"me?"

I asked once again to a quiet crowd of beings whose origin I couldn't even begin to fathom

"yes," they responded all simultaneously.

The world around me seemed to freeze in its tracks, my mind spinning as if trying to figure out how the hell I could be so unlucky enough to meet up with these creatures.

"he is confused lady tong" silver chirped happily

damm right I was confused but that didn't stop me from questioning their motives for coming to me.

I looked up to the owl but before I could bombard her with the million questions I had running through my head she bombarded me with a question of her own.

"Why are you cultivating child of wrath?"

I might have highly protested to the title of 'child of wrath if I hadn't lost my thought process at the ridiculous question

"what do you mean?"

owl tilted her head at an unnatural angle and huffed indignantly, her large wings flapping as though she were shaking a leaf.

"do not pretend like you don't know what I am talking about, you know exactly what I mean! why do you cultivate?"

"I..."

I opened my mouth to answer then closed it feeling at a loss with no answer to the question

why did I cultivate?

I asked myself

I answered by shrugging one shoulder at an awkward angle and turning back down to the ground where my hands were clutching at the dirt.

I felt my heart race as I stared down at my hands wondering what could possibly make me want to cultivate when nothing really made sense to me anymore.

I thought about all the reasons I was cultivating and the only one answer to came to my mind to the question

[why was I cultivating]

"to survive," I said in a quiet tone barely above a whisper

My voice startled me as I realized how pathetic I sounded how weak how vulnerable I felt

" and do you know how you cultivate,

or rather what you cultivate?"

the owl decided it won't wait for my melancholy self-pity moment as it started circling overhead making it seem like an enormous owl and bombers me with more questions

"you know damn well I don't" I hissed shame and anger flooding me

"so, child of wrath you should stay quiet and listen more shouldn't you agree"

I nodded even though I wanted to argue but she was right though I had no idea about anything about anything

"in my experience the more you listen the more you will understand so child listen well all your questions will be answered soon"

" continue silver I don't want to waste any more time"

the owl cooed after a moment of silence and silver restarted his lecture

" Before I tell you where you come in I will begin to explain the cultivation method you are practising " silver cleared his throat and

spoke clearly and slowly enunciating every word he uttered making him seem much older than his actual years.

"the cultivation method is an ancient way of cultivating soul dragons"

I sat there staring at the ground dumbfounded as I tried processing this information in my brain.

Soul dragons?

What's wrong with them?

They all are barking mad, yes that's right what the hell does cultivation have to do with dragons

the confusion must have been apparent on my face as silver further explained further

"not real dragons mind you, but the conceptual figurative dragon, well when the world was a large wild place without any overlord race to guide them dragons were the very pinnacle of existence in the world

they were the ultimate predator, they preyed upon everything they saw and took advantage of the weakness of others

the most powerful being ever known or even imagined before the races had begun to harness the power of the world began to learn how to harness the energy and become aware of their own bodies and the power they held within

and the archalois people were prey you see they were a race that was hunted by all the other predators and when learned to harness the power they degreed to become dragons that would not hunt the weak but would protect them

they were the ones that created the path of cultivation and taught the next generations how to use the energy they stored and used in the form of magic spells or talismans the archalois people used it fight the other beasts that preyed on them and

because of who they were or who they used to be they began to go suppress every predator possible

this was not a natural thing you see we were supposed to be born in a world of equilibrium but archalois people disturbed that but that is a story for another time

where was yeah the goal of cultivation is to become strong in laymen's terms and the reason to become strong varies from person to person

some as you do so to survive others to rule or gain power or both

and in layman terms to get stronger and stronger and to keep yourself safe from those predators that seek to kill you and consume you or take you away from those who protect you to exploit your weaknesses or take advantage of your power to steal it or abuse it or do anything to get it themselves

these motivations are called self Dao and

as many people cultivated as many Dao came into existence

.

giving birth to the great river of dao through which modern cultivators gain insight to the next level

that do is the key to the cultivation

you are being taught....."

before silver could go any further Erebus gave a disdainful snort and interrupted the child' speech

"By fools who understand noting who have grown senile and

delusional in their old age they have created an army of false cultivators ready to fight

the world in order gain control, to rule the sect in their name"

Erebus turned and glared up at silver who stared down at him as the two continued bickering

"the fools teaching the child of wrath are ignorant idiots who ignore or rather choose not to see is that these venerable false cultivator mountains that they have created will crumble in the face of a single real collimator and you have allowed them to be live in this nonsensical faith that this is anything but a suicide mission!"

