Chaper 5: Souls

Aion had been traveling with his grandfather for two weeks now and had learned little from their conversations, but had understood the most basic principals which were that humans live in crowded areas and shared territory with those outside of there family. 

Meaning that killing others was not permitted unless for good reason or to protect his own life. His grandfather had taught him this as a rule, so while he didn’t understand why humans lived this way he would do what he was told, his grandfather had also tried to teach Aion other things he called morals and ethics but they were lost on him. 

After a while Aion’s grandfather had given up on those thing saying somethings like ”Well your still just a kid” “ You'll come to understand reasons soon” “For now pay attention to the action rather than the reason.”

 He had also learned two other very important thing but not from his grandfather but on his own, one being that he could freely change between his human body and his body as a three eyed gray crow. 

When the change occurred it wasn’t a pretty sight as his body would contract and grow feathers when changing into a bird or expand over himself when changing into a human, Aion’s grandfather warned him never to do that in front of people and to never tell anyone that he wasn’t human. 

The other thing he learned on his own was that whenever he fell asleep he would end up in that space with the two sleeping knights, only to leave upon being woken up or willing himself out of the space and waking up. Aion figured that the space was his seeing as how he was the only person there that could do anything, he was also planing on attempting to wake up one of the knights to see what they might know. 

Between the two knights the choice was made instantly, Aion would wake up the knight who his grandfather had turned into a death knight. The reasoning was simple while he knew nothing about the man turned into a death knight, he did however know that the other knight had kidnapped his mother and tried to take her somewhere away from him and his family. So Aion decided that tonight he would wake up the death knight and see if he knew anything about this mysterious space. 

The space was the only thing that he had not told his grandfather about, not for any particular reason, but he felt that it wasn’t anything significant so there was no need to say anything. That night after supper Aion once again found himself inside of the mysterious space and although it seemed like an endless white void the distance he could move around in was actually rather small only about a thirty meter radius from the point he started from.

 After adjusting himself he once again looked at himself and the two knights this time noticing something he had learned from his grandfather during the day, Aion was told that in front of others he must always wear clothes but hear they were all naked. 

Thinking about it he knew that he would need clothes to properly speak with the knights, and while he thought that, the clothes he wanted appeared on him and similarly on the two sleeping knights. The clothes where a simple shirt and pants similar to what he was given by his grandfather to wear. 

After confirming that everything was ready to have a proper conversation with the knight, Aion walked up to the sleeping death night, the death knight had the appearance of a regular young man normally death knights would look like armored skeletons but this death knight instead looked normal taking the appearance of before he was turned into a death knight. 

Shaking the knight  awake Aion moved away once the knight began to stir and did something similar to what his grandfather had done and decided to wait until he was recognized. Before the knight fully woke up a dark liquid ball seemingly made of shadows lifted into the air and stayed hovering at the around forty meters above the center of the area in which he could move around in the white void, once the knight was fully aware of himself he first looked around the and then began to check himself then looked towards Aion who was standing only a meter and a half from the knight. 

Noticing that the knight was looking at him Aion decided to introduce himself but before he had the chance the knight spoke first. 

“Kid do you know where we are?” 

Aion shook his head “Aion.” 

The Knight on the other hand looked somewhat surprised. “Okay, Aion I’m David, do you know how to get out of here or how we got here?” 

“Un, David, wake up.” Aion answered because this was the way he would exit this space he figured that it would work for others as well. 

“Wake up? Does that mean I’m dreaming?”

 Aion didn’t know how to answer that because he wasn’t sure either and wanted to to show David everything he knew, as he was thinking this between the two images started to appear and it was as if he was watching what happened to him from a more distant location starting from the time Aion charged into the fight between the two knights to the present awakening of David at a very rapid pace taking only about five minutes. David simply sat there and watched with a pensive look before speaking. 

“Sorry kid I don’t know what to make of this, but ask that new grandpa of yours he might know. But to have been turned into a death knight *sigh.”

 Aion simply nodded his head asking his grandfather would indeed be a good way to solve the issue. But asking would have to wait as he still had to wait around seven hours before his grandfather would wake up, Aion then decided to ask about the other knight, but instead just pointed at the sleeping knight instead. David turned to look in the direction that Aion had pointed, only to see Alexander Cross a man he knew very well. 

“So he’s here too. Makes sense you crashed into both of us.”

 “Un.”

 “Then do you want to wake him up as well?” 

