Delton opened his eyes to the familiar sight of the toddler Lucius following Marcus to the morning training ground.

“How fast time truly flies…So nostalgic,” a young man’s voice spoke out beside him.

Turning his head, Delton saw the present-day Lucius floating in mid-air. “You could also enter these dreams?”

“Why not? These are my own memories,” Lucius scoffed at Delton’s question. A hand fan appeared from nowhere and began to fan Lucius on its own. “By the way, you have reached First Grasp now. It would be beneficial if you perform the morning training exercise with the kids.” He then snapped his fingers, causing the ethereal body of Delton too manifest itself physically.

His body forming and growing clearer and clearer, Delton fell to the ground with a heavy thud. “Tsss. What the fuck? That actually hurt a little. Aren’t I in a dream?”

“This is not a regular dream. These are my memories. It is not just your mind, but also your should that is present.”

“Whatever. Besides, I tried performing the exercises in my dreams before, but that didn’t affect anything.”

“It’s not surprising. It won’t change anything to your body, but to your soul. You’ve only reached First Grasp, so you might not even feel your soul until much later. Since our souls are linked, the ‘physical’ experience you’re having here is one of the soul’s. Because of the connection between the body and soul, this would aid your body, too.”

“You keep saying First Grasp, what does this even mean?”

“It’s just a term we use. It just means that you have made your first step into the path of cultivation. It’s not even considered a level,” Lucius answered, while shaking his head. “You should’ve felt it. That qualitative change to your senses.”

“Can I control it? I’ve been getting bombarded with information lately, as if my senses are in overdrive.”

“I’m not your master. Just train and you’ll be able to do anything.”

“That’s all First Grasp is?”

“Yeah. The improvements to your physical body are mainly due to your training. With First Grasp that chubby man would’ve not been able to do anything to you, while you would have kicked the shit out of him, ultimately killing him. You should hurry up, the morning training is starting soon.” Lucius no longer bothered with Delton as he laid down mid-air, pulling out the phone from nowhere and beginning to play with it.

Grumbling, Delton jogged to the training ground. The trainer had just gathered the group of kids to start the exercise.

As the morning training started, Delton made the same motions as the kids and felt his energy quickly sap away from him. Sweat drenched his back, like it had during the day. However, he gritted his teeth and continued to perform the exercise sets.

From the corner of his eye, he could see that the child Lucius had started to copy the motions of the other children.

After just a couple of moves, Lucius was soon on the ground huffing and puffing. The trainer smiled as he laughed, shouting, “Like his older brother back then!” Several of the villagers laughed as well, while Marcus’ face grew red, as he had to move the now passed out Lucius off the training ground.

Delton chuckled as he strenuously continued to perform the rest of the training exercise. After completing eight sets, the morning training finished. Delton lied down on the grounds, gasping former, as the kids went to eat at the patio.

Sitting up in a cross-legged stance, Delton visualized the mother-son image and gradually recovered in around half an hour. He looked towards the lazing Lucius and asked, “Why does that image help me recover so fast?”

“It’s a blessed image,” not looking like Lucius would say any more, Delton got up and moved towards the patio.

“Can I eat in your memories?”

Lucius rolled his eyes and did not bother to answer the question.

After another half hour, several of the villagers started to make way for the village gates, causing the children to hurry up and follow the crowd. They ended up at the entrance, where the village head, waiting with a smile on his face was already at. Caelus was standing next to him.

Soon, the village gates opened up and the sounds of viscous fluid moving around could be heard.

Delton tried to force his way through the crowd, but found that he could not move them at all.

“Are you sure you’re not stupid or something? These are memories, you can’t change them. Just go back into your less physical form.”

“And how the hell do I do that, old man?”

“Just think it,” Lucius answered shrugging his shoulders, while staring at the screen in front of him.

Delton focused on his hand as he made a pushing motion with it onto the back of one of the villagers. Initially, the hand was stopped easily by the back. After focusing a bit more, the hand slowly passed through the back and soon his arm fully passed through.

Seeing his hand move around on the other side of the villager’s body, he exclaimed, “Holy shit! This is so weird!”

“Shut up! You’re too damn loud!” Lucius yelled out from above him. Regaining his composure, Delton made his body pass through the crowd. Arriving right next to Caelus and his father, he saw at the entrance several balls of orange glistening viscous liquid moving towards them. Leading these group of orange balls was a reddish ball around twice the size of the others.

With each undulating motion, these shining spheres jiggled forward in a mesmerizing manner, making Delton’s eyebrows jump. With a weird look on his face, he could not turn his eyes away from the scene in front of him. Clutching his stomach, his face grew more and more unsettling.

Feeling the stomach acid come up his throat, Delton hunched over. Suddenly, he heard the sound of someone vomiting next to him. He looked to his side and saw the mighty child Caelus also hunched over and throwing up a weird combination of blue and red with chunks of meat mixed in.

Seeing the bizarre combination of colors and textures, Delton’s eyes watered as he also vomited. Tasting and smelling the poisonous alcohol from earlier, Delton vomited some more.

“Bahahahahaha! That scene of Cael vomiting always cracks me up, but to think you too would do it! Hahahahaha! I can’t fucking believe this! I think you’re the first person in all of existence to vomit in soul form! Congratulations on widening my world view even more! Hahahahaha!” Lucius rolled on the air laughing out.

Wiping his mouth, Delton saw that his vomit had disappeared from the ground in a couple of seconds.

Fortissimus shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. He walked towards the group of balls and said, “Pardon my son, Olbek. This is his first time seeing the slime race.”

