Chapter 11 - Awakening Sage part 3

After waking up, the first thing Jodye saw was the three people staring at him like he was a freak. Next, he realized he was naked and standing amongst a pile of rubble.

"Ma, it's cold," said the shivering Jodye Trill, looking at his mother who seemed so happy and excited, like she was about to get some ice cream in the summer. Snapping out of it, lady Isis ran forward and dropped to knees, embracing her son tightly.

"You brat, giving me troubles as soon as you wake," although his mother scolded him, she was smiling ear to ear and kissing his handsome little face over and over.

"Ma, your drowning me," Jodye Trill immediately protested when assaulted by all this unexpected affection.

"Hush, boy, you will endure my kiss attack!" giggled lady Isis, kissing Jodye's little cheek several more times. Jodye was powerless to resist.

Lady Isis had returned to her bright and tender temperament the moment Jodye woke up. A ring on her finger flashed as a set of brand new all-white clothes appeared in front of Jodye Trill, who swiftly removed himself from his mother's bosom, and got dressed on his own. However, as the clothes didn't fit, his mother had to prepare another outfit. Luckily shopping for her son was one of her more favorite pastimes.

It was at this moment that everyone, especially Jodye himself, noticed that he had grown significantly. He was currently the size of the average six or seven-year-old child. Jodye Trill was shocked. Flabbergasted. How long, exactly, had he slept? Jodye Trill looked up at his father, only to see him smiling back.

"In one week, you will be five years old. I suppose I owe you a few gifts," said Lord Osiris, reading his son's mind by watching his antics. Jodye immediately frowned. Doesn't that mean he had been in a coma for three years? How tragic! That's three years of delicious food not enjoyed. Three years he could have been cultivating the Titanic Rage Law gone to waste! Even worse, three years worth of Kamila's dreams he would have to endure.

The horror!

Worst of all, that's three years that he couldn't enjoy ogling his father's second wife, Lylian. This was probably what upset Jodye the most. How was he supposed to raise his standards of beauty now? Seeing the indignation on his son's face, Lord Osiris was tickled. What did this child even know about life, for him to be this upset about three little years? To experts at the lord's level, this was no time at all, "My son, do not fret. Come, show us what you have obtained."

However, right after speaking, all three adults present frowned, "Wait, son. Ke Si, remove my boy from this area until I summon you again."

Ke Si did not hesitate as Jodye Trill was immediately shrouded in darkness, unaware of his surroundings. After standing in silence for a few moments, Jodye Trill had begun to grow irritated.

"Ke Si."

"I am here, little Lord," came Ke Si's mysterious voice in the darkness.

"I do not like this. I can not see," Unknowingly, a white mist started to emit from Jodye Trill's body.

As his irritation grew, Jodye realized he felt more powerful then he had ever felt, even in his previous life. It felt like his body was bursting with strength. His energy felt similar like an overflowing bathtub full of water. All he had to do was pull out the stopper, and it would begin to swiftly drain.

Realizing this, Jodye immediately activated his Mind's Eye and cast his perception inward. What he saw shocked him. The network in his body was far more complicated than before. Misty white veins were jetting up his body from his abdominal region, spreading out in all directions like branches on a tree. At the ends of the tree, there were individual pores, made to absorb and filter energies.

Origin Energy!

Origin Veins!

Doors of Origin!

Upon more in-depth inspection, these veins were not actually new. However, before this, they had looked like standard parts of Jodye's anatomy. Now they had awakened! Jodye Trill knew these unique veins were there from the moment he first cast his Mind's Eye. Only at the time, they were not filled with such energy. This white mist-like energy was precisely his origin energy!

"I wonder how many doors of origin I have opened?" Doors of Origin were something everyone possessed, across all races. Altogether, a human could have a max total of 36 doors of origin. After awakening, ordinary sages are born with three or four doors open, while one blessed with high-level innate talent will have close to ten doors open.

A person with at least 15 doors open after the sage body rebirth would be considered as having exceptional record-breaking talent. Most people had opened around 10. The more doors one has open, the faster origin energy could be absorbed, refined, and activated. An expert with 20 doors open will cultivate twice as fast as an expert with only 10 doors open. It is challenging to open a door of origin.

In the Great Motherland continent, documented experts who had achieved the opening of more than 24 doors of origin could be counted on one hand. The opening of all 36 doors of origin was called the "Grand opening of heaven's door."

The number of innately open doors of origin essentially decided the height one could reach during their entire life because it was extremely complicated to open doors of origin postnatal. Extremely advanced miraculous medicine, chance, and luck; all of this was required, or it would be impossible.

