The Roamers

Chapter 23: Building a soldier

Aeolus reached into the dark mist, and pulled out the body this time. He could feel something leaving his body, and saw that, in front of him, something was being built. After a second passed, the body of the man had been fully built. It was standing right in front of Aeolus, and staring at him.

The body then kneeled, and looked towards the ground.

“What do you need of me, master?” the body said, and shocked Aeolus greatly. Before, it couldn’t even make sounds using its mouth, but now it could speak full sentences? He didn’t understand any of it, but he had a feeling that the body in front of him understood.

“Explain to me everything, my soldier.” Aeolus muttered to the body, while waiting for an explanation to come out of its mouth.

“In this world, life and death are exceedingly rare to find. Cases like yours are even rarer, since many people would not be idiotic enough to use such a rare affinity as a reward, though it is against the city’s rule to have such an affinity.” the body began with its first explanation, and finished it with Aeolus understanding most of it.

“Life is used to bring the life out of someone, while death is used to bring the dead back. Among the two, death is the one looked down on the most, hence it being the rarest. In this world, only about two percent of cultivators have anything to do with the two affinities, and even less actually having them.” the body continued to explain, leaving Aeolus a little cautious of the future. If he were to run into other people with such an affinity, he would run into issues.

“Now, we’re going to focus more on the affinity of death, since it’s the one you have. When you bring someone back, they only have half the power of when they were alive. However, through the body continually experiencing battles and the such, they can grow to be as strong as they were when they were alive, and can even surpass their previous strength.” the body said, and then tilted its head downard and stared at the ground. Aeolus took this as a sign of it being done, and he began to comprehend everything it said.

“Ah sorry my master, but I forgot to say one thing. A body cannot become stronger than the master no matter what, and if half the strength of the monster that is brought back is stronger than the master, a limiter will be placed on it to weaken it.” the body said, and looked down again. Aeolus gave it a few seconds this time, to make sure it said everything it needed. After seeing that it wasn’t talking, he took it all in and began to understand it.

‘So, if I want it to get strong, It’s going to have to fight in my place?’ Aeolus thought to himself, seemingly satisfied. Having an army fight for him, while he didn’t fight at all, was indeed an image that he could use to show that he was strong to the world. He then thought of something that he realized in the arena, and pulled out some string.

“Here, have this string. I’m going to need you to wield it in future fights, and you can even experience some of my fights to grow.” Aeolus said, while handing the string to the body. He’d just go to some store and steal some more string for himself, so he’d be fine.

“That’s not how it works, I can’t just watch master fight and grow. We bodies are brought back with twenty-five percent of the masters combat knowledge, so I already know a little about the string. Still, we can not watch other people fight and learn from it, we have to be in a fight ourselves to grow. Everytime we bodies fight and survive, we gain two percent of masters spirit and combat knowledge, until we gain everything the master has. At that point, we bodies will be as strong as master” the body explained, trying to make Aeolus realize this fact. However, Aeolus certainly understood it, and was troubled by it.

‘This means that I must stand back for some fights and let it fight.’ Aeolus realized, and was somewhat angry. He would have to sacrifice some future experience to his army if he wanted to grow it. However, he was mostly pleased, as it seemed to progress so fast.

“We’ll dedicate all fights to you until you’re as strong as me, then we’ll continue on with me getting stronger.” Aeolus decided, and sucked the body back into him. He had decided that he would train the body for a couple of weeks, until it was as strong as him.

Just like that, Aeolus began building what would, in the far future, be his ultimate soldier.

--- Sequence 2 ---

A few weeks had passed, and the first soldier of his body had grown to ninety five percent of Aeolus’ power and knowledge, so it was doing extremely well. Aeolus also figured out that when he fought with it, it would still gain things from him, but only a single percent, instead of two percent.

‘By tomorrow, if we run around enough, we should be able to give it all of my power.’ Aeolus thought to himself, pleased with how this whole death affinity situation had turned out. He also found out that, although the soldier couldn’t figure out what he was thinking, it could feel out the emotions radiating from him.

Along with that, he found that the closer it got to one hundred percent of his power and knowledge, the more it remembered from its past life, including techniques and attacks. It had already long ago surpassed its past self, and had the power of six layers. Once it reached one hundred percent, it would have the power and knowledge of a seventh layer combatant.

“Master, surely just me won’t suffice?” the body asked, confused by Aeolus’ actions.

“What do you mean by that?” Aeolus asked, not knowing what to make of what the body just said. Just this one body was plenty, as it was basically the equivalent of him.

“If you wish to truly conquer the world, just me won’t work. You’ll need more underlings, more people who can attack the whole world because of their loyalty to master.” the body said, with a tone that made it seem as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Of course, Aeolus knew all this, but he had a different thought process. He’d create an army, but he’d go one by one, making each soldier into a mega soldier. If each soldier of his was enough to destroy a city, then an army of them could definitely stand against the world. The only issue he would experience is the life and death affinity users throughout the world, but he should be able to handle them.

