Heaven.
His whole body felt alive as he drank, and yet there were groans of suffering and the smell of death everywhere around him.
‘What is this?’ He looked around. Carnage.
Jerome would’ve retched if he could. He took deep breaths to steady his mind, then he looked at himself.
Jerome’s mind tumbled. He was drinking from the neck of a woman as she twitched incessantly. Her cervical vertebrae, crushed. This was an out of body experience.
“Stop!” He screamed, but no sound came out of his mouth. He tried grabbing himself, but his hands went right through his body.
“Cease your carnage,” a voice reached him from afar and Jerome felt an instinctual fear of death come upon him.
He looked up and saw a golden light in the distance drawing near. Jerome fled, leaving behind the destruction he had wrought everywhere in the city in seconds. But the light reached him in no time.
“Your days of wanton destruction are over, child,” the voice said.
Jerome tried to speed up, but the light touched him, paralyzing him. He turned to look in the face of the one he dreads the most. ‘How is this possible?’ The face he saw was identical to his own.
“Farewell, child.” A sword of light comes down.
~~~
Jerome woke up sweating and panting.
Impossible! How the hell is that possible? He thought, taking in deep breaths to calm himself to no avail.
What the hell is going on? Is this world even real? Am I real?
He touched himself all over. This is absurd. There must be some reason behind these nightmares.
He tried thinking about the dream but for some reason, that terror came over him again and his mind nearly collapsed in on itself.
Jerome held on to a branch of the tree as he hyperventilated; his heart nearly exploding in his chest. It took him a long while even with the mind-calming stone to finally calm down.
~~~
The Sunfire Wolf came out at first light to go drink in a stream in its territory. It had enough food to eat for months so it wasn't hunting for prey. The moment it came out of its cave, it sensed danger and immediately tried to move back into the cave.
An arrow as long as a spear and as thick as a man’s wrist pierced through its right foreleg and stuck deep into the ground, pinning it in place. The wolf howled and tried to remove the arrow with its fangs, exposing its neck in the process. Another arrow as big as the first one came at it.
It quickly moved its huge body to the side but the arrowhead still took a chunk of fur, muscle, and blood from it, bursting an artery in the process.
The wolf was enraged. It quickly spewed fire out of its mouth to cover the entrance to the cave and burnt off the arrow pinning it down.
Its wounds are healing too quickly, Jerome thought. He had to finish it off or else he’d become the prey. He fired off another arrow that went through the wolf’s left eye just as it freed itself.
The arrow stuck so deep into its head that the wolf howled and staggered about trying to get it out. Another arrow pierced through its lungs, into its heart, and came out the other side pinning it to the ground again.
Jerome wanted to fire off another arrow just to be on the safe side, but the bowstring snapped. He’d pulled the string to the extremes of its tensile strength every single time, which put great pressure on it. He got down from the tree, rushing towards the cave. You better be dead, he hoped in his heart.
The fire at the entrance had died down a lot. I was lucky enough to be able to shoot through the fire, Jerome smiled. Sacred artists have it good.
A normal human wouldn’t be able to learn to shoot arrows accurately in just a few days. As a martial artist though, that was a piece of cake. He went into the cave and saw the dying Sunfire Wolf on its last breath, spasming and clenching its muscles as its vitality faded away until it died.
“Urgh,” he grunted, my brain feels like it’s about to explode.
Jerome got to work cleaning away the blood and skinning the wolf.
He set up traps around the entrance to the cave and roasted some wolf meat to eat. He stored the rest in his storage bag which can preserve perishable goods for many days before they start getting spoilt.
He sat down to meditate after cleaning up. His mind was a chaotic mess. He brought out the calming-stone and immediately his state of mind began to improve.
Much better. His anger and agitation disappeared, and he entered into a meditative state.
~~~
Every Spirit Realm expert in the towers around the mountains was on the edge of their seats since Jerome first beat up Hedon. This time around they watched him do the unthinkable, kill a Sunfire Wolf.
“That boy’s a beast, Lord Rihal,” someone said next to Rihal. “I believe he’ll do great if he got a good head on his shoulders.”
“Hmm,” Rihal hummed in response. He could hear the Spirit Realm experts in the room whispering one to another.
“If you’ve got something to say, Tekkel Alvric…say it,” he announced.
The whispers died down and every other expert turned to a handsomely dressed sacred artist sitting at the back of the room with a scowl on his face.
Tekkel Alvric clenched his jaw as he looked away. He’d been scowling at Rihal for a while now, the intent in his gaze apparent for all to see.
“No comment,” he said.
“Thought so,” Rihal responded, concentrating on the screen in front of him.
The wolf’s body alone would fetch a hefty sum in the marketplace. Alchemists would want its core and Artifact Refiners would fight to get its bones and hide.
No one knew if there were any treasures in the Sunfire Wolf’s cave. No one had ever gone near its cave. So, they could only wait for Jerome to seek shelter at any of the towers around the mountains.
