In the weeks since the destruction of Redfox Village, Nolan’s group had relocated to a large cave in the heart of the forest that fringed the Northern Plains region. Nolan had discovered it about a day’s walk from the clearing where they’d initially hidden so that he and Quin could recuperate enough to move on to a new location.

Damn, I still can’t believe that it only took a few weeks for me to get back on my feet.

He’d been forced to exhaust a total of eighteen of their precious spirit stones in the process of restoring his body to optimal condition. By absorbing the Origin Energy contained within the vibrant stones and filtering it through his dantian, he was able to produce a steady supply of inner essence that he directed around his wounded shoulder and gut. This sped up his body’s natural ability to heal itself by several fold.

He almost couldn’t believe that the fractured bones of his shoulder had flawlessly mended back together, or that his ruptured organs had completely repaired after a few bloody excretions. By relying on his spiritual sense and inner essence, he was able to completely recover from a critical condition at a pace that far exceeded the capabilities of modern medicine back on Earth.

Although Nolan was out and about, Quin was still incapacitated. Though the bear of a man had regained consciousness he was still covered with dozens of wounds that were in various stages of recovery. Nyla had been meticulous in changing and cleaning his bandages, and had used their entire supply of purple bloodleaf to regenerate her brother’s blood, which had long since clotted and sealed his many lacerations. Several of the cuts had festered with infection, two on his corded chest, one on his right bicep, and another on a rock-like calf. As luck would have it Nyla had been able to gather a few herbs that were able to kill the infections when torn into bits and rubbed into the wounds.

As soon as Nolan’s injuries had recovered, he’d run along the mossy edge of the trickling stream for a short while before catching sight of a small hill within the massive forest. Like the stream that ran along its borders, the hill was shrouded in a blanket of pine-coloured moss, its body a meshing of crude dirt and coarse rock. He was surprised to find that a large cave bore deep into one side of the hill.

The mouth of the cave was lined with jagged, stony teeth, its throat a maw of eerie blackness that ran back for nearly thirty metres. Once he’d confirmed that it was empty, Nolan hurried back to the clearing and informed the others of his find. They immediately set off, Nolan resting Quin upon a bed-sized leaf that’d fallen from the distant ceiling of verdant foliage and then dragging him over the knee-deep waters of the stream. They had arrived at their destination three hours later, a long walk of careful progression.

Nearly a month had passed since they’d hunkered down in the cavernous room of rock, during which time Quin’s condition had significantly improved.

When Nolan had initially fought through the grating pain of his injuries to show Jason the ropes of cultivation the latter had been too embarrassed to fully commit to his training. This changed after he successfully pulled in his first bit of Origin Energy from the surroundings. Riding a high of surprise, he’d been overcome with enthusiasm and heartily dedicated most hours of the day to running through the few stances he knew and absorbing whatever tiny amounts of energy that he could pull into his body. He practiced the core cultivation method whenever he wasn’t eating, sleeping, or solidifying his grasp on the local language under Nyla’s guidance. Since then he’d made a decent amount of headway.

Back in the timeless glade where the Origin Energy was at least ten times thicker than in their current surroundings, it’d taken Nolan nearly half a month to enter the first level of the Body Nourishment stage. With that in mind, he originally estimated that Jason would need a few months to attain the same results but it ended up taking him around five weeks. The reason for this achievement was that Jason had used the majority of their spirit stones in order to speed up his progress, and he was only able to do so because of the peculiarity of their core cultivation method.

While Nolan didn’t have full access to the memories that the old master of the technique had implanted within his mind, enough was accessible to know that most cultivators wouldn’t develop a dantian until they achieved a major breakthrough to the Profound Entry stage. Those that practiced the Ancestral Body Technique nurtured a premature dantian and spiritual sense from the moment that they began to cultivate the technique.

Thinking about the man that he’d met in the glade and the kids that made up most of the limited number of lived memories that constantly eluded his grasp, Nolan was suddenly stirred from silence.

“Why can’t I use any more of those stones?” Jason complained. “It’s so much easier than doing those moves you showed me.” By this point the chubby boy that Nolan had met over two months ago had shed most of his excess fat. His pudgy cheeks were now thinned out and the few stress lines that’d appeared beneath his tired eyes did a fine job of smothering the youthful innocence that used to paint his round face.

“Because there’re only seventeen left and we need to save them for emergencies.” The two of them stood atop large rocks that jutted out from the stream, just like the youths from one of those wayward memories. Just as the old man had told them, the quickest way to familiarize oneself with the Ancestral Body Technique was to cultivate it in a limited space so as to place prevalence on the footwork. “What’d I tell you about calling me by my name during training?”

Jason wiped sweat from his brow, a few gangly strands of his almond hair sticking to his slick skin as he took up the sixth position. “Why are you making things difficult for me?”

