Chapter Three - Two Months

Over the period of the next two months my journal entries kind of… degenerated. The first one was quite the masterpiece (for a 6 year, 1 day old). But, then again I had a lot to write about. Of course, it was very messy and nearly unreadable but hidden within it were gems of the truth. It brought back memories. Unfortunately, not every day is as exciting as the day you turn six. Actually, maybe it is fortunate looking back I have too many “exciting” day’s in my life to count. Anyway, this is a representation of events that took place over the course of the next two months.

From July 6th, 1962 S.A. to October 1st, S.A.

Bored… Mom is spending all of her time torturing Jack. Or, at least I think that’s what she’s doing. Every time I walk by the room I see a blinding light and constant cries of, “Please Momma, it hurts!” At first, I wanted to join in the training; after all I have a lesser blessing of light too, but as I went to ask I started to hear the screaming and feel the heat coming from the room. Just getting close, it felt as if I had been baked by the sun… Nope, not for me!

So, I decided to go check out the forge. Normally, dad was all too pleased to have me around. For days after the testing he’d say, “It’s all because your a Smith that you got the Greater Blessing of Fire. You’ve been around fire since you were an egg in your moms belly! It's the secret of our family’s success, all of us have it! Although, I’m kind of sad you only got a lesser blessing of Earth; you’ll need to work on that if you any hope of succeeding me someday!” Of course, he never was able to explain why other blacksmiths’ sons and daughters didn’t all have Greater Blessings...

Anyway, he kicked me out! For the first time since I could ever remember I wasn’t allowed in. Apparently, he made a crazy deal with Sin, Syndra’s dad, so that we could move into his home in the City of Creation while I went to school there. Of course, I had no idea at the time what the deal meant; it wasn’t until I got to school that I realized just how freaking crazy my old man is.

I opened the door to the smithy, and the heat was higher than it’d ever been before. Smoke was billowing so forcefully that as soon as I opened the door it rushed out; as if a vacuum was sucking it out. When the smoke cleared, I saw my dad with the most serious expression I had ever seen, covered in a bluish haze that turned red at its tips. It took me a couple of seconds to realize, but the haze was flickering! “Dad, you're on fire!” I yelled out, scared.

“Huh?” He turned towards me, finally his expression turned from serious to angry. “Get out! Can’t you see I’m trying to make a legendary weapon damnit! If I mess this up then Sin won’t let me stay in his villa!”

Of course, I didn’t really know what a villa was, but I figured it was some kind of fancy house since we were supposed to be staying with him. I was kind of upset at the time, so I slammed the door as hard as I could and stalked off.

Those first six years, I never really had any friends. Mom and dad weren’t worried about it since they figured that I’d make friends when I started school, and they weren’t so busy that I needed other people to play around with. Actually, I kind of got a feeling that my Mom was jealous of anyone my age might become my friend…

Anyway, this left me with some hard choices to make! By this time I’d spent nearly an entire week just lazing around the house, doing nothing, and the boredom was enough to drive me to desperation. It was so bad that I even asked my Mom help me start training, despite how scary it was, and how much my brother was pleading for her to stop…

“Mommy, can you train me too?”

“Honey, you can’t start training until you go to school. There, they explain everything and you get to pick what you want to train in after you finish reading the first volume of Nicholas Freeney’s journal.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? Dad won’t let me in the Smith to play like usual, you’re too busy teaching brother, I have nothing to do!”

“Go play with your friends!”

“I don’t have any!”

“What about that boy across the street, Adin?”

“You scared him away with a glare, then after speaking to his parents they moved out of the city!”

“Hmm… Now I remember... Yes, sorry honey. Why don’t you get a headstart on your required reading? Go to your brothers’ room and find the first volume of Nicholas Freeney’s journal. Most nobles start reading it before going to school so they can get a head start.”

“Nobles? Why should you compare them to me?”

“Honey, just go read the book. Your brother is attempting to escape again, and I need to go punish him.” She said, placing her hand on my head and forcibly turning me around before patting me on the head. “I love you!” She called out as I was pushed out of the room.

With nothing better to do, I started up the stairs towards his bedroom. Behind me I could hear my mom’s calm voice, “I know it hurts, but I’m doing this because I love you. In another month you’ll be qualified to enter the best school in the world!”

“NO! MOM! PLEASE STOP! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

Cold sweat started flowing down my face as I realized I’d just dodged a bullet. “Thank god she refused to train me...” I walked away, attempting to tune out my brother’s screams. I failed miserably.

After shutting the door to my room, I was able to block most of the noise coming from downstairs. So, I sat cross-legged on my bed and began reading the most-read book of all time. I was kind of excited, after hearing my brother calling me a stupid, ignorant dumb-ass I couldn’t help but think that the book was important.

I opened the cover, and began reading slowly out loud.

“The Journal of the Demon-Mage Freeney. Volume One of Ten.”

Wait, am I expected to read all ten?!?!? I stared at it, flipping to the index page… there were over 10,000 pages in the first volume! WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!

I turned back because I had noticed that the page before had a lot of writing on it.

