As Anthony rushed down the dirt road away from the apothecary, three men dressed in ragged clothing stepped out from the shadowy alleyway beside the building. If Anthony had seen them, he would have recognized them as the group of drunks who did odd jobs around town to fund their bad habits.
The men appeared to have only recently awoken, the largest and fattest of the three rubbing his puffy eyes as he questioned his companions.
“What’s going on? We got a job or something?”
The shortest of the trio, who was comically thin compared to his fat companion, gestured toward Anthony’s receding figure and spoke in a hushed tone.
“Anthony just pulled a whole silver out of his pocket to pay for a potion in Pom’s shop. I saw it with my own two eyes, from right outside the window!”
As the thin man finished his sentence, he couldn’t help but raise his voice in excitement, earning himself a sharp elbow in the ribs from the final man standing beside him.
“Shut your trap! You wanna tell the whole world what we’re up to?”
The third man, who seemed to be the makeshift leader of the group, was of average height and build. It was evident that the other two men looked to him for direction.
“Ahh! Not so hard, Bo! You’re gonna break my ribs, and then I ain’t helpin’ you with nothin’!”
While his skinny companion was rubbing his sore ribs, the fat man’s eyes went wide at the mention of the silver coin, but a moment later he began scratching his head as he stared off in no apparent direction.
“But, Bo... if he already spent the silver, don’t that mean he ain’t got it for us to steal no more?”
A heavy scowl spread across Bo’s face as he reached up and rapped his knuckles against his fat companion’s forehead several times in rapid succession.
“If he got his hands on one, there’s prolly more! Anthony just turned sixteen. Everybody knows he’s gonna join the merks. I bet he got a sign-up bonus from Edgar! Besides, even if he don’t got more... that potion’s plenty worth takin’!”
The fat man rubbed his tender forehead with a wronged expression, but that look was quickly replaced by one of greed as he heard Bo’s explanation, and began nodding his head eagerly as he responded.
“Alright, Bo! What do we do?”
Bo rubbed his chin for a moment as he stared down the road in the direction that Anthony had disappeared. A toothy grin spread across his face, revealing the two rows of broken, rotting teeth behind his lips.
“Follow ‘im. We can’t do nothin’ ‘til he’s outta town.”
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Anthony stepped into a quiet alleyway and pulled out The Fractured Path, quickly double-checking the instructions for beginning the cultivation method.
“Right… I need to get to a quiet place where there’s plenty of privacy, somewhere I won’t be disturbed. Only one place around here that fits that description.”
Tucking the worn journal under his arm, Anthony grasped the potion tightly in his hand and set off running once again. He was heading toward the outskirts of town, where an old farmhouse sat abandoned after the family who owned it disappeared mysteriously.
Everyone in town said the place was cursed, and no one was willing to buy it. That suited Anthony just fine; he liked to go to the old farmhouse to hide from his stepfather when he was younger, or more recently to train on days when the weather was too harsh to stay outdoors for long.
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It took Anthony around twenty minutes of running to reach the farmhouse. As it came into view, he noticed the wide hole in the thatched roof, which had been steadily growing larger over the past year. He had once attempted to patch it up, but Anthony was no craftsman, and all his efforts had only made the hole worse, so he gave up and left it alone after that.
Stepping into the musty air of the farmhouse, Anthony grabbed a small stool, wiping off the dust before placing it in the center of the room. Sitting down, he opened his cultivation journal once again to the early pages.
[Willpower is the basis for the control of all mana, but it is very difficult to maintain a high level of will during long stretches of cultivation, making most cultivation methods incredibly inefficient. Instead, this method allows you to bind a traumatic memory, which is a powerful aid in arousing will. It will allow you to transform the mental energy generated by that trauma into the will required for the cultivation process. This greatly increases the cultivation speed and potential of cultivators.
In a quiet place, sit with your eyes closed and focus on the memory you have chosen. The memory will be empowered by the effects of the potion; you must fight your instincts in order to help direct the potion’s power in order to create a proper nexus point. It is vitally important to undertake this process in solitude, or with a powerful guardian, as the potion’s initial effects can lead to outbursts of rage-fueled violence…]
Anthony read the wrinkled page of instructions three times to ensure he wasn’t missing anything. Satisfied, he gave a firm nod, set the journal on the table beside him, took a few deep breaths to gather his courage, and poured the potion down his throat.
The taste was shockingly bitter, causing him to gag and nearly vomit. He clamped both hands over his mouth, forcing himself to swallow again and again until the last drops slid down his throat.
Once he got it all down Anthony gasped for air, taking quick, shallow breaths as sweat formed on his forehead. Thankfully the initial wave of nausea quickly passed, and he was able to refocus his mind, following the instructions he had memorized.
Anthony closed his eyes as he allowed his mind to drift back in time, travelling deep into the Whitestone Mountains, to arrive at the last place he had seen his mother alive.
The memory was vividly clear in his mind, down to small details like the bloody crust on the ogre’s massive fingernails. Anthony looked around the scene at thick green foliage of the pine trees, the sun glaring down from a cloudless sky above. He could still hear the melody of the birds and insects all around him in the mountains, creating an ambiance that did not fit with the tragic events of the memory.
For a few moments, the scene played out as it had thousands of times before in his mind. But after a few minutes, Anthony felt a burning sensation spreading from his stomach, growing stronger as a powerful dizziness began to overtake him.
The next thing he knew, he had forgotten where he was—or even who he was. All that remained in his mind was the image of a terrible monster murdering a small woman. For some reason he could not recall, the scene he was watching filled Anthony with a searing anger that felt like molten stone coursing through his veins.
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“Hurry up, dammit!”
“It ain’t my fault, Bo! Anthony’s just too quick, an’ Ham’s slower than a dead cat! A fat, dead cat!”
HUFF... WHEEZE... HUFF
The fat man was struggling to run up the mountain trail behind them, though calling it "running" might have been generous. He was moving slower than most people walked, with rivers of sweat streaming down his red cheeks. A look of pure agony flashed across the fat man's face with each lumbering step forward he took.
“J-jus’ go on ahead! I c—I can’t run no more!”
Bo’s anger grew with every sluggish step his companion took. Finally, his frustration boiled over. Stepping off the path, he reached into the foliage at the side of the dirt trail and snapped off a long, thin switch of a branch.
Breaking off the smaller stems, Bo whipped the branch through the air, producing a whooshing sound as it whistled back and forth. His furious expression twisted into a wicked smile as he rushed to get behind his slow companion.
WHOOSH... CRACK
“AHHHH! BO! STOP! N—AHHH!”
Bo lashed his fat companion’s back with the branch, he swung the branch so hard that each strike left bright red welts across the heavy man’s wide back. His cruel method seemed to achieve his goal, spurring the larger man into motion, as his torturously slow shuffle up the hill transformed into a brisk jog almost instantly.
Like this, the three would-be thieves finally reached the abandoned farmhouse where they suspected Anthony had gone. Bo gave his men a moment to catch their breath while he pulled a long dagger from under his shirt. His evil grin returned as he gestured toward the building.
“You two, follow me now. Get ready to grab him if he tries runnin’.”
The pained look faded from the fat man’s face as he rubbed his greasy hands together, following behind Bo and his shorter companion as the three of them approached the home.