To those few who have read my story thus far, thanks! i hope you liked it.
I know i still have a lot to work on, so feel free to tell me if i make mistakes or if there are holes in the plot!
CHAPTER 3 --- LEARNING?
Ren was disturbed in the middle of cultivating by the sound of his door unlocking. Not sure if this was good or bad he opened his eyes and saw the third elder opening the door.
“Hello there, how have you been these past few days?” the elder asked, with his usual ambiguous smile.
Ren didn’t answer, but just looked at the elder with eyes filled with suspicion.
Seeing this, the elder chuckled. “oh, don’t worry, you’ll be let out of this room now! I just want to know how your cultivation is going!”
Before Ren could even react, the elder suddenly appeared in front of him and grasped his hands. After doing so, the elder suddenly started frowning deeply.
“Hmph, did you even cultivate at all?! Do really WANT to die?” the elder said angrily.
Seeing the elder’s murderous expression, Ren was shocked! It was only now that he noticed that the elder being nice was just an act!
As the elder pulled him in the air by his arm out of anger, Ren started panicking and quickly yelled out.
“Nono, I swear, I did as you said, and then it started hurting and all this black stuff was all over my skin and…”
*BAM*
The elder threw Ren against the wall, looking at him with a bit of incredulity on his face. “Are you lying? Why can I not feel your space then?! “
“I-i-I don’t know!! It’s you who told me to do this shit!”
Ren yelled angrily, actually forgetting he was in a weak body for a moment.
“WHAT?!”
The elder yelled, and kicked Ren so hard he could feel his ribs creaking!
*BANG*
Ren started coughing up blood, as he almost fainted from the pain.
“Watch your mouth you brat!”
The elder yelled, but by now he was quite sure that Ren was speaking the truth. He never told his slaves about the fact that cultivating could hurt or that it would push out impurities. Some of the slaves would refuse to do it upon knowing that it would hurt, and some of the more spoiled brats wouldn’t do it because they didn’t want to become ‘dirty’.
‘But why can’t i sense his cultivation…’
The elder thought, but then his eyes started shining like stars lighting up the sky!
“Unique body! Hahaha a unique body! Wonderful! Stay here, I’ll be back!” the elder said as he laughed manically. Leaving Ren lying on the floor coughing his lungs out.
By the time the elder was back Ren had managed to crawl on his bed and regain his breath. He was lucky none of his ribs were broken, but 2-3 of them were most likely bruised or even cracked.
“Wear this bracelet!”
The elder immediately said, handing a wide iron bracelet with a round red gem in it to Ren. But the elder might as well have called it a shackle, as it looked more like that than a bracelet.
Ren hesitated, but didn’t dare object. But the elder clearly wasn’t going to wait and just grabbed his right hand and clamped the ‘bracelet’ on it.
*clack*
“Don’t worry, all it will do is tell me your cultivation level and let me restrain you!” the elder said.
Hearing this, Ren was stunned, but before he could say anything the elder continued.
“Hmmm, yes, you were saying the truth, you have managed to create your space. It’ll take some time for your core though…” The elder said while nodding his head.
Hearing this, Ren looked at the elder in shock! Seeing this, the elder was satisfied with himself.
“Don’t look like that, kid, you’ve only seen a mere smidge of my abilities!”
But Ren wasn’t shocked because the elder could see his cultivation, he knew the elder couldn’t! He was clearly already at the core stage. No, the reason he was shocked was because the elder lied without any sign of doing so, and even seemed to boast about his non-existent abilities!
At this moment a sense of dread overcame Ren. He wasn’t sure why, but it surely wasn’t just because of the lying with a
straight face. Maybe it was because his life appeared to be in this manipulative man’s hands, but something told him that it was more than that. He had the feeling that this was a man who would do anything to get what he wanted, someone who had never experienced the feeling called ‘guilt’!
“Now that that’s done, we can go. Come on, follow me.” The elder motioned.
