FM Chapter 4

Remember this is an original novel written by Addis of ExR. This is not a translation.

Chapter Four

Waves lapped against the shore, slowly caressing the sand with each passing breath. The sea beyond the shore was a dark blue, the three moons above shone their light down below, their light fracturing through the soft liquid.

On the grainy sand sat a boy, no more than eighteen as he stared at the scene before him. His piercing eyes were like two different colored lanterns in the night. As the water touched his feet, Kai sighed aloud.

He knew that he had passed out after seeing those three beast men and he felt as if it had been a super girly thing to do. However, after he had entered this dreamlike state, he realized he had not fainted due to shock, there was something going on with his body that had sent him here. It seemed the most plausible that whatever was happening in his body had made his mind shut down before it occurred. Why, he didn’t know. So, he just sat there, staring at the endless ocean and the three moons that lit up the world beneath them, thinking about everything, yet nothing at all.

Clan Lord Hidel watched as the four men and the unconscious boy moved through the bottom floor of his house. He instructed Aslin to put the boy on a small sedan that occupied the corner of the room. Once the boy had been settled, he turned to the three and gave a tooth grin, an undetectable hint of hostility within his eyes.

“You’ve only added four hours to your mission. Get it finished by tomorrow midday.” His growl reverberated around the room, causing the less powerful three to shudder in fear.

“Yes sir!” All three chorused before dashing from the room, cold sweat dripping down their backs.

Once the three left, Clan Lord Hidel turned toward Old man Jaelen with a calm expression on his face. Before they even talked, Hidel knew that there had to be something odd going on with this boy. Reaching out with his senses, Hidel tried to look into the boy’s soul. However, his perception was blocked before he could even determine anything.

“What’s this?” Hidel murmured with an astonished look on his face.

“It seems he blocked you as well.” Jaelen sighed, his bright eyes never leaving the boy. He watched as the clan lord stepped forward and touched the boy with a wisp of bright red light. The red light was a form of power that those with an Element could manifest. It was a concentrated version of the Element and took on a mystical property that could damage or heal a person’s soul. It was most commonly referred to as Elemental Soul Force.

The two higher echelon of the village watched in trepidation as the clan lords soul force neared the boy. Jaelen had called back his own element so nothing could restrict the red light. Once that blood red light touched the boys skin, they both sucked in a breath.

Upon touching the boys skin, Clan Lord Hidel’s Elemental Soul Force had dissipated. Hidel had even felt an unknown power tug on his own soul. This mysterious young boy had somehow taken away part of Hidel’s power. Like a black hole, his body had eaten what had touched him.

“Amazing,” Hidel felt his body shiver in excitement. He had never heard of anyone being able to take away someone else’s Element. Beside him, Jaelen sent out a wisp of his own green soul force, but the same exact thing occurred.

With astonishment flashing across their faces, the two of them felt suddenly a lot older.

“We can not let anyone else know of this.” Jaelen warned the clan lord.

“That would be wise, but I hope this boy will wake up. I want to interrogate him.”

“I wish to speak with him as well, but even I cannot determine when his mind will recover.”

Hidel scratched his chin absentmindedly and a thought hit him. “I’ll move him to the room on the left upstairs and we will keep an eye on him. You are to stay by his side until he wakes, Jaelen.”
“Yes Clan Lord.”

Decisions made, the two moved the boy up the stairs and to a spacious room on the second floor. This room was not ordinary, all across the walls were diagrams and images from ancient times. These were called arrays.

Arrays were systematic and complex drawings that had the ability to focus the natural Elements within the world. In everyday life, one had the ability to sense the Elements in the air. If one were to merge the natural Element with the one that existed inside their core, their own Element would become stronger. This was called cultivation. The higher ones Elemental power, the higher their cultivation would be.

Cultivational ranks were determined as such: Essence Gathering, Condensation, Vortex, Core, Body Essence, Divine Lord, Holy Lord, Worldly Lord, Celestial King, Empyrean, and True God. Each level had three tiers, low level, middle level and high level. The difference between each level was usually countless hours of hard work. Once one reached the Vortex stage, it could take years, even centuries before the next level could be reached.

Clan Lord Hidel and Old Man Jaelen were both within the Middle Level Vortex stage and they were both nearing two hundred years old. When they were both young, they had met an expert at the Body Essence stage, however, that great expert had died from grave injuries. Since then, the two had never met anyone stronger than themselves, this did not mean higher experts didn’t exist though.