Unfortunately, even when using external forces to open a Door of Origin would be accompanied by high risks; to the extent that even the slightest mistake would cause irreparable damage to the Origin Veins. Damaged origin veins could no longer support energy. Basically making you a cripple!

Sage's who had refined a source artifact will have certain origin doors opened by the first baptism, and this was known as Sage Body Rebirth. This was the process Jodye Trill had just awakened from. Jodye started counting how many origin doors he had open. He was terrified to discover that he had 27 doors of origin already open!

Jodye didn't dare to believe he had such heaven blessed luck, so he counted again. The answer was the same! Unconvinced, he then counted how many doors were closed. To his utter befuddlement, he found that 13 doors of origin were blocked, and not emitting any milky white aura light. After a few minutes of repeated confirmation, there could be no mistake. In Jodye Trill's body, there were 40 doors of origin, and 27 of them were open already!

Jodye Trill somehow had enough doors of origin open to be considered as outstanding in any country, but even more perplexing, he had four other branches in his system of origin veins. What kind of abnormal joke was this?

"The authors of this world are so full of shit!" Jodye Trill was confused and frustrated, "What's the point of reading so much if everything I read is wrong!"

This was maddening, every time he felt prepared based on the knowledge he had accumulated, he was hit with unexpected circumstances. He might as well just wing it from now on, nothing ever happened to him the way it was supposed to. Thus, he decided to not concern himself with the matter of recorded knowledge any further. From now on he would take on the mentality of a scientist, he needed to prove things on his own!

With a thought, Jodye extended his spiritual sense outwards by five meters. This was half of the limit of his current spiritual force. Unfortunately, the only thing within his perception was a dark cloud and an unusually large swirling black mass, that seemed to be perpetually releasing and maintaining this cloud of darkness. He also found it challenging to extend his perception any further, though not impossible.

Jodye was able to immediately conclude that this swirling mass was likely Ke Si himself. Ke Si was actually standing about three meters to his left, presumably monitoring the situation outside. Jodye took a few steps and stood at Ke Si's side, before extending his spiritual sense to its current limit, 10 meters, with a slight grunt of effort.

Ke Si was focusing with his eyes closed, lest he misses the lord's summoning in this precarious situation. Suddenly, he felt a small presence arrive at his heels. Bewildered, Ke Si looked down at Jodye incredulously. It seemed that now, Ke Si could be sure of one thing. Somehow this kid was for sure aware of his location, in spite of his avatar's shadow cloaking.

Ke Si didn't know whether to laugh or cry. While he wasn't trying to mask his presence from the boy, it still shouldn't be so easy for Jodye Trill to penetrate this darkness to find the former.

"Little Lord...this humble one hopes to ask you something."

The little bells chimed on Ke Si's waist-length white dreadlocks. After witnessing the various signs, Ke Si discovered that he should stop treating this radical existence next to him as a typical and clueless child. In fact, he should perhaps not treat him like a child at all! After all, the boy was now a Scholar Realm genius. He would only advance in mentality faster in the future, not slower.

The first thing Ke Si desired to know was whether or not the boy truly knew where he was in this shadow avatar domain. Jodye, on the other hand, didn't speak, merely looking up in Ke Si's direction. He was staring him in the eyes. After getting closer to Ke Si, Jodye Trill was inside the swirling darkness. As a result, he could now sense the butler entirely. This essentially rendered Ke Si's first question pointless.

Thus, he chose to ask another, "How is it that you knew where this humble butler was located, young lord? How were you able to tell? From what I know, this should be impossible for you."

"Impossible?" asked Jodye Trill in genuine confusion, his cocked head to the side slightly. This was information was indeed news to him, as he asked, "Why should it be impossible?"

Ke Si slowly shook his head. He had nearly forgotten about something important. Freak or not, little Joe was still just a little boy, after all. His knowledge and views of the world were ultimately naive, if not wholly shallow, "My realm and competence are currently much higher then your own, young lord. As such, it should be impossible for you to feel my aura or track me with your eyes. Yet, I spoke to you only once, and you knew exactly where I was. That is the only reason I now know that you are able to see me."

"Realm?" asked the Jodye Trill who had stopped trusting the information in books. In fact, Ke Si didn't need to speak at all and Jodye would have still found him.

