9: Andrew's Tale...

Cage could feel a hole in his soul. The dream was too vivid, but at the same time it wasn't realistic. Without his complete set of memories he didn't think it would make sense to him. All he knew for sure was that the woman was important to him and that they had most likely grown up together.

Cage just sat on his bed staring at the ceiling blankly, wandering his thoughts. Eventually, Andrew and his friend started to stir. He could finally see Andrew's appearance, he was an elderly wolf beast person, he had silver hair and had eyes that seemed to hold a lot of wisdom. Cage tapped on the bars to get his attention after they had actually gotten up. He waved his hand to Andrew as a greeting. "..."

Andrew waved back "Hey kid! I hope you slept well". With a sigh, he continued "I certainly didn't, the treatment I'm getting takes a lot out of me. Speaking of which, you probably don't know what it is. I hurt my soul, I failed my soul reformation about sixteen years ago and it has been healing slowly ever since." Andrew sighed again, "I won't ever be able to try the reformation again though. They have just been monitoring it and I should be out of here in a little more than six months."

After chatting for a little with Andrew, the woman who guided Cage to his room yesterday arrived in front of his room. She unlocked the door and gestured to Cage. "Your rehab starts today, follow me."

Cage nodded and got up from his bed. They passed by more rooms, there were only a few people in total inhabiting the rooms. They were the more permanent residents who had more severe problems. He passed an area that looked like the lobby, what he saw looked like soldiers returning from a war. There were a lot of people who were injured, the majority were slaves with only a few being guards. Many had deep bites or gashes, a few were missing a limb. He could only guess how many had died.

'Crap, is this the result of increased beast activity? How much worse can it get?'

The assistant hurried Cage along past the room, they eventually went into a basement. It was just a room that had a lot of equipment. It had what looked like weights, a pull up bar, and some weird device that looked like a solid and liquid metal.

The assistant then turned to Cage and began to explain what they were going to be doing for the next few months. "Your physical state is nearly flawless. The only thing we need to do is get you walking and talking." She materialized a stone tablet seemingly out of thin air. Looking at it for a second, she continued in more detail about what exactly was needed.

"Hmm... according to Dr. Gramm, You don't have a sense of your center of balance and can't really walk without falling down. Your vocal cords also aren't developed. The vocal cords are in good condition according to our examinations, but you don't have experience using them."

Cage understood, he nodded his head. They would first be doing basic vocal cord exercises where he would be trying to say vowels and other letters. The next part would be practice walking. It turns out that the weird metallic device was called a materializer, It could change it's shape to perform different tasks according to what the operator wanted the user to do. For Cage it would act as a treadmill from his old world but with railings as support.

"Can you start off by saying: AAAAAAAA"

"..a..a...."

"EEEEEEE"

"..e..e...e"

"OOOOOO"

"..oo.o...o"

They did vocal exercises for about an hour and a half until Cage's voice started to hurt. They were exercises that one wouldn't expect to use a lot of energy for. Once it began to hurt, they stopped. Excessive use would have an adverse effect and harm him instead.

grrrr

Cage's stomach growled. 'I just realized I haven't eaten in a long time, solid food at least. Considering I didn't eat for four years, they probably had some sort of way to give me energy and keep me hydrated. But I haven't eaten anything at all in the past day and a half.'

The assistant heard his stomach growl. "After the rehab is done, I'll bring you back to your room and you will get food. Your body hasn't had solid food in a long time so you will start off with soups, If I gave you solid food off that bat it could harm you."

The materializer changed shape to a walking thing that would allow him to walk in spot with support. Cage stepped onto the device with help from the assistant. The part he was standing on began to move abruptly. He lost balance at first due to the sudden movement, but quickly caught himself.

'Now that I think about it, I have a tail. How will walking with that work? I know that cats use their tail for balance, would I do the same? Probably. I guess I'll be learning how to walk again, it's like a modified version of walking in a way.'

Cage thought it was only a matter of time, he would just have to get used to it. The device moved at a steady pace that was the right speed for him. He was moving at the speed of an old man more or less. It was frustrating that he could only move this fast, even with support from the railings. After about an hour of walking like this, the speed increased ever so slightly. It was like the first time he got on the device where he could barely walk properly, he felt like all his progress got reset. After another hour at the new speed, the assistant concluded the rehab session and brought Cage back to his room.

