Master of the Stars

Chapter 8: The Devouring Flames (Part 2/2)

The police were concerned with the most susceptible of psychotropic drug ingredients. These ingredients took five to ten days to completely metabolize. Only a short half an hour had passed between the time when Luo Nan was arrested and when he was taken aboard the warship. Luo Nan had completed the entire metabolic process during this time. He focused on dispelling the susceptible ingredients within his drug concoction. So when they took his sample, Luo Nan exercised some control over his urinary system, allowing him to disregard ordinary urine tests.

As for his other test samples, such as blood, hair, and the like…… Luo Nan honestly wasn’t sure of the outcome.

Therefore he kept his mouth shut ever since he was forcefully detained. He never had the slightest thought of exposing Xie Junping. Needless to say, he still needed to rely on that fellow’s help in order for him to escape what was to come!

There would be more or less a price to pay for choosing this route.

Great amounts of energy from his internal organs were consumed from speeding up his metabolic rate. It was as if Luo Nan had fasted for over a week within a short hour of time.

He sped up consumption of his fat reserves and atrophy of his muscles in order to maintain a supply of nutrients to his brain and nerve center. Neurons alternated between being excited and inhibited. All this led to Luo Nan feeling quite horrible at the moment,

Pain. Numbness. And slight hallucinations. His senses were being assaulted without end.

Luo Nan sat on the ice cold plating of the ship. He made not a single movement, but in reality he was enduring torment through each strand of muscle. The fibers were twitching minutely.

This represented that the functionality of his nervous system was in disorder.

He closed his eyes, completely ignoring the rich kids complaining to each other in his surroundings. He chanted the twenty words.

He started with the utmost familiarity of chanting the words as a liaison without pause. The humming sound vibrated within his skull cavity. However his chanting speed grew slower and slower. His volume grew lower and lower. In the end his lips and teeth no longer produced a sound; there were only brief words that bubble and flowed in his mind:

My heart’s a prison, my heart’s a furnace.

My heart calls for a lense, my heart calls for the nation.

Following the influx of words in his mind, Luo Nan’s attention gradually accumulated. Distracting thoughts were eliminated. He had automatically entered into the first step in visualization.

Silvery lines like threads formed the structure of the tetrahedron, the inscribed sphere, and circumscribed sphere within the void. The structure resembled a wondrous celestial body that rotated in solitude within the darkness of the cosmos and space.

He went through five years of hand in hand advancement of Drug Sculpting with Chanting & Breathing, causing his Vessel to form a subtly paired relationship with the visualized diagram.

A misfortune with the Vessel would immediately affect the the operation of the visualized diagram. On the other hand he could actually sort through the structure of his Vessel using his thoughts to adjust the visualized diagram. Then plus or minus adjustments were made to his energy and blood, influencing the functionality of his internal organs.

Luo Nan discovered that the damage to his Vessel was dependent on the former. Whereas increasing his metabolic rate and controlling his urinary system was dependent on the later.

Of course the later was equivalent to having the operation of his autonomic nervous system disrupted. It went against the natural functions of physiology. He had to pay a biting recoil in price.

And in this way, there were some issues with the rhythm of the revolving visualized diagram. Luo Nan had increased his metabolic rate for half an hour. Now he needed to use at least three times the amount of time to recover back to normal.

Luo Nan handled this with experience. He arranged his mental state to be firm. In any case he’s been imprisoned. He doesn’t need to think too much about matters happening on the outside. He just needs to slowly recover and things will be fine.

However he soon discovered that the situation wasn’t that simple.

The rotating visualized diagram in the void began to exhibit clear signs of stuttering, and this stuttering was growing more and more severe. It was like a low-grade machine running a large-scale game. It was unable to render a smooth and full scene no matter what. And the situation would turn even more messy after this machine overheats.

Later on even the rhythm of chanting the mantra became influenced. It would be hard to maintain the visualization technique.

The recoiling bite he received was actually this serious?