"Indeed. I am in the Void Door Realm of the Sage Path, third young lord. This is also known as the elite class," said Ke Si, but when he saw the boy's head cock to the side again, he decided to explain in further detail. "Because there are many different heavenly dao, also known as paths to the sky, we use a class system to compare the separate dao to each other in terms of strength. Starting with the Rookie-level, Expert-level, and then you have my class, the Elite-level.

"Can you call me Jodye? Just Jodye," demanded Jodye Trill. He was, in fact, long past tired of all these traditional formalities. This was in spite of having three years of freedom from this.

"This...is perhaps too inappropriate, little third." Ke Si didn't dare go against protocols of that level. After all, the bloodline of his young master Joseph was not some typical weight. It weighed heavily in Ke Si's heart.

"I am fine with little third, or young master Jodye." Jodye Trill crossed his arms and harrumphed as if he had just made his life's most significant concession. In fact, he had. After all, he was not even five years old yet, and three of these years he spent trapped in his own head.

"Well as for you, young master Jodye, you can just barely be considered to be in the Scholar Realm, this is the early Rookie class." Ke Si paused, his brows furrowed in contemplation. "There are two great divides between us. Tell me, how is it you are able to notice this old man, Ke Si, in spite of this difference?"

It was at this moment that Jodye Trill recognized that his spiritual sense wasn't as common as he had assumed. Jodye pondered for a few seconds but ultimately decided to answer truthfully. With the talent he had revealed so far, was there any point in hiding this? Plus, he could now blame a great many things on his sage rebirth.

Who would know the truth then?

No one else had visited the Destiny Platform with him, he could tell whatever story he wanted. Just like those damn books.

Thinking up to here, Jodye replied calmly with an indifferent face, suddenly resembling his mother a lot, "I was curious as to why I must hide as soon as I woke up. I worried about my mother. So, I merely extended my spiritual sense to its limit, which isn't far enough for me to see outside this dark cloud. Merely, it was enough to see a spiral of darkness the height of an adult male. Based on the circumstances, I knew this would be you."

Jodye Trill, who was still consuming spiritual force to maintain some minor level of visibility, noticed that the dark spiral momentarily stopped spinning for half a second, before quickly resuming. Suddenly everything within this darkness became visible to him again.

Merely, even though the sun was back, it looked like everything was painted black.

"Jo...young...little third did you just say..." Ke Si seem quite agitated, his aura was slightly unsteady, and his voice shaky. He seemed so excited he might burst, "Did you just say, that you can 'extend' your spiritual sense outwards several meters? Not in a straight line wherever you're looking, or through one of your other senses? Just with your mind? At will?"

It was at this moment that Jodye finally realized where Ke Si's constant confusion and shock originated from. It seems being able to extend one's spiritual sense freely is not a common occurrence. Having inherited the memories of an ancient Titan, Jodye was unfamiliar with this disparity. Most members of the Titan clan possessed powerful spirits from birth. Thus, he had taken it for granted. Such a thing was not rare for the members of the titan clan, after all.

However, after analyzing for a minute or so, Jodye Trill realized that this was the trait that set the ancient Titan clan on a different path from the rest of the heaven slaughter race. Such a memory was easily overlooked since these weren't his own memories in the first place.

After thinking like this, Jodye nodded his head in response, and Ke Si instantly vanished from his senses.

After a moment of shock, Jodye Trill deactivated his mind's eye and withdrew his spiritual sense. This technique was a bit exhausting for the current him. Plus, Ke Si seemed to have granted him some limited visibility here. With Ke Si gone, and having nothing better to do, Jodye sat down cross-legged and entered the state of meditation. He needed to recover his spiritual force. This time's meditation was different for Jodye Trill.

As he meditated, he could feel this marvelous feeling, that felt like an open door waiting for him to enter. Although this feeling intrigued Jodye, he made it a point not to blindly investigate things that seem marvelous. All the horror films of his past life were the best example of the consequences. So Jodye Trill observed this unusual sensation without losing himself within it. He was like a security guard watching over a detainee. Ten minutes later, he suddenly heard a familiar voice in the back of his mind.

"Hey, kid, how long you planning on dicking around at the door? Come into the host space for a chat, will ya?"

Jodye Trill's eye's snapped open in shock. He was completely startled. He never expected to suddenly hear a voice in his head. Unlike the robotic voice of Trippy, his source spirit in the [Pharaoh's Law], this voice definitely belonged to a person! However, he very quickly calmed down and thought, "The host space..."

Jodye quickly resumed his meditation. This time once the marvelous feeling washed over him, he put forth no resistance, as his consciousness was pulled right in. He now found himself in a vast space, split into two halves. The first half seemed to be a broken section of a giant wasteland, like a single puzzle piece.

