Red woke up. This time, however, he wasn't panicked. His eyes were greeted by the familiar cold cave wall, faintly illuminated by the green light of the moonstone. Shifting around so he could sit up, the first thing Red noticed was that the pain in his chest had substantially lessened. It still hurt, but at least the boy didn't feel like he was going to die after every deep breath he took.

 

The rest of his muscles felt very sore, but Red was used to moving around with this sort of discomfort. As he finished examining his body, his thoughts went back to the dream he just had, or at least somewhat. Red did not want to think back to that memory and especially not to those spectral eyes, but even without much reflection, one thing was crystal clear to him. He had died again.

 

This was a clear theme in his dreams, and the boy honestly didn't know what to make of it. Since he had found himself in these caves 2 years ago, they would happen every few weeks, each one realistic and scary enough for Red to wake up in a cold sweat. Something had changed since he started to open his spiritual veins, though, and these dreams came to him at a far higher frequency.

 

Red wasn't sure what that meant, but for now, it didn't seem to have any effect on his body, and he honestly had no idea what to do about it either way. The best strategy he had found was to completely ignore these vivid images that flashed in his mind, since thinking too much about them had the bad habit of giving him a very sharp headache. Not a problem the boy would like to have right now.

 

Peeking his head out of his hiding place to make sure no ambushes were waiting for him, Red got up and patted himself down, removing the dust from his clothes and checking if all his possessions were still there. To his surprise, he found the iron knife still strapped to his waist. The boy had almost forgotten the weapon had remained with him after the training session was done. This was a powerful tool down here, and it was something Red would keep very well hidden.

 

After gathering himself up, the boy took a moonstone in his grasp to shine the way. As he took a step forward to exit into a tunnel, however, a strong cold breeze blew against his back, rustling his clothes and red hair. Red froze in place. Looking over his shoulder, he found much to his relief that nothing was waiting behind him, just an empty tunnel leading down a completely different direction, but the boy still couldn't shake off the uneasy feeling that had come over him.

 

He could have sworn that he almost heard something, a sound carried by the wind from deep within the cave, too soft to be distinguished. That put him on alert. Thinking better than to investigate strange noises in strange places, Red walked back onto the path leading to the other slaves.

 

Along the way, he passed by many people who had just woken up. From afar, Red even saw the figures of a few slaves from his previous hunting party, staring at him with none too friendly gazes as they prepared to go gather moonstones. Gruff was amongst them, but the kid escaped into the tunnels before the man could get any ideas into his head.

 

Soon enough, Red found himself in front of a familiar path, where a small hidden passage buried beneath a bunch of pebbles revealed itself to him.

 

...

 

"Bread again?"

 

"You guessed it."

 

Red could hear some kind of childish frustration in the dark blob's voice, but the thing still opened its large mouth and snatched the piece of food out of the air with its long tongue, chewing it with gusto. The boy had thought about bringing it some centipede meat but ended up eating it all by himself, after some consideration.

 

First of all, there was simply no way to store that kind of food down here. It had to be eaten soon after being cooked, or else it would go bad very quickly. Secondly, this was one of the first times Red had eaten so much meat, and every little bit he could consume would be beneficial to his training, as Viran had told him in the past. And finally, there was also the fact that Red simply didn't trust his dark companion yet. He didn't feel like he needed the extra training speed just yet, and who knew what would happen once the thing ate some flesh instead of bread.

 

As the dark being focused on the bread, Red got ready to do his training routine. This time around, the youth only kept at it for a few repetitions, lest his body collapses from exhaustion once again. Sitting down cross-legged, the boy looked up at the dark blob.

 

"Now!" Red said.

 

"One shecond." The blob spoke into his mind as if his mouth was full even if it was transmitting the information telepathically.

 

Red sighed but found no option other than waiting.

 

MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH

 

Loud, annoying chewing sounds echoed in the clearing. Red frowned.

 

"Chew with your mouth closed."

 

"Whash that?"

 

"Keep your mouth closed while you chew your food, no one wants to hear you eat."

 

"Oh, ok."

 

Despite what he said, the being was shortly back to its loud chewing noises and Red could only shake his head. A good half minute passed before the dark blob spoke again.

 

"Ok, here it is!"

 

It spewed out a purple mist that soon dispersed into the air. The boy felt his skin tingle as the concentration of spiritual energy in the clearing increased. Directing it towards his second vein, Red started the laborious task of forcing his energy against his next upper-arm acupoint in an attempt to open it.

