Chapter 4: A true expert

The moment the old man appeared before me I was shocked by the power emanating from his body. I could barely stand, and all the children had immediately fallen down. My eyes widened looking at this man, and I realised that the people I had encountered so far were mere ants in front of this man. He was a true expert.

I could see that he was a mage by his qi, and I projected him to be at around the 8th level of the mage realm. The old man looked at me and was surprised by me being able to stand. I concentrated and managed to protect myself from his qi.

I then spoke “Apologies for turning up uninvited, but we are here seeking for refuge.”

The old man raised an eyebrow and stopped emitting the suffocating qi. “What sort of idiot goes to the deep forest in order to seek for refuge, this is the most dangerous place for children to be. Honestly…” The old man was cut off by Trevor. When the children could stand, Trevor immediately ran over to the old man and gave him a big hug.

“Grandpa!” Trevor shouted gleefully

“Tr-Trevor…” The old man broke down “I, I thought you were dead.”

Eventually the situation calmed down and he led us to his house right in the centre of the deep forest. When we arrived we were all shocked by the sight. There was quite a large opening with no trees, causing the terrain to bask in sunlight. There was a cliff with a waterfall cascading into a large pool of water. Next to the large pool of water stood the house. Well, if you could even call it a house. It was massive, standing at an impressive four stories. The house had a massive courtyard, and it had a large farm with both animals and plants. The house was clearly built over the years, and was clearly built by an expert.

The old man, who turned out to be called Wesley Hill gave the children a big banquet and then showed them to some rooms they could stay in. After the old man lovingly sent little Trevor off to bed he called for me. It was clear I was different from the other children. I didn’t want to stay here very long anyway, so I just wanted some compensation and I would be on my way. Mr. Hill brought me to a cosy looking living room, where he sat me down in a chair and then sat across from me.

“What’s your name?” he asked

“Gregory Wickham” I said concisely

“Now Gregory, you seem to be quite smart. You must have noticed that I can see right through you. Tell me, how on earth did you reach this strength at the age of six?” He asked, releasing some of his qi to pressure me

I realised that this man would immediately recognise if I lied to him or tried to hide something from him. I also did not feel the need to hold any secrets, so I shared my story. From my happy life with my family to now. I withheld some information of course, like the fact that I had been reborn.

Mr. Hill looked at me for a while and then said “It’s clear that you didn’t help the children out of compassion, so tell me. What is it you want?”

I gave a light smile as I said “You seem to be a very experienced mage, so I was wondering if you had any magic techniques I could have?”

He wasn’t surprised. Mr. Hill could see that I was one that wanted power above all else. He looked me in the eyes and then said “I’ve got a good idea kid. How about you become my disciple? I would teach you everything I know.”

I tilted my head slightly as I looked at him, and then said “I refuse.”

His eyes twitched a bit as he continued “Why? I have many techniques that would make you very powerful. With your talent you could reach my level before you’re 16, with my guidance of course.”

“This is the reason I can’t accept your request.” I said “I believe that even without your help I will reach your level of strength before I am 13, which would mean that after I am 13 you would be useless to me.”

His eyes flashed with anger as he angrily spoke “Fine! Here.” He threw 3 magic books on the table “Now leave this place.”

I calmly looked at the magic books and was very happy with them. They appeared to be of a very high quality. They all had large titles printed on them saying Air Step Martial Movement Technique, True Qi Manipulation Martial Technique, and Dark Wave Martial Technique.

I excitedly picked them up and threw them in one of the bags I had looted off the soldiers and was on my way.

I quickly left the deep forest, in fear the Mr. Hill would come after me in his rage. I then found a cosy little cave by a small pond one the edge of the forest. I then started to read the True Qi Manipulation book. The book explained how you could learn to control your qi to near perfection. Examples of the things you could do with high control qi is that you could directly break down qi barriers just by releasing your qi. You could even kill people and knock them out by penetrating their soul with your qi. It was quite terrifying and I was excited to see how the deathly qi would affect the strength of the original technique.

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I read intently, trying to understand the profound meaning behind the words. I then started to very simply bend my qi, releasing it in different ways and just generally getting a feel for how it worked. However the very thing that I expected would make the technique stronger was holding me back. The deathly qi that I cultivated was tyrannically powerful, but this meant that it was very chaotic. I wanted to be able to fully control the deathly qi, but then it would be much less powerful. The deathly qi got its power from being so chaotic, and if it were organised and fully under control it would lose that profound power.

I had to make a decision. To become weaker now and learn how to control the deathly qi, or to stay strong, but experience problems later on when I wouldn’t be able to control my own qi. I really was a problem, but I figured that it would be better to drop in power now, and then rebuild the strength that I lost in other ways. One of the things I was afraid of was losing myself to power, I wanted to kill the gods, but still be sane and in control of myself.

Having made my decision I started to tame the deathly qi. Due to my intelligence I was able to understand the meaning in the book very quickly, but it would take several weeks or even months for me to gain full control over my qi.

I sat in a meditative state in the centre of the cave. I had already been sitting like this for a week. I realised I was able to fully replenish myself by sucking the life force out from my surroundings. Since the trees and plants came in large numbers it meant I had an almost unlimited energy source. Due to my quick advancement in qi control and cultivation I estimated that in three weeks I would advance to the fourth level of the battlemage realm, and that in four weeks I would have gained control over my deathly qi.

The time passed quickly, and four weeks later I opened my eyes. Looking at my body I could tell that my actual strength stayed around the same. This was due to me losing power through controlling my qi and gaining power by advancing in level. Even though strength was the same my new actual battle strength had risen quite a lot. Because of my qi control I could directly penetrate someone’s soul.

I struggled to stand; after all I had been in the same position for 5 weeks. I stretched and stepped out of the cave. I was shocked by what I saw. The forest within a 50 meter radius had completely withered. It looked horrible and I could see little dead animals that could not avoid my life force suction. I felt the ground and saw how it had pretty much turned into sand. Trees would not grow here for years.

I did not feel sad or guilty looking at this site, but I did not like it when things had to unnecessarily die. I did have a slight sense of justice after all. Due to this I made a conscious decision to only such the life force from evil people who had wronged me or other people. This would make them deserve death, which I would gladly give to them.

I thought how I had very much become like a vampire. I started to walk out of the forest. I wanted to test my new qi manipulation technique. It shouldn’t be that hard to find an evil person or beast to test the technique I thought as I ran through the lands. Something was strange however. How come there were no predators anywhere? In fact there were basically no beasts anywhere, predator or not.

‘This must be the work of a powerful human or beast.’ I thought. I investigated a bit more and found some massive footsteps, they looked like paw prints. I followed the footsteps to a large valley. In the middle of the valley I saw a massive tiger. It looked to be around 20 meters tall and almost 40 meters long. It was truly a massive and majestic beast. Its fur was white and it was striped black.

I inched closer, shocked by the beauty and size of the majestic creature. I kept inching closer until I was only a hundred meters away from the tiger, a distance it could probably cover within 3 seconds.

Suddenly the tiger’s heavy eyelids opened. Its beautiful blue eyes were revealed as it slowly turned its head. I suddenly felt fear come over me. Its eyes stared directly into mine for what felt like an eternity. It then started to stand up.