There were dozens of huge thunderclouds radiating electricity and might. Floating mid-air in the center was [Pharaoh's Law], the blue and gold striped cloth fluttering like a lonely cape in the wind. Under the area [Pharaoh's Law] was gliding around, there was an enormous multi-colored egg, that radiated a mysterious glow. This egg was surrounded by a golden nimbus force-cloud that altered between transparent and opaque.

Instinctively, Jodye Trill knew this was his Vajra Dragon Soul. He felt the deep connection with that egg as if it was he who was inside of it.

The other side half of this space was similarly as if a small piece of a greater puzzle, only, this side resembled the vast cosmos and starry skies. Floating in the void above this piece of the bright expanse was in old looking and pitch-black tome, with various glowing runes imprinted on the cover.

This was the [Cosmos Revolving Grimoire]! The grimoire was opened on the second and third page, each of which had detailed information about a guardian with an illustration. Under the grimoire, there were two creatures, one of which was staring at Jodye Trill, right in his eyes, while the other rolled around in the void like a playful child.

"Sly, do you need to struggle a lot to be the soul's host? What's the selection process like? It should most likely be annual, at least, right?" The creature rolling around in the void had soft and fluffy red fur, with golden sword god and calamity symbols on both of its arms, "When we're free again I'll apply right away!"

This boy looked like a child who was a werewolf with a red gem on its forehead. Inside of the gem was what appeared to be a sizeable golden heavy-sword. The hybrid's chest and head were clearly that of a toddler, but its arms and legs were covered in red fur.

"Are you dumb? If we're free, what need is there for you, a god-beast, to host someone else's soul? Do you listen seriously to anything I tell you?" 'Sly' turned his little muzzle away from Jodye to snap at the hybrid puppy. The former had a voice that the latter was all too familiar with.

This creature was a genuine sky wolf puppy, with black fur that had a metallic sheen, rebirth and serenity runes on both it's left and right side, and one small black angel wing on its right shoulder.

"Are these my guardians?" Jodye Trill wasn't sure whether he should laugh or cry.

"Welcome back, brat," came the cold and indifferent voice of the wolf pup, "We have so much to discuss."

"Indeed. It is time you learned who the true soul's host is," At this moment the humanoid puppy was imitating the wolf pup's aloof demeanor and indifferent tone of voice. Suddenly, the humanoid pup let out an exaggerated shout, as he was completely shrouded in a curtain of green and black flames that combusted mysteriously out of nowhere.

"Please ignore the fool. My name is Prince..." the wolf pup that was laying down rose to sit on its hind legs. There was an incredibly sharp look in his eyes, and he spoke in a dignified manner. However, Jodye Trill was rather impatient, insta-ruining the prince's momentum.

"Prince Sly then, is it? Fancy. I'm Jodye Trill. Or Trilleck? Joseph? Whatever, at any rate, just call me Trill Jodye," Jodye Trill ruthlessly interrupted the wolfly prince's monologue before it started, causing the prince pup's eye to twitch. Jodye just continued as if he didn't notice, "Why is it that you're able to talk to me? All those crappy books said that the consciousness of a combat soul was completely sealed."

"..." the young wolf quietly stared at Jodye for a couple of breaths, before responding, "do you truly not remember me?"

Jodye Trill looked deep into the green eyes of this strange winged-wolf. Slowly but surely the image begin overlapping with a cool white-clothed youth and a heavy golden sword. There was also... the dragon, Janair Mazi! As soon as this realization played out in his head, Jodye Trill unconsciously glanced at the enormous egg under [Pharaoh's Law].

"I remember. You're the youth from the cave. Which would make him..." Jodye Trill pointed at the mass of flames, "so that makes him...the sword!?"

"Excellent. But, wrong. The sword is my brother's natal weapon, and they are able to unite as one due to his prowess," Prince Sly stood up on all fours and walked across the void, stopping in front of Jodye.

"Natal what now?" asked Jodye Trill.

"Less of that," the sky wolf puppy's little black angel wing twitched slightly, and he slowly rose into the air, as if he had never heard of gravity, floating weightlessly in Jodye's face. He was now facing to face with Jodye, as his green pupils met Jodye Trill's jewel-like blue pupils midair. This time, when Prince Sly spoke his voice no longer sounded cold, nor indifferent. Instead, there was a tinge of rage, humiliation, and under that, Jodye Trill could swear he detected a bit of melancholy.

"Sigh...Do you want to hear a story?"