《The Tree of Life's Step Child》Awakening
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“His body potential has to be the minimum at the eighth realm. He obviously does not have one of the ill omened Heavenly Bodies. We should find out soon enough." Puzzled Sol as she spoke towards Pona, Vulcan, and Thalli. All of them were watching Telum toying with Arbor in a flat field training his halberd skills with Tellum.
"Pona, you said he came from the tree, right?" Queried Vulcan.
Pona slowly nodded in response before responding, "It was as if the tree gave birth to him. We know that it is not Master Haoshe. As he has a different presence and he has told us that he is from a place called earth, a planet in one of the forgotten universes."
"I wonder what about him caught Master’s eye." Thalli pondered out loud before continuing.
From the sidelines the group watched as a grown man recklessly beat a preteen child with a weapon. Every so often an angry yell would sound out from Arbor cursing Tellum that he had not sealed his cultivation completely. In response Tellum scolded Arbor from making excuses while reassuring him that his advantage comes from experience. In addition, he continually reminded Arbor that the world outside of the forest is much more dangerous than he can possibly imagine.
"He is not special yet, but he will be. He could not have a higher starting position in his life. Although he resembles Master Haoshe, he is different in personality and aura. The laws of the world give birth to the gods in all of the realms. You all know of these excistances, and the histories behind each of them and how humans are offspring of each and every one of them. This is how bloodlines came to be. Some people believe that all of the gods are present, but some people believe that there is a vacancy in a couple areas. The only explanation for this is that those who are born and would rise to become gods were not completely fated to do so." Thalli explained.
"There were no peculiarities in his body when I was inspecting him besides he abnormally strong soul. As a divine beast, I would have the best chance to notice anything out of the ordinary." Sol added.
"It has to have something to do with Master Haoshe. I am going to assume that all of you noticed that his body is not entirely human?" Pona pointed out as she looked towards that towering tree, "I sense a familiar aura from Arbor as I do from Master. It's quite strange."
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"We will only be able to tell in due time." Vulcan
…
Three years later Arbor was training with Telum in the forest. Today he is working on furthering his fighting ability with a bow. With an already perfected his aim from a distance of fifty yards, Arbor is currently working on hitting a moving target that is traversing through a dense forest of trees, brush, and other vegetation. Unlike the usual forest, no detritus riddles the forest floor. No fallen trunks, leaves, branches, nothing.
Telum had sealed off his cultivation completely and is only using a fraction of his strength to contend with Arbor. Telum is shifting from side to side through the woods five times faster than the speed of a normal human. Arbor was standing next to an enormous bucket full of thousands of arrows that he had made with the techniques Vulcan has taught him. Arbor is trying to predict Telums movements who is moving in a circular pattern with Arbor as the incenter. He is shooting multiple arrows at a time, bouncing arrows off other arrows to reach behind trees, masking arrows behind other ones, while planning three, four, or five moves ahead with the hopes of landing a scratch on Tellum.
In Telums eyes, Arbor had to hit him once to be a certified bow user. In the past 3 years Arbor had mastered all the rudimentary skills with swords, knives, daggers, the sickle, staff, axe, spear, and the halberd.
"You old fuck, just stay still!" Arbor fumed as he was firing off arrows back and forth in different directions. He eventually got fed up and grabbed his quiver that laid next to the ground and sprinted into the forest.
A loud laugh echoed through the forest as Arbor heard Telum joke, "Come on squirt, you've gotta try a little harder."
Arbor only had thirty arrows in his quiver to start with. He was now down to twenty-four. He had been hunting for five minutes now and had yet to get close to hitting his target. Deep down, Arbor knew he had to use every ounce of strength and bring out every trick he has to have any chance of hitting Telum. While Arbor is dashing through the forest, a warm sensation began to grow in his stomach. It started to spread throughout his body. He did not notice that his speed is gradually increasing as he chased his prey. The feeling of euphoria, an intoxicating feeling, began growing on him.
