Chapter 32. The morning

The morning was overcast just like his mood, the entire morning his friends pestered him if he really didn’t want it. He became numb to the amount of times they offered it to him. However, they eventually gave up, he was stubborn no matter how weak he was.

His friends knew it’d be impossible once he made his mind. They eventually decided to split it between Gerald and Sampson. The effect was immediate as they ate, the inner energy they could never have felt before flowed throughout their body for one cycle.

Immediately after consuming it, Gerald and Sampson both shouted that they felt something coursing through their entire body. Mason and Riley did not expect such a powerful reaction from their friends just ingesting the energy marble.

It wasn’t surprising for them to react this way from consuming the condense energy marble Boss made. It was the purest form of energy from the 3kg (6 pounds) of meat extracted with nothing loss in the process.

Just like how boiling vegetables loses approximately 30 percent of their nutrients, cooking anything containing inner energy causes it to lose more than 90 percent of it.

Rainbow shards and stones were the first thing they thought of that contained inner energy, when they thought about how to process the stones to get the maximum amount of inner energy, it was by directly consuming bits of the stone and chased it down with water. However, combining the stone with anything else to make it more edible diluted the energy they would gain.

People tried to find other ways of getting the inner energy from within the stone, plenty of people thought about ways to extract it however, if there was a way to extract inner energy it was never publicized.

It was one of the reasons why Mason and friends didn’t immediately consume the meat when they had it, and no one was willing to get themselves sick or even worse from eating it raw. They also didn’t want to cook it when they considered that they’d lose over 90% of their benefit by cooking. Never had they ever thought they’d lose it to some kid.

“What do I do now!? What do I do?” Sampson was feeling as excited and anxious as ever from what was coursing through his body. Mason and Riley immediately informed both Sampson and Gerald to meditate and try to learn as much as they could from the feeling of it. His four friends were completely immersed in the situation, completely forgetting about their surroundings.

Seth shook his head and walked out the Inn, he didn’t want to stay there any longer, he knew he missed out from the looks of it. Staying there would have just made him jealous and regretful, he didn’t want to feel that way.

The villagers were active this morning as he walked around to clear his mind.

“Boulder, boulder! Elroy, how’re you today?”

“Same as usual Loreli, how’s Big T?”

“Still asleep! I’ll wake him up later.”

“Tell him don’t be too late, we’ve got lots of work to do today.”

“Of course! I’ll kick his butt if he doesn’t want to wake up, what kind of father will be lazy about it?”

“That’s good! See you!”

“Boulder, boulder~”

Seth had a strange look on his face as he walked around the village, every villager would continually greet each other with Boulder, boulder and mention whatever work they were doing. Curious, he decided to follow this Elroy person to see what work it was.

It was his second time coming to this village, the first time was straight through it for a day. The villagers at that time ran around scaring each other, including him and friends on their first visit. Seth didn’t like it as much and referred to them as savages in his mind.

The second time was now returning from Rouge, they immediately ran straight for the Inn and didn’t step out until the ships to the Tillowisk Empire arrives at Asmar Harbor.

There were other ways to get to the Tillowisk Empire earlier such as becoming a stowaway on a merchant ship. However, if they were caught, its either prison or getting tossed into the water to swim back. They decided the risk wasn’t worth it.

Seth continued to follow Elroy until Elroy turned a corner. A hand on his shoulder from behind instantly caused him to freeze in place as he turned his head around “Hey, haven’t seen you in this village before, are you from Asmar or Rouge?” A tall dark-skinned man in his early forties asked.

“U-uh I’m from Tryn” Seth replied honestly. The tall dark-skinned man scratched his chin and looked at Seth before him. “Tryn eh? Pretty far away from Boulderville, whatcha doing here kid? Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Seth shook his head, “I dropped out.” The man sighed and consoled Seth “It’s okay kid, it’s better to drop out early if you couldn’t find your internal energy. Did you get that scar from school too?” He asked about the claw marked shape scar on Seth’s face.

Seth shook his head, “It’s a long story.” He was unwilling to say more. The man nodded his head in understanding asked. “Are you just visiting through or staying at the Inn?”

“I’ll be staying at the Inn” His response caused the man to ask a follow up question “Are you doing anything today?” Seth recalled that his friends should still be in their room focusing on digesting the energy pill. He shook his head in response.

“Great! Will you like to come with me to do some work? We’re preparing a festival for our kid’s return. We could use your help.” The man paused and continued “oh and we’ll have free refreshments.” Seth pondered for a moment and agreed. There was nothing else for him to be doing.

Seth followed the man and continued to converse, he found out the man was called Harmick and it is tradition in the village to throw a celebration for when their kids return from school. Apparently, for the longest time they would run around and scare the kids when they returned.

Their reasoning was to see what the kids have been taught in school by scaring the snot out of them and force them into situations where they’ll use what they’ve been taught. However, the numbers of kids who returned without any powers to show after their first year decreased after every generations.

Before long, it would be lucky for first year kids to harness their internal energy, so Chief Gran decided it was time for a new festivity, one that would be fitting for all kids. The adults who grew up with the old tradition missed scaring the kids and would still celebrate it a few days before on parents who passes through or spend their time at the Inn waiting for the kids if Asmar’s Inns are packed.

During the time Seth and friends walked through Boulderville, the villagers were practicing their scaring before the parents arrived. Those from Asmar and Rouge knew of this tradition and are prepared for it.

However, for Seth and friends who weren’t from Rouge or Asmar they could only panic and run away fearing for their lives.