“Come on, man. Every kid’s dreamt of this sort of thing, don’t ruin it for me.”

“No.”

“Let me be your Roshi. Then I’ll let you use a stone.”

“Really? If I commit to it then can I use two?”

“Just the one.”

“Why do you have to be so stingy? I’m scared, man. You’re super strong now, cool for you, but any innocent dear in this forest could mangle me if they wanted to.”

“Because you need to get better at doing the stances. What’ll you do once the stones run out? The more stances you learn, the faster you’ll be able to pull in the Origin Energy around you, which you’ve got to do sooner or later anyway. Work your ass off if you want to catch up to me.” Nolan withdrew one of their precious luminescent rocks and tossed it up in the air before stowing it back into the spatial bag that he’d claimed as his own. “And since you didn’t call me master I’m definitely not giving you a stone, so go find a place to train. You haven’t pulled in a speck of energy after all this time, so stop whining and focus.”

“How is that fair?” Jason left with a dejected sigh and found a spot near the mouth of the cave to continue his training. He didn’t like straying too far from their camp, would only cultivate by the stream when Nolan was there to look out for him.

With Jason only knowing the first six stances it would take him at least five years to make a breakthrough in the event that he relied solely on cultivating the energy of the world. The boy had spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to perfect just a handful of the peculiar positions, a testament to how difficult it was to truly master the mysteries behind the strange movements.

Since Nolan had already trained for most of the day he decided to spend the rest of the evening hanging around Nyla and her brother. About a dozen paces into the darkness of the cave they’d spread the rest of their spirit stones along the sides of the walls, which filled the area with a resplendent light that perfectly illuminated the cavernous room for at least five metres in all directions.

“Are you sure you remember the way to Greenwall?” Quin’s deep voice had regained most of its usual strength, though it still held a slight rasp. “You’ve only ever seen it on Father’s maps.”

“I should be able to get us there,” Nyla said. “You know more than anyone how much time I used to spend in his study. I might not be the strongest, or even close to that for that matter, but I guarantee I’ve read more books and maps than most people in the plains region.”

Quin snorted. “What use is a strong mind without the physical strength to back it up?”

“Are you saying I’m useless?”

“No, I…”

“He’s just jealous that he missed out on all the knowledge in your dad’s office.” Nolan sat down across from them. “No need to be insecure, she could always teach you things, you know.”

Quin narrowed his eyes.

Nyla laughed. “Quin has no interests in books and scrolls. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has forgotten his letters after all this time.”

“I can still read,” the big man grumbled. “Though look at all the good it’s done me.” He readjusted his position with a wince and then leaned back against the cave wall.

Nolan picked a few berries out of a wooden bowl that Nyla had crudely whittled with the head of one of her black-shafted arrows, which were remarkably sharp. “How long you think until you’re well enough to travel?”

“There’s no need to wait around any longer. I’m—”

“He should be fine in a few days.” Nyla shot her brother an intelligent, dark-eyed stare that made him turn his head and bite down his intended response.

“A few days, huh?” Nolan puckered his lips at the tartness of the berries. “And you said it’d take us at least twenty days to get to Greenwall after we leave the forest?”

“At least, yes.”

“But that’s only if we walk. Jason can run for about two hours now, so if we just match his pace and take constant breaks, I figure we should be able to get there in less than a week.”

The siblings shared a nod.

“But that’s only if he has it in him,” said Quin. “And he doesn’t. He will just complain the entire time. Even when he speaks your Otherworlder tongue, I know when he is complaining.”

You have no idea how scary it is to go from things like calculus, hockey and chasing girls to fighting murderers and fending off monsters like those damn foxes that creep around every corner. If things were so disconcerting for him, than what about a softie like Jason?

“Give him a bit more credit,” Nolan said. “Besides, as his master, I can’t just let him slack off on something as simple as running.” He picked up a nearby spirit stone and began fiddling with it. After a minute of silence, he put it down and looked at Nyla. “Is there something on my face?”

She maintained the thoughtful gaze that she’d planted on him before he had begun to play around with the spirit stone. “I just haven’t gotten used to how easily you speak with us now. I wouldn’t believe that you were unable to utter a word of our language just two months ago. Honestly, it’s amazing.” She sighed in appreciation, her clear, tan skin glowing with borrowed light from the surrounding stones. “Isn’t it fascinating, Quin? He could be mistaken for a local.”

The young man gave a nondescript grumble.

“You’ve changed much since we’ve met, Nolan,” she went on. “And yet, I feel like you haven’t change at all.” She gave him a warm smile, one that he was unable to return.

He hated not knowing where Thomas and Steph were. He was also homeless and endlessly ignorant of just about everything, which stressed him out to no end as he wondered what direction his life would take in the coming months. Even the memories in his mind couldn’t give him an idea of what the rest of Venara was like, because those memories came from an entirely different world.

