She remembered… odd dreams. Nonsensical things that shifted from one theme to the next, not keeping to one concept, but changing to something completely different. But she recalled that, in the moment, it had seemed natural. She only recognized the incongruencies after the fact; when she tried to recall what had happened.

Now, it was just dark. Darkness, but there was sound. Yes, an odd sound she’d never heard before kept repeating itself. She decided that it was annoying, but couldn’t see what was making the noise.

It took her a while to realize that her eyes were closed, and thus the darkness.

She tried to open her eyes, but they didn’t respond to her will.

That stumped her, for that had never happened to her before. Well, at least she thought that it had never happened before. How did one even go about opening one’s eyes? She recalled that it should be natural, but didn’t recall the process.

That wasn’t quite right. Muscles moved things in your body. But how did she make the muscles move?

That also stumped her.

Then a memory floated up to her before enveloping her. It was a memory of when… yes, when she’d been younger. She had slept in, a rare luxury given her busy schedule filled with classes and training.

She’d just woken up, sunlight streaming through the window and onto her face. It was so bright that she didn’t want to open her eyes, but at the same time the sun’s warmth on her face was so relaxing that she wanted to let sleep take her again.

The sensation of the sun kissing her eyelids had been so warm and comfortable that it had stayed in her memory ever since.

Ah, that’s what my eyelids feel like, she thought as she remembered the sensation of squeezing her eyelids shut, then relaxing them.

Tatia opened her eyes, then decided that that had been a terrible idea as the light in the room pierced them, causing such pain that her eyes snapped closed again.

But she was a stubborn woman, so she cracked her eyes open a hair and kept them open for a second before closing them again when the light became too much. She repeated this dozens of times, each time allowed her eyes to stay open for longer than the last.

Eventually, her eyes had adjusted sufficiently that she could keep them open, albeit while squinting, long enough to focus on her surroundings.

She didn’t recognize the ceiling, nor what it was made of, but it looked like… sand paper? But close-up. Like how a leaf looks smooth until you really look at it and see that it really wasn’t.

She tried to focus on the ceiling more, but found that she wasn’t able to, which confused her more than a little. At her Tier, she should be able to easily focus in on the ceiling and make out more detail.

That thought worried her, so she focussed inwards, bringing her consciousness inside her body.

Her eyes popped open in panic a moment later, sweat starting to bead her brow.

What happened to my cultivation?!

With that thought came other memories, all flooding back in a jumble that was hard to sort, but every one made the dread in her heart grow.

The last thing that she remembered was looking up at the sky as everything went dark.

Tatia lifted a hand to her face, touching her right eye. She marvelled as her fingers met with unbroken skin, not a scar to be found. She smiled as her mind registered that her right eye was there and functioning.

Her cultivation might have been abolished, and her energy channels destroyed, but she was somehow whole. That meant something.

“Hey, Grammy,” a voice whispered from her left, causing her heart to nearly stop.

She hadn’t noticed anyone there, but to be fair, she hadn’t looked over there yet.

“Ah, sorry about that,” he said, sounding genuinely sorry.

Slowly, ever-so-slowly, Tatia turned her head to the left, not only getting a better view of the room, but also of her visitor.

He looked to be in his late teens, tall and broad. He had the traditional Aneath features, hair and eye colour, but he was hard to place. His voice sounded a bit familiar, but it was deeper than it should have been. She took in his features again, at how his eyebrows raised in concern. Not the whole brow, but just the centre where they started.

“…” she tried to speak, but found that her voice wasn’t working as it should.

‘We can still speak over the Network, if that would make it easier for you,’ Joram sent, even his sending sounding older than she remembered him being.

‘How long has it been?’ She asked instead. There was no point in confirming who he was now that he’d spoken to her using telepathy granted by his Network.

‘Just over a year,’ he sent, sounding guilty for some reason.