Ren quickly stumbled after the elder, wincing as his ribs hurt with every movement. This time, they did not go through the hall with cells, but kept going up. After passing another floor, they still kept going up.
Then they arrived on what Ren could now see was the first floor of the building. And although he could not see much through the windows, he could make out that he was in a city of some kind.
‘I was locked underground!’
He realized, imagining how disastrous it would’ve been had he managed to escape his room.
As he was thinking about the possible failures of an escape, they passed through a few hallways and arrived at a huge field with many buildings and walls surrounding it.
It had only one entrance, and on the field was one large main building, with about 20 luxurious houses left of it and about 10 small stone houses with barred windows on the other side.
“This is our sect’s little academy” the elder explained, “Some privileged slaves, like you, get to attend this together with the children of some of the elders.”
But at this moment Ren wasn’t paying any attention to the elder and just stood there looking up.
It was the first thing he had done since getting out of the building. And also the one thing he looked forward to the most! He wanted to look at the sky again, now that he was finally out of there. Just looking at the sky would give him a small, but much-needed, feeling of freedom.
But what he saw was a huge ceiling, with a shining, sun-like stone in it. In the distance he could make out huge pillars that surrounded this place from all sides. It was majestic and scary at the same time.
“We…we.. we’re underground?”
He asked, while he started despairing.
’How will I ever escape from here? How do I even begin to look for an exit?!’
“Aah, yes, of course, you wouldn’t know about that… you were unconscious when they brought you in… well just get used to it!”
The elder said dismissively, and continued walking.
Walking further into the field, they arrived at the stone houses.
Once there, the elder walked towards a house with the letter 5 marked on it.
“This is where you will stay from now on. Inside is a basic book on cultivation, so you’ll have something to do when you’re in there. Tomorrow a servant will come get you and the other slaves and bring you to your classes. Make sure you don’t aggravate any of the elder’s children!”
The elder said.
“Now get in there!”
Hearing this, Ren hesitated, but the pain in his cracked ribs was still there to remind him what would happen if he didn’t listen. So, he quickly entered the room, which looked about the same as the room he had stayed in the past few days: simple bed, bathroom, mirror. The only difference was that he had windows this time, albeit barred ones.
Ren quickly lied down on his bed, sighing at the fact that he was once more locked up. Looking at his ribs, he winced upon seeing the beginnings of a purple-black bruise.
“That’s gonna hurt tomorrow!” he mumbled with a pained face.
After sitting in his bed for a while, he started to look around. He was starting getting used to forcefully calming himself down by now.
Looking around he found a wardrobe with a few pairs of clothes, all white shirts with brown pants. Next to his bed he found a book titled ‘basic cultivation’. It was clearly an old, dilapidated book that wasn’t treated all too well, but everything in it was still readable.
Opening the book, he came upon a short summary of what it held, which also summarized the cultivation stages it held quite nicely, with a list of what he assumed to be all the elements at the end.
cultivation
First rank warrior/mage
1. Aura-cleansing stage p2-4
1.1. Black aura
1.2. Gray aura
1.3. White aura/elemental aura
2nd- rank warrior/mage
2. Qi-control stage p5-7
2.1. Qi-integration
2.2. Qi-manipulation
2.3. Qi-manifestation
3rd rank warrior/mage
3. Elemental stage p8-9
3.1. Elemental integration
3.2. Elemental manipulation
3.3. Elemental manifestation
4-9th rank warrior/mage
4. Innate realm P10
Primary elements: fire, water, wind, earth
Secondary elements: electricity, ice, sound, metal
Special elements: space, light, dark,spirit.
Turning to the next page, he read the explanation on it:
“Once you form your core, it will have either a white, grey, or black aura. If it is white, this means your core has absorbed all of your impurities, and your cultivation will slow down in the long term.”
“If it is either gray or black, you should be fine. The darker your core is, however, the better it is for your foundation! Most people will end up with either a dark gray or a grey core.”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“To cleanse your aura, you have to send the essence you absorb into it, naturally dissolving all impurities from within it.”
