The next morning after the siblings started their journey from Orseya.
Edgar and Fabby traveled on a horse cart toward the north-east. Currently, they were eating breakfast at a road-side hotel together with the driver, an adult man in his late fifties.
Some customers at the hotel were giving Fabby weird and funny looks as they murmured about her bald head. One of the waiters, a child, also asked if she was born bald, to which she replied saying no. The child kept asking more questions, but she didn’t answer most of them, saying he’s not worthy to know answers to such personal questions.
While many men focused their attention on her, despite her bald head, she felt a bit uncomfortable.
“Have you never seen a woman before?” Edgar raised his voice at them, making them
Fabby noticed that there were at least forty jars in the back of the cart. She could smell ale from them. “Where are we carrying all this ale?” “Ah, Mr. Saiga told me to sell this ale along the way,” replied the driver, his eyes on the road. “Can you sell all this in just a couple of days?” There should be at least a couple hundred hundred liters in there, she thought. “The owner of the hotel we stopped by an hour back asked me to sell all of them, but because we didn’t agree with the price, I didn’t sell.” “Oh,” she was pleasantly surprised, “it seems that ale is in rich demand.” “Yes. After the beast tide, the rivers become dirty for a while, and the adults don’t drink milk, so…” “If you don’t want to get cut into pieces, then give us all your valuables,” the head of the bandits, a six-and-half foot tall man, was smiling confidently as Edgar approached. Edgar put the ale case down and said, “There’s ale inside. This is all I can give.” “A few jars of ale won’t even last a night for us. Give us money. And of course, any and all valuables that you got.” “I can’t,” Edgar was blunt. “If you don’t like it, then let’s fight.” “Huh?” the bandits were surprised by his straightforwardness that came across as being more reckless. Why is this brat not afraid of the weapons they were wielding? Surely, he wasn’t thinking that these weapons were just for show, or was he? “Don’t get my brother wrong, rowdy brotWHIT 67 - DELUSIVE PRACTICES
“We’ve arrived,” at dawn, the driver’s voice reached Edgar’s ears.He woke Fabby up. The side of her forehead was injured, so it was covered with bandages.Both of them got down at what seemed like in the middle of a long arching road. On the right side of it was forest, but on the left side was what seemed like a mountain with an opening like that of a cave.“Is this the way?” Edgar asked to confirm.“Yes, sir,” the driver replied. His whole face was swollen from the beating he had received from Edgar. After the bullet barely missed Fabby, seeing her fall down, Edgar rampaged and thrashed the three bandits, especially the driver. If the driver hadn’t said that the bullet missed and his sister was still alive, h
Edgar and Fabby entered the massive cave. After going a couple hundred meters in, the tunnel was lit by fire lamps on either side, so they kept walking without getting worried too much. After covering about two miles, they reached a huge gate that was blocking the whole path. And two guards were waiting. “State your identity,” one of the guards smashed the base of the spear on the ground. “We’re from Vedi, but we’ve got a recommendation letter to join the sect,” Edgar took out the scroll. “Recommendation?” the guards looked at each other and laughed. “Don’t you know that our sect doesn’t take in recommendations?” “What?” Edgar and Fabby’s jaws slackened. “B-but…” For a secon
The second round was taking place in rooms, with the participants using their brains to answer the list of questions. Everyone seemed involved, except for one fellow, whose pen wasn’t moving all that much. “What is this? No one told me there’d be a written test.” This participant’s eyes bulged out as he tried his hardest to understand the questions, so much so that the red nerves had become visible. This person was Edgar. He looked at Fabby, who sat beside him in the next column. Unlike him, she was scribbling like a poet in flow. “Just what’s she writing? She didn’t touch a book for many years.” Edgar couldn’t help but murmur in frustration. “Shh!” the examiner signaled Edg
Hundreds queued in front of a house, and one was entering into the house after another. The third round was taking place inside. “I wonder what’s happening in there,” Edgar tried to peek through whenever the curtains parted, but he couldn’t see much. “Don’t think too much,” Fabby reminded him. “Even if we fail in the third round, we’ll still become foot disciples it seems.” “I don’t know what the difference between a foot disciple or an outer disciple is, but clearly the latter is better than the former, so of course, I don’t want to spoil this opportunity.” Fabby didn’t say anything. (After the second round, his confidence has taken a dent. I guess I’ll just let him be.) S
More than a thousand people gathered at the northern end of the Great Grove in front of a big stage.On the stage were dozens of examiners who watched over the entrance exams. Dubril Zha was also among them.“I’m Ruth Raj. A master of the sect as most of you already had guessed.” One of them, the one with a black hat and a cloth wrapped around his face, was talking with the audience, “More than 15,000 people participated this year, but only a little over 1300 passed. Out of those, only 232 people became outer disciples, and the rest became foot disciples. This year’s pass rate isn’t great, but it isn’t that bad either. Now, we will reward the one who did best overall in the three rounds combined.” He then read out a name. “Fabby Ecstasio. Please come onto the stage and receive your reward.”