They lay the young boy in the room filled with complex arrays and sighed. If there were a way to wake this boy up immediately, they would have done it. The arrays in the room filled the room with Elements making it a place best suited for cultivating. Clan Lord Hidrl hoped that these arrays would help the boy awaken by stimulating the Element within him.

If the two old men could see the natural Elements in the room, they would have been even more astonished. As soon as the boy had entered, every single speck of colored light had froze as if stopped in time. Then, as if awakened and excited, the thousands and thousands of colored lights rushed towards the unconscious boy merging into his body. Such a level of Essence Gathering was unprecedented. If anyone knew of this, the whole world would be shocked.

As the boys body absorbed every Element in the room, Old Man Jaelen dragged a chair to the window and Clan Lord Hidel nodded before leaving. Soon an entire day passed without the boy moving. Worried the boy would die without food and water, Hidel and Jaelen began to feed the unconscious boy.

With the two working around the clock, both in their regular duties and keeping the young boy alive, week after week passed. On the third month since the boy was brought to the array filled room, his fingers suddenly twitched.

Old man Jaelen, who had been taking a cat nap, heard the sound and jumped out of his chair in excitement. He ran to the side of the bed, expectant to finally talk with this mysterious boy he had taken care of for so long.

The boys even breathing soon became labored and a sigh escaped him, his body shuddering once before going still once more. Jaelen stared at the boy, unable to move. Coming back to himself he ran to find Hidel.

This was strange, so very, very strange.

In his consciousness, Kai was still sitting by the lapping water and under the three moons. However, this time there were millions upon millions of specks floating around him. The first speck that Kai had seen had been bright red in color, it had interested him, but he didn’t know what it was. A green speck had joined shortly after the first one. Intrigued, Kai touched the colored lights that were floating around him.

The lights shuddered before weaving around him. Immersed in these colored lights, Kai didn’t notice all around him every color in the world had started to appear. Soon the world was filled with a glow as bright as sunlight. The lights clustered around Kai, making it impossible for him to move.

Irritated by the lights, all Kai wanted to do was get rid of the annoying colors. This was when he noticed something particular. As soon as two of the same colored lights came in contact with each other, they merged together and became slightly larger. If all the lights merged with their respective colors, wouldn’t he be able to move again?

Excited by this thought, Kai struggled to move his hands as he forcefully shoved two green colored lights together. When they merged successfully, Kai let out a sigh and giggled. Determined to combine every colored light, a mysterious twinkle filled Kai’s two different colored eyes.

What he did not know was the conversation occurring in the waking world.

“He’s reached the low level Condensing stage? How is this possible?” Clan Lord Hidel gaped in astonishment at the unconscious boy. Within three months, this boy had gone from a low leveled Essence Gathering stage to the next stage. This was an impossible speed. Hidel had only reached that level after years of hard conscious work and finally reached that level when he was twelve. Yet this boy had done it, unconscious, in a matter of months.

“I still can’t wake him.” Jaelen muttered, running a hand through his white hair.

Neither of them knew what to do with the boy, but they could see with their own eyes that he was growing stronger even without their help. What mysteries would this boy bring once he awoke? They couldn’t even fathom the truth behind the matter.

In the outside world, another three months steadily passed, making it six months since Kai had entered this new world. In his conscious, Kai was still combining the brightly colored lights. The number had dwindled down to half of it’s original amount. This made it easier for Kai to move around, but now, in the sky were six large lights that looked like moons themselves.

One was a reddish orange, reminiscent of a fire kindling within a stove. A second one was like a wisp of smoke, fading in and out as if it was the wind itself. The third was the color of the sea, it played within the waves like a giggling child at the ocean. Buried in the sand was the fourth one the color of a forest, it seemed to want to root itself as deeply as possible. Situated beside each other, the last two weaved together, interlocking but still never merging. It was like a large tin and yang ball, one stark white, the other black as night.

If these six colored moons grew any larger, they would take up the entire space around Kai. He still continued to combine the lights, hoping that only the six would be left with no other specks in sight.

In the real world, Clan Lord Hidel and old man Jaelen had stopped being surprised by this mysterious young man. Within the six months they had taken care of him, he had gone from the low leveled Essence Gathering stage to the high leveled Condensation stage. This would normally take even a top expert with thousand of resources at least ten years to do. Hidel himself had only reached that stage after blood sweat and tears when he was over twenty-five. No other person on the planet could boast such extreme cultivation speed as the unconscious boy.

On the night of what would be the seventh month since they had brought the boy to Vahna village, a groan escaped his lips. This was not unusual for the unconscious boy to make noises but this time his eyelashes fluttered and two brightly colored eyes became like lanterns within the darkness as they opened.