After this short explanation was a picture of how a black core would look, and on the next 2 pages were the gray and white core respectively. No further explanation was given, so Ren just went with it.
But first he checked out the next levels. The explanations were just as short, except for the last one. This one talked about the innate realm, something about abilities of the soul, but he didn’t really understand what it meant and didn’t care to read it thoroughly. What he did understand though, was that it explained that when you reach this realm, your strength would increase exponentially!
This was his chance to escape!
If he really could become stronger, and could hide it from that elder, he might have some chance to escape from here. He just had to find out where the exit to this cave was, if there was one, and plan how to get there… Of course, if this place was just a city, it might not be so difficult to get out…
But he wasn’t sure what this place was, so he needed to find a place where he could gather information about it. And what better place than this academy? Thinking of this, Ren actually started to get a bit excited!
“Ok, I better start cultivating, the faster I get there the faster I get out of here!”
He said to himself, trying to get motivated.
Like this, he started purifying his aura, which went really fast with the 2 days of essence he had already gathered. Now that he knew how to use it, he sent it all towards the smoke-like substance around his core, and it actually worked!
The smoke slowly absorbed the essence, and by the time he went to sleep, his core’s aura was already grey, and he could feel that it wasn’t far off from becoming light-gray!
The next day, he was woken up by rough banging on his door. He quickly got dressed and went outside. There a man was waiting for him, but before Ren could even greet him, he turned around and started knocking on another door.
“Don’t worry about Grumpy, he never says a word” someone next to him said.
Startled, Ren tuned around to see 2 boys next to him. One was about 13-14 years old and the other about 10-11.
“Hi, I’m An’gra btw, you’re the newbie right?” the older kid said.
“H-hi”
Ren hesitantly said, quickly looking the two over. The older boy had black hair, one blue and one brown eye, while the younger boy had two brown eyes, and grey hair with what seemed like wolf-ears growing on his head.
“I’m Ren” He continued. “And yeah, I’m new. Anything I should be careful about?”
“Yup, watch out for the elder’s kids, they’re real little brats! Better stay with the group or they’ll target you, so watch out. And try to listen to their orders if you can, you’re new so they’ll focus on you, and you stand out quite a bit!” An’gra warned, motioning to Ren’s white hair.
“Anyway, welcome to our little group of freaks!” he then said with a smile.
Hearing this, Ren couldn’t help but smile too. They really were a little group of freaks, they all had unique traits, which was probably why they were here in the first place.
“Haha, thanks, and who’s your friend?” Ren asked laughingly.
Hearing this, the younger boy hid behind An’gra, as An’gra answered for him.
“He’s Mazri, but he’s a bit shy, sorry.”
“It’s ok” Ren said, but then he was shocked! By now he had finally noticed the ears on the boy’s head.
‘Are those real?!’ he thought. ‘Are they actually doing human experiments? Is that why I look like this?’
By now ‘Grumpy’ had returned with 2 more children, one boy and a girl, both around 12 years old.
The boy had red hair and red eyes, and the girl blue hair and blue eyes.
“They’re blue and red, the twins, blue’s the boy” An’gra said with a grin. Ren had to laugh a bit at this. Unexpectedly the red one was called blue and vice-versa!
They quickly greeted each other, but the twins mostly ignored him, and followed Grumpy to the academy.
On their way there, Ren kept a bit behind the rest with An’gra and asked.
“Are those ears real? What did they do to him?”
An’gra looked at him weirdly, “You never saw a half before? There should be plenty among the other slaves… he’s a half wolf king so he’s rare though.”
“A half what?!” Ren asked, giving the boy a disbelieving look.
“Yeah, I know, if the wolf tribe ever knew, they’d probably destroy this place! But the elder won’t make that kind of mistakes…” An’gra explained, but not what Ren wanted to know.