“For now, just don’t worry about it. I’ll be the one worrying about the army.” Aeolus said, waving off everything the soldier had just said.

“Yes master” it replied, while kneeling down on the ground.

“Now, what we need is to get in three more fights for you, and you’ll hit one hundred percent.” Aeolus said, while sucking in the soldier. After a second, the soldier was fully inside his mid-layer, and he soared towards the sky. He had already spent a week in all the towns that his string was located in, so he flew in a random direction.

After an hour of flying, he found some big body of water, no, humongous body of water. Aeolus realized that this might be the ocean, and didn’t dare to cross it. Even people with the affinity of water would struggle in the ocean, as the monsters located within were terrible creatures that could rip up most people.

Considering that, Aeolus turned right and kept flying along the coast. After a minute or two of flying, he found a city. It seemed to be just as impressive as the last city he was in, and smirked at his luck. The only thing he didn’t quite enjoy was that there was a chance he would be banned due to his affinity, but he could just book it if it’s illegal in there.

He descended towards the city gate, and landed in front of it. He walked into the city, and began to observe everything there was to it. After walking for a while, he found something that made his body ache. In front of him, was a slave prison. He could see an arena, and many slaves within.

He looked towards the log cutting area, and saw that there were indeed slaves cutting away. He sighed, and was about to turn around, but something caught his eyes. He looked hard at some person wearing a hood, and he could swear that it resembled an old uncle that lived in his village.

‘It can’t be… is that uncle Sheng?!’ Aeolus realized, and was shocked by the turn of events. His spirit immediately flared, but he calmed it down. Though he wanted to save this uncle of the village, he couldn’t do it like this. He would definitely be caught and killed if he were to do it so directly.

“It seems that I’ll need to stay in this city for a bit longer than a week.” Aeolus muttered to himself, and turned around. He definitely would not be able to save uncle Shen anytime soon, and would need to plan out what to do. He found an inn to stay at, and paid to stay for two weeks.

After he did that, considering it was still day-time outside, he left, and soared out of the city. After flying for a bit, he saw nothing no matter which direction he looked in, and grinned to himself. He brought out his soldier, which immediately kneeled in front of him.

“What is it that you need of me, master?” the soldier asked, with a pale expression on its face, as usual.

“I want you to duel with me, and don’t use any of the techniques or attacks that you used to have. Only use my knowledge and powers, I wish to see my weaknesses through this battle.” Aeolus said calmly, while beginning to bring out the new string he had bought at a store.

“As master wishes, I will duel with you using only the skills I have gained from you.” the body said, and stood up. As soon as it stood up, it shot string towards Aeolus, which pierced where he was just standing. Aeolus tried to rush in, but as expected, the string stopped him from doing so.

Aeolus tried to back out of this, but he couldn’t. He looked behind him, and there was string that wasn’t there before. Aeolus had never thought of using the string like this, so he was happy with this soldier of his. However, before he could be happy for any longer, he felt a piercing pain coming in from all sides, and realized that he had already been trapped in the string arena.

Aeolus quickly moved through the string using the flowing water technique, and soared into the sky. However, string didn’t shoot at him as expected, but his soldier was behind him instead. Aeolus had already set up string in that area, so he was good to go, but he was wrong apparently. The soldier used the flowing water technique to avoid it all, and punched him back down towards the ground.

He landed on the ground, in the middle of the string arena. Before he could even stand up, string was shooting towards him. He tried to resist it by deflecting some of the string using wind, but it was futile. He was immediately pierced in all directions, and was screaming in pain. Fortunately, the soldier had avoided all the vital spots, so Aeolus was only suffering from pain and blood loss at this time.

“I’m sorry master, but I do not have the affinity of healing, so I can’t help you.” the soldier said sincerely, while digging its head into the ground. It clearly felt guilty because of what it just did, but its master had ordered it to do so, so it was forced into it.

‘It’s ok, just leave me on the ground and let the spirit infusion technique do its work.’ Aeolus said in his head, and his emotions reached the soldier. The soldier nodded and stood up, then sent itself into Aeolus. It then began to contribute its spirit to Aeolus, which sped up the process of soul infusion.

“To think that even a soldier who isn’t as strong as me knowledge-wise or power-wise was able to beat me down without me landing a single hit…” Aeolus said, while shutting his eyes to get some sleep, considering that he did not have the energy to fly back towards the inn.

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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)

Favorite food: da asian stuf!

Anyway, on a more serious tone, this is my first novel I’ve ever tried writing. Thanks for being with me on this first experience! If you could also somehow get others to read this novel too, I would be pretty grateful!