“So, what do I do now?”

“You get on your knees and bow your head until it touches the ground, with both of your hands extended a little in front of you with the palms down, this is the act known as Kowtow. Repeat 3 times, this is the ritual of acknowledging a Master.”

Navin and Ethan were speaking on the roof of Ethan’s house, there was no wind around them, even the colors around seemed somehow dull, grayer than before.

Navin, of course, was unaffected by this, he seemed to have an aura of colors of his own, he looked as if someone had digitally edited a black and white image and added a person on full color to the front.

Navin stood out like that, contrasting with the world.

“Hey, are you sure you aren’t a God? That sounds very similar to worshipping deities in temples.”

Ethan said tilting his head a little, this was definitely a show of great reverence, even adoration, kneeling with one’s head touching the ground was beyond simply showing respect.

Navin had explained to him that accepting a Master in cultivation went beyond having a school teacher, it was more akin to a paternal figure that would guide you, nurture you and protect you while you learn how to stand on your own, Disciples would be owing obedience to their Masters even more than to their own birth parents.

It was a reciprocal relationship on a very deep level, Masters would pass on their knowledge to their Disciples to carry on their legacy, then the Disciples would advance that knowledge by their own experiences and insights. They would mutually help in further comprehending the cosmos and combine their powers when facing enemies. As they would be immortals, their bond was one for eternity, it was more intricate and meaningful than how it would be for a family of mortals.

“Well, it’s a tradition. I didn’t come up with it, and I’m not particularly a fan of formalities and regulations, but it is a very effective way to seal our deal and officially establish a Master-Disciple bond.”

Navin answered while holding his chin with one hand.

“Will I have to wear clothes like yours?”

Ethan asked one more question taking a closer look at Navin’s robe, it was certainly luxurious and elegant, it had a high quality that was self-evident with just a glance at it. But it was a design that was different from the clothes Ethan was used to wearing, it was from a completely different culture than what he knew. He felt it would be a bit embarrassing to wear clothes with such fashion in the middle of the city.

“Oh, absolutely.”

Navin answered with a huge grin, he clearly enjoyed seeing Ethan’s expression.

“Ugh… okay.”

Ethan dropped his shoulders and let out a sigh, mentally steeling himself by imagining how he would look with Navin’s robe on him.

Maybe the clothes weren’t so bad?

Maybe there would be some girls out there who would like such style, it was a big cosmos, there would obviously be all kinds of cultures out there.

Wait, what about girls?

Navin hadn’t said anything about dating or having sexual relationships, he wouldn’t be turning into a celibate monk, right?

Ethan grimaced, that was not a good thought, and he felt a bit embarrassed of asking that now, he didn't want Navin to think that he was a perv that only thought about dating and lazing around.

But that was an important and life-changing matter, so it had to be addressed.

“Hahahahahahahahahahaha!”

Navin laughed boisterously, the booming sound washing over the surrounding as the waves of the sea.

The sudden sound made Ethan jump, he turned to stare at this strange potential Master of his as said man laughed carefreely, as if he had heard a hilarious joke. Strangely, Navin's laughter gave Ethan a sensation of calm and joy, he even felt the desire to laugh too, despite not being sure what Navin found so funny.

“You are a funny kid. No, Ethan, you don’t need to wear clothes of this fashion style and appearance, what I meant was that you need clothes made this way, with resistant materials and arrays embedded on them to protect you and assist you. Otherwise, you would end up naked when fighting, flying and pretty much any situation that required real use of your powers. Ordinary clothes would turn into dust simply by releasing your aura or launching a spell, not to mention when being hit by another Cultivator’s attack.”

Navin had a huge grin on his face as he spoke to the flabbergasted Ethan, who silently listened to the full explanation.

“The appearance and fashion of clothes can change at will, this is merely the style most used in the world I visited before coming here and meeting you.”

Navin’s clothes changed in an instant without him making any move, the set of traditional long robe with wide sleeves, pants of silk and leather boots changed into an open black jacket with silver double zipper, pockets on both sides and silver rune-like figures on the sleeves and back, gray shirt with violet wave-like lines on it, dark blue jeans, and black sneakers.

“This is more like the style of your world, right? How do I look?”

He looked cool.

“Oh, thanks.”

And apparently, Navin can read minds, which was even cooler in Ethan's opinion.

“Yeah, I can. But it’s not like I’m using any power to pry into your mind, it’s simply a consequence of our difference in power. Also, your thoughts fluctuate too much and your emotions are reflected on your face, for someone like me it’s like you are yelling your honest thoughts at the top of your lungs.”

