The calm before the storm

Elyo looked at me and nodded. He had finished cultivating and had to patrol anyway.

'We can go around our territory but know that I wont go beyond our boundaries.' He told me through his thought.

" Ok no problems." I said. I didn't know how big their territory was but I hoped it was big enough to see the entire formation. I didn't want to spend days looking for the formation.

The more I was thinking about this gigantic formation the more difficult it was for me to contain my excitement. It was so big and complex that just the idea of being able to understand this world's mystery filled me with a feeling of jubilation.

'So, this is what they are feeling... These scientists, researchers and great minds having cracked open the secrets of the world.' I was thinking.

I suddenly stopped and had a moment of realisation. Had I just compared myself with these great minds ? Had I just put myself at the same level as them ??

'How can I put myself at the same height as them when I don't have any results yet. My Eye Art may be a good, powerfull art but it is after all only an incomplete one. It can be usefull but I will need a lot of time and practice to be able to push it to its peak and truly make it an ultimate Eye Art. I hadn't even named it, and yet here I was already puting my name beside some of the greatest persons's name in the world. If I wasn't bold what was I ? Stupid, completely stupid or arrogant.'

Cold sweet dripped on my back as I took a long time to sermon myself. Arrogance and stupidity hadn't any place in this world. These kinds of things were already pretty dangerous back in our ancient world but now it was so even more. If you were anrrogant and stupid before someone you shouldn't, it could lead you to have your head on a spike at the end of the day.

After sighing, I pulled myself together and looked around me using my Eye Art. I could see an incredible numbers of colors in the air around me. The majority, around 75%, of it was completely transparent but some thread and filament were of some strange color I could see but not quite understand, It was as if I shouldn't have been able to see that. Remember that after 4 days spent in improving and increasing the power, reach and proficiency in my Eye Art, could I only see in a radius of 30 meters around me. After 15 meters, what I saw was competely faint and didn't have any outline. It was as if you looked at a light. You didn't know where it begin and where it could stop. The only indication was the presence of shadows.

For several seconds I was gobsmacked and just stood there before receiving a little push from Elyo telling me that he didn't have all day and night.

After spending some time around Elyo, Ellena and their children, I came to understand them better.

Elyo was quiet and calm but at the same time he was proud. I remembered being pleasantly surprised when he thanked us for helping him during the battle against the hyenas. It seemed that his proud attitude didn't obstruct his good judgement. I didn't specially waited to be thanked but it was something that was pure politeness when someone helped you. If he had kept his proud-like attitude around me and was arrogant, I wouldn't have reached a agreement with them.

Ellena was more social than him. She seemed to be in charge but it wasn't as simple as it seemed. She was in charge because Elyo hadn't any time to deal with such matters. He spend all of his time cultivating and improving himself. Ellena spend most of her time practicing her use of Metal Qi and trying new techniques and Arts. The rest of the time she was hunting with Elyo to feed the kids.

The kids spend the majority of their time watching their parents. They fought between themselves while being carefull not seriously injuring the other party. They watched their parents as it was a good way to guide their future cultivation path. They could then choose if they would cultivate the same Qi as their parents or take a different course and adventure themselves in the unkown. Of course Ellena and Elyo had told them to be extremely carefull, They were just at the 2nd stage of Qi Cultivation and there were 10 of them. They were considered ants just in front of 4th stage Qi Cultivator, imagine a 10th stage. They had a long way to go and relying on the work of their parents would be the easiest way possible.

I looked around for a a second before nodding and departing with Elyo.

On the way I looked around completely lost in my thoughts as I began to analyse and try to remember everything his formation had to offer. The only problem ? Do you seriously think I have a memory strong enough to remember every details, threads and filaments I have seen in my tour of their territory ? All I could do was watch with a sour expression. If I could I would just live here and study this formation until I cracked it open. Only then would I leave this forest and journey around the world in search of opportunities.

After the end of the tour I came back to the cave and saw that Zoe hadn't come out of her meditation. I didn't bother her and just sat back where I was before. I stopped using my Eye Art and just closed my eyes. The constant use of it had left quite the strain on them making them red with little veins of blood appearing more neatly that it should be.

After closing my eyes, I looked through my memories of my tour. I focused on the formation and tried to make something that I could understand of it. I first materialised a meter cube of space where threads and filaments of Qi where going in and out of it and tried to understand the patern and the reason behind each movement of the Qi's lines. Of course eveything was just memories of what I had seen in my little tour of the territory. I couldn't sense the Qi clearly and interact with it. I could only watch and try to come up with some hypothesis. After some time I came up with some idea that had to be proved so I just went out of the cave and sat on the ground there. I suddenly asked myself why I hadn't just done it from the start but quickly forgot about the matter as I focused myself on the formation.

I could now see the Qi around me, had a quiet and calm environment and could experiment if I wanted as I wouldn't disturb anybody.

My idea came from the fact that the world was filled with transparent Qi. This Qi was probably World Qi. A cluster of all Qis in the environment. If in a mountain, it woud contain a aboundant part of Earth and Metals Qi. In a volcano, it would be Fire and Earth Qi. Of course the environment wasn't so simple as it could be filled with only two Qis. The World Qi was a clump of differents Qis that hadn't any place to go. Just from this Idea a lot of my previous hypothesis on the Stars Shining Water and its formation was completely destroyed. It didn't make me sad or dispirited. I just wanted to know the truth and to do that I had to work hard.

