Holding his b.l.o.o.d.y left arm with his right he stared into its eyes. A slight shiver went down his spine as he stared and stared. He waited and he saw the beast"s eyes slightly deter from him so he turned as quickly as he could. Unfortunately, that was not enough, the beast"s claw pierced all the way through his stomach and to the other side. His vision was going black but the beast defenses were now lowered so Marcellus had a chance to attack. He quickly unsheathed the sword and stabbed the beast right in the jaw. Underneath the beasts jaw, there was no silver fur and so the beast was then easily killed. The second Marcellus saw the beast collapse his eyes closed. His back hurt, his stomach hurt, his arm hurt, his head hurt. He was in terrible pain but still managed to wake up. He was laying on the forest floor facing the blue sky. Remembering that when he had encountered the beast it was still late he a.s.sumed that he fell asleep in order to recover.
Looking at his wounds he noticed that they had been wrapped up and cleaned by his ripped up shirt. Next to him was a small stone bowl filled with water, he was surprised that Alyssa was sitting next to him waiting for him to wake up. He patted her on the head and said, "Thank you." He lay there with Alyssa sitting next to him thinking how lucky he was. He coughed suddenly disrupting the peace, he reached for the bowl and drank it down.
Sitting peacefully for a while longer watching the clouds he then thought to himself "What happened to the beasts?" He slowly got up thinking that it would hurt a lot as it did before but it didn"t. His stomach still hurt but his arm felt perfectly fine. He quickly unwrapped the makeshift bandages from his arm and saw the little pieces of dust from the ground were curling up towards his arm stopping the blood from exiting and allowing him to move without irritating his wounds but he was not getting healed.
The dust was acting more like a pain killer than anything else. Alyssa came over to him and pushed him back down to rest while the dust-covered his wounds. After the dust finished its job he got up painfully and looked around him. He was neer the cave where Alyssa was from. Inside the cave were resting the bodies of the two beasts.
Seeing that both the mother and son were lying dead side by side made him extremely sad knowing that it was his fault. He limped towards them and cried once again apologizing for taking their lives to prolong his own. He then thanked him for allowing him to get stronger at their expense, taking their beast cores knowing that he needed them if he was going to get stronger.
He was guessing that the cub was a level one ranked beast whereas the mother was probably a level two. Their cores would definitely help with his cultivation. Now that he was relaxing and not pressed for time he decided to look and see what exactly this treasure that the elemental had given him was. He pulled out the rock and played with it but it looked just like a normal rock. To any cultivator on the other, the aura coming off the rock could clearly be seen.
He put the rock back in his pocket and wondered what exactly he had to do in order to cultivate the cores. He had never cultivated before and had no idea how to. When he got back to the city he realized that he needed to return to the mercenary a.s.sociation to read up on treasures and cultivation.
He placed the cores and the treasure next to him and lay down on a comfortable patch of moss growing in a small spot in the cave. It was soft and Alyssa lay down next to him. He was tired from the fighting and the loss of blood so he fell asleep very quickly.
Another day pa.s.sed very quickly and when Marcellus woke up it was the morning of the next day. He checked his wounds to see if there was any improvement in his condition but he was surprised to see that they were completely gone. He patted himself down but felt no pain then he noticed a small image on the left side of his chest that resembled the earth treasure he had been given. He looked behind him and noticed that both cores along with the treasure were gone.
"What is going on?" he asked himself. He heard a voice from a shadowed part of the cave. "Usually the treasure allows for someone to gain a higher understanding of an aura from cultivating close to it but I"ve never seen one get absorbed before," said the elemental. He then realized the energy in the air surrounding him and inside him, it was like a sixth sense. "Is this energy I feel mana?" he asked the elemental.
"I a.s.sume it is," he replied bluntly. Marcellus felt that the mana in the cave was very dense and that further in it was even more so. "Was the treasure not supposed to be absorbed?" he asked the elemental curiously. "As I said, I have given treasures to humans before but none of them have been absorbed before as yours was," he replied thinking to himself.
"Do you know what stage of cultivation I am in?" Marcellus asked, looking at him. "You seem to be an early second level cultivator but your aura feels like that of an earth elementals," he said a little more agitated like he couldn"t figure something out. "Take the mana inside your body and make it flow through you reinforcing your body and then push it out of your magic circuits, I would like to see the result," he said to Marcellus.