They eventually arrived at the outskirts of the mountainous village; dirt filled pathway opened to an enormous circular area ahead slightly bigger than the size of a football field. There were people running around all over smoothening out the ground and carrying slabs they carved from the mountain.

“What’s going on here?” Seth asked. “We’re creating a stage for our kids to showcase what they’ve learned.” Harmick smiled brightly at the scene of people working before him. He then pointed at rows of stalls they’ve made for food and games.

“Boulder, boulder Harmick! You’re finally here?” An equally tall muscular man walked over and greeted. He was sweating from top to bottom but the bright smile on his face showed no signs of fatigue.

“At least I’m here earlier than Big T.” Harmick replied.

“Everyone is earlier than Big T.” The muscular man responded causing the two men to laugh at their joke. He then glanced at Seth “I’m Karns, but everyone calls me MK (Muscular Karns)” As he flexed his biceps and hard abs.

“No one calls you that, stop trying to make it a thing.” Harmick rolled his eyes at Karns. “This here is Seth, he had nothing to do today so I asked him to help out.” Harmick introduced Seth to Karns.

“Boulder, boulder Seth.” Karns gave Seth the toughest handshake he’d ever had before releasing. “Ahaha, you’ve got some grip kid, you’re definitely capable.” Karns laughed at Seth who was shaking his hands out.

“Karns! Harmick! Come help!” Another villager called for them. “Let’s go help out, these slabs are freaking heavy.” Karns replied leading the way for Seth to follow him.

Dozens of big sweaty men were topless as they carved chunks from the mountainside. They would carry it over to another station that would then create equal sized squares which are then moved to the final station where it’ll be polished to be completely smooth.

Seth marveled at how well functioning these men were with no wasted movement in their pace.

“You see those slabs that are stacked at the end there?” Karns pointed at the piles of perfectly polished squares made from the mountainside. He continued “We’re going to start creating the stage using those today, we’ll need two people to a slab because they’re freaking heavy.”

“Harmick would you like to help Seth with carrying them today?” Karns asked. Harmick nodded his head and agreed. “Sure.”

“Great! We’re almost done with the other stations after a few more slabs, some of us will be helping you guys out later.” Karns stated before rushing back to his station. He was part of the men who would carve from the mountainside and carry it to the next station.

Harmick looked at Seth and led him to the pile of perfectly shaped squares. These were slabs roughly 135kg (~300lbs) a piece. “Ready Seth?” Harmick pulled a slab out enough for both of them to lift up. Seth gulped and nodded his head; the slab was heavy enough to make his legs buckle but he held on and quickly followed Harmick’s lead to place the slab on the ground.

His back was already screaming after the first slab. Looking at the approximately 2500 slabs left he wondered if it was even possible for them to be able to place them all down before the kids returned.

“Not bad right?” Harmick slapped Seth on the back providing him with some well needed encouragement and confidence. Seth nodded his head and continued to help Harmick with the carrying.

A few more men arrived and began to help out after their fifth slab. Before long Seth looked exactly like one of them, sweating, topless, and carrying heavy slabs.

An hour passed by before everyone from the other stations finished with what they had to do and called for the work to stop momentarily as they all took a break. Seth was devouring the food and drinks he was provided and nearly choking from it in the process.

The group of men all sat around and conversed with each other, everyone was a father competing against each other and putting their own son or daughter on a pedestal. Seth felt so embarrassed when they laughed about him being a dropout. However, looking at their brown hair and eyes, Seth immediately realized all these men were fathers and dropouts putting their hopes onto their sons and daughters. He thought to himself, maybe in the future he’ll be like them. That’s not so bad.

He even saw Elroy the person he was following earlier. Elroy was the village’s only blacksmith; he is the lead designer of the stage before them and created all the tools necessary to forming this stage.

Their early morning brunch ended after an hour of eating and recovering. More men showed up to help, the last one to arrive was an enormously big guy with a rotund belly and a head taller than the second tallest person there. He was Big T.

The sleepy look on his face as he sat down and converse with them showing that he woke up not long ago. However, everyone was extremely welcoming and mentioned that he showed up a lot earlier than expected.

Seth paid him careful attention as he looked at the fella. The moment he arrived everyone felt revigorated as they were ready to get back to work.

Big T was the first to walk over to a slab and lifted two by himself as he carried it over and placed it down. Seth’s eyes were about to pop out of his sockets as he saw the nonchalant look of Big T carrying the slabs from the station to the stage they were building.

“Surprised? He’s our strongest regular person in the village. Even though he’s a typical person like us he makes us proud to be normal.” Harmick saw the look of disbelief on Seth’s face and smacked his back. “It’s our turn let’s go.” Seth nodded his head feeling reinvigorated to carry the slabs, they felt lighter this time as the adrenaline in his body kicked in.

Another hour passed by before another break was called. The amount of progress once everyone arrived shocked Seth as he looked at the slabs placed. Nearly a quarter of the slabs were placed for making the stage.

Another person showed up during this hour, he had green hair and a dazzling smile on his face as he greeted everyone there. “Cobble! Wasn’t expecting to see you here, aren’t you training some kids?” Elroy asked. A person immediately came to Seth’s mind as he listened carefully.

“Not today, Pebble is training them today.” Cobble looked at the stage that was being built and nodded his head in content. “Not bad, you guys did a lot already, my father will be here soon too. We can start again when he arrives.” Cobble replied.

“The Chief is coming? Gran is coming?” Various people shouted at once when Cobble mentioned his father. “Yeah, my father will be coming soon, we were watching Pebble train the kids earlier and realized it’d be better if we do something else instead of watching.”

“What kind of training is Pebble giving them?” Another villager asked.

“Hide-and-seek tag.” Cobble replied.