Luo Nan refused to believe it. He halted his visualization technique and muttered to himself for a while. He adjusted his body and switched sitting positions.

Luo Nan sat cross-legged. He was just like the monks and priests of the olden days engaging in meditation. His entire body was firmly fixed to the plating of the ship. A straight line was formed from the top of his head to his sides. From the shoulders, to the elbows, to the knees, merging to the ground to form a solid pyramid.

This “Pyramid” sitting position was a visualization technique taught by Luo Nan’s grandfather during Luo Nan’s adolescence. It was for visualizing the diagram on the title page of his grandfather’s notes.

The pyramid form of the tetrahedron was like the boundary to his limbs and body.

The inscribed sphere contained his internal organs and the operation of his energy and blood.

The circumscribed sphere represented the environment of the external world.

And so his body and mind were linked together. What was internal opposed what was external. The quality of the visualization became more exquisite.

Normally Luo Nan would be sleeping at night, but he instead replaced his sleep with strengthening the quality of his visualization technique.

He entered chanting the mantra once more, smoothly starting the visualization. Silver threads formed the complete structure of the diagram, and the diagram began to slowly revolve.

This time Luo Nan wasn’t an observer, instead he was a participant. As he chanted the mantra, he started to become indistinct within the bounds of the visualized diagram.

It was as if he had arrived within a borderless darkness. The manifestation of the majestic pyramid revolved within the void.

In amidst of all this, he vaguely felt himself absolutely not moving. What moved was the flesh and blood of his internal organs. What moved was the external world with its void of darkness.

Amidst the actions and inactions, the elements of harmony and discord peeled away layer by layer and revealed...

“What is this!?”

There was clearly a type of force coming from within the surrounding empty darkness. The dimensions weren’t large, but it was actually quite solid. It was like there was a hand hiding in the darkness that always sought to displace the visualized diagram, to interfere with its stability and its balance.

Luo Nan attempted to grab and hold onto the hand, but he was completely unable to make clear the existence and form of the hand. The response grew clearer, but he was unable to touch it no matter what. It was like an evening mosquito flitting by his ear. Even if he did ignore it, it was still extremely annoying.

Or to be somewhat more precise, this was fundamentally an apparition that orbited and wandered his internal and external body. It wantonly swallowed the energy from his flesh, leaving him with no choice.

As for the stuttering? It took a lot effort to find out that he had been inflicted by an unusual virus…...

Luo Nan tried a few times to handle things with great difficulty. Instead his mind was in disorder, distracting thoughts lumped together, and his heart was gradually filled with impatience. He had no choice but to abort from the Fixed Space.

But the situation turned worse after he withdrew from the Fixed Space. The urging fretful state of his mind coupled with the influence of his prior hunger caused a sort of tingling numbness, pain, and even slight hallucinations to emerge. They transformed into a torrent of distracting thoughts that leapt forth from his mind. A flagrant counter-offensive was launched, wiping the landscape with power.

It can also be described as a mass of venomous flames that boiled within his internal organs.

Luo Nan’s lips and teeth squirmed slightly, but what came out wasn’t the 20 word chant. It was simple irrational cursing. His current state was very bleak…...Though he clearly knew his situation was bleak, he was unable to control it. Things have obviously turned even bleaker.

An interference coming from the external world came following the instability of his mind. It was already quite difficult to block the external world. Now it turns out there were people resolutely coming over.

“Hello!” Someone laughed in his ear, “Kid. Have you been scared dazed? Or are you deaf?”

Luo Nan slightly raised his head. He was unable to open his eyelids wide. He had exhausted too much energy resulting in his current. He was not that perceptive to the external world. He had no idea about anything that had happened recently, nor was he interested in knowing.

However, this person did not let him off: “You’re very very young. What are you playing at being so high and aloof.”

Luo Nan finally raised his eyelids and observed this person. As it turns out, this person was precisely the only person he recognized in this room:

Lian Yu.

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