Pilgrims’ Keep had no end time. The participants could stay in the mountains for as long as they wanted. So, some of them had left which reduced the number of Spirit Realm experts left in the Keeps. Rihal wondered what Tekkel Alvric was still doing here though since his charge was taken away on the very first day Pilgrims’ Keep began.
The outcome of this Pilgrims’ Keep was not one he expected. Rihal was the most elated among all the experts gathered. When Jerome was planning to take on the Sunfire Wolf, he wanted to rush in there and drag him away from the mountains. He was on edge throughout the whole ordeal and only calmed down when he confirmed the death of the Sunfire Wolf.
Kilian would be pleasantly surprised at the turn of events, he chuckled as he thought to himself. This kid was going to shake the world, and everyone here knows it. What they don't know is he'd be doing terrible things to humanity, Rihal's mood soured as the thought occurred to him.
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He sighed, what a twist in fate.
~~~
Jerome meditated for 21 days straight. The longest he had ever gone. When he opened his eyes, there was a shine in them that wasn’t there before.
His core had advanced by leaps and bounds. It was denser and had started to take the shape of a sphere. Although it was still a cyclone, it was spinning faster, and its glow was a lot more pronounced.
He felt better after the meditation. His mind was calmer, and his body was filled with energy. He took his time to look outside the cave as he wondered why no magic beast had come to claim this territory after the death of the Sunfire Wolf, but he couldn't think of an answer.
The makeshift traps he set up were still in place, so he went back into the cave to take a look at the lair of a magic beast that was equally as powerful as or maybe even more powerful than a Spirit Realm expert.
The cave was filled with burnt carcasses. Piled up on one side of the cave walls. This was what the Sunfire wolf lived on. On the other side was a red glowing chunk of rock.
This rock was as tall as Jerome. It was spherical and so wide that it’ll take at least three people of Jerome’s height hugging the rock to complete a full circumference around it.
Warm, he thought. It was giving off soothing energy. Sunfire stone! Or at least it contains one.
“Ahahah!” Jerome laughed, elated. The Sunfire stone would be at the very center of this rock.
“Now, how do I get to move you out of here without drawing attention to myself?” He didn’t bother trying to absorb it. Blanks couldn’t absorb attributed essence, which was a bummer.
Can it fit inside my storage bag? The storage bag was choked full of arrows right now.
He quickly emptied his storage bag and experimented to see if the tiny pouch could fit in something as big as the rock in front of him. This feels stupid, he thought, embarrassed. Common sense told him that the mouth of the pouch was too tiny to take in something as big as this rock. But he tried anyway.
“You never know what could happen,” he muttered to himself and placed the open pouch on the rock.
Right then the mouth of the pouch grew wider until the whole pouch was like a flat piece of brown hide plastered on the rock. It grew wider and wider still until it covered the whole rock and then it shrunk back to its normal size.
Jerom’s jaw dropped. The scene in front of him was like something straight out of a Harry Potter movie. He quickly picked up the pouch to test its weight and laughed happily, caressing it as he put all his other stuff into the storage bag.
It’s as light as a feather, he thought with a smile. There were fifteen arrows left by the time the pouch was full. Jerome tied them up and carried them on his back since they couldn’t fit into his quiver.
“Would be a waste to leave precious weapons behind,” he muttered.
Just as he was about to leave, a glint of metal caught his eye. He looked over at the pile of burnt carcasses, walked over, and dug through.
What he saw made him curious and sympathetic. A dead boy, burnt to the bone. On his forearms was a set of identical gauntlets that looked to still be in pristine condition. Jerome sighed. The kid had probably come here to participate in Pilgrims’ Keep, but lost his life to the Sunfire wolf.
“Sorry about this,” he muttered before breaking off the skeletal arms to examine the gauntlets for a way to remove them. But nothing he did separated the gauntlets from the arms. He was about to give up when he mistakenly cut his finger with a sharp-edged bone.
Drops of blood fell on the right gauntlet as he raised his finger to eye level. The gauntlet melted away from the skeletal arm and wrapped around his right forearm like living liquid metal, underneath his own gauntlet.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise after which he chuckled and repeated the process with the left arm gauntlet.
One of the books in Kilian’s library discussed this phenomenon, he remembered.
It was called ‘bonding’. Basically, you use a few drops of blood to bond with an artifact. How many drops depended on the artifact. The gauntlets felt like they were alive. They moved with his arms. With a thought, they could take any form he wanted, but they would always remain connected to him. They couldn’t function independently from him.
“Shweet,” he said with a smile.
He extended both like a whip, lashing around the cave. The whips tore out great gashes from the cave walls. This made Jerome pleasantly surprised. The metal they were made from must be really high-grade, Jerome thought then looked at the dead corpse deciding to bury him properly. He went ahead to dig a hole inside the den to lay the dead boy to rest.
Jerome decided to study the gauntlets well before leaving the cave. He had put the dead boy to rest. He had a lot of food and water, so he didn't need to go out. He sat down crossed-legged and started studying the gauntlets.
Time passed by quickly. Thirty days later, Jerome exited the cave. He had gained a lot from Pilgrims’ Keep and now it was time to leave. Sniffing the air as he came out of the cave, he sensed he was the only human in at least a mile around.
