The Roamer

Chapter 5: Digging in

“What?!” roared Aeollus, clearly unwilling to believe what this drop of purple liquid that spread on the floor said.

“I can’t cultivate past the third layer?! This can’t be, my career can’t end so early!” yelled Aeollus, trying to force things to go back to normal.

“Youngin, by any chance… did you give up a part of your soul?”

asked the geezer, with a worried look in his eyes.

“Yes, and I didn’t expect the side effects to reach such a level!” screamed Aeollus, while probing his soul and trying to fix this.

“I’m sorry young lad, but the verdict that the soul gives is final, as it is the key to your power. If it has given up like that and told you that you can’t cultivate past the third layer, you weren’t going to become much anyway.” said the old man in a sorrowful tone, clearly regretting how a thing such as this could have happened.

“I… I sacrificed my soul and my guts, and not only did I not win, my future in cultivation has been wiped out…” muttered Aeollus, still unwilling to believe this.

“For now child, just cultivate to your limits, and then see where you can go from there on out.” said the old man, clearly trying to think of a solution to such a matter.

“You… you’re right, for now I’ll continue to cultivate until I hit the limits of the third layer.” said Aeollus in a confident but wistful tone, clearly not believing that he can achieve much in such a state.

“For now, it’s time to go to your cell, as the guards will be doing rounds to check what's going on soon.” said the geezer while shoving Aeollus out of his cell.

“We can talk about this more in the morning, just give me some time to think of a way to solve the predicament.” said the old man, while lowering his body onto his straw bed, and pulling out a book.

Aeollus went back into his cell, and closed the gate. A guard came later on and locked it, signifying it was time to go to sleep. Of course, you didn’t have to sleep, you were just forced to stay in here until morning.

“For now, the old geezer is right, I should cultivate what I can until I reach a bottleneck…” muttered Aeollis, steadying himself for what is to come in the future.

In truth, not only can attacks and techniques have layers, but so can the vitality and soul of a person. The only difference was that the layers that a person could reach went up to a hundred, and progressed much slower than attacks and techniques. Along with that, the layers of a technique would also represent the layers of the organism cultivating.

For example, a first layer rat was the equivalent of layer one to ten for an organism, and so on.

“Right now, I haven’t even reached the first layer of cultivation of my vitality and spirit, so I’ll have to work on that first. Though it said I can’t cultivate past the third layer, it might only apply to my body and spirit, but not attacks and techniques.” he said to himself, still holding some slimmer of hope towards the future.

“Well, might as well begin to cultivate this second tier attack the geezer gave me…” muttered Aeollus, while pulling out the parchment that contained the second tier attack. He then began to recite the gesture and feeling on the parchment over and over again, while comprehending the laws of the affinity.

The night went along with him cultivating the second tier attack the geezer gave him, which turned out to have an affinity with leeches, which Aeollus was quite comfortable with. Of course, with his heavy injuries, only about an hour passed before he hit the straw bed and fell asleep.

--- Sequence 2 ---

“Ah crap, I hit the straw bed before I even knew it.” said Aeollus, clearly displeased with himself for not fully cultivating the second tier attack.

“Prepare for the next battle, it will be hosted in two hours slave!” yelled the usual guard at him, warning him for the next.

“I still have to fight, even in this condition? I haven’t even gotten my lost soul piece back, what’s the meaning of this?!” yelled Aeolis, knowing that he wouldn’t stand much of a chance like this.

“No complaints! If you’re fed up, you can go and die to your opponent like the maggot you are!” screamed the guard, clearly not tolerating that a mere slave talked back to him.

The guard than whipped him with air, which shook Aeolis up a bit.

“I got it sir, I’ll fight!” yelled Aeolis, clearly not willing to put up with this for even a second more.

“Good, now start preparing!”

Screamed the guard while walking away.

‘In two hours, I have enough time to cultivate a bit more of the second layer attack, so I should focus on that while recuperating’ he thought, while putting the plan into motion.

For the next two hours, he merely sat on the ground and ogled the parchment while not doing any strainful action to his body, keeping in mind that he was not healthy in the least right now.

Just like always, everything outside his cell turned black for a minute or two, and then he appeared in front of the arena within his cell.

“After yesterday’s fight, this man had slumped to the ground with his guts leaking, unwilling to stand for even a second more, which resulted in his loss! I present to you Aeolis, who will be competing against number 654, Tereolis!” yelled the same old announcer that has always been present for this stuff.

On the other side, some person wearing a helmet came out of a cell, and held a rapier in his hand.

In truth, the arena contestants were allowed to pick armor and weapons before they came, but Aeolis never did this as he was most comfortable with his fists.

“You’re the maggot who put good ol’ Klatra in the grave, ey?” yelled Tereolis, clearly praising, although ridiculing at the same time, Aeolis.

‘Wait, Klatra died?! Then why didn’t I move up in cells?!’ Aeolis thought, clearly surprised by the turn of events.

“Ooh, confused by the events huh? Basically, ya went and fainted before Klatra died, so it was considered a loss!” yelled Tereolis in an overbearing tone.

