A Warm Breeze

Standing on crooked wooden planks, I observed him opening his front door, which didn't completely align with its frame. Subsequently, I saw the hut slowly expel its heat, which started to slowly engulf my body and observing him step into his house, he began waving me in.

Having to duck through the entrance of the wooden cabin, I glanced back up to notice a child banging his knife and fork against a small rudimentary table, as well as a little girl struggling to climb a chair to sit next to her brother.

As a woman was stirring a pot, the father stepped close to the little girl to help her up, as I watched this scene it caused a smile to show on my face and the father spotting this spoke solemnly.

"Oh, that's my wife Kim, my son Mike and daughter Mia, and you may call me Stanford" placed his hand on his chest

"The pleasure is all mine, you can call me Rod" lying since I have no reason to trust them.

Parting my cloak, I extended my right hand out in an open palm to shake his hand as a formality to say my thanks, after he was done glancing at it, he shook it back.

Kim sees Rod was still dressed up and spoke softly "Please hang up your stuff there" pointing with a knife in her hand unconsciously at a couple of hooks mounted to the back of the door, then went back to chopping up some meat.

In the middle of this, a child was getting impatient, hitting the table harder"Mommy I am hungry"

"Muma hungy" the sister tried very hard to just copy his words and fiddled to even pick up the cutlery.

Smiling at their innocence, I looked behind me to find the hooks to subsequently start taking off my cloak and placing it neatly onto the hook but soon after revealing my fully kitted out body of armour, silence befell the room.

Stanford, looking at my back as well as my left arm, whilst I was putting everything that made me warm on hooks, as he asked me "How did you find us?"

"I followed your hunting tracks" not trying to beat around the bush

Twisting around I saw the two kids had also just received their food which was why they became silent but the wife and husband both glanced at each other and then back to me, but when they looked I could see them glance at my left arm then the floor just below me.

I couldn't look at my arm for my armour restricted my head swivelling that far to look at it, but noticing their other strange look, I aimed my gaze down, to find bright drops of blood splatting against the ground not to mention as it coiled around my legs and leaked in and out of the joints in my armour.

"Interesting, " I murmured.

Stanford was fascinated to see how long these injuries had been affecting Rod."Do you have any idea of how long you have been following the tracks?" Kim, being embarrassed by her husband's rude comment, smacked him on the shoulder.

"What "flinching as he swivelled to look at her with an almost dumbfounded face as he got hit for no reason.

"Sorry, he gets too far ahead of himself" giving him off one hell of a death stare in the process.

"Well, honestly, about a day."

Kim quickly finished her food and put her cutlery neatly on the plate, and got up to place her arm on Stanford's shoulder to look at me, "You have a few broken arrows embedded into your back."

I understood what she meant as I finally realized that's what's been paining me, I sighed "Could you please pull them out."

"I can, honey continue eating with the kids, as I treat his wounds."

"umm, hmm" scoffing his face with meat and veggies.

As she led the way, we came up to a wooden door and upon her opening it, I was stunned for a brief moment as I saw stairs leading into an underground tunnel to which I began to walk down into following her lead.

Soon she pointed out a rather slim hospital bed that looked like it had better days, so I slowly made my way over so I could also check the room out as it seemed it was dug out by hand, sitting down, she walked around the bed, so my back could face her to check it out properly.

Kim was looking for ways to pull out the arrows without causing any more damage, but every time it seemed as the best solution was to take off the body armour, so she didn't have to work around it "Could you take off your armour."

Without needing to reply I started to unwind the leather straps that held the two top halves together and once that was done I could easily pull the breastplate off, but Kim had the hardest part as she needed to follow the path of the arrows as she led it off.

Now, all that I had on my upper body was a short-sleeved t-shirt that was a dark, dirty green, and all Kim needed to do now was pull out the broken arrow tips.

Feeling as she got some pincers ready on the ends that stuck out, however out of nowhere she yanked it out without warning, and she immediately covered the wound with her palm infused with Ki to immediately, initiate the healing process.

With a big grin and clenched teeth for feeling bad after the sudden yank, she awkwardly verbalized "Sorry, I had a good grip on it and didn't want to lose it" Kim was astonished at the fact he just sat there almost as if it didn't affect him whatsoever.

Sighing out the pain, I replied, "It's fine"

Kim glances back at Rod's missing left arm and out of curiosity asked, bu, not wanting to come across like she's too nosey expressed, "Rod, can I ask you a question?"

