The Roamer

Chapter 6: the future

“Put your hands up for Aeollus, for this slave has proved himself in the arena today!” yelled the announcer, clearly searching for the enthusiasm within the crowd. Just as he demanded, the crowd began to cheer and clap, but not for Aeollus himself, but at the lord seated all the way at the top who had bought these slaves.

“My lord, host another one for today, throw in an extra!” yelled some spoiled brat.

“I’m willing to carry your children, just ask me when!” yelled a flirtatious woman.

Just from looking at the crowds faces, one could clearly see that they all loved the arena, and didn’t feel sorrowful at all when they saw the death of at least one person every single day. Once again, this dis-aligned Aeollus, who really was fed up with these people.

‘Thank god I got out of this one alive, but it still isn't enough. I need to become much stronger, as this is merely a prison of slaves! What’ll be the case of my life if I were to ever reach out into the world, and try to fight someone?’ thought Aeollus to himself, clearly not satisfied that he couldn’t escape injuries even with a second layer attack.

“Young slave, you may head on back to your cell so that we can begin the next battle” said the announcer in a domineering tone which only he and Aeollus could hear.

‘He’ll be one of the first people to die if I were to ever rebel from this prison…’ muttered Aeollus in his mind, truly fed up with the announcer who had two sides to him; The one meant for slaves, and the other to please.

“Yes sir, I’ll head back now” muttered Aeollus, truly unwilling to entertain the announcer and the crowd with his suffering. Besides, he was mentally tired from using his first second layer attack, as he didn’t even know how to use it and made a wild guess when he delved into his soul.

“Anyway, I should earn a rank up with this, reaching into the top seven hundred now, maybe even six hundred if I’m lucky” said Aeollus, which was true. Right now, he was only within the top eight hundred out of a thousand slaves, which meant that he was one of the weakest.

If he could truly reach higher and higher within this prison, he was guaranteed more books to read and cultivate from, the only downside being two death matches a day if he bursted into the top five hundred. Since the top five hundred hosted the most popular fights, the lord tried to milk them for money the most, hence the two death matches a day.

Suddenly, he got shoved into the cell, but this time it was with a wave of water. The announcer then went down to pick up the dead body of Aeollus’s opponent, and the next scene surprised Aeollus himself.

For the announcer had closed his eyes, and Aeollus could have sworn that there was a hazy mist flying from the dead opponent into the announcer.

‘This… is he absorbing the mantra and essence of the soul of him?’ thought Aeollus, still not willing to believe what he had seen. Yet, as soon as the announcer stood up, there was a more invigorating aura to him, as if he had just woken up from a nap and the aura from before was a joke that he cracked.

“I see, so the absorption of the soul is a possibility too huh?” muttered Aeollus, clearly seeing the future benefits of such a thing. If he could truly absorb the soul of people, not only could the hope of removing the side effect of soul usage rise, but he could even further his power.

Meanwhile, the normal ol’ trick of transporting the cell to a different location had already happened, yet he was now in a different location than usual! Aeollus looked across the hall, but realized that the geezers cell was not there anymore, disappearing as if it had never been there!

His usual guard walked up into him, yet he now wore a different set of armor, and a much stronger weapon was on his back.

“Oi slave, you’ve been promoted into the top six hundred, which is two leagues above from what you were before, so your cell location has moved two leagues deeper into the prison!” yelled the guard in an overbearing, yet excited tone.

‘Ah, I’m being used by this guard again!’

Aeollus wondered why he sounded excited, but as soon as he looked at the armor and weapon, he realized that it must have been a reward for raising a decent slave.

First, this guard used him to show off to some woman, and now he is being used to get an upgrade in gear! Most of these benefits are towards the guard and not him! Still, he couldn’t complain at all, since he was a slave at the end of the day.

Besides, he got thirteen new books, along with a cultivation mat. In one of the books that he read before, it had said that cultivation mats would boost the rate of cultivation by at least five percent!

Though this percent may seem slow now, it would definitely be useful in the future when it got harder and harder to cultivate to the next level, and could end up saving hours and maybe days! Although, with his current predicament of not being able to cultivate past the third layer with his spirit and vitality, it wasn’t quite as needed by him.

“For now, I’ll go to bed and wake up in the morning to cultivate off the information the books grant me…” muttered Aeollus, who truly didn’t want to stay awake for even a second longer after such a grueling battle that ended in them just running around in circles with one trying to catch the other.

He went to sleep and woke up the next morning, and began to cultivate earnestly off of the books he had earned.

--- Sequence 2 ---

Aeollus woke up in bed, with long, scruffy brown hair rolling down him. It had been seven months since he got here, and three of them were spent cultivating the new books he had earned with his promotion.

Even though he had more books to learn then before, when he had a dozen books, the cultivation mat truly had helped him cultivate better. Along with his deeper comprehension of the soul and vitality, it didn’t take him long at all to understand what the books were trying to teach.

At last, he only had a single book left, with only fifteen pages remaining to read. He promptly sat down and began to read the final pages, as this book taught him a foundation level technique! Though it wouldn’t be as impressive as the technique Klatra had used since his was a tier above his, it would still be better than learning a first layer attack!

While a first layer attack would indeed be a layer above a foundation level technique, the foundation level technique could be used throughout the whole battle, while attacks were simply multiple one-time uses.

Attacks took time to prepare, and you had to avoid what the enemy was throwing at you while preparing the attack, as they surely wouldn’t just stand still and let you prepare it. On the other hand, techniques are second nature to you, and it barely takes concentration to maintain them throughout the whole battle, letting you mostly focus on the battle itself!

