Within a blink of an eye, three days had passed. At the edges of a cliff, Willard stood practicing his martial techniques. Now that his natural energy bases had been solidified, he could maintain and use greater proportions of earth elemental energy. Willard found out that now that he had scaled the natural energy level, his sensitivity to natural energy had been highly attuned. This was the first time he had noticed the natural energy around him acted like waves and not stationary particles. With that, he quickly figured there were time intervals with higher surges of natural energy and came up with ways to better take advantage of that. Within the three short days, Willard had completely solidified his understanding of his new power level.

While practicing on the third day, Willard felt a subtle tremor in the natural energy within his surrounding. Turning to take a look at the cause of the tremor, Willard saw Aorah mystical appear on the mountain. ‘Interesting. I can slightly feel her presence now.’ Willard thought to himself.

Aorah had a surprised look on her face as she saw Willard training. She had previously thought he would be unconscious by the time she returned, but not only was he up, he was also strong enough to train. Aorah gently walked into the cave ignoring Willard. When she got in, she startled Nana, who was joyful with her presence. “When did he regain consciousness?”

“Two days ago?” Nana responded before she continued what she was doing earlier.

‘His recovery time increases at a much higher pace than anything I have ever seen. Is it because of that thing? Also, his control of the natural energy is at a perfect level.’ Aorah thought to herself for some time before she eventually preoccupied her thought with something else.

When Willard finished his training, he descended to the bottom of the mountain, which had condensed water from the water vapor in the atmosphere. Willard cleaned himself up before heading back to the cave. As he got back, Nana had started preparing food for the night. Willard sat in a meditative posture and started cultivating earth natural energy. After a couple of hours, Nana finished preparing the meal. The dynamics between everyone at the cave was exactly as it used to be. It did not take long for Nana to fall asleep after she finished eating. Aorah continued staring at the stars with some sort of melancholic look. Time slowly progressed as they all separated to their corners.

“Willard, come with me,” Aorah said to Willard after a couple of hours had passed. Willard opened his previously shut eyes and got up to follow Aorah out of the cave.

“Do you know why I have been insistent on bringing you along my journey?” Hearing Aorah’s question, Willard continued to stare at her. Of course, he had no idea, this has been one of his biggest pains. He had essentially been kidnapped with no information as to why.

“I suppose you wouldn’t know. Let me explain from the beginning.”

“When a saint is born, a devine (not divine) energy from the heaven descends on the individual changing their body, soul, and core and forming a saint body. I believe that this devine energy is the key to breaking the veil of this mortal world and transcending to the nine heavens.” She said as she stared at the stars one more time.

“The only time this energy descends is when there is a birth of a saint. At least that was what I thought until I met you. For some reason during your exhibition match at the Minya household, you were able to use elemental energy without solidifying your natural element base and more importantly, I was able to feel this energy during your match.”

“With this, you should be able to tell why I had brought you along my journey.”

Willard stood in place contemplating what Aorah had said to him. Although Willard knew Aorah’s thought process was severely flawed, because of his experience as the God Thanus, there was also something that stood out to him. This was the first time someone other than himself had noticed this energy. Willard still knew Aorah’s thinking was wrong, but this was his first clue in figuring out what to do with this energy. In a series of wrong ideology, Aorah’s first mistake was her assumption that the energy which transforms mortals to saints came from the nine heavens. As a God that had lived an almost infinite life in the nine heavens, he knew that no such energy freely existed within the nine heavens. He also knew that traversing the mortal existence into godhood did not require this so called devine energy.

“I see. Is that supposed to justify your actions? Let me ask you this, what do you plan on doing if you cannot learn to use this energy you are speaking of?” Willard asked in response to Aorah’s statement. In his head, all that Aorah had said were complete trash. He could care less about what she thought or theorized, all he cared about at this point were her intentions.

“Hahaha. Don’t let your thoughts stray that far. If I wanted to forcefully extract what bit of that devine energy you have, I would have done that awhile back. Do tell though, how is it that you are able to use that energy?”

“I am not sure what energy you are referring to. You have monitored the way I train, which should be no different from the way any other practitioner trains.”

“Hmm. that’s true, maybe someday I’ll figure something out.”

“Be careful, the moment I grow strong enough to face you, will be your last in this world.”

Aorah broke into a gentle smile, one that was both condescending and approving. “When that moment comes, I will eagerly await you.” She said turning her gaze back to the stars. Willard sat resting his back against a small boulder.

“If you are up for it, why don’t you tell me about the chaotic warring times and the Ferry tribe.” Aorah was surprised to hear what Willard had just said. It took her a little time to arrange her thoughts before she responded.

“What has Nana told you already?”

“Only that you were born a princess of the Ferry tribe in the northern kingdoms. You grew up during the chaotic warring times of the north and that a great calamity fell on her tribe, which lead to the total annihilation of your tribe.”

“That was a long time ago,” Aorah said with a gentle smile. “I guess I should at least tell you this much.”

“During those times, the northern states were unlike the neighboring southern states, that were divided into bigger kingdoms, it was a cluster of thousands of smaller tribes warring against themselves. My Ferry tribe was in a deadly war against the neighboring Kochet tribe. Although the times were perilous, it was also the best times of my life. The warriors and mages within my tribe were primarily trained in the wind element from a young age till adulthood.” Aorah said as she started narrating the story of her childhood for Willard.

“The next morning, the tribe was awakened to a huge assault from the Kochet tribe. It started like the usual raids that had been happening, but this day was actually different. Somehow, the Kochet tribe had gotten two other tribes to work together with them in battle. This was unprecedented because, until that moment, no tribe had ever joined forces with another to battle. It was an unspoken rule, that everyone obeyed or at least that was what I had previously thought.”

“It did not take long for the Ferry tribesmen to be overpowered. Within minutes of our defense collapsing, a wide-scale genocide of our tribe began. During that battle, I was stabbed but luckily survived within the piles of corpses. When I woke up, I was told that four other tribesmen including my father had taken my injured body and managed to escape to a nearby mountain. I stayed within the confines of the mountain with the remaining survivors for thirty years and trained every single day. At that point, I had reached the fifth level of elemental energy and was confident in my ability to protect my life. I had survived and persisted all those thirty years with the dream of avenging my tribes people.”

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