Max’s consciousness was pulled forward by an invisible but familiar force. It was the same feeling when he had laid eyes on the information orbs that the Ye couple had gifted him. In the next instant, his consciousness was once again transported to his spiritual space. As this happened, his body went limp. He fell onto his knees with a soft “thump” and then he collapsed face-first into the dirt.

When Max opened his eyes again, he was already floating in his spiritual space. As soon as he entered this realm, he could feel that something was different. The sky was not as bright as the last time he was here. The clouds were turning and shifting in an irregular rhythm. And the air felt charged to him. Not long after he noticed these changes, he saw a hawk at the edge of his spiritual space by the glass-like barrier. Behind the hawk, there was an opening in the barrier that was quickly closing.

The hawk in front of him looked like a miniature version of the one outside the cave. It was about the size of a regular hawk, maybe one and a half to two feet long and almost a foot wide. It was possibly larger if it spread its wings. The Hawk in front of him had all its feathers intact with none of the bite marks. It was also transparent, similar to how the Ye couple was, but a bit more solid. It had started to charge toward him. Max was on guard, but he wasn’t sure what he could do in this place.

Before the miniature hawk could get very far in its charge, it abruptly stopped and examined Max. From Max’s perspective, the hawk looked like it was going to attack him, but paused mid-flight. As the seconds passed, the ferocity in the Hawk’s aura started to diminish and was replaced by confusion and fear. The standoff didn’t last long and the hawk broke the silence.

“Human, why is your soul so…dense?”

The question caught him by surprise. He was able to understand the bird, but this felt different than when he was talking to Ma Erk or in that brief conversation with Ric-re. Somehow, he knew that those communications were happening in yelps and growls. Whereas, when he was talking to the Ye couple, it was in a human language, albeit one that was unfamiliar to him. The hawk had spoken in a language that was very similar to the Ye couple.

‘Dense?’ Max lifted his hand in front of him and looked down at it. Unlike Teacher Mao and Ye Zhong or even the hawk, he wasn’t transparent. While he knew this wasn’t his physical body, it looked like it, felt like it and he could control it as if it was. In his spiritual form, he had gotten the same tactical feedback when he touched something like the glass-like dome around his spiritual space.

The moment he had looked down at his hand, the miniature Hawk launched its attack. Max had only noticed something was coming toward him from the upper corner of his vision. He wasn’t able to react fast enough to dodge it. He had only fully registered what happened when a crescent-shaped blade lopped off the hand that he was looking at. It had sliced through his wrist without any resistance. It continued its path after relieving him of his hand until it made contact with his chest. More specifically, the spiritual clothes on his chest. When the two came into contact, the crescent-shaped blade shattered into pieces and a small mark was left on his spiritual robe.

“AHHHHHHHH!”

Max stared dumbly at his stump as his detached hand slowly drifted away. There was no blood, instead, it was replaced by a gray and smoky matter. As he watched it, the gray mist slowly seeped out of him. The pain was agony on another level. The first time he had tried cooking he had poured oil in a still wet, but hot pan. The resulting splash had gotten all over his hand and arm. That initial pain had passed quickly but the pain he was feeling now was ongoing. And worse, there was no cold water he could run his hand under.

If this body could produce tears, they would already be welling up in his eyes. Gritting his teeth, he looked up in the direction of the hawk. It was a good thing he did because there was another crescent-shaped blade that had just been launched at him. This time, it looked like it was going for his head. Fighting through the pain, he managed to leap to the side. He had his eyes closed so he didn’t see how close the blade got to him, but he could feel a nick on the right side of his neck. Although it didn't hurt as bad as his hand, it still felt like a wasp sting.

In his haste to escape, Max had forgotten the weightless nature of his spiritual space. He didn’t know what he kicked off, but when he did it was with so much force that he shoulder-checked the glass-like surface of the dome. The sudden impact had dazed him. When he came to, he saw that hawk was now in the position he was previously in. His severed hand was still floating there.

Looking at the miniature hawk, it looked to have gotten even more transparent. It reminded him of what Teacher Mao looked like right before she turned into a ball of light and became a brand on his chest.

‘Was it using up its spiritual energy on those attacks?’

As the thought crossed his mind, the Hawk floated in front of his severed hand and started biting into it. In seconds, it was devoured. At first, Max still had a vague connection with his hand. He had the distinct feeling that it was still part of him even if it was no longer attached, but now that connection had completely disappeared.