After coming out of the indoor testing grounds, the first vast location one would enter into was the Great Cheek, where all the foot disciples would stay.Foot disciples were the lowest level disciples who wouldn’t receive any martial techniques or beast cores from the sect. They weren’t allowed to go to the library either. And they had to live in rooms of at least two. The room numbers were initially drawn by the lottery, but later on, one was allowed to change their rooms within the first month.Every foot disciple was allowed to stay a decade in the Great Cheek, and if they still failed to become an outer disciple, they’d be kicked out of the sect.Edgar was humbled by the vastness of the lands and the tens of thousands of foot disciples living in that region that was easily tens of times larger
Edgar woke up, only to find himself in a pool of mud. He could feel that he was being healed by fish that were swimming in the mud and were nibbling at his skin.At first sight, it might look like they were eating him, but they were actually taking away the negative energy from his body, though he was not able to feel that.Edgar tried to grab one of those fishes, but they turned into pure mud, pleasantly surprising him.He looked at Fabby who was sitting in the distance, by the cliff. “What are these fishes, sis?”“Elder Gavin made them with his drive. He said they can suck away impurities from your body and make you stronger,” Fabby explained. “He said even your drive will get smoother and faster afterward. Also, the negative effect the beast cores have on our bodies can also be reversed, or so he said.”“Such a thing is possible with drive?” Edgar was both surprised and doubtful. “These fish are biting me, but I don’t feel any pain.”“Yeah. Just stay there until all those fish are
The eagle brought the siblings to a mountain range and dropped them next to Gavin who was weaving gloves with drive.He wasn’t surprised to see the position the siblings were in.“Here,” Gavin handed the gloves to the eagle, and it put the gloves on its feet and then screeched in happiness.“Haha, you like them, huh,” Gavin smiled. “They are durable as I knit them with my drive. So, don’t lose them.”Scree~!The eagle replied in a confident voice and then began to walk around happily in its new footwear.“They look like gloves, but they should be called socks, I guess?” Gavin wondered. “Ah, well, whatever…”Gavin then looked at the siblings, out of whom only Fabby was still conscious. She was trying to sit up, and it was taking her a while.“You don’t seem to have any external injuries. You are probably tired from using too much energy,” Gavin said. He sent a bullet of energy into her forehead, which didn’t hurt her but went straight into her brain and melted into it. This suddenly ga
“Surfing Strike!’ Edgar’s foot viciously struck Ryu’s face and sent him flying high like a rotating paper fan. Any normal person would have had their head separated from their shoulders from that kick, but Ryu’s neck was flexible as well as sturdy as rubber.Ryu grabbed his head and stopped it from spinning before somersaulting and landing in the distance.“Huh?” Fabby was quite shocked by it. “Why is he not dead? Is he even human?”“His body is a bit special, you see,” Anarga smirked and then looked at Ryu. “But, hey, how could you get hit by that brat like that? You should be glad that there isn’t anyone else around, or it would have brought such shame.”Blood leaked from Ryu’s ruptured upper lip. He licked it and faintly smiled. “It’s been a while since I tasted my own blood.” His eyes turned red.“Oh, crap…” Anarga skipped backward. “You guys brought a disaster on yourself. When he goes into that frenzy mode, he’s unstoppable. Even I wouldn’t dare stand next to him because he can
Anarga squeezed Edgar’s chest down, but when Edgar saw Ryu step toward his sister, he uttered, “Thunder Knight…”The ground beneath them cracked, and the air around them crackled. The very cliff itself vibrated in resonance with Edgar’s heartbeat.Anarga lost her balance just for a second. A double-edged lightning spear appeared in Edgar’s hand, and he thrust it right through her abdomen.She thought it would leave a hole in her, but it didn’t. However, it then electrocuted her to the point her clothes were half-burnt, and she looked like a semi-roasted grizzly bear.Ryu immediately clawed through the middle section of the spear and then took Anarga and jumped a few feet away. “How could you be so careless?”Anarga fell on one of her knees. Blood leaked from both corners of her mouth, even though she tried not to leak any blood.“Does it hurt that much?” Ryu asked.She gave him a glare.“I see…” Ryu then looked at Edgar, who was rising off the ground without the use of his hands, as th
