“The Taliff is more commonly used as medicine rather than food, the adult as an aggressive aphrodisiac. The young, the opposite, is a sexual desire suppressant, most commonly found in use where servants are around people of high status or in tribal settings to control population and marriage. Each has varying, dramatic, and dangerous side effects if left be for long periods.”

- Birds and Beasts from Every Corner, By Teliain Rekkensen

The grotesque stench struck Hao, making his head reel.

Could there be anything worse than this? I may puke again.

He backed away from the source of the smell. Seeing the impurities that were expelled from his body starting to smoke. Wondering if he should be worried that was came out from his body.

The smell only got worse as it was carried around by the night's wind.

Hao made his way back into the cavern, choking for the scentless air.

Hopefully it can’t reach back here. Oh water!

There was a second reason he was making his way back, a curiosity about why he felt the World Energy was weaker since he came up from the tunnel.

Exactly as he expected, with each step further down the World Energy felt stronger. He was not sure if stronger was the right word. He knew little of world energy, but it was different, better in some way.

Was there something special about this place?

He took a deep breath breathing in the world. A few more breaths through his nose. It was too good.

He knew his body would experience multiple cleansings throughout reclamation, but the way he felt, sensing world energy again.

It was like he was just remembering who he was. A few things had not left him. I will not be an ant for the First elder to step on. It’s not my role.

The tunnel slowly grew brighter than before, his body acclimating to the changes that it was slowly preparing for.

The change started suddenly. By the time he reached the source stone stuck in the wall at the end of the tunnel, the light was no longer needed to see.

The world energy as well was incomparably thick and warm.

He placed his hand on the stone wall, a place he slowly whittled down, digging with his hands in one direction. The boy pressed against the mountain.

Hao felt a thrum. The stone was not alive, but the world flowed through it into his palm.

“Is this the same cold lifeless stone I know?” Hao’s hands stretched out pressing on either side of the tunnel. Walking up and down feeling the motion of the stone around him.

The feeling from the stone was the same to the top, flowing, not like water, but stone, something Hao struggled to comprehend.

“How does stone feel like this, plain brown rocks, but it's right in front of me. Yet…” Hao wasn’t sure he liked it. Reality was something he thought he knew, its cruelty and its kindness.

Only now he saw his naivety, the world was changing rapidly around him in many cases literally.

He ran up and down the tunnel at a hurried pace a few times. Brighter than before, he could make out details of the stone, his eyes taking in more light.

The more he went up and down, the more obvious the difference in the World energy.

It was as thin as the outside before he reached the top, There really must be something he here.

Hao reached the bottom again, pushing against the stone. I have to find it, whatever it is.

Hao knew his feelings for it, a desire, but also sentimental. Selfish gratitude; a dangerous feeling, but impossible to ignore. Even more, if the object he wanted was altering the very World around him.

He knew it wasn’t up to chance that he had his breakthrough down here, instead of another place like the pond. More so after hearing how impossible it was. The rumor; “No Servant has left the servants quarters in after three months.

Yet down here he had done in, taking double that time. I have to go further to find out.

He let out a yawn while looking at the source stone in the wall. A sudden wave of exhaustion hit him, he was not a flying Immortal yet. Nestled in the tunnel he fell into a deep sleep. Not knowing this was his last sleep as a mortal.

The following morning he did as he would usually do, leaving the tunnel. The black lump was no longer at the entrance, only a burnt spot on the ground with a sickly smell lingering in the air.

The sun was trying to take the whole sky, even in the early morning, summer was close.

At the Mining Hall, he handed over five spirit stones to the young man at the desk. Ya no longer had the station. Despite Ya’s absence, the noise in the hall had multiplied. The number of people in the mining area continued to grow with the desperation of the Elders.

Hao received his sect points, they were marked down; a much slower process now. He had a few extra points saved. The idea of his stomach not bothering him was odd, but at the moment, he could not feel the insatiable urge.

There was nothing else to buy either. Nothing like that medicine anyway. The sale of food pills did pause for a while before starting again. Along with them being handed out for free once a month.

“Do you know where Hall Leader Ya is, Senior Brother?” Hao asked the man at the desk.

The blue robe looked up with a stamp in his hand, “The Mining Hall Leader? He had urgent business off the mountain. He should return soon.” He said, barely lifting his head.

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“Can Senior Brother tell me about the outer disciple trials?” Hao asked, his eyes going around the room. The fewer people to hear, the better. He would prefer he was not an entity of notice.

The man dropped the stamp, a clatter and roll pushing ink across the clean desk. It was a surprise. He and his fellow disciples had been working in the servant’s halls for months. It was the first time he got such a question.

“Ahem, there are a small series of tests. First, they will check if you’ve reached Reclamation Realm. Then you can pick one of the two trials.” He said, talking fast. When his eyes landed on Hao, he stopped for a moment. He was not expecting a dusty, dirt-covered boy with stained robes. The only boon was his robes were not tattered.

The man put on an awkward smile. “Perhaps it’s better if you wait for the Hall leader to return. Or you can go ask the Main Servant’s Hall Leader for information…” the man said, looking down. He thought his eagerness to speak with a possible new junior brother was wasted.

“Can Senior not do it here?” Hao asked. Impatience was eating at him. He was not sure how much longer he would be left alone. Summer was around the corner, the perfect time for him to go missing and the source stone to be taken.

The man let out a sign, “If you want, trying to take, just put your hand out flat on the front of your token, look to see if the ink glows. Then you will have the right to challenge either trial.” The man said. Looking at the next person in line behind Hao.

Hao did not mind the disregard, he preferred it. I hope you forget I was ever here. An image of the Elders in the sky appeared in his mind.