The owl let out an angry squawk of protest but Erebus ignored it

"and you think you can do better!" silver angrily shouted glaring at Erebus

"I may not be able to do better I would never let them. infect the child of wrath to their whims and delusional" Erebus said with an equal ferocity that matched silver

I looked on shocked at the comical scenes where a 3-foot tall child glaring and angrily arguing with a 6-foot tall man.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

before I could voice out the question about these foolish delusional old senile people

the lady Tong the owl let out an angry hoot and pressure suddenly engulfed me drinking me straight to my knees

the pressure was as if somebody had just placed a very heavy backpack on my shoulder arms and head as if to crush me.

my heart stopped for a moment as my breath was trapped under tons of pressure

until the pressure lifted

with each passing second, my breathing returned to normal as I sat gasping for air my hands shaking uncontrollably

when my breathing finally steadied I noticed that wasn't alone both silver and Erebus were on the ground panting from exertion and anger

the weight of the situation left me breathless but also confused.

the owl folded its wings and gave me a proud look and let out a hoot that seemed to be full of pride.

Erebus slowly got to his feet and bowed deeply toward the owl

"Forgiveness, mistress I lost my computer for a minute"

the owl choose to ignore the man's statement as it turned to me and smiled sweetly

I had no idea how she was doing the how an owl could smile

but one thing was sure it was creepy and scary

"Are you an alright child of wrath?"

she asked sounding almost motherly and concerned.

"yes"

" Good then silver continue from where you left"

silver hurriedly got up to his feet and sister if the imaginary dirt from his clean clothes

"yes, of course at once, apologies, where was I yes what you are now practising is called "Death Viscera art" it is a deviated unorthodox version of "Golden viscera art" do you know what you do in it"

silver asked excitedly but in a hushed voice that almost made him sound like a child eager to please his teacher or a curious student.

I shook my head no because

even though I was practising the technique

honestly, it seemed as if I didn't know either judging from the fact that silver asked me the question, again and again, so many times

Silver nodded as if he expected me not to know

"This technique was used by the Buddhist martial artists who called themself the golden monks, you see a martial artist is a group of practitioners who weren't born with spiritual roots but had a great bone density so what they did was convert their bones into spiritual bones by the virtue of medicine baths that we're made from spiritual herbs and what not

they basically pushed their body to the being of exhaustion and instead of normal nutrient food they ate spiritual food allowing their body to be transformed from mortal to well spiritual body not exactly immortal but still close

similarly, the monks used their wisdom root to feel and absorb the energy of the world to transform their soul into buddha

and the golden monks combined these two methods by not transforming their bones but their entire body

the method you use is very similar to the one golden monks use you have

when you more and build your body to the extreme you gain a higher sense of your surrounding and then you reforge your body by a baptism of spiritual energy like there is 1000 poison body where you emerge your broken body in a tub filled with thousand different body or the steel born body where you emerge your body in boiling steel water transforming your body into steel forged

the golden monks came up with this idea now it is the norm for the martial artists all around the world instead of trying to convert their bones into spiritual bones they now reforge their body........

" shut up " Erebus once shouted

all three of us turned toward the man in question

to his credit, Erebus did not back down nor flinch he merely sneered at Silver in defiance

the owl lady cawed angrily, its feathers ruffled

"Don't make my job difficult" silver meekly said

"I mean no disrespect lady won't but silver is going complete off-track even I can't keep up with his thoughts that all over the place"

the owl gave a loud angry hoot

Erebus turned to me

"Child would like to know the entire history and the origin of your technique or would like to know the basics and then we can aid you on your practice"

"I would like to know about the technique itself I have no interest in the history of it all"

Erebus gave me a bright happy smile before turning to the owl

"see that mistress now can I explain it to him"

the owl gave a small satisfied grunt and rooted

Erebus stood back up straight and gave the owl a slight bow

"now kid listen you are basically practising three exercises 'The five-element mountain soul sutra' ,'The death viscera art' and 'the golden orchid mantra'

the first one as the name suggests I cultivate and transform your soul as you have dusted off the dust from your soul allowing your soul to gain spirituality which in turn allows you to sense the spiritual energy of the world

and then you use the spiritual energy of the world to further clean your soul to transform onto a soul dragon as our friend silver has so nicely put it but

in your case you use the five elements fire, water, wood, metal and death to transform your soul into a mountain sport that is an archalois technique I have no idea how you came into possession of it nobody since the dawn of gods has been able to practise it beyond nascent soul stage because as soon as you reach basement soul your mortal body is no longer able to contain your soul and burts transforming you into a remanent ghost

and because of this drawback practitioners no longer practice this art anymore "

I gulped in fear at the news of the death skill

I couldn't say anything else

I felt like crying at the thought of the dangers it represented.

