1 Master Liye and the Slave 16418
"You can go now, my friend. I hope we meet again after my reincarnation. You know what to do with my sword."
Those were the words of a man who didn't seem like he was going to need any reincarnation, but although he seemed fine, the damage to his soul was extremely serious. He had already endured long enough to get all his plans ready before choosing a place to reincarnate.
If it weren't because he had used his special sword to force his own reincarnation, he wouldn't even be able to reincarnate in his state.
"I know, trust me. Liye, I hope you are lucky with your reincarnation, and we can see each other again. Goodbye."
The other man left without looking back after saying those words.
At that same moment, a bloody young man was walking through the arid land under the scorching sun. The wind increased the sensation of heat, which only increased his pain, but the young man refused to fall and die.
The young man was skinny due to malnutrition. His dark brown hair was extremely short, and he was much shorter than he should be for his age.
Moreover, the young man's clothes were tattered, revealing his tanned skin from the constant work outside under those weather conditions. On the little piece of clothing that was left on top, the number 16418 was engraved.
That number was something that provoked great pain to that young man because that could be said to be his only name despite clearly not being a person's name but a serial number.
It was the serial number given to slaves by their owners in order to correctly identify them. That young man was called slave 16418, and no one had ever called him otherwise.
Slave from birth, he received all kinds of torture from his cruel owners since he could remember. He already had to give thanks for having received a basic education to be able to follow the orders of his owners.
He never met his parents despite knowing that they belonged to the same group of slaves as him because all the children of slaves were separated for several years for an intensive brainwashing to make them submissive and hardworking. Thus, when they returned to the group, they weren't even interested in knowing who their parents were. In their minds, there was only work, work, and work. That norm had been engraved in their minds through endless tortures and experiences that no sane person would be capable of wishing to someone else.
Anyway, adults were forced to have children to increase the number of slaves, so it wasn't as if there was some kind of family affection on the part of the parents. Thus, trying to find such parents made no sense. There wasn't any love for those born as slaves.
However, the slave 16418 never had such blind faith in their owners despite suffering the same as other children. He was just as obedient as the rest of the children, at least in appearance, to avoid punishment, but he always hoped in his heart that one day he would be freed from that constant torture and achieve freedom.
The slave 16418 never told someone else about it. He supposed that probably he wasn't the first to think in that way, but that the other, like him, never dared to tell someone else about it because of the repercussions they could suffer if owners found out.
The slaves who harbored such hopes in their minds could only wait for some savior because they knew very well that their strength was useless in front of those arrogant owners who had risen above the level of mortals.
Although the simplest methods for training and overcoming those limits weren't secret to normal people, for slaves, those were things of myth and legend because they knew that they would never see or use one of these methods.
Of course, in his more than thirteen years of life, the slave 16418 had never seen someone appear to try to free the slaves. Anyway, that hope was meaningless for the slave at that moment.
For some reason unknown to the slave 16418, the owners began to torture and kill all the slaves in their group and didn't finish until the entire group was apparently reduced to corpses.
He managed to avoid lethal blows and survived by playing dead mixed with the corpses of his companions, but he was the only one who managed to survive.
Still, his remaining time wasn't long. He had suffered serious injuries, and in those conditions under the harsh weather, his death was certain, but even in that case, he wanted to have a bit of freedom before dying.
Even if he was going to die, he wanted to choose where he was going to die, he didn't want to leave his corpse to those cruel owners who made slaves work to death in many cases without ever rewarding them in return.
Moreover, even those who managed to survive the hard work ended up being cruelly murdered for no apparent reason.
The slave 16418 didn't feel especially attached to anyone in the slave group, and they only spoke to each other about things related to work, but the hatred he felt towards his owners was immense for what they had done.
However, the only way he could take to avoid being found by his owners was the way to the arid lands of the west, and it wasn't easy to find a good place to die in that place, but he didn't want that his corpse became something under the control of those owners. Instead, it seemed much better to him that his corpse was devoured by some wild beast.
He had walked barely a couple of hours from the slave camp where he resided, but his strength was already at its limit, and he was still moving on sheer willpower.
In those two hours, he thought that he saw someone flying in the sky, but he didn't think that someone so powerful was in such an area, so he took it as a mirage due to the exhaustion. However, he still imagined how wonderful it would have been if it had been real, and that expert went to save him, but he knew it was just a wild dream.
After those two hours, he was already at his limit. He didn't believe that he could be saved even if a powerful expert appeared.