The reddish ball wobbled with excitement as a voice, that sounded to be submerged in water, spoke out from the center of the ball, “Hahaha. Don’t worry, Fortissimus. We’re not offended.”

The rest of the slimes jiggled as laughter echoed throughout the group of a couple dozen slimes.

“Your son has grown admirably. Judging from his body, I don’t think any human child can match up against him.”

“Your children also looks to have grown well.”

If Olbek had eyes, Delton would think that the Olbek and Fortissimus were staring at each other.

Then, Olbek asked, “What do you say before we move on to discussions, we host a little show for your villagers and my people?”

“Ha! That sounds like a fun time! Caelus!”

Wiping his face, Caelus stood upright and looked towards the slime group, bowing his head slightly, a trace of embarrassment showed on his face.

Olbek then called out, “My second son, Chulbek, come and don’t disappoint your old ball.” One of the slightly larger orange slimes jiggled its way out of the slime congregation.

The crowd moved to the training ground and encircled it, leaving Chulbek and Caelus at the center.

“Will weapons be allowed, Fortissimus?” Olbek asked as a protrusion from the reddish ball related to Fortissimus’ direction.

“Up to the kids,” Fortissimus gulped down, then responded, quickly turning his head away from Olbek to look towards the two children.

“That’s alright with me,” Caelus said, as he moved towards the weapons racks next to the training ground.

“Can you grab a weapon for me, too? Any one would do,” Chulbek spoke out.

Caelus nodded his head and grabbed one sword and one spear. Walking back to the middle of the training ground, he then threw the sword, which landed directly in front of Chulbek.

An orange strand of slime fluid extruded itself from Chulbek’s body and wrapped itself around the sword. The orange strand grew bigger and bigger as it enveloped the entire spear, and the original slime body shrunk smaller and smaller.

The sounds of metal and wood breaking echoed from Chulbek’s body. The originally translucent orange ball now contained pieces of metal and wood. Olbek called out, “You two, ready?”

Caelus and a protrusion from Chulbek nodded.

Delton sat down next to Olbek and Fortissimus, as he looked on in anticipation. “Begin!” Fortissimus shouted out.

Caelus jumped forward ,causing the ground beneath him to crack inward and the surrounding crowd to gasp and shout out. His figure blurred and appeared in front of Chulbek, making a downwards piercing motion with his spear.

Chulbek’s body instantaneously formed an O shape as the spear went through the hole, striking the ground underneath. The shaft of the spear exploded in multiple pieces as the ground erupted in rubble.

Chulbek’s body then formed into thin strands, like a sea urchin, the ends of which housed a metal shard. In response, Caelus contorted his body to avoid some of the strands, as he landed, then disappeared from view with another blur.

Chulbek then brought in the strands and stayed still, as if waiting for Caelus to show up again. Suddenly, Caelus reappeared from above Chulbek with a flip and extended his foot downward.

Again, Chulbek’s body made an O shape to avoid the kick. Passing through the air yet again, Caelus’ foot landed on the ground, causing another rubble explosion to occur. With one of his feet planted, he then kicked in a circular motion with the other, but Chulbek avoided the kick, by wrapping himself around Caelus’ foot.

Without hesitation, Caelus stomped with the wrapped foot. However, Chulbek morphed his body and moved up Caelus’ leg to avoid the impact. Growing more agitated, Caelus body grew red and sounds of sizzling could be heard, as steam oozed from his leg.

Chulbek shrieked and quickly detached from the leg. He wiggled his way out of the rubble. Retreating, multiple strands with metal shards at its ends formed and swung at blinding speeds towards Caelus.

Sounds of metal against metal emanated as the strands struck at Caelus’ bare arm, which was unharmed. Screams from the crowd echoed out.

“What the fuck if his body made from?!” Delton stared in awe with his jaw on the floor.

Caelus chopped down, separating the tentacle-like strands from Chulbek, forcing Chulbek to scream out. Stomping on the ground, a large chunk of the ground, the size of a small boulder, jutted out. Caelus then grabbed the rock with one hand and disappeared with a blur once again.

Appearing behind Chulbek, Caelus was about to throw down the rock until Fortissimus and Olbek both called for him to stop.

"Truly a combat genius," Lucius, having looked up from his phone, spoke out.

Chulbek shivered as he formed back into a ball a couple of circles smaller than he was originally. Chulbek slowly flowed towards Olbek, leaving behind the shrapnel, from his body.

Olbek laughed nervously, and said, “Wow! Your son truly takes after you Fortissimus. I think this is more than enough excitement for the crowd to handle.”

Fortissimus looked around to see a stunned crowd, which erupted in cheers from his villagers. The whole battle took no longer than a minute, but it seemed to have greatly invigorated the crowd. He said, “I agree. Follow me into the town hall. Caelus, you too.”

“Let’s follow them in, too. Nothing much happens to me today.” The lazing Lucius called out to Delton.

“We can do that?” Delton asked after he picked his jaw from the ground.

“Memories are not as basic as you think,” Lucius smirked as he continued to play with the phone.

“You can have signal here?”

“Enough with stupid questions for a while, I’ve found something interesting,” Lucius said as the opening credits to one of the soap operas they watched could be heard from the phone.

Leaving a majority of the slimes behind, Olbek and two other slimes followed Fortissimus and his son. Delton followed them, by foot, while Lucius floated along from behind.

Congregating around a shabby wooden table, Fortissimus placed down a hand drawn map and said, “Let’s now discuss how to handle this stupid draconian war.”