She paused then, wondering what he should feel guilty about. Many things came to mind, from him keeping secrets from her to him taking responsibility for things he had no control over. She dismissed all those and instead chose to ask what she felt was more important.

‘How’d you grow up so fast?’ She asked, feeling as though she’d been robbed of seeing him grow up.

Joram looked away then, his hand coming up to scratch at the back of his head.

‘It is the side effect of my cultivation and body refining techniques,’ he sent a bit timidly.

Tatia nodded a fraction, mostly because it was still hard to move. She understood that many cultivation and body refining techniques came with… side effects. Most didn’t, actually. But most body refining techniques did, and they’d change the practitioner’s body in tell-tale ways.

For example, most body refining techniques that involved refining a beast essence would start to give that cultivator increasingly stronger characteristics resembling said beast. Like someone refining a tiger’s essence would notice that their eyes would change to resemble that of a feline. Then their fingernails would gradually change into claws. They might even grow hair in places they’d never had hair before. Things like that.

She looked at Joram, searching for any other indicators of change, but aside from his premature growth and a healthy look about him, she couldn’t find any.

‘Have you figured out your cultivation yet?’ She asked, her desire to learn more about his weird cultivation suddenly surging in her heart.

‘Ah, yeah, I think that I’ve figured something out,’ he said, then explained how he’d been able to figure out an appropriate path through his body that he could circulate his energy through.

He then took more time to explain what he called “Psijic Energy” to her, the very same energy that had nearly killed him and left him bedridden for years. It, quite honestly, shocked her.

She didn’t know if his claims of its potency were accurate, but even if they were close, such a cultivation method would be so tyrannical that it would be able to produce monsters that could easily wipe out whole countries, empires, and sects.

As though he could read what she was thinking, Joram spoke to alleviate her fears.

‘This isn’t something a normal person can do,’ he sent, then explained more about his nature and High Elans, giving her even more of a shock and too much to think about.

‘Anyway,’ he sent, sounding like he was going to wrap things up. ‘There are a few people who’d like to see you now that you’re awake.’

‘I still haven’t found my voice yet,’ she sent by way of an excuse to not see anyone when she wasn’t in proper form.

‘Don’t worry about it, they’re all in the Network. Besides, they’ve already visited many times while you slept,’ he sent, once again making Tatia wonder if he could read her mind.

She just nodded fractionally before he vanished like he’d never been there. Then the door behind where he’d been sitting opened to reveal her family, causing the corners of her mouth to rise slightly.

* * * * *

Joram was very glad for the distraction their herb gathering provided, for he was able to pay attention to the conversation between Kinkade and Grammy without people asking if he was OK.

After Alicia had successfully broken the tension before things got more awkward between him and Jae-Eun, not to mention Aya, they’d hurried on their way. It had only taken another couple minutes of walking before they found a good spot with dozens of the herbs they were looking for, and somehow making Jae-Eun realize that Wentian was no longer with them.

“Where did Ren Wentian go?” She’d asked, looking around as though she’d be able to spot him.

“Oh, he hurried back because of a moment of epiphany prompted him to cultivate,” Joram had replied, only lying a little bit.

“Please pass along my congratulations to him,” she’d said before turning back to the task at hand.

The others were finishing up by the time his conversation with Grammy had wrapped up, so he led the way further into the forest in search of more herbs. The trees started getting larger, covering more of the sky as they went, giving the impression that twilight had already fallen.

Which made for wonderful ambiance. He’d always loved dusk, then the minutes afterward where the last light of the sun would slowly make its way up the tallest structures before finally disappearing entirely.

As he appreciated the lighting, he noticed that Jae-Eun looked like she wanted to approach him, but suddenly broke off and started chatting with Mo Yu instead. If he read Aya’s expressions correctly, she was both amused and annoyed by the behaviour.

“I think I see more!” Bai Lian called out from the side, drawing their attention to her.

