse to water.

Jayde realized she still had a lot to learn about magic.

Jayde decided to stay in the Pavilion to cultivate. After bidding Green farewell, Isha led Jayde to the herb garden. With the time distortion in the herb garden, ten days here in the herb garden would only be one day outside.

There was still thirty hours until the upgrade to the artifact was completed, which meant Reiko and Yinxin had to stay inside the pet space for the next twelve days [1].

Besides eating and sleeping for a couple of hours a day, Jayde spent her whole time cultivating.

While Jayde was cultivating Isha purchased the herbs needed to create the potion that Jayde needed to upgrade her Qi pool.

***

On the morning of the twelfth day, Isha walked into the herb garden carry a small glass bottle filled with a purple mixture.

Seeing the potion Jayde grimaced, the last two times that she had taken Isha potions had left a physiological scar on her — there was nothing so vile as Isha's potions as far as Jayde was concerned.

Seeing the look on Jayde face, Isha burst out laughing. One would think he was going to make her drink poison from her reaction.

Jayde had already broken through to Knight of the 12th Class the day before and had reached the cap of her dantian. She would need to repair her dantian to reach Bishop.

Taking a deep breath, Jayde braced herself for the anguish she was about to face. Grabbing the potion out of Isha hand, she raised the bottle to her lips, tilted her head back and slugged the vile tasting potion.

Within a couple of minutes, her dantian started to heat up.

Oh, gods, here we go again, Jayde thought, as she began to sweat visibly.

Pain rushed through her body. Jayde clenched her jaw as the knifing pain swept through her. Jayde cradled her stomach, nauseous she swallowed to stop herself from vomiting.

Finally, the pain became too much to bear, and Jayde had to lie down, curling her knees to her chest she silently rock herself trying to alleviate the pain.

Riding through the waves of pain wreaking her body, Jayde only thought was to breath her way through.

Finally, the familiar feeling of trembling hit her dantian, and like always the pain stopped and a gentle warmth filled her.

Shaky Jayde rested for a while on the grass, before getting to her feet. Isha opened up a small bathroom for her to clean herself up.

It had taken nearly eight hours this time for her to increase her Qi pool. When Jayde left the bathroom refreshed Isha informed her that her upgrade was ready.

--

Notes

[1] The time given is outside the Pavilion, with the time distortion being ten times. 30 hours outside is 300 hours inside (12.5 days)