“This is a copy of the first volume of Nicholas Freeney’s famous journals, which is provided to every first year student at every academy free of charge. When he wrote his journals, he created a brand new magic that no one has since been able to learn or disable. Using this magic, he made it impossible for anyone to alter any copy of his journal or any book in his library in anyway. Even more amazingly, he cast a spell of illusion that makes it seem as if he’s reading the book to you. The further you get, the more you come to understand him, the louder he becomes. Finally, he made it so that in order to read the books of his library you must read his journal. The first volume allows you to read about 50% of the books in the library, almost all focusing on the early stages of cultivation. Every student must complete this volume in order to begin their cultivation, as all cultivation methods, even the divine methods given to us by the gods, can only be found in his library.”

“Many students find it difficult to comprehend much of what Nicholas Freeney wrote in his journal, but what you have to understand is that the world was literally different back then. It was much smaller, its entirety had long since been explored, and while he lived no god was involved in the rule of the planet. Because of this, the world was in a perpetual state of chaos; all of the races of man were constantly at war with each other. Slavery, discrimination, hate, all were common before he changed the world forever. In his writings, you will find yourself immersed into a world of desperation and repression which was thankfully gone by the time of my own birth. A time where even reaching the third rank was an unimaginable feat in the eyes of all but the great clans who hoarded all of the resources and cultivation techniques.”

“His journal combined with his library are greatest gifts that a mortal has ever given to the world. It singlehandedly destroyed the oppression of the great clans, and taught the world that anyone, no matter how humble their birth, can reach for great power.”

“Pope Alexander IV”

‘Alexander IV? Isn’t he the pope who received the Blessing of the Creator? I wonder if he’s still alive.’ I shrugged my shoulders in thought, figuring I should go ask my parents about some of the words that I didn’t recognize.

Heading downstairs, I couldn’t find anyone and got bored again so I decided to keep reading at the kitchen table. Flipping through the book, I came to the beginning. As I started reading, an old yet prideful voice seemed to ring through my head. With every word, every sentence, he got louder until the words came to life.

Preface

“For as long as I can remember, people have been coming to me and asking, “How did you get so strong?” Or, “Did you really kill a dragon?” Now, I like these kinds of questions. I’ve always enjoyed telling a tall tale or two. Hell, if you get me drunk enough, I might even tell a true tale. The problem is, after enough tales people start to actually believe you. Worse, tell a tale of how you saved a princess, defeated a kingdom single handedly, and then spent a night with Aphrodite enough times and kings start coming to you asking for your aid.

Underneath all the bullshit and fun tales I made up to entertain village children, I’m actually fairly strong. That thing about killing a dragon? Well, yea. But it was a baby dragon, maybe a year old. Damned thing still nearly killed me! Saved a princess? Well, there are a LOT of princess out there and some, hell most, of them are idiots… of course not all of them felt “saved” after I was done with them. All the tales talk about how a princess is supposed to reward her “Savior”, and I don’t work for free. “HEHEHEHEHE”

Thinking back, I guess I have destroyed a few kingdoms too, so maybe I’m not quite so full of shit as I thought. It’s quite easy to do now that I think of it. Step one, piss off a mommy dragon by killing her son. Step two, hide in kingdom of your choice’s royal palace. Step three, watch it burn!!!

“Muhahahahahaha.”

*Cough* *Cough* *WHEEEZE* “Damn, I can’t even laugh maniacally anymore.”

Sadly, I’m afraid to say that thing with Aphrodite never happened, I would’ve settled for the Empress, but well… she hates me now. I really enjoyed my life, I started writing this journal when I was 10 years old. Now, nearly a thousand years later, it is finally time for me to die.

In my final moments I find myself reliving my life, and realizing that all I brought to this world was destruction and hate. Well, I can’t heal anyone or atone for the wrongs that I did throughout my life. Honestly, I don’t really regret them much anyway. After a thousand years of life you come to realize that you are who you are. Anyway, I decided that in a final act of graciousness I’d lift my middle finger in salute to the rulers of the world one final time! If you are reading this, then you’ve found my library. Within lies the secrets to cultivation and the galaxy that I spent my life accruing! In the final few years of my life I raided the secret rooms of all the great clans, hunted through the most dangerous and ancient of relics, and all of it is here!”

That was when my dad came into the room, grabbing a beer before sitting down at the table and somehow breaking the spell as he took a deep pull on the beverage.

He seemed exhausted, as if he had just run a few marathons back to back, but I was excited that I finally had someone to ask about the book. Quickly, I asked, “Dad, what’s slavery mean?”

“What? Where’d you hear that word?”

“Well, mom told me to start reading this” I showed him the huge book that I’d lugged downstairs with me, “and I was reading the note at the beginning but it had a lot of words I don’t know.”

“Hmm… I’m too tired to deal with that tonight, so how about you go to bed. I’m done with Sin’s request, so how about tomorrow you bring that with you into the smithy while I work and read it outloud. Anything you don’t understand I’ll explain it to you.”

So, that’s how I spent my next two months. Reading the first volume of the massive journal that I’d apparently written thousands of years ago while my dad explained the parts I didn’t understand to me. Apparently, for most people they only start hearing the old man’s voice as they reach the 5th or 6th volume. Maybe I really am the reincarnation of that old guy...