《Journey Towards Dao》Chapter 2: Love
Advertisement
Gorgeous red and gold drapes were drawn open, inviting warm rays of sunlight to shine down towards the trio sitting upon the bed.
Amabella glanced down, a slight frown forming as she observed her sweaty and blood soiled body.
Cedrick caught this small movement and gingerly took Auslen from her arms while calling for Diana.
Placing Auslen into Diana's outstretched hands, Cedrick stood up and turned to the now smiling Amabella.
Vast amounts of green, white, and gold motes of light burst out from Cedrick’s pores, spreading out around him dazzlingly before gathering onto his injured wife’s filthy figure.
Amabella’s eyes brightened as she felt renewed energy filling her body that was previously exhausted from childbirth and her small temper tantrum. Her cheeks whitened and her sweat dissipated. Even the blood that stained her beautiful, gold trimmed white robes was completely cleansed away.
The multicolored light began to fade, revealing the satisfied Amabella whose body looked pure and unblemished, not at all resembling a woman who had given birth just a few moments before.
She alighted from the bed with supernatural grace before walking to Diana to hold the still sleeping Auslen once again in her arms.
Turning to Cedrick, her pink lips opened in question, “Is the Body-Nourishing Pool ready?”
Cedrick nodded shortly, placing his hand at the small of her back as he led her through the door and into the large hallway, making their way to the Nourishing Chamber.
…
After entering an underground facility within the main palace grounds, the couple passed many cultivators that were guarding various entryways and corridors before arriving at a set of imposing black stone doors.
In front of the black doors, four Foundation Establishment cultivators stood there as sentries. They were covered in silver armor and black robes, with long decorated sabers hanging from their hips.
The sentries bowed briefly before turning to face the doors with their hands raised. Glyphs poured from their fast moving, gauntlet covered fingertips, causing the dense patterns that covered the set of black doors to glow brightly.
After a few moments, the large doors gradually opened, revealing a completely black stone room. In the center, a small pool full of milky white liquid could be seen from the entrance.
Cedrick and Amabella walked in, and the doors immediately shut behind them to best preserve the liquid contained within.
Crystals that aligned the walls began to shine, filling the room with soft light as they made their way to the center.
Amabella parted from her husband’s side as she walked to the side of the white pool, kneeling down in contemplation as she gently unwrapped the cloth that covered Auslen.
“Remind me, how long was our eldest son able to absorb the Body-Nourishing Elixir for?”
Cedrick tilted his stiff face slightly in thought.
His soft yet deep voice reverberated in the stone room, “A little more than two minutes. He should have had around twenty Soul Force points as a newborn.”
Advertisement
Amabella hummed softly while she carefully placed Auslen into the Body-Nourishing Elixir. Once she removed her hands, she noticed the Elixir being sucked quickly into the floating child’s pores, which brought a tender smile to her face.
Behind her, Cedrick’s head gave a small nod at the sight before he closed his eyes in wait.
…
Although the unconscious Oliver was unaware of his current situation, the transformations occurring within his body did not cease.
The Body-Nourishing Elixir trickled into his newborn body, as if his body was a desert experiencing rain for the very first time.
Milky white condensation traveled through his blood stream, nourishing his muscles, ligaments, and bones. However, the vast majority of the liquid flowed straight to his head.
Tiny veins rippled as vast amounts of liquid traveled into his brain, feeding and protecting the feeble organ that had continuously failed to keep up with his mature thought-streams.
Hints of sparkling white began to appear on his brain, resembling the purest of white jades. The vast amount of activity around his brain even caused his sparse golden brown locks to thicken and grow at noticeable speeds.
The changes his body was experiencing did not show any signs of ceasing.
…
Amabella’s face couldn’t have been more brilliant as she watched Auslen’s smiling, sleeping figure. Even Cedrick’s previously closed eyes had opened at an unknown time.
