"Trik, no. I am 100% organic. If I weren't, I'm sure you'd know by now." I couldn't allow him to ask me something that stupid. How can he be so informative about most things yet gullible to his own foolish ideas?
"Right. Right," he replied.
"Still, do you by chance possess one of these?" A small space on Trik's chest began to open, revealing three crystals – each the size of a pen – floating, emitting a green light. They were beautiful and looked familiar somehow. They kind of looked like...
"Oh, wait!" I reached inside my spatial bag, "Just a sec...I think...I might..."
After scrambling in my bag, I finally pulled it out. It was a necklace with a crystal pendant my mom had given me before we left—the same kind of crystal inside Trik, except smaller and transparent.
"Like this right," I said, showing the necklace to him.
"Yeah...where'd you get this?" Trik asked, taking the necklace.
"My mom, she gave it to me before I left. She said it'll protect me. It's the same as the ones inside you, isn't it?"
"Somewhat," Trik replied, scanning the crystal. "You're familiar with rupture prisms, right?"
"Yeah, they were lined within the walls of the DIM room back home; they prevented me from using spirit manipulation during certain portions of my training. I never actually saw one before receiving the necklace, though. Just knew a little about their purpose during my training."
Trik shook his head in disbelief.
"Negating others' spirit energy is what it's commonly used for now, but what makes them truly special is when gathered in large quantities, they can absorb the most immense energy around it and disrupt all other energy. So, for example, in the room you mentioned, your spirit energy was disrupted, meaning–"
"Meaning there was a larger energy source inside the room beside mine or anyone else who entered the room," I finished. "...The lights. They were, at first, way too bright – blindingly so – but quickly dimmed to normal brightness. The crystals absorbed the light."
"Right, and in small quantities, and with the right preparations, it'll steadily absorb a little of the user's spirit energy, creating a space around that person that greatly weakens other forms of energy that enter it. Energy such as a Primordial's spirit energy, for example. This, however," Trik held out the crystal for me to take back, "is a pure, authentic rupture prism and is very rare, unlike the ones embedded in me, which were manufactured. It also doesn't have the flaw of just taking whatever energy's around it and causing undiscriminating negations. Pure rupture prisms must be activated by flooding it with the user's spirit energy; the more you flood it, the larger the disruption field becomes. Once the crystal has your spirit energy, it'll take 12 hours before it's depleted. It's this process scientists tried to recreate with the manufactured crystals but failed. Instead, the crystals they created continuously absorb and disrupt the energies around it, so organic creatures can't utilize them as effectively as technological beings – such as myself – who have near-infinite power sources."
"So, it won't just absorb all of my strength if I keep it around my neck?" I asked warily.
"No, you have to focus and charge it with your spirit energy to activate it. Once it's activated, you're good for 12 hours or until you decide to reabsorb the energy you expended. Oh, and don't worry, once it's activated, it'll recognize your energy signature so you can still use your spirit energy freely without it being negated." Trik closed the patch on his chest, concealing the crystals.
"Oh, okay... But wait, if your crystals are constantly absorbing the most immense energy and negating anything weaker, how were you going to break the hold of Death's spirit energy just now? If I understand this correctly, you'd have to have a larger energy source for the crystals to disrupt it. You have an infinite energy source but not necessarily a large one."
Trik smiled.
"I'm glad you were following along, Lisa. You're correct; my energy source is nearly infinite but not large. You see, my body is made from a special metallic alloy that, when completely encased, is capable of trapping energy that's already inside me. There's also a removable cover made of the same alloy, protecting the crystals. Once the cover's removed, the crystals continuously absorb the most immense energy inside my body. Even with the Primordial's invading spirit energy present, my energy core is the most immense within my body. All other energy around me is then severely weakened. I would have to open my chest panel, directly exposing the crystals to the Primordial's spirit energy, for the crystals to absorb his instead."
"Wow, I see why you're so expensive," I said, amazed. "Okay, so all I have to do is charge it with some of my energy. Sounds easy enough."
After placing the necklace around my neck, I clutched the crystal in my fists and concentrated on making my spirit energy active. Once it was, I willed a good proportion of it towards the crystal in hopes of "flooding" it, but nothing happened.
Feeling a little disappointed, I was about to ask Trik if I'd done anything wrong when the crystal abruptly lit and began sucking in a lot of my spirit energy. I could feel my energy pooling into the crystal – leaving me weaker but giving the crystal energy it needed to operate. Then it stopped just as suddenly as it began.
"Note to self," I said, bending over to catch my breath, "don't flood."
Trik hovered over while trying his best not to laugh.
"I didn't say throw half your energy at it," he chuckled. "But here, take a look. Fully charged and ready to go."
The crystal now had an aqua glow as it hung from my neck, the same aqua as my spirit energy. Makes sense, I mused. The crystals take on the color of the energy it absorbs.
"Now that we have protection, you ready to try entering again?" Trik asked.
"Yeah," I said, gathering myself, "let's give it another go."
We walked three-fourths of the field before approaching the edge of Death's spirit energy again, staying just out of reach. I'm pretty sure it could sense our presence since it was practically reaching out toward us like it wanted nothing more than to reclaim its escaped victims.
Some of the tendrils entered the dampening field my crystal emitted, and I could actually see the tendrils weaken. They didn't entirely disappear, but I could tell that touching them would have little to no effect on me now.
I sighed heavily.
"Here goes."
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