Elder Hua tossed the seeds she had held aloft back into the ceremonial bowl, and then she proclaimed, "Now, since we have visitors from afar, let us start the second ritual!"
All of the townspeople simultaneously turned and stared at the six travelers. They slowly began to step towards them, and as they advanced, they all pulled something out of their robes that glinted in the moonlight.
Jin Shu began reaching into his own robes to unholster his weapon, thinking that the things glinting in the light were blades. However, before he could pull his weapon out, Yin'er exclaimed happily, "Ooo! Shiny marbles! Yin'er wants one!" It seemed that Yin'er, who had the best night vision, could see that what the townspeople had pulled out of their robes were some type of marbles.
As the townspeople stepped closer, holding out the things in their hands toward the travelers, Jin Shu could finally make out what they were. What the townspeople held were small jade marbles. Some were completely smooth, while others had small carvings in them.
Elder Hua spoke up from the stage. "Travelers! Please choose a spiritual bead! These spiritual beads may grant you a small blessing, if you are fortunate enough to find the ones filled with the power of our gods!"
"Yay! Shiny marbles! Yin'er wants this one!" Yin'er flew around the townspeople excitedly, before stopping in front of the little girl to whom she had given candy earlier. The little girl was holding a yellowish-orange jade bead that looked as if it were cast from pure gold and shone the brightest under the moonlight.
"Can Yin'er take it now?" she asked the little girl.
The little girl shook her head in denial. "No, you have to wait until everyone has chosen a spiritual bead."
"Oh, okay!"
After Yin'er chose her spiritual bead, Star found one for himself as well. The one he chose was also held by another one of the children they had been playing with. The jade bead he picked was a dull brown with a crude black carving of a little horse in the center. The carving almost looked as if it were naturally formed on the jade.
Seeing the two kids pick their beads, the other four also chose to look around and find ones for themselves.
Sky was the next to find one. Hers was a light blue bead with cloudy white markings, held by an old woman. The old woman smiled kindly at Sky and petted her under the chin.
Galaxy was struggling to pick a jade bead. He had found two that he liked, which happened to be right next to each other. One was pure black, so black that it seemed to absorb all light around it. The other was also black, but when the moonlight hit it just right, it seemed to shine with billions of minuscule silver sparkles. In the end, Galaxy stomped the ground and snorted in annoyance before picking the jade bead that sparkled in the moonlight.
Su Bing had already picked hers by the time Galaxy finished deciding on his. Hers was purple and seemed to have a strange cloudy black figure carved into it that would appear and disappear under the moonlight.
Jin Shu looked around for a few minutes, and none of the beads really caught his eye, so he was about to just pick one at random. He was in the process of reaching toward a colorful jade bead that looked like it contained all the colors of the other jades in one bead. However, before he could reach it, Elder Hua called out to him from the stage. "Young man! Come over here, I have a special spiritual bead for you!"
Jin Shu glanced over his shoulder to see Elder Hua beckoning him with her hand. He walked over to her and asked curiously, "Why do I get a special bead?"
"Why? Because I decided it so! Gehehe!" she said with a slightly creepy laugh.
She then pulled out a strange, completely clear, translucent jade bead from inside her robes. It looked more like a glass ball than it did a jade bead. As he looked at the see-through jade bead, the moonlight struck it, and what looked like millions of little runes could be seen swimming inside the bead, as if they were fish in a pond.
She leaned over and handed the jade bead to Jin Shu, then straightened back up and shouted from the stage in a voice that seemed to spread infinitely through the town, "Now! The Feast of the Harvest Moon has concluded, for the ten-thousandth year! Travelers, please take your spiritual beads and place them upon your forehead!"
The six travelers placed the beads on their foreheads as soon as Elder Hua's voice ended. Although they hadn't consciously done so, it was almost as if they were forced to, but they didn't—or couldn't—struggle against it.
As the spiritual beads touched their foreheads, everything before their eyes went white, and they seemed to enter a sort of trance-like state.
---
The six companions suddenly awoke simultaneously with a jolt. They looked around in confusion, slowly, as if waking from a dream.
Su Bing blinked her eyes and squinted in the sunlight. "Where are we?" she asked as she shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand.
Jin Shu looked around, but he couldn't recognize their surroundings. "I'm not sure where we are."
Su Bing suddenly cried out in shock, startling the others. "Ah!"
