Thorne collapsed against the nearest tree. The adrenaline was gone, the fight was over, and only pain remained. He quickly tore off part of his robe and tied the cloth around his injured shoulder. The battle, while being short, had taken a lot from Thorne’s already fatigued body. His eyelids drooped, and his muscles relaxed, preparing for sleep right there on the forest floor.
‘No!’ Thorne rapidly blinked his eyes and staggered to a stand. His tired, wounded body protested heavily, and pain shot through every centimeter of his being. ‘I have to ignore it.’ Gritting his teeth, Thorne picked his fallen foe up and placed its corpse in his spatial storage. ‘Hopefully, this thing is edible.’
He had already eaten bits of the leopard beast from earlier, which seemed to cause him no harm. If this beast was also edible, his food supply would be in a phenomenal position.
Thorne began to walk away from the scene of the battle. ‘I need to get as far from here as possible.’ Thorne thought, shuffling as fast as he could, ‘Other beasts definitely heard the noises from the battle.’ Step after step, Thorne continued his arduous journey to anywhere at all, as long as it was somewhat safe.
‘Wait a minute.’ Thorne looked at his shoulder, his mind clearing, no longer afflicted by the constant pain and torment of his wound. He softly untied his makeshift bandage to examine his injury. ‘How…how is this possible.’ His eyes widened in wonder. ‘My shoulder is…healing itself.’ It was true the once deep-red wound was healing itself!
Thorne closed his eyes and attempted to locate the mystical energy which resided inside his body. Sure enough, he felt it! ‘My energy, it’s moving itself to my shoulder!’ Thorne marveled at the process; the scattered amber energy around his body had formed a loose collective, all traveling to his injury and healing it. ‘I’m no scientist, but it looks like the energy is just speeding up my body’s recovery rate.’ Thorne smiled widely, finally coming across some good fortune. ‘This is incredible!’
‘Wait!’ Thorne’s grin widened. ‘It isn’t just my shoulder, it’s everything!’ Thorne shook his head in elated wonder. Most of the energy traveled to heal the devastating wound, but the rest stayed behind to lessen the fatigue of his body; he felt like he could walk for days! Thorne smiled wryly, remembering what the instructor said about training the spectrums, ‘they weren’t wrong; extreme training methods definitely yield results.’
With his body rejuvenated, Thorne decided to take a risk. ‘I’ll continue on.’ Thorne thought with a dark glint in his eyes, ‘This is training after all. It doesn’t help me if I hide like a rat.’
Cautiously stepping through the dark forest, Thorne was met by nothing. Sometimes, he would hear distant battles of other beasts. Some roared or screeched; about an hour after Thorne decided to continue his journey, he heard dozens of massive trees collapsing and was even assaulted by the dust the destruction had produced. Upon hearing that, Thorne ran as quickly and as far away from the source of the trees’ collapse. Anything that fell these behemoth-sized trees could decimate Thorne.
‘It seems that this risk wasn’t worth it.’ Thorne sighed in disappointment. He had been enthusiastic after discovering his healing property, but that excitement was soon killed by dullness of the journey.
Despite this discouragement, Thorne continued on. He kept trekking through the dark forest, only able to see through the faint glow of his spectrum crystal. After a while, something changed. ‘What is that?’ Thorne stopped in his tracks, cocking his ears. ‘Did I hear something?’ He scrunched his face in concentration but couldn’t capture the supposed sound.
‘Wait, there it is.’ Thorne examined himself. His face lit up, but he was soon muddied in confusion, ‘what is that? It’s definitely not a battle, right?’
The noise that had enraptured Thorne sounded like very light, distant rain. Thorne continued onward, hoping to all things that it was something worthwhile.
As he continued, the noise grew louder and louder. Soon it cascaded through Thorne’s entire surroundings, a cascading orchestra of pleasant sound.
Thorne’s excitement grew in tandem with the noise. His expression of fatigue, which had plagued him just hours ago, was now replaced with lively excitement.
After tip-toeing through the dangerous terrain of the shrouded forest for hours, he had finally reached his goal. Thorne’s mouth lay agape in unfiltered wonder.
“This… this is beautiful…just beautiful,” Thorne whispered, his eyes captured by the mystical sight before him.
The dawn light shone on a wonderous body of water. It seemed to continue for eons and was a transparent turquoise color. But what had caught Thorne’s sight was the source of the previous noise. A colossal waterfall stood at the end of the lake. The water glinted in the early morning sun as it tumbled into the lake, the noise cascading and echoing beautifully throughout the forest. This place was a genuine aqueous wonderland.
Thorne took a tentative step towards the shimmering transparent water. He sighed lightly, ‘I still need to be careful here; there’s likely to be dangerous beasts in this water.’
A dry smile plastered his face, ‘it would have been fun to swim, but I suppose living is more important.’ He shook his head and walked to the water’s edge, cupping his hands in the clear liquid and cautiously putting it to his parched lips.
‘Wonderful.’ Thorne smiled as a dreamy feeling washed through him. The water was the peak of refreshment. It was cool and smooth and went down his throat without trouble. Upon tasting the chilly water, Thorne began to lap it up with minimal restraint.
After a short period of drinking, Thorne gathered himself. His lack of water hadn’t been too troublesome for him, but that was simply due to the vast amounts of other troubles he had faced; it was hard too think of water while being chewed up by a beast. The battles, treks, and general fear of death Thorne had to endure had overtaken his mind, not allowing something like thirst to bother him. But he had been so very thirsty, and now he was finally refreshed.
‘How can I store the water though?’ Thorne pondered while scratching his neck, irritated. ‘Tsk, of all my problems, I didn’t think storing water would be one of them.’