Anarga’s body went into the rock, causing cracks all around her to spread for over thirty feet.Ryu’s feet were still locked by the earthen boots that Fabby had created, but he forcefully broke through them and whipped his leg at Edgar. “Dragon Knock!”“Ngh!” Edgar raised his left arm and blocked the kick with his forearm.Ryu’s foot forced its way through Edgar’s flame drive and struck his forearm and hit a nerve, sending a jolt of shock through to Edgar’s brain. On top of that, Edgar’s forearm got dislocated near the elbow.Ryu’s kick still sent a gust of energy over into the distance, which ended up blasting away a part of the cliff, shocking Fabby and Edgar.Fabby’s heart shook at that moment because if Edgar hadn’t deflected that kick, he wouldn’t have just got his arm dislocated. It was Edgar’s hunter-like instinct of parrying the kick at the last second was what saved him from experiencing a crushing defeat.Ryu didn’t even use drive. Whether he could even use drive or not, Edg
“Is this the best you can do?” Ryu said disappointedly. “I know you can do better, bald brat.” He treated Edgar as nothing more than a kid because he was much older than him. “Why don’t you show me what you got, or I’ll kill this bald girl.”Edgar, who was bleeding profusely from the chest, felt his soul stirring madly after hearing Ryu’s words.“Don’t listen to him,” Fabby said in a low voice. “We are not their match. Fighting them will only put us at a disadvantage. And there’s no one else here to stop the fight in case things go bad. It doesn’t benefit us in any way no matter how I look at it. Moreover, you are already badly injured.”Fabby’s words made total sense, but there was one thing that she didn’t consider. Edgar just couldn’t digest let alone accept the fact that Anarga Utsav had used her wind attack and pushed Fabby off the cliff. What if Fabby died from that?Edgar utterly disliked Anarga as well as Ryu. He didn’t want them to leave with a sense of victory.“Sis,” Edgar
“AHHH!” The siblings cried out in horror, mostly because of the pure shock value. Their eyes sprang out of the sockets. They totally didn’t expect that the eagle would do such a thing.Edgar was about to use his skill, but Fabby quickly said, “No, wait.”“Huh? Wait for what?” Edgar asked her back as winds viciously whipped at their faces.“Just wait,” she replied. As both of them kept getting closer to the ground, Edgar’s heart raced fast. “Screw this. I’m-” he was saying, but then the eagle suddenly came swooping down and caught both of them when they were about 100ft close to the ground and took them away with him.Edgar and Fabby held onto its talons so they wouldn’t fall.The eagle stopped by another mountain top and acted as if everything was okay.“You think I’ll thank you for saving our asses, you shitty bird!” Fabby punched the eagle hard in the face. “I thought I was going to die! You were the cause for scaring me near to death.”Even Edgar looked angry. His heart jumped in
Coming back to the present.The eagle had no idea who Edgar was, so Fabby had to do all the work except for flying. “Where is he?”She was worried for many reasons.The eagle even flew over the colosseum grounds, and she shouted for him, “Are you there, Eddie?”“Who’s that?” some masters and disciples wondered as she wasn’t clearly visible from below. “How rude of her to be flying over this place when the competition is still going on?”“He’s not here, either,” Fabby told the eagle to keep flying.As she kept looking around, she noticed someone bathing in an open pond. Just when she looked at him, he also looked up. She remembered his face mask. This was the same guy she met in a cave not long ago.Numo was not wearing a shirt right now, and his body was pristine white. It wasn’t muscular, but it still looked athletic and toned. It was very attractive, especially because he was a tall man.“Ahem,” Fabby looked away.After the eagle flew out of his sight, Numo continued rubbing his body
Months turned to years.Even though working in the fields had become a daily habit, so did the body pains. If not feet, then legs; if not legs, then back; if not back, then something else in the body took the turn. And by the time they got home, they were pretty tired, yet they wouldn’t be able to eat what they had produced or found.They were only given a limited amount of food such as corn or grains so they could make soup and live with it. The same plain soup with no vegetables in them whatsoever waited for them every night. And they were not paid anything else for their labor, for they were forced to work for the rest of their lives. There was no contract. Nothing. They were pretty much treated like cattle, or maybe even worse, with the only difference being their ability to talk. No matter how they were treated, they still worked hard, for most of them had reasons, be it their children and families.Fabby had Edgar, and Edgar had Fabby. Everyone had someone else they were willing