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Jisung's POV
6 Days Until The Full Moon
The Infirmary House
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"Ah, welcome Jisung. So you've completed your first lessons well I presume?"
Xiaojun greeted me at the entrance of the infirmary house, already expecting me.
"I did~. So what's this lesson going to be hyung?"
"This particular one is going to be resistance training, and we're gonna test some other things with you"
"To see if I can use magic??"
"That's exactly right. You won't have to do anything but sit this time for both parts, so you can rest easy"
"Got you"
He guided me to one of the beds in the infirmary, and I sat down so we could get started.
"Nice to see you Jisung. Today, we'll be testing your resistance to six different things. Here we have some wolfsbane, a taser, some silver, a whistle, some mountain ash, and a type of moss called wolf lichen moss"
"Which one do you want to start with first?"
YangYang asked after Hendery presented what we were going to be working with.
"Hmm... Let's do the wolfsbane first and save the ash for last"
"Righto. I'll explain the effects of each one of these as we go along. Wolfsbane is an extremely toxic herb for werewolves, and different amounts of it have different effects. Simply placing the flower on our bodies will just weaken us or put us into a calmer and more relaxed state, and it's the same for if it's ingested. But the greater the amount in either situation, the more risk we're put into. A great exposure to wolfsbane can easily kill us, but we have potions that we can use for anything wolfsbane related"
"In this test, we're going to see what your resistance is like to wolfsbane. This way, we'll get a good idea of how you'll react to it, as well as how your Crimsonmane ancestors would've reacted"
They explained further, while Hendery put safety gloves on his hands.
They had a lei made out of wolfsbane flowers prepared for me, and he placed it around my neck. Just like yesterday, I started feeling lightheaded as soon as I got a whiff of it, and it was hard for me to stay balanced on the bed. To add on to it, because it made actually made contact with me, I felt weak all over my body. I kept getting weaker by the second, so much that I could barely even lift a finger.
"I see. So you react the same way that we do, but it seems to affect you twice as hard and twice as fast"
Xiaojun calculated, jotting down the results.
After he finished jotting it down, Hendery removed the lei from my neck and put it away. Almost immediately after he took it off, I started feeling better as if nothing happened.
"Interesting... You seem to be able to recover from its effects twice as fast as well. So that must mean if you ingested some of it, it would have a massive effect on you. But you should be able recover twice as fast that way too.."
Xiaojun continued to jot down results, amazed by what he was witnessing.
"Ok, now let's move on to the taser. I'll be using a lower range of voltage just to see how you can handle it. For werewolves, the voltage will prevent our transformations and halt our accelerated healing process, and higher voltages disable our superhuman strength and can even kill us. Our resistance to electricity should differ from the Crimsonmanes, so we'll be able to see what their resistance would've been like"
Hendery explained, making sure that the small taser he had was on.
I braced myself once he brought it up to my skin, and the moment the bolts made contact with me, I felt an agonizingly painful shock throughout my whole body. My teeth suddenly sharpened, and I felt a sudden rage overtake me as I grabbed Hendery's wrist and pushed it away from me. And out of these new instincts I felt, I bared my fangs and growled at him, unable to control that or my heavy breathing.
"Woah hold on. Calm down Jisung. Look. I turned it off ok? It's alright"
Hendery dropped the taser after making sure it was off, and I let go of him after I regained control of myself.
"I'm sorry hyung.. I don't know what that was.."
"Astonishing... Instead of preventing any sort of transformation, the voltage only seemed to trigger it. Additionally, the voltage caused his strength to increase, as well as his animosity. And because of the added stress, his eyes immediately started glowing from instinct alone. I just didn't expect one eye to be red and the other white... So...the Crimsonmanes have a terrible resistance towards electricity, but they definitely have ways to combat this weakness. This is truly amazing..."
Xiaojun's eyes shimmered with excitement as he jotted down more information.
"We can stop here if you want Jisung"
"I'm fine hyung, I promise. I want to keep going"
"I like your determination. We'll keep going, but I'll insist on stopping this if it becomes too much for you"
"...Fine"
I gave in to Hendery's conditions.
"Good. Now then, next up is silver. As werewolves, our main weakness is our vulnerability to silver or anything containing silver, and it is possible to kill us with it. Contact with silver will hurt us, no matter how we come in contact with it, and can kill us in larger quantities and exposures"
Hendery picked up a small bar of silver with his gloves on securely, and he held it up to me.
But when I touched the bar with just one of my fingers, nothing happened. I didn't feel any kind of pain at all! But once I got the scent of the bar, I immediately covered my nose as the same strong, painful scent I memorized yesterday returned to me.
"...This is so unprecedented! Coming into contact with silver has no effect on him at all! But when the scent of it hits him, it burns him on the inside! This means that the Crimsonmanes were immune to external contact with silver, but were weak against internal contact!"