"You may"

"What happened to your arm" as she was saying that she managed to grab onto another broken arrow.

"Well, if I am, being honest, I don't really remember"

"You're, telling me you can't remember something important, like losing your own arm"gripping the pincers tighter in preparation.

"I really can't reme-" gritting my teeth out of annoyance, as she made me cut up my own sentence, fine then let's see if I can get it to work.

Kim, placing her palm on a new hole she just emptied of an arrow, but she quickly started to notice that the wound needed more of her Ki than it should, normally, so she put more Ki into her hand, but that too didn't work.

I think that's enough, but I should stop, I need her to pull out the last arrow, but judging by the purity of the Ki she must be in Awaked stage 3 or 4.

Not really wanting to wait for her to get out of her daze, I uttered "Can you take the last ones out now."

Collecting herself, she quickly pulled them out without a word because she was still trying to understand what just happened.

"You are in the 3rd Awaked stage" I stated openly

As those words hit her ears caused her to stagger back with a confused expression "How do you know."

"Well, from the beginning I suspected, but not until I got a hold of your Ki was when I could confirm it."

"NO, that's, impossible, people aren't able to have or take other peoples Ki" Founding his words extremely unlikely, she retorted.

"But as a thank you for at least giving me a place to rest I can get your kids a chance to since Ki You don't need to believe me, but I can show you first" standing up off the bed, I turned to face her and went to reach for her arm but she managed to swiftly dodge my attempt.

Kim with a deadpan face absolutely did not believe that anyone could just implant the ability to sense Ki, it takes them years, even for a skilled master to even help and guide so she retorted with more fire "Lying can only get you so far Mr Rod"

I couldn't but shake my head, "I can prove it to you if you hold out your arm."

"Please you're making a fool of yourself" as she waved her hand.

I, not wanting to get into an argument on who's right and wrong, so I swiftly stepped up and grabbed her slim arm softly with my hand.

"Hey, What are you doing" as she tried to tug her arm away.

First, I slowly needed to absorb the natural surrounding energy and secondly, with great control, I needed to make it flow into my arm and down through my veins and jump cross into her's but in order to let her understand I had to make sure the energy flowed around her acting as her blood so I had to scatter it and let the blood carry it away.

Through Kim's eyes, the world colours started to fade away till it was pitch black, but then suddenly came these bright, colourful specks floating around her like beautiful fireflies which caused her to try and reach out for them.

"Stop" luckily she listened and her hand stopped moving I moved closer to her, and I whispered into her ear " you should only touch the one that is the brightest."

Glancing over to me with fuzzy filtered eyes "why"

"Whichever one is the brightest is the Ki you're best suited for" as I told her she could now move I let her now do as she wished, watching as she gazed around the room at every corner and at every wall after a short while her arm started to move, and before I noticed she was touching my abdomen.

Looking down I watched as her hand moved under my top, "What are you doing?"

Loosening my grip that was slowly importing Ki within her body, and as her eyes cleared up, she noticed her hand was under my top and out of surprise "W-what, oh my gosh, I am so sorry I don't know what came over me."

Stepping back a bit to let her calm down I asked "Did you hear what I said."

"Yes, I s-swear I just reached out for it the spark that looked the most brilliant" as Kim fumbled her words out of embarrassment.

I sighed as "Don't worry too much, but I would like to know what you saw."

Gathering her composure, she looked towards me" I saw a bright light coming out of your stomach"

I think I understand I neatly pooled all my energy into my abdomen whereas everyone else who is still in the lower stages still hasn't collected Ki into their abdomens and would then it would be freely floating around in their bodies.

I sighed "Was there any other spark you saw that court your eye"

"No, not really"

Sighing "then I think you need to go for that one and not mine."

Walking over to my armour to put my chest piece back on I said aloud for Kim to hear "If I gave you my Ki you would have to practically enter a slave contract with me as your master, and I am not looking for that right now"

I was able to get my chest and back piece strapped back on and I made my way up the stairs to the lounge where the kids were playing with some wooden toys, strolling towards the father I asked him if he wanted to be a martial artist too.

As my thanks, I showed all of them the way of a cultivator and soon this little family began to cultivate the martial way and to not have a repeat of what happened with me and Kim, I hid my Ki away.

Now that I had an opportunity to rest, I would try and heal my Left arm before I set off again.