Flower of Soma

The **Flower of Soma** is a rare, sacred flower found within Paradise. It is described as being a beautiful red marigold-like flower with round, fanned-out petals which encapsulates a small crystal orb that shines like a firefly with a transparent light in its natural state, known as the Essence of Soma.

It first appears in Chapter 159.

## Essence of Soma

The Essence of Soma refers to the small crystal nested within the flower which can be consumed and absorbed to imbue one's mana with the attribute of lightning and the anti-evil energy of Soma, a power specifically created to combat and incinerate evil, such as the undead creatures of the Parasites. Simply put, the Essence of Soma is something akin to an inner core.

Consuming the essence effectively allows one to skip the need to find a suitable Mana Cultivation technique and then gather lightning energy with it to change the attribute of their mana, an opportunity rarely encountered by even Level 6 Earthlings. Additionally, as typical attribute change only gets as close as resisting evil, it is impossible to conventionally replicate the effects and power of the Essence of Soma. Due to these factors, alongside its rarity, the Flower of Soma is therefore an object of an inestimable value that made even Seo Yuhui find it difficult to put a price tag to.

## Consumption

To obtain the power of Soma, Essence of Soma nested within the flower first needs to be activated by the recipient's touch. This would cause the essence to respond and change the color of the light it gives off to match the external force that stimulated it. Historically, the Essence of Soma is known to become a deep yellow or blue, and sometimes red, however in the case of Seol Jihu, the crystal shone a dazzling gold, a color with no known record.

Following this, the recipient then bites off and ingests the essence where they will feel a sudden onset of drowsiness, lulling them to sleep. This process of slumber is in order to let the recipient's body prepare for the process of absorption as it decides whether to make the essence a part of itself or not order, as well as to let the essence take root somewhere within their body. This location is generally within the solar plexus or heart.

Upon the Essence of Soma taking root and the body finishing its preparation to accept the essence, the recipient will naturally awaken but would find it difficult to move, being assailed by a heavy sensation of fatigue and numbness throughout their entire body, that even the faint vibrations of their heartbeat would cause their entire body to spasm. There would also be a hard, round sensation wherever the essence has taken root. For Seol, absorbing the Essence of Soma took his body four days to adjust to, and unusually, suddenly moved to take root in his dantian halfway through his slumber instead.

The final step is simply letting the Essence of Soma, which would feel out of place, to truly fixate itself and become a part of the recipient's body. Specifically, it would feel as if the essence dug deeper into their body which would also then cause an painful and intense reverberation to torment their body before subsiding into a pleasant sensation that stimulates the muscles and veins. Their mana, which now carries the attribute of lightning and the power of Soma, would then theatrically erupt from their body with a brilliant golden light, successfully signalling that Essence of Soma has been completely absorbed and naturalized.

## Trivia

* Seol Jihu noted that the Essence of Soma did not taste anything special, comparing the taste to a piece of candy scented with flowers.
* Successfully absorbing the Essence of Soma was described as the final preparation for Seol to take the first step forward to becoming a legend.

## References

1. ↑ 'So' (燒) meaning to incinerate, and 'Ma' (魔) meaning evil. It refers to something that incinerates evil.
2. ↑ In Korean martial arts fantasy, an inner core is the result of Qi which has been condensed within a spiritual beast that has lived for several hundred or thousand years.
3. ↑ The dantian (Chinese: 丹田, Korean: 단전), loosely translated to 'elixir field', 'sea of qi' or 'energy center', refers to the location about three finger widths (and two finger widths beneath) below the navel. In various schools of thought, this is known as the Lower Dantian which is responsible for refining Jing (Essence) into Qi (Vitality).