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Chapter 256 Second Rise of the Elwood Family [V]

"Any word from Hannibal?" Lucius asked as he approached Pagan, who seemed to be daydreaming.

"Pagan?" he called out, now standing right beside him.

~He\'s probably still upset about not taking part in the photosynthesis session,~ Lucius thought to himself as Pagan snapped out of his daze.

Pagan\'s facial expressions went through several changes over the span of a second once he realized that it was Lucius who was right beside him. In the end, he bowed with both his hands on the ground and whispered pleas of forgiveness under his breath.

"It\'s okay Pagan, get up," Lucius sighed in exasperation before helping Pagan to his feet. "I asked about Hannibal, when last did you see him?"

"Hannibal? I\'m no-" Pagan was about to reply, before Lucius\'s head turned to look behind them instinctively.

His earth senses had picked up the sudden appearance of an energy reading; it felt like cold water being splashed on the face whilst in deep comfortable sleep.

"Ghost?" Lucius whispered a moment later, his crux already floating beside him.

"I was sure I\'d perfected this technique," Ghost\'s voice called out -from one of the shadows the light from the exit was casting on the ground- before her figure appeared seemingly out of thin air.

"We\'ve scouted the area, there\'s no one nearby. Hannibal has a few members still on lookout, they\'ll alert us if anyone approaches," Ghost began reporting, a look of slight disappointment on her face.

~Perfected a technique spell? Just what kind of technique did she create?~ Lucius wondered to himself, before mentally calling upon the system information pertaining to the 『Radiant Augmentation Index』.

┏━━━━━━━━???━━━━━━━━┓

─────? Technique Directory?─────

?『Radiant Examination』

?『Radiant Restoration』

?『Radiant Cowl』

?『Radiant Mirage』

?『Radiant Eclipse』

?『Radiant Accession』

┗━━━━━━━━???━━━━━━━━┛

~It seems she\'s talking about Radiant Eclipse,~ Lucius thought to himself, before mentally selecting it.

Information pertaining to its workings were instantly transmitted to his mind. It seemed -at least in theory- that it was a slight tweak to Radiant Mirage, where light around the user was refracted to produce an illusion.

However, there were additional requirements. For instance, one had to control the flow of radiant energy in their body to match that of the surrounding environment, which in itself required some degree of skill.

Besides that, the technique was crude, and from the looks of it could only work if the user already had some competency when it came to stealth.

"Thank you," Lucius responded blankly, before staring at Ghost with a sense of pride. "And well done," he added before turning to regard Pagan, who had fallen back into his depressive daze.

Ghost looked confused at the complement, however this did not stop her from smiling in satisfaction.

"Look Pagan, it\'s not that bad. Think about it this way. While everyone is evolving, you\'ll be with me learning new spells, so cheer up," Lucius said, patting Pagan on the shoulder.

This seemed to raise his mood ever so slightly, though Lucius knew it would take more than that to make him happy. After all, he was basically being denied a chance at what he would probably term \'Ascension.\'

"Go tell the others that we\'ll be proceeding. I\'ll go out to look for a good place to hide the evolution pods," Lucius ordered, before gesturing for the bear-man leader to follow him.

"Ghost, take a position between us and Hannibal. If something happens, I want someone fast relaying the information," he added, before moving out towards the exit.

*

As the mid-afternoon sunlight showered upon his body, he felt rejuvenated. As if feeling the sun\'s rays alone were enough to heal him.

~I suppose despite all the additions from my Laendryte evolution, I\'m still a plant at the core. Speaking of which, I probably should have eaten something before coming out here,~ he thought to himself, before turning to ask the bear-man leader to have someone grab something for him quickly.

Once everyone had made their way to the surface, and Lucius had arranged the potential evolvers where he wanted them -with Asclepius on one side followed by the chieftains and all the other shrooms, and Eleanour on the other, followed by the remaining first watch and all the other leaflings- Pagan took a moment to say a few words.

"Today we are gathered to witness the greatness of the Lighted One\'s blessings, the power of the last fae," Pagan began, standing right behind Lucius with their backs facing each other.

Those who were not going to be a part of the session stood in a circle around the evolving group, their eyes staring at Lucius in awe as his crux floated above his head like a halo.

"Those who follow his light will be granted such blessings in due time, and in return all the Lighted One asks is complete obedience and submission to his wi-" Pagan was about to say before Lucius cleared his throat in an exaggerated manner.

"I mean, that you follow him truly as a part of the commune," Pagan continued gracefully.

"Lighted One," he added, before bowing, to which everyone else followed suit.

~Okay, time to begin.~

[? Several targets lack certain requirements.]

[Continue Shared Photosynthesis at 50% efficiency?]

~Proceed.~

[Absorbing 1045 helios per second.]

With this, Lucius could feel pulses of energy flow from his crux, straight towards Asclepius and Eleanour who had their hands on his back.

It felt like trying to force a large amount of water through a thin hose, and only a few minutes later he felt several leaf-beings and shrooms disconnect from the network.

4 minutes past, and nearly half the members had fallen unconscious. And the half that were hanging on by mere threads. It was as if the temperature in the area had gone up several degrees, and a few of those present threatened to erupt into pure energy.

A feeling he was all too familiar with... evolution. Another minute passed, and this threat was carried through.

Someone in the network had ascended.

[Evolution of secondary creature has commenced.]

[Rewriting creature\'s genome...]

*

Lucius found himself in the white void, with Asclepius\'s body floating just a short distance away from him.

~This place seems different~ he thought to himself, before realizing the cause of this feeling of unfamiliarity.

Instead of there being a sun at the centre, there was a mass of red and purple vegetation that looked eerily similar to a floating ball of shroom flesh.

~I suppose their cores would be different,~ He thought to himself in disgust.

[Creature\'s current genome diverts too greatly from the host\'s.]

[Warning! Chance of mutation is increased!]

[Proceed?]

~Hmm, well, this is sad. It seems we\'ll have to think about this a bit more,~ Lucius thought to himself before denying.

As much as he wanted Asclepius to evolve, he wasn\'t about to test the mutation chances on someone so valuable.

[Warning. Genome Reconstruction process has already changed certain characteristics. Forfeiting the process will result in disfigurement.]

~You aren\'t giving me much of a choice now, are you?~ he thought in annoyance, before taking some time to think about things properly.

Though no matter what angle he came at this from, moving forward seemed to be the best option. Sure, there was a chance of mutation, but mutation, in itself, just meant a deviation from expected characteristics, or at least as far as he could remember.

Disfigurement, on the other hand, was akin to disability. One was certainly a bad thing, while the other could be a bad thing.

~Proceed,~ he replied hesitantly.

[Extracting Genome from host and combining it with target creature\'s...]

[...]

[...]

As the system continued processing, the white void all around them began to visibly adjust to the changes it was making. Streaks of radiant energy began to seep out from the shroom core at the centre of the void, whilst simultaneously the outer fringes of the core slowly disintegrated.

Soon all that remained was a small pulsing ball of energy, similar to the sun in Lucius\'s own white space.

~So this isn\'t a crux but rather a requirement for photosynthesis,~ Lucius realized, as the ball of energy began to expand.

As it got bigger, its concentration of energy began to grow weaker; where at first he couldn\'t see through it, it was now nothing but wisps of glowing matter barely holding onto its form.

~Something isn\'t right here-~

[Error! Photosynthetic core collapse eminent!]

[Expelling host to prevent damage in...]

[3...]

[2...]

~You\'ve malfunctioned if you think I\'m leaving Asclepius here alone.~