“I see… then about the other thing…”

Ethan flushed red. Although that was an embarrassing thought, the fact that Navin had noticed it meant he was saved the trouble of speaking it out loud.

“You mean about dating and sex? No problem, I’m not a celibate monk nor am I part of any religious order with norms or taboos about it, rest assured. I won’t impose restrictions on your private life, and what you do in private only concerns you and those you choose to share it with. However, I expect you to be responsible for your actions, I won’t tolerate any misbehavior or shameful misuse of your abilities. Sinking into depravity is forbidden, of course.”

Navin had a serious face when he said the last part, it was a stern warning for Ethan to not abuse his powers and to not slack on his training.

So long as Ethan kept his moral compass, Navin would not intervene in his personal affairs.

“Understood.”

Ethan had heard enough, his doubts were solved and he didn’t have any worry about Navin’s morals.

He was someone worthy of respect, a man one could look up to and follow in his footsteps with pride.

This man would be his Master from now on.

Ethan knelt in front of Navin and bowed his head until it touched the ground, kowtowing to Navin in a show of deference.

He repeated the action 2 more times and spoke.

“I acknowledge you as my Master.”

“I accept you as my Disciple.”

Navin nodded and answered solemnly.

Ethan felt a wave of warmth spread through his body as he stood up. A connection with Navin was formed, it was subtle but strong.

“Thus the bond is forged, now you are officially my disciple. I welcome you with open arms, my Fourth Disciple.”

Navin held Ethan’s shoulders and smiled.

“Eh? 4th Disciple?”

Ethan let out a surprised voice, there were other disciples?

“Yes, I have 3 other disciples, well, two of them can be considered to have finished their apprenticeship, the Third Disciple is a young girl I received as a student recently. Don’t worry, you will meet them eventually, I think you will get along well.”

“Ah, I see.”

Well, it’s no problem that there were other disciples, it’s not like there would be a fight for succession like in royalties, Navin would always be their Master and they would be each other fellow students, according to Navin it would be like having brothers and sisters helping each other on their path to success, it was collaboration, not a competition.

Even if some issues would present later, that was a problem for the future, there was no point in worrying about it now.

“Then Navin… Master, what now? when will we leave and where will we go?”

Ethan asked his teacher, it felt a bit weird to call someone Master, but he thought he would get used to calling him Master before long.

Now the issue was where to go, a whole new universe was waiting for him,Ethan wondered if his Master already had a destination in mind, it made him nervous, all of this was happening too fast, just yesterday he was an ordinary kid with an ordinary life, now he was going to train to become an Immortal, all of this happened because of that incident with the rifts in space that killed everyone.

That’s right, everyone is dead now.

A lonely tear went down Ethan’s cheek as he thought of his parents, his friends and all the people he saw on the street, the horrific scene or their deaths might haunt him for a long time.

Even now, if he just leaned out of the border of the roof and looked into the distance he would see the bodies of many people dismembered on the streets.

“I will take care of them.”

Navin said calmly by his side and a wave of red light spread from him, Ethan saw the bodies on the street disappear as the light touched them and then continued to spread beyond his field of vision, even the blood on the ground disappeared.

What happened to the bodies?

“I mentioned it before, but this world is messed up on many levels, mainly, it’s time flow is stagnated and the souls of the people here can’t reincarnate, they are trapped in a limbo, frozen in time.”

Ethan paled as he heard that, his parents’ souls were trapped?

“It is a complicated situation, but it is salvable, their bodies can be fixed and their souls reattached to them, essentially resurrecting them all, which would be impossible if the time flow had continued normally, their bodies have not decomposed and their souls have not entered the cycle of reincarnation, they also have not being destroyed or transported to other realms, I can see that they are frozen in time, unconscious and without pain, so don’t be afraid.”

Navin explained the situation of the people in Ethan’s world, apparently, they could be saved and turned back to normal.

But if it were so simple, Navin would have done it already.

“There is one problem, though. They can’t be saved right now, because this world, even in its currently messed up and broken state, is still undergoing changes, so we need to wait until it stabilizes, once it does, we can fix its Time Axis to make the clock start turning again, then the people will be back to their normal life, and time would not have passed for them at all.”

In other words, they had to wait, for now all Ethan could do was be patient.

“Then the bodies…”

“I gathered them and moved them to a flatland in a corner of this planet. I’m repairing them as we speak, all ten thousand million six hundred seventy-eight thousand two hundred and thirty-one (10000678231) people on this planet besides you, all of those who died on the catastrophe.”

