In the far western continent, there stood a tall man. With a long hat dressed in clothes from eastern continent. His robes fluttered a little too exuberant. They were made of Moth Silk. They never stopped shining, despite the lighting. It made the being look like a god.

He released a cough that seemed to have no audible limits. Within the desert realm he stood upon, the ground opened up. There, a set of stairs presented itself and the man exuberantly walked down the set of stairs, all while inhaling in the aroma that filled the room below him.

The room was surrounded by corpses. There was nothing refreshing about the scent. He quickly plugged his nose in disgust. This was the last thing he had expected to smell. “Ugh!! Lusha~ What in the world are you doing down here.”

He plugged his nose and utilized his healing magic to heal his damaged olfactory bulbs. His eyes were taking too long to adjust in the darkness so he healed them as well. The way his robes lost their luster the moment they stepped into the room, was indicative of how disgusting of a terrain he had just now stepped foot into. There, the halls were full of blood trails and sometimes flesh. He didn’t care enough to try and analyze what kind of flesh it was. Or from who.

The long corridor he walked into seemed endless. But the smell grew thicker with each turn of the hallway. That’s how he knew he was going the right way. This place was where he would meet his pupil. It seemed she had done quite a lot of construction in this place with her earthen elemental magic. It was to be expected of her after-all. She was quite the quick learner. Then again, not everyone is trained by the Sage of Life. Or rather, in this case, The Witch of Life.

He stood by the doorway to his room to see his prodigy standing over a table. A man lay on the table with his chest torn apart and opened for Lusha to examine. The heart still beat, as the man was still alive. This time, she tried to examine the man’s heart without pain playing a role in it. His mind was entirely subjugated and enshrouded in such a manner that his heart continued to act normally. No blood left his body. Everything remained right in place.

It had been twenty years since they had achieved their immortality. The sage stood at the doorway, leaning his back against the arches. “Lusha… what are you doing?”

Lucia looked up and instantly paused. There was only one man who called her by that name. His eastern accent continued to get in the way of his pronunciation of her name all of the time. She had come to grow fond of that version of the name though. “Xin..” She didn’t look back yet. “It’s been a while.”

“Indeed it has my dear Lushhaa” His hands were folded as he observed the room. There were many bodies strung up. Their hearts were continuously exposed. Some containers held hearts that still beat. Men, women…. He stopped to shudder at the realization that even children were strung up with their hearts.

Though he was one to talk. He recalled how he had made a young girl disappear right in front of her brother’s eyes just the first time they had met. He had intended to do the same to Lusha. No, that’s not quite right. He had intended to disintegrate her brother, Aias. But as he now sees it, he was glad he did not. To think that brat could have been more skilled than all of them combined. His understanding of the arcane was unheard of.

Xin waved at the woman. “What could you possibly be doing with all of this…. Carnage, Lusha?”

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“I’m looking into their hearts.” She looked back at the heart she plucked from the man. The body continued to pump blood isolatedly.

“I had taken out my own heart and examined everything about it… there’s nothing I’m lacking. Everything is the same… so there has to be something that’s different. Why I cannot feel. It’s because my heart is defective.”

“Ohh my dear Lusha.” The sage simply laughed. “Is this what you’d been up to since our Excursion”

Lusha nodded. And continued. She cut open the heart and revealed each of the three valves. As it continued to beat, she found that her own heart had acted just in the same manner when she removed it. This was her 218th experiment. Yet, she had found no notable change or difference. Lusha sighed. “Another failure. She squashed the heart in her hand and at that moment, the man’s body began to spasm.

Xin winced in horror. “You know, there’s no need to treat them in disdain. You’re beginning to act like myself. Oshun would be berate you if he had seen what you had just done.” Oshun was the other sage, or rather Witch. Surprisingly enough, he was much kinder than Xin.

Yet it seemed like in the 20 years since they had last seen each other, Xin had softened up greatly. Xin walked up to the man’s body before it had finally died and reconstructed him with his ability. His heart regrew within his body and his muscles tied back together. Even the blood that he lost replenished itself.

The man snapped out of his mindlessness and looked around in horror and shock. As he realized where he was, the memories of all the horrors that he had just been subjected to flooded within him and he began to shout.

“None of that.” Xin immediately healed his mind of those memories. “You’re safe to leave now. Forget everything you saw here as if it was just a dream” He unshackled the man and urged him to depart. “Go eastward from here. There is a small oasis that you will bump into well before you begin to thirst. Then head west- only after you’ve fully replenished your strength. You should be able to make it to the city by then.”

The man nodded and scurried off in confusion. “Lusha…. If this is what you meant by experiments, I may have to tell you. You’re going about this all wrong.”

She walked up to the rest of the bodies shackled up and released them, healing each of them back to their original form. For the children, he even went as far as to replenish their full strengths and replenish their hunger. “Head east. To the Oasis, then west. That is where you shall escape this nightmare you’d experienced. It is where your dream shall end and you’ll awaken once more.”

Their minds were still cloudy, but they understood what he was saying. To them, the man must have looked like an angel at the moment. With his robes blinding each and every one of them in this dark gloomy establishment.

“Lusha… when I first met you, there was a boy and his sister. When he was saddened and overburdened with emotion, his heart felt heavy. When I rested my hand on his head. Do you know which part I had healed?”

Lusha looked blankly. She was rather agitated that the people she had stockpiled for experimentation had deceased. But that was neither here nor there. At this moment, she decided to cast away her agitation and listen to what her teacher was going to impart to her.

“I healed his mind.”

Lusha looked confused and tilted her head in confusion. “I had come to learn this after a long while. But emotion…. Though it is felt in the heart, does not truly stem from the heart.” He motioned for her to come over. He placed a hand on her chest, feeling her heart beat. “Though you lack feeling here.” He then placed a hand on her head. The truth is, everything stems from right here.”

“Then… can you heal me?”

Xin sighed. “Unfortunately not. I can only heal people. As you are now, I do not believe you have an ailment. In fact- I’d much rather heal myself to be more like you are now.”

“I see… you may go now.”

The words he had said just now had only served to enrage Lusha. But she dared not show it. The Witch of Life could ravage her in mere seconds. Immortality or not, there were some feelings she dared not feel.

“You know Lusha, we’re about to participate in one more endeavor. This time, we will be confronting the great Lord Ignis Pneuma himself. We’ve finally found out how it is we can do that.”

Lusha was rather uninterested in this idea. So she asked nonchalantly. “How did you manage to do that?”

“Well, it was through observation of the dragons. They are unaware we’ve observed them. However, they were the only ones that have been able to communicate to the great one. This method of communication… it requires sacrifice just as well as our excursion. However, this time, we can do it.”

“I’m not interested.” Lusha waved him off.

“I thought you may say that… but you know, you may just gain the ability you seek. Once we’re at the source of everything. It is simple to merely take from that fountain what knowledge you wish to gain. After-all, Ignis Pneuma is the origin of all things.”

Lusha glared at the man. “Not interest-”

“-even the method required to feel, Lusha.”

She stopped what she was about to say. “We’ll need some time before we can enact this plan…. I’d say within twenty years. Meet us at the Valley of Red Grass. Twenty years from this date exactly.”

“This is what we shall call….. Divine Acquisition!”