“He’s been absorbing the Body-Nourishing Elixir for over four minutes, and he hasn’t shown any signs of stopping. Cedrick, our Auslen is a little genius!”
Cedrick only nodded briefly; his eyes still trained on Auslen.
Time advanced slowly as they continued to watch in amazement.
Once the eighth minute led to the ninth, Amabella’s face was full of shock and disbelief. Even Cedrick’s eyes visibly widened.
However, as the tenth minute transitioned into the eleventh, nothing but solemnity existed in their expressions.
Amabella turned back to Cedrick, her face grave with worry.
She grew more cautious, glancing at the large doors they entered through previously before urgently transmitted her thoughts to Cedrick: “Eleven minutes have passed. This means Auslen should have at the very least 100 points of Soul Force as a newborn, which is unprecedented! This is troublesome, Cedrick!”
But Cedrick didn’t respond, nor did he take his eyes off of Auslen, who had already diluted the Body-Nourishing Pool by more than half.
Seeing this, Amabella had no choice but to continue watching in silence.
Eventually, after more than eighteen minutes had elapsed, Auslen’s body had finally stopped consuming Body-Nourishing Elixir. The remaining liquid in the pool was almost entirely clear, a pool that was previously prepared for the birth of at least a dozen talented children!
Sighing with a complicated mixture of emotions, Amabella reached her hands towards the pool, and Auslen’s glistening, jade-like body levitated out of the remaining liquid. Newly grown golden hair the length of his small body was hanging from his head.
He then gently landed in Amabella’s arms.
After silently rewrapping Auslen’s body with fabrics, she looked at Cedrick deeply, conveying unspoken words.
Advertisement
Cedrick understood immediately. He hesitated briefly before nodding to her silence.
Amabella held Auslen securely as she strode forward towards the door, Cedrick trailing close behind her.
She reached the quickly opening doors which revealed the four shocked sentries. They were obviously astonished at the exaggerated amount of time the three of them stayed inside the Nourishing Chamber.
As soon as Amabella exited the room carrying Auslen, the sentries couldn’t help but impulsively glance at the young prince, as if they could glean some sort of secret from his unconscious appearance.
Amabella’s blue eyes grew frighteningly cold as she slowly lifted up one of her hands, placing it gently over Auslen’s eyes for protection.
Rivers of Profound Qi danced frantically within her meridians.
Suddenly, she took a deep breath.
In an instant, every ounce of warmth was stolen from the entirety of the underground facility.
As of now, every visible location was filled with flowing mist and white frost. Every cultivator stationed within was frozen solid, including the four Foundation Establishment realm sentries that were foolishly examining her child a moment before.
Amabella stood in her original location, shining blindingly with golden light as if she were the sun itself. Behind her, a faint image of a pair of large golden wings could be seen within the blazing photons.
Bang!
In the very next moment, the blinding heat contained within her abruptly exploded outwards, sending golden fire flooding through every hallway, every corridor, and every room, disintegrating every single frozen figure until their remains fell to the ground as dull black ash.
Cedrick stood within the sea of golden fire behind his wife, sighing softly at the sight ahead.
…
Feeling soft fabrics and nearby body heat, Oliver’s fingers and toes twitched slightly as his eyes opened with a sudden clarity that was simply incomparable to his earlier daze. The tremendous, but sudden improvement to his psyche generated a serious sense of disorientation within him.
Thoughts and memories flowed and clashed together extraordinarily quickly as he got his bearings on his current situation.
He could feel that his thoughts flowed even smoother than in the prime of his previous life!
Unnatural strength seemed to incomprehensibly fill every inch of his day-old body. He even felt the need to glance down at his body to reassure himself that he didn’t once again die and reincarnate during his nap.
As he was looking down at his wiggling toes, he felt someone move next to him, causing his small eyes to glance to the left. Beautiful blue eyes once again filled his vision.
However, instead of the pure love that previously filled those pools of blue, complicated emotions of concern and worry became the most pronounced.
