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Chapter 1

  Panic, fear, and confusion were all Jack felt when he woke up in the dark forest. With only strands of blue light illuminating through the foliage of the trees, he frantically looked around, trying to get a sense of where he was. It was no use. Past the little light the blue moon gave him, he only saw darkness. Jack wanted to do nothing more than curl up in a ball and hope someone finds him, but as the son of the strongest human clan, he would be shamed if he did so.

  Jack got on his feet to start his trek in the forest, but the throbbing pain of his head and the taste of metal lingered on his lips. He wiped his face and brought his hand up to the light to see what it was. Blood. He touched his forehead and realized he somehow had a head wound. He had no idea how he ended up here, and the head wound raises even more questions. Did someone try to kill him? Usually, he would have half-step Forged souls with him to make sure he wouldn’t be kidnapped or killed by his clan’s enemies. Though he held on to that thought. Jack may have been a Seedling in Soul Cultivation and 14 years old, but he had found ways to lose his escorts. Then again, they were his guards. How dare they keep losing him in the first place? If he had better guards, he would not be in this position. Jack punched a nearby tree and quickly regretted that decision as he hissed in pain. He would have a word with his parents about punishing those guards and replacing them immediately.

  Jack walked towards the nearest tree to see if he could get a sense of where he was. He was lucky that he was the son of the Wind Flygon patriarch and received the best training and lessons they could give to a Seedling. Now if he could only remember what he was taught. He inspected the tree and noticed that in the blue light, the bark was nearly black and covered in some thick sap. He then took a closer look at the leaves and cheered inside. The leaves were green, elongated, stretchy, and absorbent. He figured for now he could use the sap to help seal his wound and the leaves to bandage his head. But that wasn’t why Jack felt a slight relief. He knew exactly where he was. Well, at least the area. His clan was in the north-west region of the human realm, where the Dark Sayana tree populated a forest nearby. He wasn’t too far from home. He just had to figure out what direction home was. He would have loved to just set up camp here and wait, but if he was where he thought he was.. He wouldn’t last an hour before a tier 1 beast found him.

  He cleaned the blood as best as he could using the Sayana tree leaves, then used the sap to clog his wound, and if he remembered correctly, the properties in the sap should help it heal. After he wrapped his head and sealed it with sap, his stomach rumbled. Jack sighed. Injured, hungry, and lost. This would be the last time he kept around incompetent guards.

  He had no clue of what direction to make headway, but he picked one and started walking. He wasn’t too concerned about getting lost because whoever his parents sent would catch his trail and follow him. Though that would risk whoever attacked him to find him as well. But if that was the case, why would they leave him alone in the middle of the forest? It made no sense, but he would just have to put faith in the guards his parents would send. It would most likely be Richard who is the head personal guard of his family. Jack shuddered at the thought. All of the guards treat Jack and his family with respect and wouldn’t dare lay a finger on any of them, but Richard was like an uncle to Jack, who would have no problem dragging Jack back home by his ears. He was the only person outside of his family whom he would not dare raise his voice to. He could already feel the stinging sensation in his ear lobes.

  As Jack carefully walked through the forest with only dim blue light to aid his sight, he tried to keep a lookout for any berries or fruits that could be growing on some bushes. His stomach rumbled again. As only a Seedling soul, he realistically would not be able to kill a beast to feed himself. As a Seedling, he was constrained to one manipulation art, which was Controller. There were more manipulation arts, but he really only concerned himself with that one. There was another form called Weaver, but he wasn’t sure what they specialized in. He only knew that as a Controller with the element of wind, he can manipulate the wind around him to help him do different things. A few things he was taught were to control the air around him to help make his steps more silent and to lighten his movements to make him travel slightly faster. With these two techniques combined, it was perfect to traverse the forest without attracting attention to himself. While he isn’t even close to mastery of the Controller Form, he was ahead of his peers with his adept control and close to advancing in the next cycle of Soul Cultivation. Most of his age would struggle to even sense the Virya of their element to control. But for Jack and his advantages of being the patriarch's son, he was born with talent and the best teachers his parent's money could provide.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  As quietly as he could, he came upon a bush with blue berries sprouting from it. He grabbed a handful of the blue berries and came close to ravenously devouring them, but a strange growl came from the bush. Jack paused as his eyes widened at the bush. He started to crouch backwards when a rustle came from it, and a creature burst out attacking him. Jack yelped and fell back with his arms raised to stop the beast from eating his face off. Jack’s eyes closed when the creature jumped at him. The creature clawed into his arms, but Jack managed to kick the creature off and over his head. He scrambled back to his feet with a heavy breath and turned to where he had thrown the creature. Jack cursed under his breath when all he saw were trees swaying in the blue under the glow of the moon.