I was losing my will to live was anything in my life not out to kill me

this was all too much too soon I couldn't take it

Erebus noticed my distress and quickly jumped into action

he held up a hand to silence the owl and turned to look me in the eyes

"don't worry child of wrath I since we have found you we will care for you but first let me clarify your second technique 'The death Viscera art' one of the foolish men who had taught to this technique had the flawed version of this technique you see in this practise you reforge your body bu baptising it in Death qi and only death qi but your body is baptised in a mixture of corpse qi, death Qi, and yin qi which may sound similar but have very distinct features causing you to undergo a series of changes from a human to an undead spirit

and when you go through this process you will become stronger than before and more powerful and therefore more beautiful but the further you go the more dead you become

and that is a good thing in my book because only using death Qi is a double-edged sword because for one no one taught you the correct body forging cultivation and death qi is a corrosive deadly element that violently reacts with the life force of a person and does some irresolvable damage to one's spirit

this technique causes the practitioner's body to decay and rot

this technique is used by evil sects for their slave because it gives great strength in short term but causes the practitioners spirt to decay

I am surprised some taught you this as

death qi can corrupt the life force of the individual into a living zombie as they become unable to move or think on their own

that is why the technique is outlawed in many places but unfortunately, there are exceptions

your body may be reborn but your soul must remain dead

and if your spirit gets stuck in this realm you will die child of wrath"

silence followed Erebus words and after a minute of silence

I lost it

motherfucker

how was this any better news than the body exploding one

what the hell is wrong with them

what's wrong with him?

"What happened to him, is he ok? What are these people teaching me?"

I couldn't help ask

did old Bu know about these things was he purposefully teaching me things that were bound me to kill or convert me into a zombie

Erebus smiled sadly at my questions

" I don't know who this him is but not to worry I because of the death Qi was able to notice you and now you see we were able to save y........."

Erebus trailed off in mid-sentence as if he remembered something

then he blinked out of existence and the next thing I know my face was smashed in hands of the beautifully Erebus who was intensely examining me

"Why does your body still have death Qi, no this is not death Qi but something else........

he suddenly let go of me and jerked away like I was a disease

"Holy mother of Zeus," he said softly

"what are you talking about?" I asked him confused

"child of wrath I am talking about the Darkness in you"

I stared at him wide-eyed, say what now

"Darkness in me ?"

"yes"

I frowned I hated it when I did not get a straight answer what is this am I, Batman

[you have great darkness in you] type of shit

"Please speak plainly and clearly what darkness?"

Erebus shook his head

"I don't understand either I am confused as you, there is.......

before he could continue booming laughter erupted throughout the cathedral echoing from every corner of the cathedral

"You don't understand?!" a meaningful voice shouted

I snapped at the place where the sound came from

I froze as jolt lightning ran up my spine

it was coming from inside the bell not from around it from inside from the bell

and then the surface of the bell vibrated as two big bangs echoed as if some hit the ball from inside

"Let me talk you stupid bird" the voice boomed

I turned to Erebus whose face had turned pale white

"Please do not mind him child of wrath" The owl cooed Nd then banged at the bell with equal ferocity as the ground under me shook I turned around to silver

silver looked like he wanted to cry

but Erebus had recovered and now he didn't show any emotion whatsoever on his face

"what's happening?" I cried

both Erebus and silver ignored me

as the owl and whatever was inside it went into a banging on shouting scream match

I stared in shock as the two being hurled insult after insult at each other

"Shut you hoothoot bird let me speak I know what is going on with the boy"

this sentence finally quoted the owl as it intensely stared at the bell for a second the gave loud angry hoot

and the bell began to disappear bit by bit revealing the figure inside

I stood there in awe

"What are you doing Erebus? How could you let him see that?!" silver roared

Erebus gave him an annoyed look

but said nothing

as the bell disappeared revealing a Pollux

no not Pollux this man had red skin and red hair as his eyes were completed black without any white and six arms protruded from his as if they were wings each hand was blinded into a fist

the monster was staring at me with a radiant smile that showed all his fancy sharp teeth

I backed away in surprise as I realised who this was this was the monster Pollux from my dreams

Sterculius

but that didn't seem to be right the monster from my dreams didn't have red skin or a sharp pointy chin

this new creature was completely different looking and different coloured

"come out " the monster boomed in its deep meaning voice that sounded like thunder

I took a breath and stepped backwards cautiously

but before I could take two steps I felt a strong wind blow past my body

I felt nausea as blue smoke rose up from my body as I saw a figure rising out of me.

my whole body shuddered as I felt pain like needles pricking me all over

my eyes watered as I looked down at myself

to see myself covered in blue smoke

abruptly the pain went away as the blue smoke drifted away from me and began to form into a shape of a person

I gasped as I saw the Sam materialise in front of

as soon as he was formed he humbly bowed from his waist

"The remnant apostle has seen the herald,"

my world began to spin I realised I had been played once more