Oliver fell into a period of slight confusion.
Did something happen when I fainted earlier?
Or… is it because I’m not acting ‘baby’ enough?
Oliver had the misfortune of fathering three needy triplets. And those triplets heartlessly gave him a total of eight needy grandchildren. He unfortunately knew all too well how a baby should be acting.
Ignoring the small pang of sadness that appeared at the thought of his family, Oliver let out the most adorable, toothless smile that he could muster, considering the exceedingly unusual circumstances.
Luckily, the effects were immediate. The woman’s eyes squinted in amusement at the sight of his gums.
She sat up energetically and gently picked him up. She then excitedly recited a singular foreign word to him repeatedly, as if afraid that he wouldn’t understand.
Hmm? Auslen? Sounds somewhat masculine. Is that my new name?
Wait, is this woman really attempting to get a day-old baby to remember their name?
At the thought of this new name of his, the pang of sadness that he previously tried to ignore returned with intensity.
He had truly lost everything, and it had happened far sooner than he had anticipated.
His house that he worked so hard to pay off was gone. The money he had been saving for 40 long years was gone.
Even his family, which he thought he couldn’t stand the sight of, was suddenly and permanently separated from him.
Complicated emotions filled his thoughts as he half-heartedly played ‘baby’ with the woman in front of him.
However, those negative feelings dissipated as suddenly as they came, a calm and collected mentality quickly replacing them.
Oliver was very familiar with adapting to sudden changes. Through every obstacle, through every loss, he had managed to survive and eventually thrive time and time again. Even though the current situation was somewhat incomprehensible, at its core, it was nothing all that unique.
Besides, as a newborn, he now had far more time than he had previously. His dream of a peaceful, unrestrained life was still in sight.
Curiosity began to bloom in his heart as thoughts of all the possibilities this new life had to offer ran wild in his head. However, they were quickly interrupted due to the woman’s incessant babbling. Her previously amused face was now tinted with worry.
Sighing silently to himself, he looked deeply at her beautiful face, memorizing every curve and every corner, internally giving in to the fact that she truly was his mother in this new life of his.
Ok, I can accept this.
From now on, you will be my mother.
And… I will be your son… Auslen.
After just another moment of silent acceptance, Auslen’s face arranged itself into a truly genuine smile, unlike anything he had produced in recent memory.
After opening his small, toothless mouth, he babbled an unintelligible mixture of syllables that sounded both a bit similar and nothing at all like ‘Auslen.’
But it did not matter.
His mother’s previously worried face brightened so much that he swore he could see specks of light swirling within her cheeks. She giggled as she hugged Auslen close, engulfing him in a waterfall of long golden strands.
Advertisement
- In Serial1853 Chapters
Gourmet of Another World
In a fantasy world where martial artists can split mountains and creeks with a wave of their hand and break rivers with a kick, there exists a little restaurant like this. The restaurant isn’t large, but it is a place where countless apex existences will rush into. There, you can taste egg-fried rice made from phoenix eggs and dragon blood rice. There, you can drink strong wine brewed from vermillion fruit and water from the fountain of life. There, you can taste the barbecued meat of a ninth grade supreme beast sprinkled with black pepper. What? You want to abduct the chef? That’s not going to happen, because there’s a tenth grade divine beast, the Hellhound, lying at the entrance. Oh, that chef also has a robotic assistant that killed a ninth grade supreme being with a single hand and a group of crazy women whose stomachs were conquered.