 

The attempt lasted for a few minutes, but unlike last time the acupoint didn't give way and Red had to let the spiritual energy disperse into the air once again lest he incurs any serious injuries. This was the usual process for opening a single acupoint, it was a forceful but cumulative process, so if you strained your spiritual veins too much in a single attempt trying to push it further it was very likely for you to cripple yourself as the spiritual energy exploded inside your body.

 

Red knew that which was why he stopped as soon as an aching feeling radiated from his upper arms. An indication that you had done enough for the time being, as Viran claimed. The boy couldn't accurately judge it, but he felt that perhaps with two more sessions of practice with the dark blob, he would open another acupoint in his body.

 

After finishing his training, Red didn't stand up. Instead, his eyes wandered over to his strange companion and he examined the creature as if he was seeing it for the first time. An aberration, clearly not human, but also more intelligent than any monster or animal that the boy had ever seen. He didn't know anything about it. Suddenly, Viran's advice came to mind.

 

"...What are you doing here?" For the first time ever, Red asked the blob a question out of simple curiosity.

 

"Hmm, me?" The blob responded, genuinely surprised. Soon though, a joyful tone replaced it. "I thought you'd never ask! Well, I got trapped here when I was running away from some idiots who were pursuing me while I was injured... Oh yeah, did I tell you how I got injured? Basically, when I first entered this world a big bolt of lightning in the sky appeared out of nowhere and hit me, almost frying me alive, and then those three-eyed freaks started to chase me... I seriously almost died, those guys were no joke! One of them had a seriously disgusting blue face and another glowed with a golden light. I mean, what kind of monster glows with light? And then the other one-"

 

"Please." Red interrupted the blob as it started to go on another tangent. None of his words made much sense to the boy and if he let it talk its mouth off who knew how long he would be here. "Just get to the point, how did you end up here?"

 

"Oh, right..." The creature seemed disappointed, but it kept on talking. "Well, I coincidentally fled here while those guys were chasing me, and imagine my surprise when they refused to enter into the caves... Of course, imagine my surprise too when I discovered I couldn't leave this place either! Not to mention, my energy was constantly leaking from me! I spent so long looking for different exits, but every time I tried to leave this place pulled me back. I thought about going down too, but some scary folks lived there and there was no way I was beating them in my current state, so I could only find a cozy place down here and hibernate while trying to find ways to recover my energy!"

 

"Is that why you want food?" The boy followed up.

 

"Yes! Exactly! I can't absorb the energy from the air around me either, but the food is another story, I can convert it directly into spiritual energy, like the one you use in your body!" The blob seemed quite happy to be having this conversation, but its tone soon deflated again. "Of course, food down here is very rare! Not to mention that I can't move, so I can only wait for it to make its way into my mouth... Oh, all those times I spent without a single piece of food for who knows how long! You have no idea how much I have suffered!"

 

“Then you decided to make a deal with me..." The whole situation was becoming clearer to Red, even though many questions remained unanswered.

 

"Yes! It was my brilliant idea! I can't hunt for food, but someone else can do it for me." The voice filled with pride. "I was so dumb back then! If I had thought of this plan sooner then I wouldn't be in this condition! There was another human who found me in the past, but I was so hungry that I ate him whole! I forgot to even talk to him! Then I spent much longer without any food... So stupid!"

 

Red felt a shiver run down his spine. A few seconds of complete silence went by before he decided to get up and start to calmly make his way to the exit.

 

"Are you already going? There's so much more we can talk about!" The blob seemed to be quite eager to continue their conversation. At that, the boy stopped.

 

"Yes, there are some things I need to take care of." Red kept his voice as emotionless as ever.

 

"Ah, I see, goodbye then!"

 

He started walking again, making his way out of the clearing before the blob even had finished speaking. Afterward Red picked up his pace, crawling through the small tunnel back towards the exit into the main section of the caves. When he finally arrived back at the passage’s entrance, the boy collapsed to the floor, as if he had snapped out of a reverie. Cold sweat dampened his body, and he felt as if his heart was about to burst out of his chest.

 

Why did he make a deal with the being in the first place? Why had Red inherently trusted such a strange creature to keep its end of the bargain when he barely trusted Viran and he knew much more about the man? All these types of questions Red had never bothered asking himself before came to his mind in a flood, and the boy felt like he could collapse from the sheer mental effort right then and there. The interaction taxed more out of him than any training session from before.

 

Struggling to catch his breath, Red once more remembered Viran's advice. There were some things down here that you should just pretend you did not see.