I continued to experiment using the knowledge I had verified before, and quickly seconds transformed in hours and hours in days.

After another week I looked at my notebook. It wasn't anything, really, it was just a notebook I had in my bag before running away from the city.

In the notebook was a sort of drawing that didn't seem like it. I had just finished compiling all the different Qis present in that meter cube and drew the lines and threads on my notebook. The drawing was really messy and I couldn't see where it lead me as it was completely meaningless. At least to me. I pondered on it for quite some time but didn't came out with an answer.

I put that thought behind me and focused myself on the threads and lines. I wanted to understand the system and the logic behind them.

It wasn't easy. Even with all my experiments and logical mind tempered by countless years of study in a sciences filled society, I took 2 more weeks to understand 1% of the meter cube.

'Ishhh, it will take a lot of time.' I thought.

Anyway, the 4 weeks of calm were nearly finished and the Hyenas King had probably already gathered his pack. I had to prepare myself.

I went to look for Ellena and Elyo.

"What do you think we should do to repel or kill the Hyenas King?" I asked them.

"We could separate and take them by surprise in a pincer attack." Ellena replied.

"That's a good idea. Do you have an idea of where ? We must take the advantage of the terrain." I said.

"Oh we could use the cliff where I usually cultivate. If used properly it could lead to devastating damage. If possible we could kill half of the pack quickly greatly reducing our burdens in this battle." Elyo said.

"That's a great idea." I said.

We continued to talk about how we could make them suffer without taking any loss. I already knew they had evolved to become intelligents Qi Beasts but I was still surprised at how much more intelligent they had become. They could clearly establish plans and others complicated thoughts.

Suddenly we sensed a surge of Qi going berserk. We excited the cave in a hurry and went near the pond of the Stars Shining Water, afraid that the Hyenas King and his pack had already initiated an attack. When we saw what caused this commotion differents emotions could be seen in the eyes of everybody. Admiration, happiness, joy, relief, excitement...

"Zoe you're finaly finished. You've had a breakthrough ? Are you ok ?" I bombarded her with questions as I saw her get up and looked at us with a smile.

"I've finally stepped in the second stage, Qi Core Cultivation Stage. I can be of help now." She said.

"Don't worry James, I'm alright, I feel so much stronger..." Her gaze trailed on us and stopped a second on me and Elyo.

"What constitution do you have ? Were you able to find some clues ?" I asked her.

"No I didn't." She said coldly. In a instant the smile she had on her face disapeared.

"...Ok..." I replied a bit stunned and surprised.

'What the hell is going on with the way she talk ? Nevermind the Hyenas will come in 2 to 3 days maximum. it can even be in ten minutes if they are impatient.'

I told her everything that had been decided and we went on with our respective cultivation. I continued to crack open the meter cube of formation I had saved in my memory but was constantly pestered by the way Zoe had talked to me. I didn't understand why she would talk like that. Eventually I put that behind me and focused myself. I didn't have a lot of time to prepare myself and didn't want to spend it on useless thoughts.

The more I pondered on my meter cube the more I could see a patern in the lines and the threads. I could slowly find why this thread was in this position and how and why he was connected with another threads. This study was really slow and just like that 2 days passed.

I came out of seclusion and reached out for Ellena. I asked her if she had any news or if she had seen something unusual. She told me that there was less and less animals and beasts in the surrounding but that I didn't need to be alerted as the majority had already been aware that a big fight was going to happen. Knowing the day of this battle was drawing near, they must have went into hidding. Appart from that no news about the Hyenas had been found. They had seemingly just disapeared from this forest.

Content, I returned to my cultivation. I continued to understand the formation and my progress were uninterupted for the next two weeks. I was getting really impatient but continued with my cultivation nonetheless. It was useless to ask Ellena and Elyo if there was any changement as if there was, they would have come to us first.

My understanding of the formation was more and more swift. It was as if the more I understood, the more doors were open for me to understand. like that the 1% of the meter cube I understood became 10%. It might seem a lot but remember that This meter cube was equivalent to less than 0.01% of the true formation. Being able to understand 0.001% fof the fromation didn't make me stronger, but I had a larger access to knowledge about formation and the way energy and Qi moved. It was knowledge that was extremelly usefull.

As time passed I didn't just focused myself on the formation. I had to increase my battle power too as a big fight was nearing each seconds. I practiced my differents Arts and Techniques and increased their proficiency by an enormous amount. The understanding of the way the Qi had to be moved was extremely important as it hepled me construct a better base, foundation for my Arts.

It's like when you practice punching sets alone without any guidance. You'll be strong, yes, but you won't be reaching perfection as it require knowledge of muscle, Qi, nerves and a lot of differents things. You'll have to use this knowledge to make the Qi moves in more specific and clear way. It was the same for me. I had no knowledge about muscle and Qi before understanding part of the fromation. Fortunetely, after weeks passed trying to comprehend the Qi in the formation, I could use the Qi more efficiently.

My Time Phasing Art, Four Elementals Spears and my newly created Eye Art had all been improved and were nearing a new level. I just had to experience battle to make a breakthrough and increase the level of these Arts.