51 Chapter 49: Back on the road.

I cracked my back as I was finally done, it would take me a while to process all of the info that I had gotten from the Phoenix's technique, but I had a lot of time now.

Literally centuries apparently, but that was a whole different thing that I did not want to think about.

I was sure that I would eventually be able to learn everything possible from this technique and make it my own properly, given enough time.

I stood up, or at least I tried to, because when I sent the command to my body it didn't even move.

Weird, I thought, before metaphorically facepalming as I let go of the insane cloud of profound energy that I made to flow through my brain, returning the energy to the rest of my body that had been left almost empty.

And time began to flow around me again.

"-are you doing!" I heard Jasmine's voice. Maybe that's the buzz that I had been hearing for a while. Just how much had my mind accelerated?

It might have been perspective weeks, maybe months, but it all felt like a blur as my mind concentrated all its brainpower to complete a single task.

My mind flowed too fast, my thoughts too precise, any emotion too slow to affect the way I thought, it felt as if I was the mind of a gigantic computer following its task singlemindedly, it felt too perfect, addicting even.

I was sure there wouldn't be any drawbacks to that stuff, maybe. I hoped.

Tentatively I stood up, getting a feel for my body, nothing off, but it still felt weird for some reason, "How long has it been?" 

"Who cares!?" The short girl shouted back at me, "What in the Heavens have you done?!" 

"I copied the technique, why?" I replied, not wholly understanding her freak-out.

"You set yourself on fire, that's what you did!" She shouted at me, "Had it not been for the fire resistance coming from the Divine Flame Seed you would have turned yourself to ashes!" 

That seemed like a good reason to freak out; I looked down at my body and saw I was naked.

My clothes had probably been turned to nothingness, exactly like she said, and it was my favorite outfit, what a waste of good fabric, "Huh." 

"What do you mean "Huh"?" She asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest while glaring at me like never before. Had I worried her that much?

"I don't understand where the problem is, not counting my clothes, nothing bad happened." I shrugged.

"You set yourself on fire for two minutes! I thought something went wrong with your cultivation and were about to explode!" She said, clearly still upset by the scare I must have given her.

But still, two minutes, huh? That was a nice level of perspective time stretching. I could use it to have more time every day.

Maybe I could even learn how to move my body in that state, doing stuff with perfect precision by controlling every millimetric movement in real-time, definitely useful for building stuff.

I still had to see that there weren't any side effects. I wouldn't want to have a stroke out of nowhere just because I decided to live for a year inside of my head while a single second passed outside.

"So, what did you do?" She said after calming down, the worry that plagued her turning into curiosity.

But I didn't have time to answer, as the voice of the Phoenix invaded the surroundings, "You have created an entirely new version of the [World Ode of the Phoenix]." 

It wasn't a question, not even an explanation, it was a statement.

"I just copied it," I replied, but the Phoenix seemed to disagree with my explanation.

"You took it apart, took every single idea behind the technique, and broke it apart into minuscule parts, I do not doubt your chances anymore, you will be able to free this continent from my corrupt counterpart, should you wish so." 

I had no idea how to take that, was I supposed to feel happy?

But before I could sort out anything, the pill bottle opened and the pill inside of it was shoved into my hand, "You won't be allowed in these trial grounds again, I wish you the best, outsider." 

And like that, I was shoved out of the trial ground, the world went dark for an instant and I was right back to where I entered, in a clearing right in front of the seal.

"That was rude," I commented, hoping the Phoenix couldn't hear me from inside; she probably could, but she didn't seem like someone who would mind.

So I just left after putting the pill in my infinite green realm. I wished I had something this useful back on Earth, and then went back to my adopted children.

I had to search for a while to find them, where had they disappeared to?

Oh, found them, a few moments was all it took to search every street of the small village, feeling around the place for their presence, any noise their steps made, their voices, even their breath, but they were in the last place I would have ever thought to look at.

My hastily and inexpertly cemetery.

"What are you two doing here?" I asked, appearing behind them in a blur, like the ninjas in that popular cartoon back on Earth.

"We were searching for you, teacher," Xue said, taking his eyes away from the last evidence of the destruction of a whole village.

His eyes were uncaring for the sight, seemingly only happy that he'd found me.

"How long was I gone for?" I asked, after all that mind-accelerating stuff, I had completely lost track of time.

"A couple of hours," He replied with a smile, truly unburdened by the place he was in, showing just how used they were to death in this world if even children felt nothing at the sight of a cemetery.

But then again, maybe it was just because of the environment they grew up in, showing pity for unknown people couldn't be a successful survival strategy for a street rat.

"Teacher, is everything okay?" The sister asked, was that worry the emotion on her face?

What was she worrying about? Sometimes that girl truly seemed to be able to read me way too well for a child, a smart kid.

I took a heavy sigh, trying to make them understand what had truly transpired in this village, I felt they were too young for this, but they were denizens of this world, now they were cultivators as well, they needed to understand that the power they could wield came with a responsibility to not be an awful person, "You see, Zhu, this village was a thriving village not too long ago, many people lived here, each one of them was just like you and me." 

They didn't understand. They were just children, after all, even I could barely understand, or maybe they could understand it better than I did and were just confused by my words. Who could ever know for sure?

"They all had dreams, a family, people they cared about, hopes and dreams for a future. And it was all taken away by some bandits." I grit my teeth, remembering the pain etched in the faces of those people in their last moments of life.

"You will become powerful, hopefully, powerful enough to protect what you think is precious, whatever it is, but that will also mean that you will be powerful enough to take something precious away from other people," I continued with a tired sigh, this had truly been a hard day, fighting a bunch of firebird monsters didn't help, "I don't care what kind of path you will take in the future, that will be for you to decide, just, please, don't become like those monsters who took the lives of so many innocent people." 

I didn't want to spend another second in this village.

"Yes, teacher!" Xue replied, the boy as simple-minded as ever, maybe he was just good-natured, or he might not have understood my words fully, either case made me hope that he would follow my words.

Zhu just looked at me, the girl's expression was always hard to read, but it always seemed that she was able to understand me like an open book.

It was nice to have someone who could understand what emotions went through my mind.

"What about you?" I asked her.

"I understand teacher, I'll keep your words in mind." 

Well, that was as good an answer as any that I could receive, or any that I could ever ask for.

Even though I knew that I couldn't change their established thought process from living in this world for years only after a couple of months of following me around, I was naïve, not stupid, I was certain that I would eventually be able to win them over to my side.

The only way to change the common sense of the entire world was to start with just some people, maybe I would have to be nailed to a cross as well, but I hoped it wouldn't have to come to that point.

"Why have you buried them though?" The girl asked me.

"I just think that everyone deserves the right to rest appropriately at least in death, and when the alternative is to stay as they were before or to be eaten by random beasts, what I had to do was pretty obvious to me," I replied with a small smile.

"Now come on kids, get your things ready, we eat something, and then we'll be back on the road, hopefully without more detours, until we reach the capital." 

They nodded and then left to gather their stuff.

I, on the other hand, went to prepare our meal, maybe some fresh eggs.

I'm really sorry for the long lack of chapters, on top of irl stuff to do i've also had a massive writer's block, i'm not even satisfied with this chapter, i couldn't even do a full lenght one, but i had to do it to get over it.

thank you for the wait and please give me them stones.

Love, The Horn.