Beatitudes

Killing beasts.

A black light flashed and the wolf disappeared, the three of them stared intently at the spot, wondering if they had been under an illusion or something, but the racing heartbeat and slight persistent headache confirmed for Isaac that all of it was real.

*sigh*

A sigh was heard coming from a distance covered with trees as Adam walked out from amongst the trees in a casual manner, a calm expression on his face that showed slight disappointment and resignation

None of them said a word even as they gazed with surprise upon this man that kept on fazing in and out of their lives at ungodly moments.

Ignoring the looks they gave him, Adam sighed again as he spoke, “That is by far one of the lamest battles I have ever witnessed… You spend months in that hellhole designed specifically for battle and this is all you can show for it… if my guess is correct then you three should actually be far up on the so called ranking if not even at the top, and yet your battle senses and foundation reminds me of a baby’s first time standing and walking; Weak.”

Hearing what Adam had to say, their surprise and indignation crumbled as it gave way to a variety of emotions ranging from anger to shame, they didn’t exactly understand some of his words but they understood where he was going at, but one thing still confused them though… did he orchestrate the whole thing?

And like he read their thoughts he said,

“This past week that you’ve spent in this forest should have been pretty relaxing right?... In fact it should have been so much so that you already began to find it boring and drawn out right…” with that he sent a glance to Harry who had already recovered his bearings as his face felt a little hot at Adam remark, “…well now you’ve gotten your fun, yet you made it seem so pathetic…”

Many questions raced through Isaac’s mind but one was particularly being repeated, ‘how did all this develop into a training exercise!, weren’t they being taken to a certain her somewhere elsewhere…

Another accurate ‘mind reading’ ensued as Adam continued talking, “You three didn’t encounter a single beast on the journey and it never occurred to you why… did you expect that to be how it usually is in the Jade forest?”

Hearing his words, slight confusion appeared in Harry’s eyes but a strange light flashed in that of Isaac and Hiya’s, so that’s why…

It wasn’t as if when Isaac travelled through the forest the previous time that there were no beasts in his path. He was just exceedingly careful in his movements and would leave an area immediately he detected presences of a beast, sometimes had even been dangerous as he had been discovered by some beasts and ran for his life. Hence it was indeed odd to him when they didn’t encounter any despite them moving for a week, but he didn’t give it too much thought as he was preoccupied with the issue of the bizarre things that happened to him.

The dark globes of Adam ’s eyes flashed with a light as he let out a light sigh, “I intended to test you today due to a certain someone grumbling about boredom, and incidentally the results I have received cannot be any poorer, I should have ignored it and not mentioned all this but I can’t do that, not because of anything else but because of you Isaac. I could leave the two of you to your lives and not bother about it but not you Isaac, you’re the least person that should be as weak as you are…”

Confusion flashed through Isaac’s eyes as he heard those words,

‘Why am I the one who shouldn’t be weak now, what’s all this…’

‘in time you’ll come to realize why he is saying this Isaac, the time’s just not now’

Astral’s voice sounded in reply to Isaac’s thoughts, hearing the once again cryptic words being uttered he just snorted as he ignored Astral.

“You’re weak now Isaac and although I can’t lead you to get a class here in the forest, I can at least hone your combat senses, but I’m not the best for the job honestly… so I can only think of one way to get this done, situations like the wolf attack will happen again, and I won’t be there to render any help, I promise you. You’ll be going toe to toe with those beasts and you’ll only have a chance to breath if they die. You two on the other hand are free to decline.”

With those words, he passed a subtle gaze over Hiya then turned around and began walking like nothing happened, not once did he give them a chance to say a single word. Harry looked at his back moving away and for a second turned his head to glance at Hiya who surprisingly met his gaze, they were the other two Adam gave free will over the choices, the choice they made was known only to them.

As Adam turned his back towards the three weaklings in his care, his expression turned unnatural as he mused… To be honest, even till the moment of that wolf’s final leap and thrust towards the dazed Harry, he was still expecting a better display from the three, and due to that he had actually slipped up and almost allowed the wolf to snuff out the poor guy’s life, not that he cared but it would have been odd to say all he did now if that happened. He didn’t exactly like being the one pushing his buddy down the point of pain that came with growth, but it was that growth that was most needed of him right now, and it was what he would have done himself if he was fully awake unlike now. So he could only do it and make sure of his safety till he gets strong enough to be the one doing most of the protecting. One thing did surprise him though, and that was the scene he saw at the moment of Harry’s near death, the fact that the wolf had deviated from its path when it was in such close proximity to its target was definitely nothing natural, at least the wolf couldn’t have suddenly decided against attacking and then forcefully changed its direction, the wolf itself wouldn’t have been able to withdraw its attack at that point. So that wasn’t what happened, if he could make a guess…, he couldn’t have been sure if he saw a ripple in space when Isaac waved his hand, it seemed to have been what caused the deviation but that was something that could only happen if he had unleashed a skill or an ability which was even more impossible since Isaac didn’t have a class. So what did happen…

He was seriously perplexed, perhaps Astral would know, but there was no way to communicate with him unless he manifested himself, but right now that would likely have to wait. Reaching Almadir and meeting up with her is the current goal.