Not knowing what was happening to him, Arbor decided to continue on. He trusted that any problem that occurred would be taken care of by his seniors. They are gods in his eyes, even if they didn't act like one, they have been able to achieve anything and performing astounding feats.
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Half a minute passed by in game of cat and mouse, and Arbor has yet to land a hit. A vast burst of energy exploded through Arbors body that originated from his stomach, his speed and strength nearly tripled instantly.
Thalli, Sol, and company felt the above average fluctuation off essence in the forest and each felt relieved. "It took you long enough," they all thought. The sounding vegetation swayed in response, not to the ripples of essence, but from the call of something else.
As Arbor was using his full strength when he broke through, his speed drastically increased as his upper limit increased, causing him to trip and fall over himself. After getting back up he slowly began to accustom himself to his new abilities by performing some light calisthenics. After a half hour Arbor became accustomed to using about seventy percent of his strength.
"You better watch your ass now old man!" Arbor jested as he shot another arrow, bringing him down to just twelve in his quiver. Both Arbor and Telum were bouncing back and forth through the forest at a speed that a mortal human could barely discern what was happening.
Arbor shot three arrows in Telums direction at once, one at his eleven, twelve, and one o'clock direction. Each of the power behind these arrows had increased due to Arbor being able to pull the bow string back farther. "Nine." He murmured to himself.
As fast as he could, he shot two more in succession. "Eight…Seven." The first one went towards the arrow on the left, hitting ricocheting off it, angling around a tree and heading towards Telum from his left side. The second arrow mirrored the second one and bounced off the arrow on the right heading through a wall of branches, heading towards Telum from his right side.
Arbor jumped into the air and shot two arrows in succession.
"Five."
Telum’s million aged old battle senses had told him of the incoming arrows. He knew he was in a pinch, he stopped in his tracks and decided to face them head on. Telum ducked under the arrow in the middle, caught the arrow on his right, then his left. "Good try kiddo, but that's not good enough." The first arrow from above missed the left side of his neck by a centimeter. Unknown to Arbor, Tellum knew that this arrow would miss.
"Four."
The second arrow from above cut a strand of Telum's long red hair, the wind from the arrow blew his hair in front of his eyes, obscuring his vision for a split second. "Tha." Telums words were interrupted by a pinch in his right shoulder. He noticed an arrow lodged a centimeter into his skin. This was only possible because the arrows Arbor were using were forged from a precious metal called Wind Lithium. It has laws of wind, granting the arrows increased flight speed, while also being one of the lightest metals.
"Well congrats. Another weapon down. You are almost there." Telums voice sounded next Arbors ears.
"Hey, im no longer bound by my mortal shackles?" Arbor inquired.
"Meet us at the table." Telum said as he flicked the arrow out of his shoulder before vanishing.
"Pick up those arrows before you do anything else. I didn't make them for you to leave laying around." A voice echoed through the forest. Arbor looked around before shaking his head.
Arbor mimicked Vulcan as he began collecting the used arrows.
…
A little while later Arbor took a seat at the table with his five teachers. All six seats have now been filled for the first time in fourteen years. An awkward silence filled the air for fifteen seconds before the circular wooden table started to expand and another seat started to grow out of the ground. Each of the occupied seats started to move to accommodate the new seat and create equal spacing around the table.
"What the hell is going on?" Arbor mussed. Wasn't it always the six of them? Why was another chair being added. He had grown accustomed to these kinds of oddities, but who could be the one responsible for the scene playing out in front of him. Arbor understood that this person must be highly respected by his five seniors.
Over the years, Arbor has had the feeling that a secret or two have been kept from him. No matter how many times he has asked or tried to pry information, he has failed.
The response Arbor got from everyone is smiles and silence.
An excited voice sounded out from the direction of the mighty tree, "Everyone it has been a few years. I trust that you all have been behaving. I hope Arbor has been treated well in your hands. Hello Arbor, I am Mo Haoshe. It's a pleasure to finally have the chance to talk to you."
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