“Don’t shout,” Jae-Eun whisper-shouted. “There’s a reason why this is a C-Class request.”

Bai Lian looked a little embarrassed by Jae-Eun’s reminder, but nothing else. Jae-Eun seemed to think that she hadn’t taken her warning seriously enough, so she continued.

“There are many magical beasts in these woods. At the edge, here, there shouldn’t be anything above Qi Gathering- er, Tier 2-, but there have been sightings of Earth Fiends recently in these parts. They’re a Tier 4 threat, and they like to eat these herbs!”

That seemed to catch Bai Lian’s attention, as well his and Mo Yu’s. None of them were worried, as they were all in the 5th Tier already, but Jae-Eun didn’t know that. And she was also only in the 2nd Tier, so her concerns were quite valid.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I’ll keep it down,” Bai Lian whispered back, giving Jae-Eun a thumbs-up.

Joram couldn’t help but smile when he saw that. It seemed Bai Lian was picking up on his mannerisms.

Jae-Eun nodded, seemingly unsure if she’d gotten through to Bai Lian, but decided to drop the issue when Bai Lian agreed to keep quiet.

But then their luck ran out.

As they approached the new patch of herbs, the Moon Thistle Grass and Red-leafed Sage, the mound of earth as the side of the clearing turned out to be anything but.

They all stopped in their tracks as they watched the mound begin to rise. Joram was impressed with how large it was when it finally finished getting up. It stood at roughly five metres tall and almost as wide. Looking at it, he understood why they’d mistaken it for a mound of earth.

It was an earth elemental.

Then it turned to face them, its maw opening wide to let out a roar that was closer to the sound of rocks being crushed in a gravel machine, showing them a face that resembled a bear’s. Its teeth, however, weren’t pointed like a bear’s were, but all blunt like an herbivore’s.

That didn’t mean they wouldn’t still take an arm off if it bit you. It’d probably just hurt more.

He briefly wondered if it was actually a half elemental given its form, but then it started to move towards them, causing everyone to leap into action.

Bai Lian quickly moved off to his left and a little back, while Mo Yu leapt behind him and to the right, both now circulating their mana as they prepared for the fight at hand. Jae-Eun backup up the most, getting some distance between herself and the front line as Aya casually stepped to her side, a katana in hand.

Joram stepped forward, a grin on his face as the Earth Fiend picked up speed, its clawed feet throwing clods of earth and grass up behind it as it ran.

[Biofeedback], [Force Shield], [Kinetic Armour]. Joram was glad his Minds were paying attention enough to buff him as he began to sprint at the enraged elemental, much to Jae-Eun’s vocal dismay.

As soon as he was within reach of the Earth Fiend, it took a swipe at him with a paw the size of his torso. He quickly dropped into a slide, narrowly avoiding the attack. Once it passed over head, Joram jumped up from his slide, the leap taking him to eye-level with it as his fist came up in an uppercut, taking it square in the jaw.

His fist continued on into its face, breaking off large chunks of stone and earth in the process. Joram started to grin, then frowned as the Earth Fiend’s momentum continued virtually unimpeded, its body slamming into him as the beast lost control and they fell to the ground in a tumble.

Joram ignored the shouts of dismay and concern from his party as the Earth Fiend landed on him, pinning his right arm and legs under it. He began punching it with his left hand, not caring which one he used, when a moment later a large lightning bolt slammed into the Earth Fiend from the opposite side, sending a shower of debris down on him as well as arcs of electricity.

He instinctually grit his teeth as the bolts of electricity touched him, then relaxed again when they continued on without doing anything more than leaving ozone in their wake. He was confused by that until it struck him. Between his Heavenly Lightning Jade Dragon heritage and the Adamantium Body Technique, he was reasonably sure that he was immune to lighting.

Fortunately, the Earth Fiend wasn’t so lucky. The electricity seemed to affect it the same as an organic being, so Joram took full advantage of its paralysis and went to town on the section pinning his arm.

