-Wednesday Night, 2nd Of the 1st Month, Year 910-
AOD Chapter 4: I’m Finally Here
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"Ugh!" My eyes snap open and I jump up, gritting my teeth trying to endure the stinging pain spreading throughout my body.
‘Where... am I?’ I slowly take a look at my surroundings looking for something I can recognize, ‘I’m at an Inn?’
It looks the same as most of the Inn rooms that I’ve gotten used to in the past couple of days, two beds, a dresser, and a lamp.
‘He’s back to normal,’ The Old Man is sitting on the other bed in the room. He’s back to how he was when we first met. A normal Old Man with a skinny body and a hunchback.
“You’re finally awake,” He greets me with a smile.
“Mm,” Although I’m curious about how he turned into that strong guy, there are other things I want to ask about first, “How long was I out for?”
“You’ve been asleep for a few hours now,” He answers while stroking his chin.
“What happened to the bandits?” Remembering our fight, I clench my fist angry at them for attacking us for no reason.
“Why is it that the first thing you do when you wake up is ask questions?” He sighs and shakes his head, “Your injuries from the fight aren’t even healed yet, you should calm down and focus on resting so you can get better first before asking so many questions.”
“But-” He cuts me off before I could talk back, “But nothing! Your health is more important than anything else!”
Looking at his worried expression, I couldn’t say anything back so I nod to tell him that I understand.
“Good, now come sit on the edge of the bed, I need to change your bandages,” He stands up and grabs his bag from the side of the bed.
Hearing his words, I look down at my body for the first time. My shirt was gone, and my wounds were wrapped up in light brown bandages. Watching the Old Man search through his bag, a warm feeling spread through my body. I feel grateful to him for bringing me to an Inn and treating my wounds. After thinking for a moment I tell him, “Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it Kid,” He tells me without looking up from his bag, “This is it.”
The Old Man takes out a bottle of red liquid and some bandages.
“What’s that liquid?” I tilt my head and ask since it looks familiar.
“Hmm, it’s a type of potion,” The Old Man explains after sitting it down on the dresser, “It’s a recovery potion.”
“Potion?” Dad’s used potions on me a few times in the past, but he never really explained to me what it was.
“A potion is a liquid made with a variety of ingredients to fulfill a specific thing, there are multiple types of potions. This potion speeds up your body's recovery process, helping your wounds heal faster.” I nod understanding that it would help me get better faster.
He tells me to sit still before taking off the bandages covering my side revealing a bloody cut. He cleans the blood off with a wet rag and pours some of the red liquid onto the wound. A cool feeling spreads through my body when the liquid enters my wound. After a few seconds, he wraps the wound back up with new bandages.
“Turn around.”
I follow his orders and turn around, letting him unwrap the wound on my back. I couldn’t really see it but it hurt more than the one on my side. He cleans it and pours the liquid onto my wound before wrapping it back up just like he did to my side. Feeling the coolness spread through my body, I felt comfortable.
“Go on and cultivate until you fall asleep, I’ll answer your questions in the Morning,” The Old Man tells me after putting the stuff away.
“Promise?”
“Rest assured Kid, I have no reason to lie to you,” He nods his head, confirming with me.
I nod my head, and cross my legs on the bed and begin cultivating, ‘The Earth is holy, the Earth is the root of all life, the Earth gives me strength and in return, I give myself to the Earth…’
After a couple of minutes, I feel like I hit a wall. I try to keep cultivating, but it feels like I’m swimming through muddy water. I can’t move my Qi forward at all.
‘I need to break the wall,’ Thinking that I gather all the Qi I can in the center of my stomach, ‘One strike, I need to breakthrough in one strike.’
I shape the Qi like a sword and start cultivating again. I put all my focus into the sword, and guided it through my meridians and hit the wall again.
Crack!
Slowly cracks start to form on the wall.
Crack! Crack! Burst!
Finally, I break through the wall, and a large amount of Qi enters my body. With the wall gone, I’m able to circulate my Qi normally again. After a few hours, I open my eyes and smile.
