The Roamer

Chapter 25: Preparations

“For now uncle, you’ll stay in this cave. Once I save your wife in two months, we’ll find a new place to grow the village.” Aeolus said decisively, not leaving any space to argue with him. The uncle wanted to go back to their old village, but after remembering how they got caught in the first place, he knew that going to their old village would only result in them getting captured once more.

“What’ll you do then, Aeolus?” the uncle said, curious of how Aeolus was going to save his wife, in two months as well. Aeolus smirked at his question, and began to reply.

“I’ve been stuck in the first layer for a long time. Every layer has the same amount of power, so the more layers you get, the more powerful you are. If only my first layer is the equivalent of seven layers to a normal person due to it surviving extreme conditions constantly, then my second layer will also be the equivalent of seven layers powerwise.” Aeolus explained, not leaving out anything. If he could, he really wanted to motivate the villagers to cultivate.

Even if they didn’t fight using their cultivation, it could help out even when it came to the normal life of a person!

“However, breaking through too early is why I haven’t formed the three layers yet. I want to take my time so that I don’t acquire weird side effects once I form them. However, I should have taken enough time to myself that forming the second layer should not be an issue. For the third layer, I’ll still have to give it a couple more years before I form it.” Aeolus explained, with a determined look shining on his childish face. The uncle, once again, acknowledged Aeolus as someone superior to him.

“So you plan on forming your second layer?” the uncle asked, confused at what Aeolus was hinting at.

“Yes, I plan on that. However, we’re also going to do some additional affinity training. I’m going to try and then fuse my wind affinity with a layer, which should get me to the power level of a nineteenth layer fighter if done successfully.” Aeolus explained even more in-depth, trying to finish up everything on this end. He knew that breaking someone out of a slave prison and someone out from royalty was completely different, as the latter probably had way better defenses.

For that reason, he wanted to make good use of his time, as he only had two months. Sure, he could stay longer than that, but it would then stall the amount of time he had to roam the world, and he wanted to experience a lot of this wide world.

“Uncle, I’ll be going now. I’ll bring you provisions every day, and make sure that you stay alive and safe.” Aeolus said, comforting the uncle as much as he could. He then stood up, waved, and flew away.

‘Now that I stopped uncle from worrying, I need to get down to the real business.’ Aeolus muttered within his head, a serious look casting over his face. He tried to hide the fact that things weren’t looking good at all to his uncle. In reality, even with reaching such a high power after forming his second layer, it probably still would not be enough.

‘What I need to do now is make use of the affinity of death, and raise not an army of undead, but an elite team of undead.’ Aeolus thought to himself, while nodding to his thoughts. In reality, he never liked the thought of having an army, and would rather have a team of loyal, strong fighters who vary in skills.

“They’ll all need to have different affinities, attacks, and techniques to get the most out of them. I don’t want to have an elite team that surpasses much more than a thousand, no matter what. Having too much troops will be uncomfortable with me, and requires too much control and handling for me to take care of.” Aeolus continued to explain the plan to himself, trying to memorize it as much as possible. He really didn’t want a huge army, he didn’t think that he would fit into such a scene.

‘In these two months, I want to experience at least two more battles that take my skills to the limit, and evolve myself. Battles with opponents strong enough to make them into one of the people belonging to my elite team as well.’ Aeolus went even more in-depth, continuously making up the plan as he went along. After a few more minutes of thinking, he got a lock-down on what he was searching for.

--- sequence 2 ---

He had been flying town to town, but didn’t stop to fight people unless they had at least three layers. He was having issues with his plan, as there really were almost no strong people in towns. After two weeks, Aeolus stopped moving in the middle of the sky, and descended.

‘If I can’t find people to join my undead elites, then I’ll just focus on myself.’ Aeolus thought in his mind, and was preparing for the second layer. In reality, he could have already broken through to the second layer a long time ago, but he was holding it off. Now, he really needed a breakthrough, and this was a perfect situation to use it in.

“I need to find some safe location to breakthrough in. I can’t just leave myself as an open target right now.” Aeolus muttered to himself, and continued to fly. He then remembered the cave the uncle was in, and his eyes lit up. He sensed out the string he had left on the uncle, and soared towards it.

After twenty minutes of flying, he finally arrived at his destination. Aeolus dropped onto the ground, and walked into the cave, all while thinking that this cave was his treasure cove. Just think about it. He had evolved rapidly fighting is soldier here, used it as a shelter for his uncle, and was now about to use it to develop his second layer.