“This… this world truly does not know the meaning of balance! He died, but just because I fainted a couple of seconds or minutes before it happened, I end up losing? So nobody won, except for an idiot who hit the grave early!” roared Aeolis, clearly upset with how things turned out.

“Hah hah, you crack me up you naive child!”

said Tereolis while tearing up from laughing, as if things couldn’t get much funnier than this.

‘My opponent this time… he’s also brand new here, and came in two days before me. There’s a huge chance of him being stronger than Klatra, yet not being able to prove it to the public since he came in after Klatra himself.’

Thought Aeollus, who had his mind set on the worst possible scenario.

“Ooh, you got a smart mind don’t ya brat? Well, I can prove it in this match!” roared Tereolis, while charging at Aeollus.

“Wait a minute, he said what was on my mind before too… is this some kind of technique or spell he’s using?!” asked Aeollus into the wind, clearly thinking of such a possibility.

“Even if you figured it out, it’s not like you can just blank out and think nothing!” roared Tereolis, who fully well knew that Aeollus had figured it out.

“You’re quite right, I’ll just have to put up with it!” Aeollus roared back with the same domineering attitude, while slapping Tereolis in the face!

“You… you’re quite the cheeky bum ain’t ya?!”

Yelled Tereolis, clearly dis-pleased that a brat had slapped him.

Suddenly, Aeollus jumped backwards and focused within his soul, as he focused on the fingerprints he had laid onto Tereolis.

‘Use the second tier attack, focus on the fingerprints and cast it on him!’ he roared within his mind, trying his hardest.

He still had issues with his body, and his guts could begin to leak at any moment, so a physical confrontation wasn’t quite possible, but the second layer attack saved him.

It was a one time contact move, where all he had to do was touch the opponent, and focus the second tier attack on him, which would then insert two leeches into the opponent's skin at the location he had touched.

The leeches would then begin to roam around his body and devour everything, as they grew bigger and bigger in size, until the opponent died, in which case they would die too.

Just as soon as Aeollus began thinking about it, the leeches had already appeared within Tereolis’s skin, beginning to devour everything they saw.

‘Second tier attacks really are powerful, it barely took any time to set the attack in motion’ thought Aeollus in his mind. It was true, just floating in the sky would take about ten seconds to prepare, even though he could only float for about two seconds.

Yet, a second layer attack took almost no time to prepare, and happened almost as immediately as he thought about it.

“Of course, this may only be the situation with this second tier attack, and others may take longer…” he muttered to himself, trying to not get too cocky with such an attack at hand.

Meanwhile, he could also see where the leeches were inside his body, and where they were planning on going. Though he couldn’t control them, it was already enough to be able to put them into the skin and wait for the opponent to die.

“What is this, why is my skin bulging and ticklish down at the cheeks?!” yelled Tereolis, clearly confused.

Though he could read his opponent’s mind, he couldn’t reach deep enough into his power where he could read the spirit and soul of a body. For that reason, he did not know that Aeollus had casted a second tier attack on him.

“This… is stronger than I ever thought something could reach!”

said Aeollus, while running away just to make sure Tereolis did not catch him.

“Come back here brat! Whatever you used on me will disappear the second your head flies off!” boomed Tereolis, clearly unwilling to let the battle end like this.

For Tereolis had already felt that his arm was weakening while something was crawling inside of it.

Two minutes later, his whole right arm collapsed and fell off his body, and he didn’t even notice it until he looked down.

“What?!” said Tereolis, not willing to believe that such a thing had just happened.

“You… is this an attack from one of the layers?!” hollered Tereolis, truly unwilling to believe that fate had damned him to such a powerful attack.

“If it was, what would you do about it?” roared Aeollus right back, with a grin on his face.

“If you die and I win, then the guards will immediately restore the vigor in my body and return my arm, so die now!” roared Tereolis while throwing the axe in his left hand at Aeollus.

*KSHH*

It laid right into the thigh of someone in the stands, and they began to scream out loud.

It also took away some of the hair of Aeollus, along with a bit of the scalp.

“You’re quite a powerful thrower for a person with a single arm, I wonder if it would’ve hit me with two arms?” teased Aeollus, knowing that his opponent had lost all his weapons.

Suddenly, the axe pulled out of the bystanders thigh, and began to fly towards Aeollus.

‘Crap, he’s using his affinity with the wind to send it flying towards me!’ thought Aeollus, while running as hard as he can.

However, right before it punctured him, it stopped flying and hit the ground.

Aeollus looked in the direction of Tereolis, and saw that he lost both arms and legs, and half of his torso was missing.

“Those leeches really did their work huh?” said Aeollus.

“The winner of today’s fight is Aeollus, with a glorious come back into the arena!” roared the announcer with the money of the bystanders going left and right because of the bets.

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EXPLANATION

From now on, layer can also be used as tier.

EX: second layer = Second tier

First layer = First tier

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ABOUT ME

Name: Abdul Kareem

Age: 13 (Almost 14)

Occupation: Middle school

Goal: Idk, I’m just making a novel for now

Location: Why would I say that?

Relations: I’m not married (duh)

Anyway, as a side note, this is my first novel I’ve ever tried writing. Thanks for being with me on this first experience!