A bowl of soup was waiting for him. It was room temperature and had clearly been there for a while, Cage didn't care though. He just knew that he was hungry, he ate at a steady pace as to not vomit it out due to eating to fast. No one wanted food to go to waste because they only got a limited amount every day.

After eating the food, he looked to Andrew's room. As expected, he wasn't there. Cage couldn't walk that well, but that didn't mean he couldn't work on his body. He was already in perfect physical fitness for his age, but he realized very quickly that he had only an average amount of stamina. He wanted to increase it.

He couldn't do anything like biking, swimming, or running in place, but he could do other things like pushups or sit ups. He worked on his endurance for some time. He also realized that he could work on his breathing techniques to further improve himself. It wasn't until several hour later that Andrew returned.

Andrew's face was pale and he was drenched in sweat. He was clearly exhausted, it didn't stop him from being cheery though. He had overheard earlier from the assistant that Cage was going to do rehab, but he had no interest in why.

"Hey kid, how was your rehab?"

"..." Cage still couldn't talk so he just gave a thumbs up and a smile.

"Still can't talk huh... well it's good that it's going well. How long do you think it will be until you can talk normally?"

Cage just held up three fingers to say that it would take three months. They more or less had a yes or no conversation for some time. After a while, Cage just listened to Andrew tell stories from his life.

The stories were relaxing and interesting to listen to. Cage was also ignorant of the world so they were a good opportunity to learn more so he payed very close attention.

Apparently, beast-men would age rapidly in their youth until they got their appearance into their 20's. Then their physical aging would slow down to almost a stop. They had a similar base lifespan to humans but when they neared the end they would age rapidly.

More shocking was that Andrew was a criminal slave. Of the slaves in the mine, some were criminal slaves, others were born into it, and some were bought. At the time, Andrew was nearing the end of his life span and wanted to live longer. To live longer it was quite simple, one just had to increase their soul strength. Andrew saw that Cage was confused so he quickly explained some basic information.

"There are different levels of the soul, there was a known total of eleven. They went from stage zero up to stage ten. Some theorized there was a stage eleven, but no one had ever reached it and was dubbed to be false."

"There is also further sub levels to categorize more precisely. The different sub levels grew from the following, low, mid, high, and peak. Peak meant you were only a step away from the next stage."

Andrew was a Stage 2 mid-level. Every stage grew progressively harder to advance in. Cage pieced together from Andrew that every stage you advanced to would double your life span but the difficulty grew exponentially. He also learned that the higher level you were, the larger the gaps between stages were. There was also soul reformation, but Andrew knew almost nothing about it. He tried it but failed due to lack of information.

Andrew's expression turned serious. "0301, do you want to know why I became a criminal slave?"

Cage was naturally curious because at the moment, Andrew was the person he knew closest. Even though they had only known each other for less than a week, he still considered Andrew a good friend. His mother left for some reason or another and he was in a coma for four years so he had no friends or people to rely on.

Cage nodded his head.

Andrew looked to the ceiling and began to tell his tale.

"It was 70 years ago..."

Andrew was nearing the end of his life, at the time he was still a Stage 0. Every day he woke up his appearance had grown older. He didn't want to die, the only way he knew how was to cultivate his soul. However, before he had even reached the first stage, he was stuck. Much like how Cage was and still is.

Andrew had lived in a secluded village in the forest with his tribe and worked as a hunter. He had gone to the city with the little money he had and went to a soul cultivation instructor to learn. Unfortunately, Andrew was naive and didn't realize how cruel the world was. The instructor was crooked, he put on a convincing act for Andrew. The instructor didn't even teach Andrew how to grow his soul.

Eventually, Andrew ran out of money and was kicked out by his "master" without learning anything. With no money, food, or job, Andrew became desperate as his life neared his end. All was not lost though, an opportunity presented it's self. And boy was it a great opportunity. It was very risky, but without risk there is no reward.

There was a rumor that a low level noble house heir had gotten his hands on a cultivation treasure. A cultivation treasure is something that allows one to progress greatly in their cultivation. The rumors say that the treasure was a soul gem of high purity. A soul gem was several levels above a soul stone that was mined.