“Aeolus, you’re safe!” the uncle roared, tears running down his face. In reality, everytime Aeolus brought provisions to this old man, he would always bust out crying. He really was a sensitive uncle.

“Yes, I’m safe uncle. You might want to leave this cave now, I’m developing my second layer now.” Aeolus said, while using the wind affinity to lightly shove the uncle out of the cave using wind. He then sealed up the cave behind him using string, to make sure absolutely nobody enters.

‘I can’t be distracted during such an important event.’ Aeolus muttered in his mind.

He went to the deepest part of the cave, and found a dead-end. He smirked to himself, and sat down cross-legged. He closed his eyes, and focused on his spirit. He was trying to remember how it felt to make the first layer, and was slowly grasping it. He took in all the leftover spirit in his body, along with some spirit coming from each layer within his soul. He then looked at the first sphere, or his first layer, and focused on molding the spirit into such a thing. However, Aeolus stopped to think for a bit.

“Who said that a layer has to be represented using a sphere?” he asked himself, and began trying something new.

He began to mold the layer into something he remembered long ago, a goddess from his village. He molded the spirit into a shape resembling her very slightly, and after four hours, had finally perfected the shape. It looked exactly like the goddess, with the silver flowing hair, the pale white face, and right body.

However, it quickly disassembled, and a voice entered his head.

“Don’t try to mold your layer into something resembling me, you’re still not strong enough to challenge and de-throne the gods. Mold your layer into me once you achieve the power to at least beat a lower god.” some woman said in Aeolus’ head, and disappeared.

“Wait, what?!” Aeolus roared, but it seemed the voice of the woman was gone, as he didn’t hear a reply. Aeolus began to calm himself down, and after a minute or so, he busted down laughing. The issue was that, even he couldn’t tell why he was laughing.

‘I need to calm down once again, and begin molding the layer again.’ Aeolus said in his head, and, once again, began to mold the layer into the shape of the goddess. This so called goddess wasn’t there to save the village from going into such a situation, so he had no loyalty towards her.

“You still dare to mold it into something representing me?” a womanly voice appeared once again, and sounded pissed off by quite a bit. However, Aeolus nodded to it and began to converse with it.

‘When all the villagers were captured, where were you to help us? You’re the villages goddess, yet all that happened without you interfering and helping.’ Aeolus said, with some anger swelling up in him. He hated thinking about the village and its situation it was in, and wanted to reunite everybody and make a new village. Now, however, it seems that some villagers had already died.

However, the goddess didn’t reply, and stayed silent. Aeolus, wondering if the goddess had heard him, said the same thing outloud. Who knows, maybe she couldn’t hear what he thought? Still, there was no reaction or reply from her at all, so Aeolus just began to ignore her a this point.

He had fully molded the spirit into something resembling her, and began to force it into the center layer. Just like before, his whole body and spirit began to rip and tear, while the pain was excruciating. However, Aeolus held on, as he knew that there would definitely be some kind of gain for molding the layer into the shape of a goddess.

After thirty minutes, the layer had been fully formed, and looked natural while floating in the center layer. Aeolus smirked at himself, and knew that even though he couldn’t sense any change, he had just doubled in power. He looked at the soldier within the mid-layer, and saw that he also had some advancements in power.

“You’re a gutsy human, one that needs to be put down. Hurry up and achieve the hundreth layer, so that you can enter the heavens.” the goddess said, anger evident in her voice. However, Aeolus’ reply to such a thing surprised her.

“No, I don’t wanna go to the realm of the gods. How about you gods come down here, and we can talk this out?” He said in a calm, teasing voice. The goddess merely giggled, and disappeared. Aeolus, realizing that he was now all alone, ran out of the cave to rejoice with his uncle.

“Did you do it, Aeolus?!” the uncle screamed, excitement in his expression. Aeolus had been in the cave for so many hours, so he was worried something wrong had happened. However, with the sly grin on Aeolus’ face, he could tell it was a success.

“I’m guessing you want some of this?” Aeolus said, while throwing a booze that he had been storing in his soul towards his uncle. The people at the village were a rowdy bunch, and loved to party. For that reason, he knew that the uncle would probably get hammered today.

He did end up partying all day and night with Aeolus, and it let him reminisce about the days of the village.

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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)

Favorite food: da asian stuf!

Anyway, on a more serious tone, this is my first novel I’ve ever tried writing. Thanks for being with me on this first experience! If you could also somehow get others to read this novel too, I would be pretty grateful!