Stone, earth, and bits of vegetation flew until his right arm was free, giving him a bit more leverage to push against the beast. He placed both hands on its side and pushed as hard as he could. It was slow at first, but as the earth under his legs was displace by his push/pulling, he was almost free when the Earth Fiend recovered.

It turned out that it had been sitting on him sideways, which made it easy for it to bring its massive paw down on Joram hard enough to knock the wind out of him and drive him a foot into the earth. It also set his ears to ringing, which was probably a good thing, all told.

‘Young master!’ Both Bai Lian and Mo Yu sent to him in a panic at the same time.

It seemed as though he could hear things in the Network in stereo.

‘I’m fine,’ he sent back as he grabbed the Earth Fiend’s arm and squeezed for all he was worth and wrenched it to the side.

The arm broke off in a shower of earth and gravel, its roar of pain only barely heard over his tinnitus. He then threw the broken arm to the side as he got up, stepping out of the indent in the ground, grinning as he had a thought.

Channeling his inner Ranma, he let loose a flurry of blows as he yelled out.

“Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!”

Even though he wasn’t actually as fast as Ranma yet, he still needed to squint as his arms blurred as they struck the Earth Fiend’s torso, sending pieces of it flying. He continued his assault, stepping forward bit by bit until he was over a metre inside of its body when he felt the beast begin to collapse on itself.

He leapt back, smashing past the falling bits of its body, landing just past the indent the Earth Fiend had created by punching him into the ground.

When it was obvious that the Earth Fiend was dead, the four young women ran around it to see if he was all right, leaving Aya behind.

Bai Lian fussed about him on one side, checking behind every tear in his clothes for any sign of injury while Mo Yu checked the other side. Alicia pretended to fret over him, but he could still see the smile she was trying to hide. Jae-Eun’s eyes were wide as she stared at him, jaw hanging open. Aya, on the other hand was giving him a weird look even as she assessed him.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said, trying to alleviate their worry and to get the pair off him.

“How are you fine?!” Jae-Eun finally demanded, pointing at him accusingly, Aya nodding along.

“Well, I do practice a good body refinement technique,” he said with a shrug. “I’m also good at fortifying myself with Mental Strength, so that helped.”

“That makes no sense! That Earth Fiend was at least a Tier 4 threat! You should be paste!” Jae-Eun exclaimed, now pointing at the Earth Fiend’s corpse.

Joram sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“There’s a reason why I’ve got a Class C license, you know,” he said patiently. “It’s not hard to punch a bit over my weight class.”

Jae-Eun was speechless as she continued to stare at him, dumbstruck.

“Anyway,” he said, changing the subject. “Let’s gather up any herbs we can find and see if that’ll be enough for the requests,” he said, putting his words to action.

While he was harvesting the herbs, Bai Lian went to the corpse of the Earth Fiend and began digging around until she came out with a shiny core and a bright smile. Mo Yu thanked her for her hard work as she, too, harvested the herbs.

It took a bit before Jae-Eun snapped out of it and began to help harvest, shooting weird looks at him the whole time. Aya on the other hand, continued to keep watch for any other threats that might approach, occasionally muttering to herself.

“So, how many have we got now?” Joram asked when they finished up.

“I’ve got twenty-two Moon Thistle Grass and seventeen Red-leafed Sage,” Bai Lian reported.

“Nineteen and twenty-one,” Mo Yu said.

“Eleven and nine,” Jae-Eun said confidently as she held up her sack.

“Sixteen and seventeen,” Alicia piped in.

“So, sixty-eight and sixty-four. Add the ones I picked to that, and we have ninety-one and eighty-nine,” he said, nodding to them. “The requests only asked for sixty of each, so great job everyone! We might even get a bonus.”

Bai Lian and Mo Yu smiled at the praise, while Jae-Eun seemed a bit downtrodden.