Doing as he was told he let it circulate around his body and he felt a sudden boost of power, he felt stronger. The elemental stood up and shot a piece of rock at him from the ground which hit him in the chest. He tried to dodge but was not prepared as he had almost zero combat experience. Where he expected blood to flow was only a small scratch on his chest that seemed to be made of stone.
Quickly he let his mana leave outside his body, controlling it into the surrounding earth. He found it was surprisingly easy to control the earth around him and change it. The more earth he tried to move and the more the change in shape the harder it was to control. For now, he could make a wall and a few spikes nothing much.
Suddenly the elemental spoke up, "When humans cultivate their body, it reinforces what is already there but yours change elements. Not only that but mana that exits the body can be used to control the elements like you just did, however, please try to create your own earth based on your understanding."
Marcellus tried and found that he could but it took a lot more mana and he could only make a head-sized rock. "You are an elemental but that is impossible because you are a human so that is impossible, our life is generated from pure elements whereas you are organic beings that can live without magic," he shook his head.
Marcellus thought back to the time when he stole the orb from the old man in the street and how it disappeared. He quickly checked the spot on his chest where the rock image was. Sure enough, there was an infinite loop signaling infinity so Marcellus guessed it was the time symbol but the rock was gone. He tried using the earth mana again and it worked. "Time," Marcellus thought, he let his mana flow through him again but this time there was no change to his body.
It took him a moment to realize but his thought was accelerated and he could move faster. He ran back and forth twice before he had to stop to save a bit of mana for the next experiment. He pushed the time mana out of his body and into the surroundings.
"Shoot another spike at me, but at my leg this time," Marcellus said to the elemental. A small spike flew at his leg and easily penetrated it, but before anyone could move time went back two seconds to right before the spike was thrown at Marcellus. The elemental didn"t know that anything happened but Marcellus still remembered. He tried to do it again but because of his low understanding, he couldn"t do it again. "It must have been a low-level treasure," he thought.
"Wait, stop!" he tried to say before the spike left the elemental but he was too late and so he just turned his body to stone to deflect the spike and he did it quite easily. "What was that about?" questioned the elemental. "Nothing, just testing something," he replied. Then he realized that he had just manipulated time, but according to what the elemental had just said about making his own elements, theoretically, he could create his own time.
He made his mana into time mana and tried to gather it to form the element but it was far too difficult and he couldn"t even gather even a bit of the mana. "How do I cultivate to improve my mana?" he asked the elemental. "Elementals don"t really cultivate, we just absorb the surrounding mana matching our element," he replied nonchalantly.
Marcellus sat down and tried to bring the mana into his body. It flowed in steadily but suddenly he felt like he was going to be sick. He threw up as the mana he had gathered burst out of his body. He threw up again and this time there was blood in it. The elemental rushed over with the bowl of water and let him drink some. "Thanks," he said weakly, still feeling nauseous.
He followed up by saying, "I don"t think that is how humans should cultivate." He and the elemental looked at each other for a second before chuckling. The elemental pulled him up off of the ground and patted his shoulder. At that moment Alyssa returned with another similar bowl filled with water. Marcellus took a few sips before placing it on the ground.
"As I said I am very old and have met quite a few humans, would you like to learn some sword skills?" the elemental asked Marcellus proudly. "Of course," Marcellus enthusiastically replied. He rushed over to the beast that he killed before and pulled his sword out while the elemental made one of stone.
The elemental then proceeded to teach him different kinds of footwork and sword techniques. Marcellus was a quick learner but not that quick. After about an hour he hadn"t even learned a single skill. "This is impossible," he shouted frustrated falling down for the one-hundredth time. "Get up and pay more attention, it"s like you aren"t even watching me!" roared back the elemental with even more irritation.
For hours Marcellus fought with the elemental slowly getting better and better while Alyssa disappeared to absorb as much energy as possible before they would leave the caves. A week pa.s.sed and while Marcellus could not master the skills he at least understood their basics so that he could fight and practice on his own time.
The elemental went into the cave and came out with its daughter on his back. As soon as he got close to Marcellus Alyssa jumped onto his shoulder. Marcellus hugged the elemental goodbye and headed back to the town that he had left for over a week. He was ready to enter the city as a cultivator.
They walked and walked without any problems and managed to reach the edge of the forest at midday. Alyssa was nervous about city life and was squirming on Marcellus" shoulder. He pat her on the head and said "Let"s go."