A new friend

The village of Yowai was one of six main villages located in the Southern part of the planet. Some of the villages eventually grew into kingdoms and elected the most powerful as their king. The villages included the Tsuyoi village with the strongest fighting force; the village of Yuki, a village located in the snowy region; the village of Mizu, a small island filled with many who possessed the gate of the fish; the village of Yama, a village surrounded by huge mountains and located on the south-west part of Yowai and finally, the village of Yaban.

The village of Yaban, a village filled with powerful savages and exiles from other villages. The Yaban village was northwest of the Yowai village with only a small distance between the two. The members of the Yaban village, better known as the Yabans were always raiding smaller villages, killing anyone and everyone they came across.

The jungle surrounding the village of Yowai acted as a shield that guarded them against the attacks of the Yabans.

The Chief finally made it back to the village and spotted Leo and the others waiting for him at the entrance. They needed him to break the news to the others.

"It looks like you had a little trouble?"

Lucius was quick to notice that the Chief's robe had some dirt on it.

"It was just a few Laoshes, nothing I couldn't handle." He formed a prideful smile.

Leo was now in a better mood than before and was not even fazed by the fact that the old man was capable of handling a Laoshe.

They all moved into the village and a good number of people ran towards them. They knew, from the dirt on Leo's clothes that he indeed took the test and survived; so all that was left to know was the result. Was he a Menzhu or not?

"Is he a Menzhu Chief?"

"Are our lives about to change?"

"What gate does he possess?"

Questions were pouring in from everywhere and the optimistic look on their faces saddened the Chief. All the while, Kiva had her face turned away, unable to look them in the eye. A few of the villagers noticed that the Chief was not excited and was in fact unhappy. The Chief cautioned the villagers to remain silent as he gave the details of Leo's test. After which, they all began dispersing, some stood in place in despair after realizing that they would still have to go through the hardships that they had been facing. A few walked up to Leo and welcomed him as an official member of the village and offered to throw him a welcoming party later that day.

Leo was amazed to see that not a single one of the villagers looked at him with disdain and questioned Kiva as to why the villagers did not resent him for turning out weak.

"Why would they hate you? They all know that you didn't choose to be weak, just like they didn't choose to be here. You are now one of us, and although it saddens me that you are not a Menzhu, I will protect you along with every other person in this village until we find one.

Kiva's speech moved Leo and he felt a sense of belonging that he only felt around his brother Jax and his boss, Mr. Edward.

"Maybe staying here won't be so bad after all." He smiled.

The Chief, Kiva, and Lucius went off and left Leo alone at the entrance. He stared at the entire village filled with people that had accepted him even though he was weak. He didn't know a lot of them but he felt the need to do whatever he could to make them happy.

Leo's gate activated on its own for a brief second, causing Leo to tilt his head to the left and avoid a rock that was tossed at him from behind. He turned around quickly to see the person who threw the rock.

"How did you dodge that rock without looking?"

In front of Leo were the boy and his bird. The kid was still mad at Leo for being weak and decided to vent his anger by hitting him on the head with a rock.

Leo was more concerned with the reason for the boy's violent action just now.

"Why would you do that? Don't you know that I could've been seriously injured if that rock had got me?"

The boy looked at Leo from head to toe and was shocked at how similar he was to his late brother.

'I didn't notice it before, but this guy looks a lot like Paul.'

He stood still watching Leo while reminiscing on the past memories of his brother.

"Hey kid! Are you ok?"

He snapped out of it. His eyes were now teary. He quickly wiped them off and apologized for his misconduct to Leo and went ahead to point out what Leo just did.

"Just now, you dodged that rock without even looking at it, how did you do that? I didn't see a glow in your eyes, so you definitely didn't use your gate."

Leo did not realize what he did until the boy told him. He dodged something he didn't see coming, how on Earth or out of Earth did he do that.

"I don't know. I just…I just knew it was coming and also felt the direction from which it came and what to do to avoid it."

Leo then remembered the sensation he felt when he fought with the Laoshe during the test and confirmed that it was the same as what he felt just now.

"I think that it was my gate."

The boy laughed and explained to Leo that active gates are revealed by the golden glow in one's eyes.

"I don't see any glow in your eyes, meaning that you didn't use your gate."

"I don't mean now, I felt my gate open up the moment you threw the rock."

The boy began laughing at Leo.

"Gates only activate automatically when you are in extreme danger and I don't think that a small rock counts as one."

As the boy was mocking Leo's poor understanding of the workings of the gates, Racky approached Leo and stared at him; then approached the boy with a rock in its tail. The boy looked at Racky and immediately came up with an idea to confirm if it was really Leo's gate that saved him.

"Can you stand still for a moment? I wanna try something."

Leo obliged and the boy gave a nod to Racky. The bird ran behind Leo and tossed the stone at his back.

The boy was watching the unsuspecting Leo and just then, the glow appeared and disappeared in a fraction of a second causing Leo to instantly reach for his back and catch the rock.