From the way that the ocean of blood had behaved, always being pushed away from the light, Nero assumed that the light was physically pushing it away. When he saw the daisy bend, he felt that assumption reconfirmed. Yet when he pressed the light onto the daisy, and finally saw the silver light shine on its body, he was proven wrong.
The light did not crush the plant. Instead, much like with the plants earlier, smoke started to emerge from the plant. Only, it was not a thin, easily dismissable wisp, but a thick, black torrent.
Nero immediately jumped back, completely unwilling to be touched by the thick black smoke, though some inevitably touched him regardless. Nothing happened. The smoke was harmless, and disappeared into the wind as if it had never existed to begin with. The plant had also returned to its upright position, and at a glance looked perfectly normal.
But on a closer look, Nero noticed that the petals looked a shade lighter.
That was an odd thing to say, considering the petals were white to begin with, but they looked like they were being shone on by a silver light.
Nero was thoroughly intrigued, and guessed as to what had happened. When the light touched the plant, his aether consumption drastically increased, to the point where he was already slightly nauseous.
A rough estimate told him that he could, at most, maintain the Virtuous Moonlight touching the flower for a minute. After that, he would likely reach the point of aether consumption that made him too sick to even stand.
Yet his curiosity was far from sated. He needed to know what the pale moonlight was doing. Was it purifying the cursed energy from the plant? How was that any different from his cryoflame?
No, upon some consideration, his flames destroyed curses. This was supposed to be purification. Was there any difference between the two? He would have to find out.
Bracing himself, he once again flashed the light onto the plant, this time at an angle to avoid the smoke that seemed to always rise directly up.
Just as the torrent of black smoke flowed from the flower, as if bleeding from it, Nero felt his aether pouring out of his body in a painfully rapid deluge. He had never felt pain from aether flow before, but there was a first time for everything.
Yet whether it was the oncoming weakness, or the building pain in his body, neither could distract him from his goal. His eyes were trained onto the flower, observing beneath the veil of flowing black smoke, and his brain was analysing what was happening.
At first, Nero assumed that the flower was somehow being purified - that after he was done, it would go back from its cursed state to how it was prior to being cursed. But he quickly realised that for the fantasy that it was.
It only took twenty seconds, and when the smoke stopped Nero deactivated his ability and nearly fell to his knees from weakness. But he held on. More importantly, his eyes did not move from the white petals of the small daisy, now encased in silver light. Though he could not be sure, he felt instinctively that the flower had been sealed.
What did it mean that the cursed flower was sealed? He did not know. He was not foolish enough to touch it with his own hands, even if his new ability had sealed it. But this was good to know.
Now he needed to test the limits of the seal, how long it would last, and how easy it was to break. He also had to test if it could seal other items too.
Although, at a glance, it seemed like his flame was stronger than the moonlight, the way that the blood had avoided the light yet ate up his flame was a clear indication of the fact that the light was the bigger threat somehow. He just needed to understand the limits of his card.
His mind went to its description once more.
Ability: [The light of the virtuous Aeon graces the world with its brilliance, a flicker of purifying mercy.]
He tried to connect the light with the ability, and saw where it came from. He connected the retreating curse and the emerging black smoke to its purifying nature. That meant that the silver light sealing the flower was its mercy. Instead of completely devouring the curse, or completely purifying it, it was only sealed, and hence delivered a mercy.
Since he was analysing it, was the reason that the light was so pale due to the fact that it was just a flicker? Did that mean if he levelled up to Initiate, his card would evolve as well? If that were the case, he was very curious to see what it would become.
For now… Nero used a sensory card to find a few rodents nearby, and using aether manipulation, rushed up and caught them before they could escape.
He threw one to the one the cursed flowers, and saw how the petals dug into the rodent's skin, suddenly draining it of blood, leaving it as nothing more than a withered husk, before dropping it. Somehow, the petals remained pure and white through that horrific attack.
Then he threw another one at the daisy he had sealed. As if it were an ordinary flower, it was trapped beneath the rodent's weight, and then ripped from the ground as it tried to scurry away.
Even with its stem ripped up, and separated from its roots, dying, the seal around the flower petals did not break. Then he threw a pebble directly at the seal. The seal itself still did not break, but the petals did, as if they were the soft and fragile petals of the flower they had once been.
Even then, the individual petals remained sealed. It was only when he used an Eldrim card to throw an aetheric attack on the seal did it break reluctantly, letting loose a flash of silvery light.
Nero grinned, for whatever touched the silvery light gave off a thin wisp of black smoke - everything except himself.
For the next few hours, Nero alternated between recovering his aether, and testing out his card until he understood its limits.
On curses, it seemed to consistently have a sealing effect, which drained him considerably. On non-cursed things, the light only allowed a small amount of black smoke to escape, though he did encounter a blade of grass that revealed a significant amount of smoke. Nero suspected it would be cursed soon.
He did not have an opportunity to test it on a cursed beast, but he did test it out on some normal animals he found. They would, each and every one of them, run from the light once it was brought close, but as soon as the light touched them, they would go prone, as if they had lost all courage, and resigned themselves to death.
But, interestingly enough, besides that the light did nothing more. It did not seal regular animals, or harm them in any way. He was curious to see how a human would react to the light, or even larger, smarter animals, like dogs.
But there was no way to test that, unless he tested on his parents - something he wasn't willing to do. Ultimately, it was already late at night when his mother appeared in front of him again.
"There's a strong cursed beast heading in our direction. I have to take you back."
Without giving him room to respond, she lifted him effortlessly off the ground and sprinted back to the resthouse, taking only a few minutes.
"Stay with your dad," she said, slamming the door shut behind her as she went to face whatever beast was coming their way. Nero was worried, but not too worried.
"Go wash up, dinner's ready," Edward yelled from the other room, causing Nero to sigh and head towards the bathroom.
Edward, still seated in front of his documents, looked towards Nero as if he could see through the wall, a solemn expression on his face.
Nero, unaware of his father's odd reaction, walked into the bathroom and used the manual deep well hand pump. It tapped into an underwater reservoir, so any time someone in the resthouse needed water they could easily get it.
It took only a minute before water started flowing which he used to fill a bucket. Using a large cup, he scooped out water and poured it over his hands one by one before finally using the rest to wash his face.
He was about to return, bringing the water with him to boil, when his eye caught something and caused him to freeze. There, in front of him, was the bathroom mirror, and in it, his reflection.
Everything was normal, save his eyes. A streak of white had begun to cut through the blue of his eyes.