8 1938 - In Serial14 Chapters
A Dearth of Choice (Dungeon Core)
A young dungeon core forms next to a lovely village, full of lovely people who would likely understand its plight of not wanting to murder them all if only it had a mouth with which to speak. Instead, everything goes horribly, terribly wrong. Its literally a crystal, it can't be having a panic attack, can it? This is the story about a village, a dungeon, its desire to provide light and laughter and life. It tries to choose the talents and perks to bolster its life-mana alignment every time, to further its cause. So how is it that it wound up with an undead army and some insane boosts to death-aligned mana? How did everything go so wrong? [participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]
8 72 - In Serial35 Chapters
Dungeons & Demons
*!* This story is currently being continued on a different page, following years of hiatus and extensive rewrites *!* Please follow the link to read the up-to-date version: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/53863/cycles-of-ruin Basil von Doom is a powerful dungeon keeper with a simple mission: to bring ruin and destruction upon civilized worlds at the height of their decadence and stagnation. Much like his father before him, the new master of House Doom is a prodigy of war, yet the venerable minions of his household still hold strange loyalties toward his missing ancestor, silently comparing the legendary rage of his father to the more pragmatic approach of the son. Adding to Basil’s frustrations is the lack of accomplishment he feels for his work, with the dungeon keeper often taking on handicaps just to give his enemies a fighting chance. With all the power and wealth one could ever dream of already within his grasp, Basil now finds that the achievements of others kindle more joy in his heart than his own crushing victories. Thus Basil has taken up mentoring the next generation of dungeon keepers to try and diagnose the cause for his own lack of passion. With his apprentice, Elnora, managing most of the daily work around the dungeon, Basil can finally turn his attention towards his personal concerns, such as tackling the shadow of his legendary father that still looms large over him.
8 166 - In Serial17 Chapters
Deshawn Dale and the Hidden World
Deshawn Dale (DD) is your average 16-year-old, nerdy black teen. He likes comics, anime, girls, sports, and school - in that order, of course. DD's life takes a drastic turn when he receives a mysterious gift from his older brother - a black half mask. Unfortunately, he has no time to be confused as suddenly he is hunted by shadows, inducted into a secret hidden animal-themed organization, and tasked with saving the world from an ancient evil. DD must learn to accept his new life quickly if he doesn't want to lose everything - which really sucks because all he wanted was to have a lazy and carefree existence. Release schedule: Saturdays @ 12pm CT.
8 194 - In Serial8 Chapters
The Slumbering Earth
Portalled to another world by a being of the inbetween known as the mysterious Douglas, our lead sees himself trapped on the central island of an archipelago, alone, with only leaves and the powers infused to him by the process of transference to keep him alive. also he sloth. ....................... The classic combo of first time writer and long time lurker create a lonely fat man with literally nothing better to do. Despite the goofs please leave constructive critisism and give me money ;) ...when i eventually set up a patreon for advanced chapters that is. Slow pace by the way, i'm try to make it realistic if the mc starting out with not very much surrounded by a whole lot of nothing so there will be some kingdom building and construction later on as he gets himself established. Image (with added sloth) found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/9yff0b/the_golem_master_digital_1450x2030px/
8 200 - In Serial27 Chapters
The Fall of The Gods
Synopsis: In the year 1966, an army of Orishas led by Sango stormed Amadioha’s palace and razed it the ground, starting a decades-long war between two of Nigeria’s most powerful divine orders. Blinded by the rage of battle, the gods did not detect the rise of a third power, far greater and deadlier than anything they could have imagined. When gods, on both the Yoruba and Igbo sides, begin falling mysteriously to their death, Sango seeks the help of Odion, a Lagos teenager destined to rise from his dark past to become a hero. But can a human hero save the gods from a doomed fate? The Fall of the Gods is an action-packed YA fantasy based on the mythical bond that ties human life with the realm of the divine. It demonstrates the power of stories to change our lives. It also reminds us that Sango and Amadioha are not relics of the past and that, sometimes, what it means to be a hero in today’s world is knowing how to find inspiration in the stories of the gods. PLEASE NOTE: Weekly chapters will be released every friday along with interludes once in a while about Nigerian mythology. I'm a young 17 year old writer and I am new to the site so I will appreciate your comments and reviews. Thank you very much.
8 204