His mood plummeted in the face of these errant thoughts so he eventually made up a random excuse and left to go wander the area around their cave. It was always distracting to pick palm-sized blueberries from house-sized bushes or to spot earth worms the size of pool floaties buried metres beneath the dirt, his spiritual sense a miracle in itself. Even so, today’s wave of depression was a stubborn one.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the mysterious ring that sat painlessly lodged in his chest cavity even as he walked through the spilling underbrush with evident dejection. He was positive that the ring had somehow played a part in transporting him to and from the mysterious glade that he’d been stranded in for six months, and also with how his arm had inexplicably healed after being drilled into from hand to heart by something so dull and round as that archaic piece of stone. And why the hell couldn’t he feel it inside of his chest? He knew it was there, directly between his heart and his dantian, though oddly enough he felt no physical presence.

If I can find out how to get a reaction from this ring, would it bring me back to that glade? But fuck man, what if it brought me somewhere else? Do I really wanna roll those dice? He figured that so long as he was able to improve his spiritual sense he might have a chance at learning something about that old rock. If only that old man had given me some memories about this ring. He shook his head, brushing off such thoughts. All things considered, his future was uncertain at best.

Although Nolan had tempered his mind during the long, silent months he’d spent in the soundless glade, it was exceedingly difficult to pull himself up from the depression that set in whenever he thought about his friend and family. His main method of coping was to distract himself by cultivating, but lately he’d found it hard to ward off his merciless imagination.

Nolan wandered through the surrounding forest until he eventually found himself standing at the edge of the nearby stream. He noticed a huge, flat rock poking out of the singing waters and decided to use it as a training platform.

One by one he shifted through the one hundred and ninety-eight stances that he’d become increasingly familiar with in the past months, absentmindedly refreshed as the surrounding Origin Energy slowly began to congeal over his body before seeping through his pores like sweat on reverse. After converting the energies into inner essence he stored every bit within his dantian, which madly absorbed everything that he threw its way. Although his training speed was much slower than it had been in the glade, he could only inch forward one step at a time until he reached the fifth level of Body Nourishment.

Nolan mostly kept to himself over the next several days, spending countless hours immersed in silent cultivation as he attempted to calm his restless heart. Jason spent nearly just as much time honing his proficiency of the Ancestral Body Technique’s opening stances from atop his own rock, which wasn’t too far off. He only ever trained when Nolan was within eyeshot, as the demonic fox that he’d caught a glimpse of a short while back had branded him with a traumatic impression of the oversized forest. The two of them would retire to the cave once the last of the fading sunlight gave way to a gloaming that was perpetually uncanny, as they never had any way of knowing what monstrosity might be roaming about in the darkness.

After each training session they were greeted with a freshly roasted meat that Nyla would prepare over a temporary fire, which she’d always constructed outside of the cave.

On the fourth day of training at the stream, Nolan was in the midst of striking a difficult pose atop his rocky platform when he picked up a bit of movement and looked over in the direction of the cave. Nyla and Quin had just wandered over to the bank of the stream, the former calling out to him and Jason with a bright smile on her cherry lips.

Jason glanced over at Nolan and then hopped off of his rock to join the two siblings with an amiable greeting. With two easygoing leaps, Nolan quickly followed suit.

“Great to see you healthy!” Jason said in the Universal Language, shooting Quin a thumb’s up.

Quin ignored him as his brown eyes scanned their surroundings, a bored expression on his chiselled, lightly bearded face. Shaggy tangles of brown hair fell past his hulking shoulders, his muscular, scar-riddled frame catching a sliver of sunlight as he towered over the rest of the group. Due to the excess of gore they’d suffered through the upper sections of his pelts had taken on a rank smell within a couple days of their desperate flight from the plains region, so Nyla had thrown away all but his lower garbs, somewhere between a pair of shorts and a furry kilt made from sunset-coloured fur. His lower pelt was noticeably tattered, but it’d been the only article of his clothing that he could salvage.

Nyla had just changed out of one of the spare robes that had been in the blond boy’s spatial bag, which she only wore when laundering the crude dress she’d fashioned from the clothes that the village head and his goons had forced her to wear on their final day in Redfox Village.

“It’s about time we set off.” Nyla seemed eager to get out of the forest.

“We didn’t have to wait this long,” Quin muttered. “I was fine days ago.”

“In any case,” she said, “we can leave now if that’s fine with the two of you.”

Nolan looked over at Jason. “What do you say, you ready to leave?” The other boy nodded so quickly that it made him laugh. “It’s settled then. Let’s grab our stuff and get the F out of H.”

They returned to the cave to gather their belongings. Soon after, the motley group of youths left the camp at their backs and set off into the unknown, Nolan’s unease echoed on the faces of his friends as they began their long march through the burgeoning forest.