With nothing left to lose, Andrew decided to bet it all on this opportunity. Sure enough, the rumor was true. Andrew was in a border city of the Agrius kingdom. Being the arrogant noble that the heir was, he paraded around showing off his treasure. Andrew's eyes instantly lit up with greed in the crowd.

Normally no one would dare provoke a noble, let alone an heir of a family. But Andrew had nothing to lose so he took the risk. Silently slipping out of the crowd, he went to a bridge that was ahead and prepared to jump down. While waiting for the moment to strike, he quickly formulated a plan in his head.

When the noble approached the bridge, Andrew pulled out a rope, a hook, and a hunters knife. He pulled up the hood on his cloak. Beast-men naturally had better physiques compared to humans so jumping from the height he was at was no problem. Jumping down, he landed in the noble's carriage.

The crowd and noble were both in shock. Someone actually dared to provoke a noble and in an open area no less. "HEY! What do you think you're doing?! Seize him!"

Andrew noticed the guards closing in. He quickly pulled out his knife and stabbed the noble's shoulder. The noble instinctively dropped the treasure and clutched his wound. He began screaming in pain. "Aghhhh! It hurts, It hurts! I don't care what you have to do! Aghhh! Capture him and execute him publicly for daring to harm me!"

Andrew used his beast like speed and snatched the soul gem before jumping back, knife in hand.

"Freeze!"

The noble's guards approached with spears and swords raised.

Andrew scoffed, "Why would I freeze when I'm going to be executed if I'm caught?"

All the guards quickly became enraged at his actions. The guards were Stage one, varying between low and mid level. The difference between Stage one and zero was not very big, Compared to Andrew's physical abilities the guards were inferior.

One of the guards charged from behind with a spear trying to catch him off guard. Andrew's instincts warned him and he could feel the killing intent emanating from the man.

He quickly pivoted his foot, narrowly avoiding the spear.

Whoosh!

He heard the sound of air rush by where his chest was moments ago.

Andrew quickly counterattacked with a slash. The guard who was still carrying his momentum was stunned and defenseless. He could only watch the knife near his throat.

Blood gushed out of the guards new neck tattoo.

Seizing the opportunity, Andrew rushed towards the injured guard. He jumped up and delivered a kick, sending the injured guard to his friends at a high velocity.

Boom!

The guard crashed into his friends. The crash of metal could be heard as their armor collided.

There was now a hole in their formation.

Andrew rushed towards it and slipped through.

The guard closest raised his spear and threw it towards Andrew. Andrew quickly raised his knife and deflected the spear with a clang. The impact caused his hand to go numb.

Quickly reaching the crowd who stood agape, he prepared to make his getaway. The crowd instinctively parted for Andrew, still in shock. Andrew pulled the rope and hook from his cloak and began to swing it at a high speed.

He launched the hooked end to the roof of a building.

Pulling himself up, He made his way to the outer section of the city to slip away.

The entire city was in chaos. The noble was in critical condition and one of the noble's guards was dead with several injured. The city lord quickly mobilized the city guards and prepared to track down the culprit.

Andrew felt no guilt because he knew that the nobles of the Agrius kingdom were all bastards anyways.

later at night he slipped out of the city successfully, but not unnoticed. Andrew spent five years on the run. He had traveled across the entire kingdom while escaping. Over that course of time, he had successfully broken through to the first stage and progressed to the mid-level with the help of the soul gem.

He was dubbed the silver bandit and and was known as the beast-man who successfully stole from a noble and escaped from various powerhouses. He was able to escape because he never had a direct confrontation. If he were to fight directly, he would be killed in less than 5 moves. Eventually, he was cornered by several Stage 4 powerhouses who had prepared a trap. The kingdom of Agrius had many much stronger individuals, but they wouldn't dispatch them for a Stage 1 thief. He was captured and was sold away as a criminal slave for the rest of his life to pay for his crimes. That's how he ended up in the soul stone mine.

Cage was in awe, he was staring at a notorious thief who had managed to escape from several powerhouses multiple times. He felt it was a pity that he was caught, but he was thankful to meet Andrew. Cage was sure that if Andrew wasn't on the run he would have gone into the fourth stage.

A smile grew on Andrews face as he got a great idea. "Hey kid, how would you like me to teach you to cultivate?"