"I remember, I remember everything."A strange calm swept over the young boy and his cloudy eyes regained their former focus.
"My name is Lowen."
(I was born in a land called Treia, a powerful kingdom with equally powerful foes.)
(I was a grand master of martial arts and ki manipulation and I was the personal protector of the King of Treia. Due to an unforeseen incident, that creature with the crimson eyes did something to my mind, my soul. With its power unmatched and its might untamed, there was nothing I could do, I couldn"t even fight back before it was already too late and now I"m here. I"m alive, somehow stuck in the body of a six-year-old boy in the middle of nowhere. With no clue of what happened to my homeland, to my king but for some reason, I"m not that upset. When I was young I had no purpose, orphaned from a young age I only lived for survival. As I grew I found martial arts and studied with blood and sweat, all for the sole purpose of survival. I became a mercenary to survive and then a soldier to survive before I found myself fighting for a king, defending his kingdom. But with no family, no friends, for every day that I lived, survived, the more dissatisfaction would grow within the pit of my stomach. Something was clearly missing, a void in my life, what was the point in just surviving. I felt that I almost found the answer to my existence but in the end with no more time, like a puppet with cut strings, I died.)
As Lowen curled himself within the thick fur, a gust of wind blew through the back of the run-down wagon sending chills up and down his spine, causing him to squeeze the fur wrapping himself tighter inside like a snake around its prey.
(s.h.i.t, I"m still freezing, if I don"t warm up soon then I"ll just end up dead again.)
Lowen began looking and rummaging around in the wagon and although there were some supplies and equipment they were already quite limited but after the horse panicked and the wagon flipped over, what little items there were, almost all of them had been destroyed. What was left was quite disappointing. A bit of rope no more than 20 feet in length, a small knife with a blade of about 4 inches, 1 thick fur and 5 pounds of dried meat. It seems there was quite a bit more meat but it had fallen out of the wagon landing in some of the blood of one of the bandits. What could have been eaten before would most likely get you sick now, It was best to just leave it alone. The last two items were 2 unbroken clay pot jars, everything else had fallen outside in the snow and was unusable.
Peeking outside the wagon, Lowen could see the young boys clothes, well his clothes now. He could also see the boys parents clothes but they were covered in blood and already completely frozen over. Lying a little further away, Lowen could see the bandit"s swords, a bow with a few arrows in a quiver, and the young boy"s fathers sword, the rest of the clothes had been on the bandit"s bodies before they were dragged away into the forest.
Seeing no way to make a fire, a bit of dread swept over Lowen"s face. He was running out of time but suddenly a thought flashed across his mind. In his previous life, he was a martial arts master but not only that he had also mastered Ki manipulation. The power of ki was quite fantastic, with it, a person could do many miraculous things. Whether it was used to improve a users strength, increasing it to inhuman levels or using it to lighten a persons body weight to that of a feather, in between that the possibilities were almost endless. One thing in particular that manipulating ki could do, was the ability to regulate most bodily functions. To control blood flow, force out toxins in the body and recover faster, these were just some of the possibilities, but what Lowen planned to do was much simpler than that. With Ki, he could regulate his body"s core temperature, pushing it up several degrees to maintain body heat.
With this thought in mind, Lowen quickly sat back down and crossed his legs getting into a meditative position. With the fur still wrapping him up nice and tight, Lowen slammed his eyes shut and began to breathe. Inhaling deeply and exhaling out nice and slow, again and again.
To gain the power of ki, the very first thing you need to do is to form a seed of ki within, a storage container for ki if you will. A source that can be tapped into refined and refilled at any given moment. Without it, the Ki that enters your body will just flow around inside you, chaotically destroying your flesh, blood, and viscera. In order to form this seed, you must be able to control at least a small portion of your mind and soul, forming a bridge between them and then connecting them to your body. The most direct way to do so is to meditate and clear your mind of any useless thought and any useless motion.
As Lowen meditated, the only thing he focused on was his breath, in and out, in and out, nice and slow, breathe....breathe....breathe. As he did, the world soon started to fade away. The howling wind of the great forest that once screamed in his ears began to whisper. The stabbing pain from the freezing cold no longer felt unbearable but instead turned into a cool breeze. The thick smell of blood and guts simply turned into the smell of rusted metal. Inhale....exhale...inhale.....exhale. Now the world was silent and Lowen"s body no longer felt anything. Every sense was now a void of nothingness. The sky was nothing.... .......the world was nothing........the universe... was nothing.
*ba...b.u.mp..........ba..b.u.mp...BA..b.u.mP BA b.u.mP BA b.u.mP*
* BOOOOOOM!*
Like a small explosion, a tiny wisp of ki began to swirl in the very core of Lowen. With the power of both his mind and soul, a tiny speck started to form and condense into the shape of a small seed. Finally, after several minutes, the mind and soul connected to Lowen"s body and it was complete. Lowen had once again become a Ki manipulator.
*Phew*
Releasing a long breath, Lowen slowly opened his eyes, he couldn"t help but feel relieved. If he couldn"t find a way to control ki, then his death was all but guaranteed. Thankfully he was a master of ki in his previous life, otherwise, it would have taken much longer had he not know the secrets to ki.