‘I did it! I broke through to the 4th layer!’ I clench my fist feeling more confident than before, ‘I should get some rest so we can leave early tomorrow morning and get back on the road to make up for the lost time.’
●●●
-Thursday Morning, 3rd Of the 1st Month, Year 910-
When I opened my eyes the Old Man was already up looking out the window. We greeted each other as usual and he changed my bandages again before getting ready to go. After I was done getting dressed, we went downstairs to eat breakfast in the Inn’s dining room, before getting on the carriage and continuing our trip.
I stop cultivating after a couple hours, and ask him, “What happened to the bandits from yesterday?”
He doesn’t reply for a moment before telling me, “I’m not certain, but I left them all there so they most likely died.”
“I see,” I don’t feel any sympathy for the Bandits who tried to kill and rob us. Part of me would be happy if they really did die. But I know that I shouldn’t be thinking like that, so I circulate some Qi throughout my body clearing those thoughts from my mind.
“Is something the matter?” He must have felt my Qi move because he turns his head back for a moment to check on me.
“No, it’s nothing. I was just feeling a little weird so I decided to circulate my Qi a little to calm myself down,” I tell him, not wanting him to worry.
“That’s a good habit you made for yourself Kid,” He praises me before turning back to the road.
“It’s nothing like that,” I shake my head, “Can I ask another question?”
“What is it?”
“That change you made yesterday, what was it? You suddenly turned into a really strong guy, maybe even stronger than my Dad,” I couldn’t forget the image of him yesterday and how strong he was knocking all those bandits out.
“It’s due to an Item, what you saw yesterday in a way could be said to be my true self, but I can only transform into that me for a certain amount of time,” He explains.
“An item?”
“It’s known as the Necklace of Restraint,” He takes one hand from the reins and points at the plain-looking Silver Necklace hanging around his neck, “It’s a High-Grade Mystic Armament that restrains my Ether preventing me from cultivating and using Ether.”
“Can’t you take it off?” Otherwise, how did he change yesterday?
“I can’t,” he shakes his head and explains, “When it judges that my life is in danger it deactivates for a bit allowing me to use my Ether temporarily.”
“You’ve been mentioning Ether a lot, but what is it? Is it different from Qi?” My parents never talked about it before so I was curious.
“You’ve never heard of it? Well I think it’s better that you learn about it in school, but I’ll tell you this, it is not the same as Qi, the two energies are in completely different leagues.”
‘A different league…’ I drifted off after that, ever since I had that dream of the dragon I’ve had a vague awareness of the concept of leagues. I know that by cultivating I’m increasing my league but I don’t understand how or why, or what league is in general.
●●●
We continued our trip to Synthasia without any other interruptions. Over the days I grew closer to the Old Man and we talked a lot. Whenever I had a question he normally had an answer. Sometimes he would ask about me and my parents but he never asked about where I lived or my eyepatch so I was happy to tell him about me.
Eventually, we reached our destination. Synthasia, The City Of Knowledge and Opportunity.
●●●
-Sunday Morning, 6th Of the 1st Month, Year 910-
Up ahead I see a large gray stone wall way bigger than the wooden fence surrounding Cara Village.
“Ryner, behind that wall is Synthasia City.” Hearing his words, I gasp. I knew that it was bigger than Cara Village but this goes way past my imagination.
“Overwhelming isn’t it?” I could only nod my head looking at the tall city wall, “You’ll get used to it soon after all this will be your new home for the next eight years once you pass the Entrance exam.”
I circulate my Qi shaking off my surprise, “I haven’t even registered yet, I don’t think that we should look that far ahead yet Gramps.”
“If that’s what you want then I’ll stop talking about it, but I don’t believe that you’ll fail,” Gramps shakes his head and laughs.
“I’ll do my best!” I smile at Gramps not wanting to disappoint him or my parents.
Author's Note: Pyris
As promised here's the first release of the week! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Read it on our site: https://deceitfixation.wixsite.com/mysite
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