“Bratty slave, are you ready for your fight today?!” roared the guard, clearly enthusiastic at the thought of more rewards from him winning. Of course, throughout all the time Aeollus was at the prison, he mostly used his cultivation to not die in a death match, and rarely did physical confrontations with the enemy.

In the end though, he was still winning, so the guard also got his share of rewards, which he got for literally just being assigned to him!

“Yessir, just give me a minute to prepare.” said Aeollus in a low tone that was as calm as he could be. His affinity with many elements were rising, but his affinity with wind was rising at a rate much faster than them, so he kept his passive and calm mind.

“Since when did you think a slave like you had the authority to ask for some of the audiences precious time?!” roared the guard, who was clearly displeased that this slave was beginning to have thought of talking with him on the same level.

“Sorry sir, it won’t happen again…” muttered Aeollus, while hiding the contempt that was about to emerge from his eyes. At this point, he was definitely stronger than the majority of the prison, but he was just waiting for the higher-ups to let him fight one of the top five hundred.

He learned this through experiencing other peoples battles by sneaking out of his cell and wandering into the arena. Most of the slaves who fought in the arena didn’t use techniques, much less attacks which took more focus to use than techniques. Only when you witnessed fights with the top six hundred in them would you begin to see more attacks and techniques.

As always, everything outside of the cell turned black for a minute or two, and he emerged out at the arena.

‘This… what happened?!’ he thought to himself when he saw the arena ground. Everything was rubble and dust, that was unwilling to clear up.

“Put up with it slave, the fight between numbers 342 and 311 caused this, and we don’t got the time to fix this, and you can consider it a decoration, so it’s fine.” said the announcer in a domineering tone, clearly not willing to let Aeollus say anything.

“Yessir, I’ll do my best even within this territory!” yelled Aeollus, not willing to retaliate and receive some jolt or lash of wind to the back.

“Whether or not you say that is useless, as you are just a slave that is destined to die in this arena someday to another slave…” muttered the announcer in a tone that only he and Aeollus could hear, which really threw Aeollus off.

“Still, did I miscalculate comparing myself to the other slaves?” muttered Aeollus, considering the wreckage in front of him. If he and someone else were to fight, the most he could do was put a bit of a crack in the ground, or maybe melt it when using something related to the affinity of fire. At his level, he couldn’t destroy anything this much.

‘And neither of them were even in the top one hundred…’ Aeollus thought, while clearly noticing that he had overestimated himself.

“I can’t compare to these people yet, and I’ll probably have to cultivate more to achieve a level comparable to theirs!” he roared at himself in an attempt to influence himself to try harder.

“Stop muttering to yourself and step up you brat, I’ll teach you the power of someone within the top five hundred!” yelled an old man standing across from Aeollus. Aeollus’s face twisted into some sort of monstrosity when he saw the person standing in front of him.

It was because the man standing in front of him resembled Klatra, an old opponent who had died long ago, too seriously.

‘Could it be that he somehow reincarnated? That shouldn’t be possible at anyone's level within this prison, and not even high ranking nobles in the world should be able to pull off something like that!’ yelled Aeollus in his head, not believing the sight in front of him.

“You and my grandson battled, and all you ended up with was a hole in the stomach and some leaking guts, while my grandson fully died!” hollered the old man in a sorrowful tone, along with some hand gestures that could be considered quite offensive.

“Ah, you’re just the old geezer of Klatra, not the real thing, thank god!” said Aeollus, who had a smiling expression on his face for some reason.

The reason for that would be that if someone really had the person to reincarnate people, then he might not even be able to come close to him, much less beat him in a battle. For that reason, he couldn’t help but smile when the old geezer told him the truth.

Unfortunately, the geezer took it the wrong way and thought that Aeollus was ridiculing him!

“You brat, you won’t leave here even if you had eleven heads and fourteen arms!” yelled the geezer while lifting his hand and pointing a finger at the throat of Aeollus. Suddenly, the area seemed to have become really warm, and flames began to appear from the ground!

“As number 521, I’ll make sure to thoroughly put an end to your life and career within this arena!” roared the geezer, clearly not willing to let Aeollus to go on any longer.

“Hmm, I guess this is a good chance to look at the technique.” said Aeollus in a calm tone, clearly not letting the old man get to him. Though he hadn’t finished the book and still had a few pages left, he thought he could handle the rest himself and figure it out.

He let his body feel as if it was water, and started to wiggle like some worm coming out of the ground. Suddenly, the flames rising from the ground burst, and a huge explosion came along with it!

‘I see, he’s using the dust from previous battles to cause explosions…” thought Aeollus to himself while the explosion was nearing him.

“Too bad, as this technique has already been learnt by me at this point!” roared Aeollus, while slithering around and avoiding the fire, and floating above the explosions.

The new technique he had learnt gave him the feeling of becoming actual water, as he had a smooth flow with everything, which raised his perception and let him dodge attacks better!

“What?! How could a brat like you have such a technique?!” yelled the old man while watching Aeollus avoid most hits, and only getting his shirt singed.

“I’m coming for you, you damn geezer!” yelled Aeollus as he closed in on the old man.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ABOUT ME

Name: Abdul Kareem

Age: 13 (Almost 14)

Occupation: Middle school

Goal: Idk, I’m just making a novel for now

Location: Why would I say that?

Relations: I’m not married (duh)

Anyway, as a side note, this is my first novel I’ve ever tried writing. Thanks for being with me on this first experience!

Relations: I’m not married (duh)

Anyway, as a side note, this is my first novel I’ve ever tried writing. Thanks for being with me on this first experience!