“Nono, I mean, what’s a half?” Ren asked.
“Huh? I don’t know, a half’s a half, that’s what we call them”
At this ren wanted to slap himself in the face.
‘Why do I even ask a child this!’
As they arrived in the classroom, it was filled with about 10 other children, all wearing expensive-looking robes. In front was a small podium with a lady with black hair and brown eyes wearing a white robe. And in the back were stairs leading up to the seats.
As soon as they entered all the kids’ eyes focused on Ren, and a lot of whispering started to sound everywhere.
Entering the classroom, Ren followed the others, but they didn’t go up the stairs. Rather, they went in front of the desks and sat on the ground. Clearly, slaves were not allowed a desk.
The lady quickly called for silence, and, ignoring the slaves, started her lesson. She mainly talked about the sect, how great it was, how it had existed for 3428 years, (which Ren didn’t believe) and how their ancestor had taken over this cave from a great foe.
How they had a great battle in the air above the mountain, after which the ancestor flew in, slaughtering his way to the very pillar that is now the mountain they lived on. After a long battle their ancestor had buried the enemy alive under the pillar, building his palace on top of it as a reminder for all future generations.
Of course, Ren didn’t believe anything about the history lesson so he didn’t really spend his time paying decent attention. During the lesson, however, the kids behind this constantly threw over pieces of paper and other stuff while snickering and mocking them. Ren wanted to throw stuff back, but An’gra quickly stopped him while looking at him as if he was crazy.
At the end of the class, the teacher told the slaves to clean up the mess, and then left, leaving them alone with the other kids. The kids quickly made use of the opportunity to approach Ren.
“Hey slave! Kneel!” One of them yelled.
Hearing this Ren just gave the kid a look that said ‘seriously’, then ignored him and started helping the others.
The other kids immediately started making noise.
“Haha, he ignored you!”
“Can’t even command a slave can you?”
“How useless can you be?”
The kid immediately got mad and started yelling at Ren.
“Hey slave, didn’t you hear me?”
The kid lifted his leg and tried to step on Ren’s hand as Ren was picking up a piece of paper.
Of course, Ren had sensed the kid’s movements, so he quickly grabbed the kid’s leg and stood up. Trying to keep his balance on one foot, the kid immediately grabbed a necklace that Ren now noticed all the kids wearing. The moment the kid held it, a shock went through Ren’s whole body as he was assaulted by pain.
“Hah, take that slave!” the kid yelled, as he started to kick Ren as hard as he could. Other kids quickly joined him and Ren spent the next few minutes being kicked and pummeled, until Grumpy arrived and pulled him out of there.
He had to be supported by An’gra the whole way back, and immediately went to sleep after he arrived. The next day he woke up with his whole body hurting, especially his ribs, which were still cracked! He tried to remove the bracelet, but noticed that it was somehow locked. There was no keyhole though so he assumed it was an electronic lock.
Thinking again, he noticed he hadn’t seen any electrical devices except for the lights, and even they had no switches, so he decided to try using his qi. As soon as he infused his qi in the bracelet, he once more got a shock and fainted.
“seriously?!”
He cried out as he woke up, and really just wanted to crawl up in a ball and start crying.
Calming down, he started putting everything he had learned into place.
‘These people clearly know nothing about the outside world, they believe in flying humans and QI-beasts, and think they can learn to control the elements… ok maybe the qi-thing works but I bet that’s some kind of experiment! These people are probably some apocalyptic cult, they probably never left this cave of theirs before.’
Of course, he had thought about it all being true, and him being wrong, but he didn’t really want to consider that! Right now he might be grasping at straws, but it was the only thing keeping him from going completely loony!
I mean, the alternative was him having lost all his family, all his friends, and being in some other world or something! Sure, he had seen movies with other dimensions, but those couldn’t happen in reality, right?!
Sitting down cross-legged he decided to just cultivate and not think about things. Because the more he thought about things, the more worried he got.