Hao left, not buying the food, the first time he had done so on purpose in a long time.

He would wait until the person at the front desk changed to another before he asked for more information. Hopefully, Senior Ya will be back before then. Another reason for Hao to act with urgency.

Mining for spirit stones seemed almost too easy now, he could hear the thud clearer. It was almost like he could feel them, no need to listen at all. The pick felt light and he was faster, stronger.

It took only a tap to break the stone. What was now a light tap was all his strength and weight before.

The blissful feeling of strength flooded him as he broke more of the world around him.

The only way to improve it further would be to join the Outer Sect as a disciple. Or so it said in the “Water Breaking Fist” book.

The book itself was a little hard to read now. It was nearly destroyed when it was soaked in berry juice with his bag and hemp clothing from the Island. He kept them anyway, all three ruined things reminding him of home, his arrival, and the reason he knocked away so much stone in the tunnel where he kept them stored.

He took his new strength with him to the tunnel early, taking his pickaxe with him.

Swinging his pick against the stone in the tunnel for the first time in what seemed a lifetime.

Rushing to find what lay within.

The pickaxe brought little joy or intrigue, wanting to use the technique more he went to using his palm.

He could feel what the technique was doing now.

Each step was doing something different; pulling in the World Energy, forcing it to flow through his body, then pushing it to the edges of his flesh.

He could feel channels forming under his skin, trying to widen to accommodate the World energy.

If he did a palm technique, it would rush through his body to his hand.

But what seemed like a crashing wave before now seemed like wisps of air going in and out.

If I am improving, I can’t feel it.

Still, his strength was far greater, with just his palm he dug at a pace unknown to him.

Removing large chunks of stone as he broke away at the wall. Taking them to the mouth of the caver above.

Piling them with other pieces of stone that had fallen from the walls.

The World Energy is getting stronger. It feels like a cloud.

All beings get exhausted, and that still applied to Hao, he had to take a break after removing more than a month’s worth of wall.

His robe was clean all things considered. The skin underneath was building up a sweat, and the robes did not protect his hands or face from the layered dust.

He wiped off what he could before lying down in the tunnel near his berry stain bag.

A spirit stone stockpile is enough for tomorrow, plus a little extra.

Food pills, new from recent handouts and old that had been sitting there since his first weeks in the mine.

The source stone sitting there, shining near everything else.

His exhaustion slowly disappeared as he breathed, melting away within minutes.

This is too unbelievable, I feel like it would take a whole island to wrestle an egg from me. I could still keep it from cracking. I wonder how fast and far I can swim or run. Double the distance in half the time compared to yesterday?

The image of people flying damped his happiness, enkindling his ambition and enthusiasm.

Hao dug more, reaching a place untouched by the sky for unknown years.

His hand impacted, making a crack, light shining through like wisps of white light of the source stones.

Too bright, it rammed into Hao’s eyes. A sudden glow that made him want to shed a tear.

Even so, he endured looking through the crack,

A single stone on a pedestal of stone. Small with a perfect roundness, like the sun reflecting off the surface of the ocean.

But it was the opposite, a blue stone, shining surrounded by clouds of white light, silvery rays parting from its surface.

It was magnificent, the Sun’s rival.

Hao began to feel a strange sensation. Things crawled up his skin from out of his robe, his sweat began to lift off his skin, and the tears from his watering eyes lifted from his cheeks.

There was no discomfort other than the stinging from the light burning his eyes.

Still, he watched.

The liquids flowed in the air through the crack being pulled in, floating towards the stone sitting in the middle of the spherical cave.

A cave that the stone itself seemed to have dug around itself.

The liquid was not much as it floated, coalescing as it traveled.

Then poof, it disappeared, turning to dark blue smoke that continued towards the stone, and a tiny piece of granular of dark bronze sand fell to the ground where the liquid disappeared.

The stone groaned like soil, seeing rain for the first time in years.

Crackling as it took in the smoke, a pop finding moisture for the first time after generations of being dry.

What was that, what if it was bleeding? Hao stepped back, nearly falling to the ground.

It did not harm him or have the intention to, but the feeling of his moisture being lifted from him brought a cold chill.

Suddenly a wave of summer air came pushing out of the crack, brushing against Hao’s face.

The treasure giving something in return for the little moisture it received.

World energy increased in the air as the white mist shot out, a draft with the silent burst.

This much world energy might get outside. I was almost killed for a source stone.

If this thing was discovered, he was sure there would be a bloody war fought for many years to come.

No person would give up their chance to obtain it.

Hao stood in the wind’s way, trying to absorb what he could. It was not something he had full control of.

Most of it went by him. The stream of energy stopped after the small burst, the light of the treasure cooling, dimming.

A faint shimmer remained.

The World Energy dissolves into the world around before going far, seeping through solid stone. Sinking into the ground.

Hao checked up and down the tunnel, finding the world energy around was similar in all places, but it was smoother the closer he was to the stone.

He wasn’t sure about the passage of time. Perhaps he dug till the next day.

How was he supposed to tell, he was not tired, not in the way he expected to be looking at the tunnel. Neither did he care, not in the slightest.

Peering into the room with the stone once again.

Now bone dry, the stone was not pulling on him in any way. Something else was like his own hand was dragging him forward.

Rocks were pulled away enough that he could push his head into the hollow, inspecting round cavern, vertically ridged, all the way around.

He moved stones away as carefully as his salivations let him, his hands hammer.

The white wisps were gone, only the blue glow of the stone remained.

As bright and detailed as an eye, as deep as the ocean, he placed his hand on the stone.