Now that he had a ki seed it was simple to fill it up with ki energy, especially something so small. For a master who has done it all before, it was as easy as turning over a hand. With a few focused breaths, the ki of the universe moved and this small seed in his core was filled to the brim with energy.
With a simple thought, Lowen began to circulate this small amount of Ki within his body but unfortunately, the amount came up short, only flowing a few inches away from his core, after that the energy entirely ran out.
So began his long process of focusing himself. absorbing ki and then circulating it through his body. Finally, after an hour he had completed one full circulation from point A being his Core then throughout his entire body back to point A. The significance of this was that every time he completed a circulation the seed within his core would grow a fraction bigger. A bigger seed means more ki that a ki manipulator can contain and use, and more ki correlated to more power. However, growth wasn"t unlimited, once it grew to a certain size you would have to then refine it and break past your limits becoming even more powerful or don"t and remain at the lowest end of the totem pole of power.
After completing his first full circulation of ki Lowen could feel trace amounts of energy in every fiber of his being and with it, his entire body began to slowly heat up, bringing his body temperature to a survivable condition. As he continued to warm up he sent more and more energy to his lower extremities, especially to his toes. Soon his toes returned to their regular color and his body quickly went from pain to pleasure. A wonderful warmth spread throughout him, almost as if he were suddenly dropped into a hot spring. He felt so comfortable and cozy he thought he would melt into his surroundings.
As this thought came to mind, the outside was not as compromising. As the freezing howling wind turned into a frozen storm, the snow picked up and began to blanket the mountain, turning everything into a blinding white. The wind rushed like a 1000 wild bulls as it tore through the forest breaking off branches and uprooting bushes left and right. While the outside storm raged on, Lowen"s expression showed no thought or care, nor any concern to the outside. With his body nice and toasty and a mind completely exhausted, Lowen"s eyes grew heavy and he slowly drifted off to sleep.
----------------------------------------------------
After two days the storm finally dissipated, clearing the skies and returning it to its original baby blue color. The forest returned to its original state and only a calm peace remained. It was at this time that a small hand broke through the surface of the snow.
As Lowen dug himself out, he stood on top of the wagon. The entire landscape rose up and became 2 to 3 feet taller due to the snow but because of that, Lowen found it very difficult to locate any of the weapons from the bandits. Using his memory alone he could only remember their general location. After a while of digging, he eventually located the bow along with its quiver, among which there were four intact arrows, then he found a bandits sword, as well as his fathers. Looking over his father"s sword, there seemed to be a strange inscription with a name engraved, which read as [Toren]
Suddenly another memory appeared in Lowen"s mind. Toren was the last name of his father and mother from this world. His father"s name was Ken Toren and his mother was called Lana Toren. Lowen"s name in this world was Aiwa Toren. It seems some of the previous boy"s memories were still inside of Lowen"s mind, for example, he could read the letters and symbols on the sword, so it was clear he could understand the language somewhat. Now whether or not he could speak the language was an entirely different situation altogether but that wasn"t all. He also knew the name of the kingdom he was in, it was called Rhylo and he knew the body he was in was that of a six-year-old boy, besides that though, there was a lot of little bits of information here and there in his mind.
For now, though, none of that was important. What was important was getting off this mountain and out of this forest, so first Lowen had to organize himself.
His equipment and supplies appeared like so.
Rope, about 20 feet in length, a small knife with a blade of about 4 inches, 1 thick fur, 3 pounds of dried meat, 2 unbroken clay pot jars, 1 average bow with a quiver with 4 regular arrows included, 1 sword from a bandit nearly three feet in length with a weight of 2.5 pounds, as well as Lowen"s family sword. The length and width of his father"s sword were the same but the sharpness was far more outstanding. With a simple test, Lowen swung the bandit"s sword at a tree with all his strength.
*Thwack*
The bandit"s sword was no good, barely chipping off some bark and leaving a shallow scar on the tree only 1-3 centimeters deep it was quite bad. With his family sword, however, it was entirely different. With a powerful swing from his family sword, the damage from the blow was considerably deeper and reached almost 4 inches into the tree. This was without applying ki to his strength. If he were to do that, Lowen was sure he could cut this tree in half with one blow. This sword was something special.
Taking out the dagger, Lowen cut off about 2 feet of rope. Following that he took that small piece and unbraided it until there were now 4 smaller pieces in front of him. Taking up the thick fur he first cut it in half, then in one-half, he made two holes in the most convenient places and slid his arms into them. Wearing the fur like a vest that went all the way down to his ankles, he then took one of the small pieces of rope and tied it around his waist making a simple belt. He then filled one jar with the remaining dried meat and filled the other one full with fresh snow. Taking the dagger he cut 2 more pieces off of the fur just big enough to cover the tops of the jars, as though they were drums. Taking 2 more pieces of the unbraided rope he tied the rope around the fur, covering the jars, affixing them snug and tight. With the last small piece of rope, he tied it to both of the jars hanging it from his neck. He then took the two swords and laid them in the remaining fur with the handles sticking out. He then wrapped them up like u would a blanket. With the last of the rope, Lowen tied it around the fur and strapped it over his shoulder and with the bow and quiver, he slung them over his other shoulder, with this he was ready to go.