He took in great gulps of air, just to be sure. Interesting, he thought. Everyone else had left Pilgrims’ Keep.
The Sunfire Wolf’s meat he’d been eating throughout these thirty days was a great source of strength. His body was sturdier than ever, and his senses had received a boost.
“It should be documented that eating a magic beast, especially one in a more advanced Realm will do a sacred artist good,” he said as he flexed his shoulders.
He walked towards the tower closest to him as the sun climbed up in the sky. He was in no hurry, so it was like taking a stroll.
He thought back to how he killed the Sunfire Wolf and couldn’t help but shake his head. He reached into his storage bag and held the mind-calming stone for assurance.
The mountains were a beautiful sight to behold if you weren’t struggling for survival every day. Everywhere he looked was green and beautiful. It never snowed in Farryn. The inhabitants of the city usually tell their kids tales about snow. Even in the slums. Jerome couldn’t help but think how beautiful the mountains in the distance would look if they were snowcapped.
He soon reached the tower and was welcomed with rousing applause from the guards as they patted him on the shoulder to show that they acknowledged him. Jerome smiled at the guards and bowed lightly to them.
“Had fun, didn’t you?” Rihal said as he walked up to him smiling.
Jerome smiled at him and responded, “At least say ‘good job’.”
“Yeah, that,” Rihal said and all the guards burst out laughing.
~~~
“You’re the most famous Blank in Farryn right now, you know?” Rihal said as they made their way back to the Royal Estate.
“Hmm? What’d you mean?” Jerome asked.
Rihal chuckled as he vaulted over a boulder, speeding through the forest.
“There are artifacts used to watch Blanks during Pilgrims’ Keep. Every Great family has one — tier two families as well.”
“Interesting naming system. We just say high-class, mid-class, and low-class in the slums…wait, are you saying everything that happened during Pilgrims’ Keep?” Jerome asked as he caught up with Rihal.
Rihal chuckled, “You’ve gained quite a few rivals I believe…and enemies.”
Jerome frowned and looked away.
“What happened back there?”
“I don’t know…I just…” Jerome sighed. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“I’m not complaining,” Rihal chuckled, “He needed to be taught a lesson. The Sunfire Wolf absorbs its fire from the Sunfire stone. By the time it finishes absorbing the stone, it would’ve become an existence equal to a Sage with extremely high intellect.”
They both vaulted over a deer. The oblivious creature looked up from its drink and scurried away.
“It would also gain the ability to speak. That kind of power would’ve become a threat to Vorthe. It was good you nipped it in the bud.”
“Rihal, the Sunfire stone…” Jerome started to say.
“Everything you obtained is yours to do with as you please. No one will take anything away from you,” Rihal said.
Jerome let out a breath of relief he didn’t know he was holding in. If the Vorthe family wanted to take away his Sunfire stone, there was nothing he could do about it.
“Did you find any other treasures in the cave?” Rihal asked.
“A pair of gauntlets like liquid metal,” Jerome responded, taking care to observe Rihal’s reaction.
The man’s brows rose. “That’s a good find,” he said, quickly reigning in his surprise. “Did you bond with it?”
“Yes,” Jerome said.
Rihal nodded and said nothing more.
“Do you know what it’s made of?” Jerome asked. He guessed his mentor was waiting for him to ask before telling him more about it. And he was also curious about it.
“An artifact refiner bought the metal at an auction in Giza, a city two hundred thousand miles east of Farryn,” Rihal started. “He succeeded in refining it into a pair of gauntlets after a hundred years and sold it at an auction in Farryn twenty years ago.”
“A hundred years!” Jerome exclaimed. That was quite shocking. Did it really take that much time to refine artifacts? He thought to himself.
"The metal is called Visha Stirh'aun in the old tongue,” Rihal continued, “It means living steel…or flowing steel. It’s a rare metal not because it’s rare to find but because it’s extremely difficult to mine. The flowing steel is capable of devouring the blood of any being in merely a few breaths. Those who mine it usually make sure not to touch it...or let it touch them,” Rihal emphasized.
Jerome shivered as he remembered his nightmare from a few days ago; the blood, the monster that he was, the golden light, the—
“Jerome?”
He woke up with a start.
“Let it...touch them?” Jerome asked, quickly recovering.
“It ain’t called living steel for nothing,” Rihal said.
They got to the edge of the Royal Estate where a smiling Kilian was waiting for them. Jerome bowed low as he came to stand in front of Kilian.
“You may rise,” said Kilian Vorthe, still smiling. “You’ve made the Royal family proud, Jerome. You can rest for a few days before commencing your training.”
“If your Lordship wouldn’t mind, I would like to visit my old home in the slums.”
“That can be arranged,” Kilian said. And Jerome bowed gratefully.
“Our Royal Alchemist and Artifact Refiner would like to meet with you,” Kilian said. A maid behind him came forward to lead Jerome away.
After he left, Rihal asked Kilian, “So, what's your assessment of him now?”
Kilian’s expression turned serious. “The Patriarch is coming home,” he said.