Jin Shu turned back from surveying the surroundings and asked, "Are you okay? Are you hurt somewhere?"
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Su Bing shook her head. "No, I'm not hurt. It's just that I remembered what that town was. I should have realized sooner, except I had forgotten those old myths."
Jin Shu waited for her to continue, but she seemed to be lost in thought. "Well, what is it?"
Su Bing snapped back out of her thoughts when she heard him speak to her. "Oh! Sorry. That town may have been a town spoken of in various myths in the Eastern Region. The Town of the Hidden Gods! In the local myths, The Town of the Hidden Gods is a mystical place that can never be found by searching for it and can only be chanced upon by those fortunate enough to be fated with one of the gods that inhabit the town. They say that if you share a deep enough fate with one of the gods, they may give you a blessing. In one of the myths, someone received a blessing that granted them near-invincible power; another was granted a strange ability to foresee the future. There were a few more, but I can't quite recall them."
Jin Shu wondered aloud, "Didn’t the guard call the town Hawk Town?"
"That's when I should have realized that we were in the legendary Town of the Hidden Gods. That guard is called the Drunken God in the myths. He was the one to bless the person with near-invincible power. The Drunken God is said to be so drunk that he can never remember the name of the town he guards, and he always calls it by the name of a random animal instead," Su Bing explained.
She paused to collect her thoughts, then continued, "However, I've never heard of any feasts or rituals in the myths. In most of the myths, the traveler will chance upon the town, meet with the Drunken God, and then be blessed by their fated god before losing consciousness and waking up where the town used to be. That must mean we are standing where the town square was."
Jin Shu looked back in the direction from which they had entered the town. "Hm, I think you might be right. That does look like the path we came from. I didn't recognize it earlier as it was night when we arrived. So then, were we blessed by the gods?"
Su Bing shook her head in confusion. "I'm not sure."
Jin Shu concentrated on his memories for a moment to see if he could recall anything. As he concentrated, he felt something click in his mind. It went off with a bang and caused him a severe headache. "Aah!" he shouted in pain and clutched his head. He could hear the others asking if he was alright, but he couldn't respond.
Gradually, the pain faded. With the pain fading, he could feel some kind of strange connection to something. He focused on the strange feeling, and when he did, he could see his M1911 in his mind, like a 3D projection. As he focused more on the gun, runes appeared on each part—they were the Durability Runes he had inscribed on it. He focused again on a specific rune and could feel a connection with it. It felt like he could control it with his mind, as if he could turn the rune on and off, or even activate it from a distance without physically touching it.
"...Jin Shu... Jin Shu!" Su Bing was frantically calling for Jin Shu as the others stood around him, looking worried. When he heard her voice, he stopped focusing and snapped back to reality.
"I think we were indeed blessed by the gods," was the first thing he said when he woke up from inside his mind.
Su Bing looked at him worriedly. "What?"
He smiled and said, "Focus on the memory of the spiritual bead that you received."
When everyone heard him say that, they decided to try it out.
"Aah! Snort! Whiny! Neigh! Aaa!"
They all shouted in pain as they tried recalling the memories of the spiritual bead they had received.
As they endured the mind-numbing pain that came with unlocking their blessings, Jin Shu focused once more on his new ability. I think I'll call this my mind space, he thought as he entered the strange place where he could see a 3D model of his gun floating. He left that space, pulled out his FN 303 from his space ring, and reentered his mind space. Once inside again, a new 3D model could be seen floating next to the other. This new model was, of course, his FN 303 riot gun.
He began experimenting with this new ability. He started by unloading a bullet from his M1911's magazine, then entering his mind space with the bullet in his hand. A third 3D model was now projected in his mind space; this one was, of course, that of the bullet in his hand. He then left his mind space and placed the bullet on the ground in front of himself. He could still feel a strange connection with the bullet, even now that it was on the ground. He tried focusing on the flame rune on the tip of the bullet, and when he did, a flame lit up on the tip. This ability is amazing! It allows me to activate runes remotely now. Although that makes my weapons with the need for their Qi Circulation Runes to activate the Explosion Runes pretty much obsolete. But the Qi Circulation Rune does make the Explosion Rune stronger, so maybe if I combine Qi Circulation Runes with Explosion Runes on the ammunition, I could then activate a powered-up explosion from afar. That would be incredibly powerful.
As he was thinking about the various ways he could use his new ability, the other five started to wake up from the dazed state they were in from the pain of their blessings awakening.