Thorne paced back and forth at the water’s edge. The dawn light soon shifted to the shine of the early morning, and the water reflected beautifully. Thorne’s downcast expression did not brighten, though; he was stumped.
After a while of thinking, Thorne sat down by the water. ‘I need food.’ He thought, frustrated, ‘I guess if I can’t think of a method, I’ll have to stay close to the lake.’
That was not a desirable solution. Thorne knew that dangerous beasts likely came here often for water. More than that, aquatic beasts were likely lurking beneath the surface.
Thorne shook his head, lost, ‘This is a tough situation.’ He sighed while taking a piece of meat from his spatial storage.
He held the stringy meat up to his face before suddenly pausing.
‘How can I be so stupid!’ Thorne cursed himself.
Thorne rushed over to the water and placed the meat back in his spatial storage. He also withdrew one of his spare robes and cut it up into many small, circular pieces.
‘Damn, please work.’ Praying to himself, Thorne took his pieces of cloth and sunk one of them into the lake.
He quickly withdrew it from the lake and noticed that the water remained in the cloth, though it was quickly being absorbed into the fabric.
‘Damn it, I have to be quick.’ Thorne’s brows furrowed in concentration, and he quickly tied the holy cloth ball closed. Then, as fast as he could, he placed it into his spatial storage.
Crossing his fingers, Thorne inspected his spatial storage.
“Yes!” he muttered under his breath. ‘I guess the spatial storage also freezes time.'
Sure enough, the water was secure in the makeshift container. With time froze, the water was no longer dissipating into the cloth and was safe.
Thorne smiled. ‘There we go. Food, check. Water, check. This is actually good. I should probably find another tree soon though.’ Thorne planned, ‘Then I can finally have some peace and try to train my energy a little bit.’
As Thorne traveled, he decided to continue up the lake and journeyed further into the heart of the forest. He soon found a large tree with an extensive, platform-like branch.
‘This should be good for some train before nighttime.’
He climbed up the tree. He felt more robust now, and even while climbing, he could feel his red and amber energy working in tandem to assist him.
Sitting cross-legged on the branch, Thorne closed his eyes and delved into his inner body.
The energy was calm and was moving at a snail’s pace. Thorne noticed that the amber energy moved faster to areas of fatigue or injury.
‘It probably moved extremely fast earlier when it healed my shoulder.’ Thorne assessed.
‘I just need to learn how to control it.’ Thorne observed the energy, which was already a huge step. Before the Great Wilderness, he couldn’t even feel his own energy.
“So how do I do this?" Attempting to sense his energy better, Thorne withdrew one of his swords and carefully cut a shallow line across the palm of his hand. As he cut, he noticed about thirty percent of his red energy moving extremely fast; Thorne almost didn’t detect it. The destruction of energy moved to assist the cut despite it being aimed at its owner.
Nonetheless, Thorne continued; he was extremely curious.
‘Damn!’ Thorne grimaced. ‘I barely cut myself.’ The said cut felt horrible. Just as the blade reached his hand, the red energy moved up his arm and strengthened it. By proxy, the strengthening of his own body enhanced the damage of the attack.
‘That is wonderful.’ Smiling, Thorne looked at his cut, which was oozing blood despite it being very shallow. ‘If I can control my internal energy movement…’ Thorne trailed off. ‘I can’t get ahead of myself; I just need to find a way to control the rest of the energy. Thirty percent is too small.’
Before he could continue analyzing the red energy, the amber energy took action. Again, no more than thirty percent traveled to the source of the cut, and after a couple of minutes, the cut was healed. The process was strange to Thorne’s eyes. It looked like the amber energy protected the cut rather than just healing it. Internally, the energy formed an amber wall around the wound. This allowed the healing process to accelerate. Other streams of energy also carried the cells, which healed the cut, further helping the innate process.
‘This is also incredible.’ Thorne whistled lowly, ‘If I’m attacked, I should be able to use my energy to heal myself on the spot!'
As he thought of the limitless potential of his cultivation path, Thorne remembered one of the first things Graald had talked to him about: The rationale behind his enrolment. ‘He bought and technically owned me but only wanted me as a student. Was it because of this? Was it because amber and red are a perfect combination for a warrior?’
‘Oh, whatever.’ Thorne shook his head and delved back into his training.
For the next few hours, Thorne repeated the same self-harming training. He would cut and observe. Cut, observe.
By the time the sun began to set, Thorne’s hand was marked by a thin, perfectly straight scar. It was red and full of scabs and dried blood. But it had been worth it.
“Come on…just move damn it!’
Thorne’s face was scrunched and utterly red due to his unending focus. He was attempting to force his energy to move according to his whims.
The process was strange. It was as if he was partaking in a highly complicated breathing technique. Precision was key. Thorne felt his energy and internally tugged.
“YES!” Thorne shouted loudly. He had finally done it. At least sixty percent of his body’s red energy coursed up his arm. It flowed so fast, as if the floodgates had finally been released.
Thorne’s eyes glazed in euphoria. A sense of pure strength and domination flooded him.
“I need to destroy!” He seethed, his manic grin shining in the glare of the setting sun.
Thorne quickly retried one of his swords, and in his frenzied stupor, he swung! With sixty percent of his body’s red energy filling his arm, the attack was devastating.
BANG!
The sword cut into the meter-thick wood, cutting deep into its core and wobbling the entire tree.
“Whoa…” Thorne muttered. His foot slipped on the wobbly surface of the tree branch, and he fell!
Quickly turning himself in the air, Thorne grasped for anything. His sword and free hand groped furiously at the air, to no avail.
The branch was at least fifty feet in the air, and the drop was quick and deadly.
Miraculously, Thorne was able to avoid hitting any of the other branches, and for better or worse, he fell straight to the forest floor.
BOOM!