Aion shook his head, having absolutely no desire to wake the other knight up. “Then leave him there. From what I understand you will leave once you wake up right?”

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 “Un”

 “Kid we are gonna have to pass the time here somehow, I’m gonna need more than one word answers, is there anything you want?” 

Thinking about this Aion wasn’t sure there was only two things he really desired to return to his family and strength so he answered with that. “I want to be strong.” 

David laughed “Good, kid your too young to condense your core or work on your physical body but here I can teach you how to fight.”

 Hearing this Aion was excited he didn’t know why he was to young to condense a core or work on his physical body but he knew that battle took practice and that was the reason that his brother would join in fights to protect their territory. 

Seeing Aion excitedly nodding his head David chuckled, the only reason he wasn’t going crazy in this situation was because he actually had a fairly good idea of what had happened and knew that Aion’s grandfather would most likely do something about it either way when facing the necromancer David had already resigned himself to his death. 

By helping this child he would at least have something to do while waiting to be forced out of this space and die completely or stay in this child's mind until he died either way he had com to terms with his situation and accepted it as out of his control. 

“Okay then Aion, first I will teach you hand to hand combat and the basics of defense this way you will know how to react in a fight. From now on call me teacher” 

“Yes teacher.” 

After that David instructed Aion on the basic stances for defense in hand to hand combat, this training was the only thing they could do because no weapons were available, the training  was more about proficiency and skill then the building of strength as these didn’t seem to be bodies that tired or needed any sustenance.

 While Aion did not have  a better understanding for combat then others his age or any special qualities aside from greater intelligence and was still only three years old he did not progress much but his resolute attitude and determination were displayed fully as he was determined  to continue until he perfected all the techniques he was shown, they continued until Aion was woken up by his grandfather for breakfast. After a simple breakfast of dried meat, bread, and water Aion brought up the topic of the mysterious space he went to every time he fell asleep but explaining it took a considerably longer time than he thought as his grandfather repeatedly asked the same questions and after three hours of explaining everything his grandfather began to think before answering him. 

“That truly did take a while, you need to use more words, but from what I understand that area is your soul and the two knights should also be souls trapped inside yours. The reason you go there when you sleep is because your soul is stronger than most, listen the soul resides at the depth of our consciousness everything inside should be like a dream but don’t do anything extreme.” 

“Un.” 

“For now we can’t do anything, once you advance into the grand stage then we will be able to transfer the souls to another vessel hopefully without damaging yours. Keeping foreign souls inside of yours is not something you want.” 

“Okay grandpa.”

 “One last thing, inside your soul as long as the other two souls aren’t stronger than your you have absolute authority, having that knight train you in basic combat skills isn’t to bad, so ask him to continue.” 

“Un.”

 “For now lets teach you how to read then hopefully having you read tons of books will improve your speaking.”

 Following that Aion was taught how to read by his grandfather and while he had trouble on larger words most were not a problem because of the knowledge that had inserted itself into his head, he was learning at an astonishing pace and would soon learn enough to read books his grandfather considered “easy enough”. 

Though that was just in his prospective in reality the books Aion was being made to read were introductory books for beginner arrays and how to combine arrays into simple formations. The reason for this was rather simple Aion’s grandfather wasn’t planning on picking up children so he didn’t have any books intended for children, the only reason he even had beginner books introducing arrays and formations was because he liked to go back and look at the basics sometimes. 

Neither one of them had ever considered the idea of a three year old child reading these books as odd, Ban has lived for almost three thousand years as a person who reached the master stage no longer aged and it had been almost a hundred years sense he last had a grandson to take care of, Aion on the other hand did not know about the average intelligence of a human child so he never thought gaining this type of knowledge as odd. 

As the days went without a problem two months had passed and Aion’s daily life was set, in the morning he would be woken up by his grandfather to eat breakfast, after breakfast Aion would learn the basic rules of human society, after that he would read books on arrays and formations until it was time to go to sleep, while he was “asleep” Aion would be trained by David in hand to hand combat while ignoring the other sleeping knight. During this time Aion showed David what his grandfather had told him and he was told by both David and his grandfather to keep it a secret along with the fact that he was an elemental beast. 

David however was shocked by his life style and told him “play with some other kids your age” saying it was a good way to learn the importance of what his grandfather was trying to teach him. Not really understanding this Aion decided to try it when they reached the kingdom. With only two weeks left it wouldn’t be long before Aion saw how truly complicated human life was.