“Jae-Eun, what’s wrong?”

She raised her head and looked at him, an adorable frown on her face making her look younger than she was.

“Taking out what Alicia and I gathered, you’d have still gotten enough by yourselves,” she said, sounding a little bit more than a little depressed.

“Ah, we’re here for the experience,” Alicia said as she threw an arm over Jae-Eun’s shoulder. “We’re also here to create bonds! Build friendships through sharing tedious work and fighting for our lives!”

Joram noticed as Aya peeked around the corpse of the Earth Fiend to glare at Alicia, who in turn ignored it like a duck ignored the rain.

Jae-Eun, however, seemed to take encouragement from Alicia’s words and actions. She stood a bit taller, lifting her chin again.

“Then, thank you for your instruction!” She yelled out with her eyes closed, getting laughter from the rest of the party.

“Weren’t we supposed to keep quiet,” Bai Lian teased as she joined the duo.

Aya was shaking her head again, buy surprisingly didn’t say anything about the noise.

Joram looked over at Mo Yu and saw that she was already looking at him.

‘What’s up?’

‘Are you sure it’s safe that they know so much about you?’ She asked, worry clear in the message.

‘No, but that’s what trust is all about, isn’t it?’ He asked, looking her in the eye.

It seemed that she understood what he meant, for she turned away a moment later, a blush of guilt staining her cheeks.

“Well, let’s get going before we run into anything else,” he said as he walked past Mo Yu, taking the opportunity to give her shoulder a pat as he passed by.

“Let’s go,” Aya said as she appeared behind her ward, startling all three women.

‘Joram?’

He nearly tripped as he heard Xixi’s voice, but caught himself.

“Haha, maybe the Earth Fiend hit me harder than I thought,” he said with an embarrassed laugh, getting a couple polite laughs in return as he continued to walk again.

‘Yes, Xixi?’ He sent, feeling both Xixi and Zanth’s attention focused on him in the Network.

‘When will we see our parents again?’ She asked, her tone nearly breaking his heart as he felt the same emotions coming through from Zanth as those coming from Xixi.

‘I’m not strong enough to bring them all back at the same time,’ he sent, hedging a bit. He’d wanted to wait to bring both their parents back at the same time so that neither Xixi or Zanth would feel left out, even if it would only take another day.

‘That’s OK,’ Xixi sent, sounding like the bravest girl in the world. ‘Zan and I talked. It’s OK if you bring his parents back first. I still have my sisters.’

Joram: Kinkade, take over autopilot please.

Kinkade: No worries.

He then left Kinkade to pilot his body as he fully focussed on the conversation.

‘I can do that,’ he sent back. ‘In the meantime, have you heard that Grammy is awake again?’ He asked, trying to get the conversation going in any other direction so that they wouldn’t have to think about their dead parents for the moment.

‘She is?!’ Zanth’s message practically exploded in Joram’s head.

‘Yes, though I think she is still a bit tired. But I’m sure that you can get my mum to bring you to see her.’

Then he felt Xixi refocus on him, and knew that he’d been unsuccessful in his attempts to distract her.

‘Don’t worry Xixi,’ he sent her privately. ‘I’ll be by tonight.’

‘OK. Joram?’ She sent, again sounding uncertain.

‘Yes, Xixi?’

‘Don’t stay away so long,’ she sent, now unable to hide her sadness and grief.

His heart broke hearing the loneliness that came through with her sadness and grief. How easy it was for him to get caught up in all that he needed to do and the projects that popped up one after another. How easy it was to forget that Xixi was only eight years old. An eight year-old who did her best to take care of her little sisters by herself, even though Zanth and everyone else helped as much as they could.

Little Xixi who’d been glued to his hip whenever she could be. Who’d always kept him in her heart during his long absences from her. Whom he’d pretty much abandoned in his quest to rescue everyone who’d been taken.

‘I won’t,’ he sent back with as much warmth as his guilty heart could muster.

