When Alius was small, he had come across a tattered book, half buried in the dirt near the river. At that small age, his total brain cells amounted to around 6. Upon finding something on the floor, the obvious next step is to put it in your mouth.

However, the moment his hands touched the book, Alius felt a strange feeling down in his stomach. It seemed to be the feeling he would get when he was hungry! Alius’ child brain decided that he had to eat this, but he never had the chance to.

Many people experience an effect that can only be described as a revelation, where they realize exactly the correct way to respond to a situation, a couple hours after said situation has occurred. Having this happen will fill anyone with regret once they realize that they did not make what their brain tells them is the ‘right’ choice.

At this moment, child Alius had this revelation too, and was filled with regret at missing a meal. His brain put all 6 of its cells into overdrive, and after several minutes of intense thinking, decided it was probably best to not eat this book.

Opening the book with his chubby baby hands, the next logical step was to begin tearing out the pages of the book.

Once again though, his brain told him not to, and Alius almost cried at the injustice of the situation. Unable to act, Alius did the only thing he could do, reluctantly turn open the pages of the old and tattered book. Although he was young, Alius’ mother had taught him the very basics of reading.

The word “taught” is being used incorrectly here, as she read stories to him and Alius picked up about a total of 5 different words. His inflated toddler ego convinced him that he could read whatever this was!

Opening the book, Alius could immediately understand all the words written.

‘Deviating Path’

That was the name of the book. Interesting in retrospect, but at the moment, his mind was attracted to the bubbles and spheres on the very first page.

No, you misunderstand. Alius understood the concept of cultivation. Mothers, and fathers would all tell their children about the wonders they had seen, and the children, including me, would listen, awestruck at the tales of immortals and ancient masters. He also understood that this was likely a cultivation method, like the ones described in the tales. Legendary things that could allow a person to grow stronger, and be like the heroes in the stories. But no, Alius was only interested in the shapes and forms that were shown on the diagram.

They were so beautiful…

Just looking at the page started to send his mind into a haze, but at the same time, Alius could think faster and more accurately. Alius felt so much smarter, that he had to take another look at the page of swirls. Taking another long look sent Alius to a blank state again, with one droplet of drool running down the side of his face and dripping off his chin. Continuing to stare at the page sharpened Alius’ mind even more, while his mouth grew more slack, a veritable stream of drool coming out of the corners of it. Alius’ eyes glazed over while the shapes and swirls on the pages floated off the page, moving and twirling past each other in an intricate dance.

The swirls grew thicker and even more glorious, before exploding into his eyes and whiting out Alius’ vision before fading it to black.

____

Waking up, Alius found himself wrapped in his favorite blanket with embroidered bunnies on it.

Something felt profoundly off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

It wasn’t until Aluis stared around himself that he realized.

His body resting against the base of the tree, his mother still sitting by the lake, keeping a watchful eye on him. The grass was saying the breeze, and looking up, a squirrel rested on the branch above him, rubbing its paws together.

If he had to describe the feeling, it would be as if, his whole life, he had been viewing reality through melted rainbow funhouse glass, distorting everything he saw and blurring it into a disgustingly over-saturated landscape. Only now could Alius see clearly, think clearly, and truly become alive.

____

6 years old.

That was when people could be considered to be done with their basic education. Reading, writing, and proper use of grammar, all that stuff.

Another normal day, if an easy one. It was one of those rare days where you have absolutely nothing to do, and no one suggests something for you to do. All you have to do is follow your inner voice, doing what it tells you to do.

Today was the day right after Alius had completed what was considered in our village to be the basics of education. Children were taught about the reality of our world, and at this point, most already knew what our existence was like. We all more or less understood the glory and power to be obtained through cultivation, and all yearned for it.

Most of the time spent teaching us was spent on showing us information about the world, and cultivation. Information is always valuable, and the elders and teachers made sure that we knew that by heart. World history dealt with information about, shocker, the history of the world. This extended to both the past and present.

The teachings of cultivation on the other hand, taught almost nothing about cultivation. The entire village seemed to be trying to make fools of themselves, as the children sat and stared at the teacher turned glorified storyteller, weaving tales of immorality and wonder. Cultivation was all the children could see at their age, and their eyes were always transfixed on the so-called ‘teacher’ for the entirety of the class. All of their dreams were on this one teacher, who knew nothing but the telling of tall tales.

All the other classes were mostly ignored, but one specifically more than the others. The class on professions.

Professions were the workers of the cultivation world, people who gave up great power in exchange for being able to make things. That’s all. All in all, they were useless. A formation master could spend hours setting up a defensive formation that would be broken instantly in the face of a slightly more powerful opponent. A forger could spend days crafting a blade that would only be slightly sharper.

Obtaining a profession meant you would become unable to continue pursuing the path of power. For this reason, none were willing to learn a profession unless they had no other choice.

Part of the problem with professions was that all those who picked up one were weak. Countless had theorized that if a stronger person learnt one, the things they made would be of a massive help to all cultivators. However, not one person was willing to sacrifice their future to test a theory with no evidence of its truth.

The classes barely lasted half an hour, and the teacher had run out of topics to teach at the very beginning of the year. Most students dozed off or talked to their friends.

Only one child bothered to disturb the teacher, who was also usually dozing off, during the class.

That child was exactly Alius.

____