《The Tree of Life's Step Child》No Longer Mortal

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"I don't get it. Its been eight years and he is still in the mortal realm. All of us have checked and he is not a cripple." Puzzled Sol as she spoke towards Pona, Vulcan, and Thalli. All of them were watching Telum toying with Arbor in a flat field. Currently Arbor was training his halberd skills.

"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. What are you thinking Vul?"

"The only plausible reasoning would be that he is a special case." Vulcan responded.

"He is not special yet, but he will be. Have any of you ever heard of the rumored heavenly body? There are different variations of it, but it was said that those that posses it takes fifteen to twenty years to break through the shackles of the mortal realm. This is simply because of the amount of power that the body can house. Unfortunately, in all of the records the body was never able to mature." Thalli explained.

"I don't think that is the case. There were no peculiarities in his body when I was inspecting him. As a divine beast, I would have the best bet to notice anything out of the ordinary." Sol added.

"It has to have something to do with Master Mo. Did anyone else notice that his body doesn't seem to be all human," Pona pointed out as she looked towards that towering tree, "I sense a familiar aura from Arbor as I do from him."

"Time is the only thing that will tell."

Two years later Arbor was training with Telum again. This time it was with a bow. He had already had perfect aim but was working on hitting moving targets and various kinds of skills. Telum had sealed off his cultivation as low as it would go and was only using his physical body. Telum is shifting through the woods ten 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 Vulcans teachings. He was trying to predict Telums movements. He was shooting multiple arrows at a time, bouncing arrows off other arrows to reach behind trees, and masking arrows behind other ones.

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In Telums eyes, Arbor had to hit him once to be a certified bow user in Telums eyes. In the past 3 years Arbor had mastered all the basic skills with swords, knives, daggers, the sickle, staff, axe, spear, and the halberd. All he had left was the bow and hidden weapons.

"You old fart, just stay still!" Arbor fumed as he was firing off arrows back and forth in different. He eventually got fed up and grabbed his quiver and sprinted into the forest.

A loud laughed echoed through the forest as Arbor heard Telum joke, "Come on squirt, you've gotta try a little harder than what you are used to."

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 his full strength to have any chance of hitting Telum. While Arbor was dashing through the forest, a warm sensation began to grow in his stomach area. It started to spread throughout his body every second. He felt at home in the forest, it was as if he was one with the forest. He did not notice his speed gradually increasing as he was chasing his prey. The feeling of eutierria was 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 were gods in his eyes, even if they didn't act like one should, they could achieve anything.

A vast burst of energy exploded through Arbors body as his speed and strength almost tripled on the spot. His body broke through naturally.

Thalli, Sol, and company felt the above average fluctuation off essence in the forest and each felt relieved. "It took you long enough."

As Arbor was using his full strength when he broke through, his speed as drastically increased, causing him to trip and fall over himself since he was not use to his newfound power. After getting back up he slowly began to accustom himself to his new abilities by chasing after Telum. After about an hour Arbor was comfortable using about eighty percent of his strength.

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"You better watch you ass now old man!" Arbor jested as he shot another arrow, bringing him down to twelve in his quiver. Both Arbor and Telum were bouncing back and forth through the forest at a speed that a 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. "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."

Telums 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. This caused Telum to move his left shoulder back.

"Four."

The second arrow from above cut a strand of Telum's long red hair. "That was clo." Telums words were interrupted by a stinging pain in his right shoulder. He noticed an arrow lodged half an inch into his shoulder. This was only possible because the arrows Arbor were using were forged from a precious metal called Windy Titanium. It had faint traces of the law of wind, granting the arrows increased flight speed.

"Well congrats. Another weapon down. You are almost there." Telums voice sounded next Arbors ears.

"What happened to me back there? Was the me breaking my mortal shackles?" Arbor inquired.

"Meet us at the table." Telum said as he pulled 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 voice. 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 are now 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.

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 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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