Xiaojun was having even more of a blast as he jotted down even more notes.
"..Your clan was really something else"
YangYang mumbled, looking over Xiaojun's shoulder to peak at what he had written down.
"I'll say... So, let's move on to the whistle. This isn't an ordinary whistle. In actuality, it's a dog whistle. It's at a frequency that only members of the canine family can hear, including us. This test is to see how intense the frequency is for you"
Hendery counted down with his fingers from three to one, and then he finally blew into the whistle.
At first it was quiet, but then I heard a sudden ringing sound that progressively got louder the longer he blew into it.
"It's not too bad, but the frequency hurts my ears a bit"
"I see. Interesting..."
Xiaojun had calmed down now, and quietly wrote down more notes.
"Ok, we're almost done. Now let's move on to the moss. Letharia Vulpina, a species of lichen also known as "wolf lichen", is a neon-green moss that has been used for centuries to poison wolves by mixing it in with their food. But even though it's not fatal to werewolves, it does weaken us considerably for several days until it wears off. When it's still in moss form like this, however, it usually just has the same effects as wolfsbane if we stay in contact with it for too long"
Hendery explained, holding a sample in his hands for me to touch.
I touched it, feeling it's fuzzy exterior, but nothing happened. It did make me sneeze a few seconds later though. And I sneezed again after another few seconds.
"Hmm... It seems that you might be a tad bit allergic to it. It might make you sneeze more even if there's a lot of it around, so I'd advise keeping an eye out when you're in the woods. But other than that, it doesn't seem to have any effect on you"
Xiaojun smiled, jotting down more notes.
"We're not going to test it on me internally?"
"We've thought it over, and we've decided not to. There's only six days until the next full moon, and we don't want you to still be sick by then if it does turn out to have an effect on you internally"
YangYang explained.
Well, I'm at least glad that they're looking out for my safety.
"Now finally, we're at the final test with the mountain ash. But for this, we'll have to go outside"
Hendery informed me, and we all got up to venture outside.
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"Now, for a little lesson. Rowan wood, or the ashes that result from burning it known as mountain ash, are effective barriers against the supernatural, like us. People like mages can safely handle both and use them in order to protect themselves or to create traps for us. A mountain ash barrier will create a force-field of blue light, and if the wood is touched by a supernatural being, it will zap the supernatural as if they're being electrocuted. Now, let's see how the wood and ash work with you~"
Hendery smiled.
He placed a piece of Rowan wood on the ground, and when I crouched down and touched it, the same exact thing that happened with the taser occurred.
But this time, out of my sudden rage, I kicked it away and it went flying right through a nearby tree and left a hole in it.
"Well... We all know to keep you away from this type of wood now"
YangYang mumbled.
"Are you alright Jisung?"
Xiaojun asked, resting his notepad down to check on me.
"Yeah... I'm fine now.. Sorry about that..."
"Don't worry about it. I kind of suspected that would happen based on what I wrote down from the taser test"
He smiled, patting me on the back.
"We can continue now Hendery-hyung"
"Right.. I'll surround one of these flowers with the ashes, then we'll see how you do against the barrier"
Hendery used one of the available wild flowers around us for the final part of the test.
He carefully surrounded it with the ashes, making sure that it was an unbroken circle. After the circle was complete, a barrier of blue light rose up from the ashes!
"Ok, try touching the flower now"
I followed his order, and got down on my knees in front of the small plant.
I tried to poke it, but the barrier protected it from me. The barrier felt just like glass, and it was sturdy like a wall. This time, I pressed all of my fingers against the barrier to try and force my way through it. My hair began to raise the more I focused on breaking through the barrier, and eventually, something finally happened.
The tips of my fingers suddenly glowed a bit white and my hand actually started breaking through it little by little. After just a few seconds, I was finally able to grab the flower, and the barrier broke right after.
"How..was I able to do that?"
"That's a good question.. Maybe it has something to do with your ability to use magic. No other werewolves have ever been able to get passed a mountain ash barrier, let alone break it"
YangYang predicted, while Xiaojun excitedly wrote down his last few notes.
"I gotta show these results to the others~!"
Xiaojun wasted no time and eagerly ran off to show off our test results to everyone.
"So, what happens now?"
"Tomorrow's lessons will be on stamina and your other senses. For now, you can rest for the remainder of the day. You really did well with the tests today Jisung. I look forward to seeing what you do next"
Hendery smiled before he walked off as well.
"You wanna get something to eat with me Jisung? I know a good spot in town"
YangYang suddenly offered.
"Of course I do~. But, can we take Johnny-hyung and Taeyong-hyung with us..?"
"For protection? Of course we can. You can wait in the car while I go get them"
"Thank you hyung..~"
I did as he instructed and went to go wait in Taeyong's car.
With our new enemies arising, I really don't feel safe going out without protection now..