After the hand was absorbed, the Hawk’s frame became much more solid, even more than when it had initially entered the spiritual space. Max wasn’t sure how to react. The hand was still part of him, if it was his hand on his actual body it would be much more traumatizing, but now seeing how it kind of just dissolved into smoke, he felt oddly distant from the whole thing.

The hand-eating bird looked up at Max and gave him a predatory grin.

“Oh, shit…”

It came charging at him again, but this time it didn’t stop. Seeing this, Max quickly kicked off to the side. Since his back was up against the dome, he used it as a guide and slid along the curvature of it. By the time the hawk had reached the dome, Max was a comfortable 10-12 feet away.

It looked like the Hawk was also not familiar with fighting in a spiritual space as it crashed beak first into the dome. Just like Max was, the hawk was dazed by the unexpected impact into the dome. He took this opportunity to dive downwards into the clouds. He found one near the edge of his spiritual space that was large enough for him to fit in. He hoped that the Hawk didn’t have a way to track him or see him entering the cloud.

The cloud was tinted purple on the inside, but Max wasn’t sure how that could help him at this moment. He was still distracted by the excruciating pain radiating from his left wrist where his hand used to be. His visibility was also limited, the cloud was basically like a thick fog. He could barely make out himself in the cloud, not to mention what lay beyond it. As soon as he had entered the cloud, he had tucked his legs to his chest to make sure his body was fully encapsulated.

Now that he felt some modicum of safety, Max was able to collect his thoughts.

‘Fuck, what is going on here…’

He had exited the cave and was ready to fight, but all he saw was a bloody and bruised hawk that was roughly adult human size. When he had tried to approach the downed beast, there was an instinctual gut reaction that told him not to. When Max had planned on retreating into the cave, the hawk made its move. They had locked eyes for a moment, but right after it let out an ear-piercing screech.

‘Something was off about the screech. Even when I had covered my ears, it got louder. That wasn’t a normal screech, maybe some kind of attack or skill? And the next thing I knew I was pulled in here fighting a smaller version of the Hawk.’

Max was starting to get used to the pain from his stump. Taking a closer look at it, it looked like it was closing up, he couldn’t be sure due to the limited visibility inside the cloud. The pain from his neck from the near-miss had mostly gone away. With his other hand, he touched the area where the crescent-shaped blade had smashed into him. There was a small divot in his robe, but otherwise completely looked fine. He had barely felt anything when it contacted, it was no more than a light punch.

These robes were created by Teacher Mao, before she had gifted these to him, he was butt naked in his spiritual space. If that was the case, he would likely be a goner by now. The Hawk would have done him in in the first attack. Max had already remembered when the robes had materialized his teacher's transparent image had gotten even more so.

‘Thank you, Teacher. You might not know it, but you already saved my life once.’

In the next moment, the mark on his shoulder shined, and out came a hammer. It was the hammer that Ye Zhong had turned into. Along with its appearance, a new string of messages was made known to him.

‘Hey, kid! If you’re seeing this then you must be in a pickle. Wifey asked me to put my last spiritual energy into making this hammer for you. With this and the robe, you should be able to defend yourself from most intruders. Our soul fragments were already on our last leg when you found us so this is all we can do for you. Now go smash!’

Although the message was a bit long, the gist of it was somehow directly downloaded into his head. Grabbing hold of the hammer with his right hand, there was a nice heft to it. The hammerhead was large, it clearly was not used for nails. The hammerhead had two sides, one was roughly in the shape of a rectangle, and the other end had a horizontal wedge. The edge of the wedge wasn’t sharp, but curved instead. Max guessed that the rectangular side was to flatten metals, whereas the wedge was used to bend metals. The hammerhead was about a foot long with the handle being a bit longer than that.

Even though the hammer had two unequal sides, the handle was placed so it was perfectly balanced. There weren’t any fancy designs on them, it looked like they could be any blacksmith’s tool. It had the “function over fashion” feel just like the rest of the things he got from Ye Zhong. It suddenly clicked in his head why the martial art Ye Zhong had gifted him felt awkward, it was meant to be used with a hammer.

‘No wonder, my back was so sore. It was training the parts of my body that a blacksmith would use…’