‘Then let’s play together soon,’ she sent back, seemingly forgiving his absence and accepting his words.

‘I’d like that,’ he sent back, this time more convincingly.

* * * * *

By now she was certain that Joram was a hidden master.

There was no way that a mere 3rd Tier Mentalist would have the insights that took decades for artifact refiners to come to, never mind the advanced understanding of several Elemental Laws that were needed to get there.

She appreciated the guidance that he’d given her naïve ward, if not the way he’d given it. She didn’t know why he was at the Academy pretending to be a young man. His “servants” were stronger than they appeared, their aura masks unable to hide the subtle cues one could read from their expressions and body language.

When Mr Aneath had gone to engage the Earth Fiend in combat, she’d also been surprised. “Moyra’s” and “Quinn’s” concern and reactions had been genuine, their love for their “master” clear.

She hadn’t seen Alicia do anything during the fight, not that she could have done anything meaningful, given her low cultivation. But she had also seemed just as shocked as Jae-Eun when he’d run into battle, so she was currently undecided about her.

When “Moyra” had attacked the Earth Fiend with lightning, Aya had been able to gauge her strength. She was not only sure that “Moyra” was well into the Heaven Realm, but that her techniques didn’t come from this continent.

“Quinn’s” technique, on the other hand, practically screamed they came from the sects of Zhizun Zhanshi as she’d stomped the ground to lift a boulder into the air before punching it, sending it to smash into the Earth Fiend with impressive force. Which really hadn’t been well thought out, because the Earth Element attack had done almost nothing to the Earth Fiend.

Rookies.

From the power of the attack, she sensed that “Quinn” was also in the Heaven Realm, but at a lower Rank than “Moyra”.

She’d examined Joram several times on their way here to see if she could locate an aura shroud, but the only artifacts she’d found were his storage ring and [Cleanse] ring. So, she was confident that the lack of cultivation she felt from him was accurate.

His body refinement technique still puzzled her though, as normally a person would need to have at least some measure of cultivation to practice any sort of body refinement. Or had he managed to find a way to do that using Mental Strength?

Either way, he was certainly stronger than he claimed to be. No Mentalist in their right mind would willingly engage in a fistfight with a creature many times their size and mass. But he had. He didn’t fight like the teenager he pretended to be, but instead fought like someone who’d been in countless fights before.

Then she’d briefly reconsidered her assessment when he’d made the mistake of letting the Earth Fiend fall on him, pinning him under the far side of the beast in the process. She’d also thought he’d be finished off when “Moyra’s” lightning bolt smashed into the beast, causing lightning to flow through it, and Mr Aneath.

But then his strikes continued, surprising not just her, but his two “servants”, who then stopped trying to “help”, yet continued to anxiously watch the scene.

Soon the pounding stopped, causing her to idly wonder if he’d exhausted himself. Shortly after that, the Earth Fiend seemed to recover from its shock and had turned its torso so that it could smash Joram on its other side.

The impact caused a tremor to ripple through the ground and for all four of the girls to cry out in shock and dismay. Much to her shock, Jae-Eun’s cry didn’t lose out to the other three’s cries. But moments later, they all heard a loud crack, then saw its arm fly away to crash down tens of feet away, causing another minor shock to be felt through the soles of their feet.

Then they’d all heard him yell out before the sound of his strikes had come so fast that it sounded like one continuous explosion to them.

“Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!”

And that is what convinced her that he wasn’t just some genius teenager. No, there was no way that a youth from this continent would know the ancient tongue of her homeland.

Her conclusion was further solidified when she saw him standing there, the only evidence that something had happened to him were his torn clothes and the dust that covered him from head to toe. Because not even a single drop of blood could be found behind those many tears in his clothing.

But.

There was one thing that still puzzled her as she followed their group back to the wall and safety.

Why the hell did he feel the need to yell about chestnuts?!