Chapter 28In a very ancient Tibetan monastery that was one hundred miles from the crash site, a very old monk was sitting in meditation. He had been sitting in the same position for many years now. He looked like a mummified skeleton wrapped in ceremonial robes. In his right hand was a bronze Tibetan singing bowl, and in his left hand was a wooden mallet as ancient as he was. Every now and then a very pure sine wave would emit from his meditation chamber. On this day the malas hanging around his neck began to produce a very faint glow. Since there was no other light source in his meditation chamber any light source would be instantly noticeable.
After a week the glow on his malas became more p.r.o.nounced. The ancient monk now looked completely different. There was now a healthy glow to his skin. His muscles had filled out again, no was no longer just skin and bones. He could be heard taking in extremely long deep breathes. Every time he breathed in he would circulate his qi and allow the energy in the air to nourish his body. The ancient monk had practiced this his entire life, but he only got benefits from the spiritual herb garden hid deep in the depths of the monastery. And even then it was only a small amount that he was allowed to take in every few years. The amount of energy he took in over the last week was a hundred times more than he did in his entire life. Many of the secret arts that were past down thru the ages were finally able to utilized by this ancient monk. He allowed his mind to leave his body and follow the energy back to its source. What he found baffled him. He could see the crash site and the enormous hole next to it. He could see a bright glow coming from the hole. He of course knew of this place, it was a forbidden area for their monastery. In there history a great battle took place here. Powerful being from another world would enter from here to plunder resources and enslave local inhabitants. Before that fateful battle this land was rich in spiritual energy. The land was lush, and rich, and fertile. Many nomadic tribes who lived off the land and worshipped it as their G.o.d called this mountainous region their home. They would pilgrimage to the monastery he lived in to gain enlightenment from the monks living here. They learned cultivation arts to progress their strength and enrich their bodies. This is were the legend of Shangri La came from.
Below the mountain the monastery sat on was a spirit vein, known today as a ley line, that would circulate spiritual energy to all of the plants in the area. Anyone, man or beast, who ate this vegetation would gain amazing benefits to their body and mind. But hundreds of thousands of years ago the powerful abbots of many monasteries banded together to seal this hole to prevent the invaders from attacking. They were successful in driving back the invaders and sealing the hole, but the consequences were beyond their worse fears. They consumed most of the Earth"s spiritual energy to form the barriers and seals. This alone drained of half of the Earth"s spiritual energy, and the barriers prevented that lost energy from being able to be replenished. Over time the remaining energy was slowly used up by the worlds cultivators. Man changed to adapt to this new world by becoming industrial. The old ways were soon forgotten and became nothing but myth and legends. Very few places still knew of the old ways and had the old knowledge. The ancient monk returned his mind to his body. He stood up making many cracking as popping sounds as his old bones rubbed together. He stretched his body to get the blood flowing to his extremities again. After half a day he felt comfortable enough to move about.
"I can only use about twenty percent of my full strength but that should be enough for now. I need to get closer to the Sacred Abyss to see what has really happened there to cause such a change.", the ancient monk thought to himself.
When he made his move to leave he was so fast that he seemed to teleport. One second he was there the next a blurry afterimage slowly faded away.
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Nathan was confused, so he used a translation app to double check if he heard the recording from the black box correctly. After checking a couple times he found out he was right the first time. The captain and co-pilot both yelled that they saw a lightening dragon attack the plane. The recording ends right after they say that so there is no other information to follow up on.
"You did hear them correctly, and they weren"t imagining things. From the energy I can feel of the wreckage, a being of the lightening element definitely attacked this aircraft."
Nathan spun around and pulled the Glock from its holster on his hip. He didn"t see anyone standing around him. Now that he thought about it he heard that statement in his head, not with his ears.
"Is the high elevation playing with my head?", Nathan thought while laughing to himself for being too jumpy.
"No you"re not going crazy. We don"t speak the same language so this is the easiest way for my to communicate with you."
"Who are you? How are you able to get in my head like this?", Nathan was getting nervous.
He couldn"t see who was speaking to him, and they could easy enter his head. If they meant him harm there was nothing he could do to stop them. He slowly moved around the fuselage of the plane as he searched for any sign of someone around him. Suddenly a very ancient looking monk appeared beside him. The monk was wearing malas and ceremonial robes that seemed three sizes to big for his body. The monk was bald, but his bushy white eyebrows hung down to his chin. Nathan was startled when he saw him appear suddenly out of the corner of his eye and turned and fired his gun. The bullet went thru the monk and hit the fuselage behind the monk but didn"t seem to cause any harm to the monk at all. The monk continued to smile at Nathan, slowly he raised his right hand and pointed up. As soon as Nathan looked up the monk in front of him disappeared, it was just an illusion anyway. The real monk was floating above the hole sitting cross-legged in mid-air, with his voluminous robes hanging down.
"Nice to meet you Nathan McDaniels my name is Gorampa Sonam Senge."
As tough as Nathan was he just couldn"t mentally put all of this together. As much as he tried to comprehend what was happening it was too much for him.
"Please calm down before…..", Nathan pa.s.sed out before Gorampa could finish his sentence.