Ethan was astonished by Navin’s words; he was so powerful he could scan the world, teleport people on the other side of the planet by the millions and repair their bodies while holding a conversation?

He was certainly showing a level of power that could only be called ‘Divine’.

It was truly impressive.

“Well, then, I’m done. Over ten thousand million bodies healed and ready to receive their souls back.”

“Master, don’t you mean ‘ten billion’ bodies?”

“Hmm? No, it’s ten thousand million, it’s a one followed by ten zeroes, a billion has twelve zeroes. That’s basic math, Ethan.”

Ethan looked at Navin with wide eyes, and then remembered there were different naming systems for integer powers of ten in the world, some countries called billion to the multiplication of a million by a million, while others like Ethan’s homeland called billion to the result of multiplying a thousand by million, thus the number of zeroes would be different.

It was known as Long and Short Scales, respectively.

“Ethan, how tall are you?”

Navin asked suddenly, the question took Ethan by surprise but he still answered honestly.

“I was 5 feet with seven inches last time I checked, but I seem to have grown a bit, I think I’m now 5’9’’ tall, but why do you ask that, Master?”

“Ah, I see…”

Navin made a strange face upon hearing Ethan’s answer, then he let out a sigh and raised one finger with a smile.

“Ok, lesson one as a Cultivator: Metric System.”

“That has nothing to do with Cultivation!!”

What felt like a couple of hours later, Master and Disciple stood atop a tall building in the center of the city.

They had gathered Ethan’s possessions and even went around many stores quickly thanks to Navin making Ethan levitate.

It was a fun experience, flying in the sky without any machine helping you. Navin had the prudence to tell Ethan about it and gave him time to prepare before casting the flight spell on him.

It wouldn't be fun to have a screaming teenager wet his pants because he was suddenly thrown into the air.

There wasn’t anyone to use any of the things here, be it weapons, food, clothes, books, electronics or medicines, so Ethan wanted to take as much as he could, the mysterious object called Spatial Ring that Navin gave him apparently could store this entire city and more, it just needed a mental command for usage and everything inside it would be perfectly conserved while inside the Storage Space.

Navin had already told Ethan that he wouldn’t need any of those things, but he understood it was something familiar that Ethan could have with him on a foreign world, so he let him take whatever he wanted, it’s not like it would be any trouble to carry all that stuff inside a Spatial Ring.

The Master looked at his new Disciple with a bit of concern, Ethan had just been through a traumatic experience, Navin was aware of it, so he had been teasing and distracting him with conversation all this time, but it would be a long process for Ethan to truly recover.

Navin swore to himself he would make sure this child grew up healthy and happy, no disciple of his would be consumed by Inner Demons nor restrained due to trauma.

Promising to save all the people of this broken world was the first step to give Ethan some peace of mind, at least after Navin's explanation he wouldn't see his parents and friends as dead people, but more akin to people in a coma, they were sleeping, waiting for him to wake them up.

Now Ethan would slowly be healing his mental damage and will have hope of seeing them again in the future, it was a goal to keep him going forward.

“It’s time to go, are you ready?”

“Yes, thanks again for everything, Master. It means a lot to me that you are helping the people of this world to recover their lives.”

“Don’t worry about it, take it as my first gift to you upon receiving you as an apprentice. Besides I am partly responsible for this situation, helping to mitigate the damage caused by the Cataclysm is the least I can do.”

Ethan nodded after hearing his Master’s words and watched him transform again into his Phoenix form.

Navin extended his wings and a bubble of light covered Ethan.

One flapping of wings later, they both disappeared from Tergan and entered the Void between universes, for one second Ethan saw many lights of different colors moving at high speed around him with a pitch-black darkness as background, then at the next second, he was standing in the middle of a desert.

It was a very short image, but it was… beautiful.

Ethan looked around, white sand extended all around him, but a small oasis was close to them, about 200 feet… about 61 meters away from their position.

Navin, back in his human form, started to walk towards the oasis.

“Come on, let’s sit there and relax a bit before starting your second lesson as a Cultivator.”

Ethan grimaced when he heard his Master keep on joking about how learning the stupid metric system had been his first lesson.

“Okay, Master. Then what is my first lesson on cultivation?”

“Your second lesson is the basic of all basics, the core principle behind channeling energy through your body and the first step into learning how to control any form of energy.”

Navin made a small pause with a grin on his face, he really was enjoying teasing Ethan.

“One of the keystones of martial arts practice and an essential part of life itself.”

Navin took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly.

“Breathing.”