Probably, he would have died without more if he had taken one step more or one step less, but at the moment that he lost his strength and fell to the ground, his right hand touched something that wasn't visibly there, but that he could feel by touch.
The moment that happened, a hole opened under slave 16418, and he began to fall into a darkness that seemed endless.
"At least if I die here, I won't be discovered. This may be for the best."
He smiled as he thought about it. He had already assumed his death, so if he managed to die without the owners finding him, he could die with a bit of freedom.
However, the fall ended after a few seconds, and he didn't die when he reached the ground. He didn't even get harmed because a gust of wind stopped him.
"Finding this place voluntarily is impossible for a mortal like you, but still, you have come this far. Without a doubt, it is our fate that we both met each other in this place while being at the gates of death."
The slave 16418 turned his head and saw that at the other end of the room, there was a man.
That man was the definition of what the young women of the family in control of the slaves described as an ideal handsome man. The slave 16418 was so sick of hearing them talk about it that he was able to know that the man in front of him was in those standards with a single glance.
In comparison, he and other slaves had always been described as very ugly, although being malnourished greatly affected their image. However, he knew that those who looked good weren't led to work outside, but to be a different type of slave working behind closed doors, but he didn't know exactly what those slaves did.
Looking back at the man, who seemed to have his presence diminishing at times as if his life were going to fade away at any moment despite the fact that he didn't seem hurt at first glance. The slave couldn't help but feel that this man was infinitely more powerful than those owners who enjoyed torturing him without being able to defend himself.
"But how could such a powerful man be at the gates of death? I guess the world is bigger than I have believed so far. Too bad, I will never be able to see it, but meeting someone like this powerful in my last moments is already great luck."
He felt that his worldview expanded, but he knew he was about to die, so it was mostly for his self-satisfaction.
"You should at least introduce yourself after entering without permission into the site I chose to reincarnate."
The man spoke again, shocking the slave.
"Reincarnate?"
The slave didn't know what the word meant, but he didn't care either.
"I don't have a name. I have always been called by my slave number, 16418. I am sorry that I can't present myself properly to you."
The slave had always spoken formally to his owners out of obligation, but never out of respect. On the other hand, the man in front of him emitted an aura that made the slave respect him from the first moment.
"You don't have a name? That is very sad. I have so many names that I don't remember how many exactly."
The man laughed after speaking. The slave was more surprised by the fact that he could laugh despite being about to die.
"However, I don't think you are a slave. Your soul isn't enslaved, so whatever others say, you can't be considered a slave. You just have to get stronger and beat those who treat you like a slave."
"If that were possible, I would have done it already... The owners are much stronger than me, and it is impossible for a simple slave to overcome the limits of mortals and be able to face them. Also, I don't think I can live for more than a few minutes..."
"They can't be so strong if they can't enslave through the soul. It is a very disgusting technique to force slavery in that way, but if they take slaves without using it, it isn't because they aren't so evil but because they aren't capable. Enslaving others by force is despicable in itself. Those that take ordinary slaves would never hesitate to increase security measures to ensure loyalty."
The slave felt that the words of the man were right because he was convinced that the man in front of him could easily defeat those owners.
"Even so…"
There were no more words that the slave 16418 could pronounce. His forces were at the limit, and speaking was already beyond his limits.
"So, you can no longer speak... Then, better get to the point. I have an offer for you. If you accept, I will give you a name and a new future."
The slave couldn't imagine what that man was referring to.
"I offer you to become my disciple and accept my legacy."
Those words were unexpected because slave 16418 knew that he was also going to die, so he didn't find much sense in the man's offer.
He had heard of lucky people obtaining legacies in ancient ruins in conversations from his owners, but he wasn't quite sure how it worked either. However, the man in front of him was still alive although he was about to die, which was different than in those stories.
"Before your answer, this is a small gift for our first meeting."
The slave noticed that something invisible entered his body, and in a second, all his wounds closed.
"Without moving a finger, he has healed all my wounds, is this man really human? Or could it be... a God?"
Words couldn't come out of his mouth due to the astonishment he felt. His respect for the man in front of him, who the slave already considered something like a God, had reached a point that even if the man's request had been working for him for all eternity, he would have accepted.
"Thank you so much for saving my life! It is an honor for me to accept you as my master!"
The young man immediately prostrated himself before his new master, he didn't know what tasks he would have to fulfill, but he was ready for anything.
"An immediate response, that is how I like it. From now on you can call me Master Liye. This is one of the names that I use the most when I accept disciples."