  Blood dripped from his arm, but he didn’t feel a thing thanks to the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He backed up while keeping an eye out for anything that looked like a threat, and he kept his hearing sharper for any sounds. Nothing. He backed up against a tree, which caused him to jump in panic. He quickly turned around with his eyes closed again, yelling and wailing with his arms. When his eyes opened, he visibly sighed and dropped his arms. “Just a tree.” He shook his head and leaned against it. His combat instructors always advised him to keep his eyes open in order to always keep sight of the ensuing battle, but he never took the class seriously. As the patriarch's son, he was never alone, and so he never expected to have to fight his own battles. He was forced to learn how to wield a sword and take stances with it and his fists. But outside of training against wooden dummies who do not move, he never practiced any discipline. Now he saw that he would need to.

  Jack kept peering into the darkness, trying to track where the creature went, but after a few moments of silence and still movement, he decided to tactically retreat the other way. He would find food elsewhere. Never turning his back from where he last saw the creature, he stepped to the side and continued moving backwards until he felt he had gained a good distance. Once he did, Jack turned and bolted the other way, abandoning all his previous attempts at stealth. What is the point of stealth when running for your life? He kept going until he heard a rustling from beside him as he ran. He looked to his side and saw the grass and bushes along him move as if something ran beside him. Something in Jack told him to dive for cover, and he did just that. As he dove down, a black blur jumped from the grass and over Jack as he dived down.

  He tumbled over and rolled into a tree with a crash. Laid out on the ground, Jack weakly lifted his head and finally saw what was hunting him. Thankfully, it wasn’t a tier 1 creature, but it was still a creature that could kill Jack. It was a mixture between a rat and a porcupine. Its claws were long and curved with spikey hair around its body that looked like a spiked mace, while a long snout lined with overreaching teeth that curled in different directions completed its horrendous look. Spikers. Like rats, they gather in groups to fight large prey, but when they are alone, they make it a hobby to kill weaker prey. Jack scowled at the ugly beast. Was he so weak that he was seen as weak by a Spiker? A rodent? Jack picked up a thick stick that broke off a growing tree nearby during his crash and stumbled onto his legs as the Spiker snarled at him. He pulled memories of his training to the forefront of his mind and placed himself in the first form of the Wind Flygon Sword Arts. With the stick in his right hand, he pointed it at the Spiker and balanced his other arm on his other side. As if a bell rung, the Spiker leapt at Jack with its claws outstretched. Jack raised his stick and controlled the wind around it as he swiped down on the Spiker, causing Jack to hit it with more force than he could physically output. The creature slammed into the ground, but rolled over and pounced at Jack again. After a few more strikes, Jack started to sweat, and the pain in his right arm from the claw strike earlier started to burn. He winced in pain, causing his control of the wind to drop and allowing the Spiker bite into his stick to snatch it out of his hands. Jack cried in pain as that made his hand snap back, making his wound rub.

  Jack backed up from the Spiker as it turned around to place its beady black eyes on him. Jack knew he couldn’t fight this thing with his hands lest he risk them to the spikes. He desperately scanned the area in front of him for anything to defend himself without taking his eyes off the Spiker. There was nothing. Panic rose in Jack, and tears swelled up in his eyes. Would he truly die here at the hands of a beast who is essentially a mortal creature? Jack wanted to turn and run, but the longer he stared into those empty black eyes, he froze in fear. This is where he died.

  Jack started to silently accept his death until he heard something crack to his left. Jack and the Spiker turned to see a beast as big as a lion. Its head was elongated with the skin of a reptile. It had flaps around its head that flare into a bright orange when fully flapped out. It hissed as it came from the darkness of the forest. Before Jack or the Spiker could react, it shot a needle of orange light from its mouth at the Spiker, causing it to drop dead instantly. The reptile beast lazily trudged over and started devouring the Spiker with a crunch as if Jack were not only a few feet from it. Jack gulped.

  “This is where I die.”

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