He just wished Isaac awakened faster, the signs from a week ago showed changes but it wasn’t enough.

….

Like magic words he said, Isaac had never encountered as much as he had after Adam mentioned his ‘training’ plan. Turns out that he even had a method of luring the beasts towards them, specific ones he wanted, or at least that’s what they thought, he never admitted to it. The beasts that attacked them were always all low level beasts, never higher, but even those ones were a thorough handful for them.

Apparently the other two had made their choice and silently conceded, so every time, every day, the three of them would have to battle the beasts of the jade forest.

At first, they had always failed to kill the beasts. Every fight ended up needing Adam stepping in to kill it off, but after they finally understood the various techniques employed to fight, they would have two of them draw the beast’s attention and them Harry would deal damaging blows to it, whittling its live away little by little. They discovered that Harry had what they called brute strength, his moment of display back when they fought the first beast; the wolf, when he had hauled the very thick branch and thrown it like a spear was not a faint, or a moment of blessing. It had been like a sleeping power that had woken up within him after his burst of anger and frustration, he always had a silly smile on his face after every successful kill, a smile that the other two itched to wipe off.

As if noticing this, Adam then decided to up the level as he attracted three beasts, not one, to engage them. Facing the monsters alone proved to increase the difficulty for Harry, but it also made it much worse for the other two, whether intentionally or not, the beast Harry faced always fell to the likes of wolves, tigers and big sized beasts, while the ones that put pressure on Isaac and Hiya were usually snakes, ocelots, and sometimes even vicious rabbits…

These beasts were all of the lowest level rank of beasts in the world but to the three they felt like powerful adversaries they had no choice but to meet in battle, there was a reason why Isaac always avoided confrontation with these beasts before, and it was the fact that once they felt that were on the losing side they become more energetic and vicious and once they notice their gaining advantage they would become even more vicious, it was either kill or be killed when it came to fighting them.

At the moment it was a hairy boar that kept Isaac occupied at the moment, he was already becoming tired as he waved his makeshift spear at the defensive pig, but he knew better than to relax during a time like this, he panted as he moved around aiming for openings to exploit but to no avail, this pig was one of the most annoying beast he had ever faced.

“Damnit, this pig is so annoyingly catious, why would it attack me first if it was focused on being so defensive.”

A drop of sweat dribbled down his forehead as it threatened to fall over into his eye, he had to take a quick pause as he wiped the sweat off before resuming attack, but the boar had already taken advantage of the moment and fiercely retaliated, Isaac became the one on the offensive.

He watched it all through the poor guys eyes, this was the former highest order who could wipe out fields and regions in space if he so wished with a wave of his hand… how odd and ironic

It was a necessary sacrifice never the less, to face what was coming he needed more than what he had at his former height.

Astral couldn’t bare to watch silently so he spoke through the mind as Isaac dodged a charge from the fierce pig.

“Have you ever thought of testing out your ability”

“What do you mean Astral , for God’s sake speak not with your riddles for once”

Isaac who was getting bullied by a pig was in no mood for a fruitless talk with the enigma in his head, he could manage to reply him since it didn’t take much focus to, but if it went on for long he could slip up.

“sigh…, did you not wonder what was wrong with you on that day with the bandits, have you never had thoughts of reaching within you”

“Language please!”

“… Reach within you, you don’t need to close your eyes just ask the essence to help you reach for you.”

Hearing what Astral had to say, a frown came on to his face as he reluctantly decided to listen. He had spent the time when he wasn’t fighting to do other things, communicating with the sovereign essence within him was one of those things, he was able to reach out to the essence and communicate with it, an ability he had discovered after much pushing from Astral.

The essence reacted immediately and reached within to whatever corner in his body Astral asked him to. It took a while and as he was about to rebuke Astral before ignoring him completely to finish off the disgusting pig, he was never going to taste pig meat ever again, a change was felt. It felt like the essence had come into contact with something burning within him, a flame was what he felt with the connection to the essence and like the two things interacted with one another, Isaac felt a surge a control spread through his body, he could see those dot sized particles he saw that day in different shades like that of flames.

The boar made a leap toward the Isaac who lost focus for a split second, as he came to he panicked as he waved his arm with the spear in front of him, and like he was watching something unbelieveable a wide line of those particles gathered as if to his command along the path traveled by the spear as they burned with a sweltering heat, a wave of fire was released against the boar as it collided with the flames.

In an instant, the boar was knocked back as it shrieked, you could detect a heavy amount of pain from its shriek as the point of collision with the flames had already been burnt through, you could see its bones as the flames refused to go out.

“What the f*ck!”