"Hey! Hey you!"
Bran Ai turned his head, unable to move his body properly in their air.
"Me?" Pointing a finger at himself making a questioning face Bran Ai turned to his left.
"Yeah you! Why are you not wearing the sect garbs?"the child grabbed his shirt by the collar.
Bran Ai looked at the other kid, then he took a look at everyone else.
Everyone in the group was wearing the new gray sect uniform given to them, some cleaner then others but all wore it.
"I... I want to clean myself up first. The clothes might get messy if I don't" Bran Ai did not have a chance to do this still, having been trapped for several days by the man eating flower his current look and smell was not great.
The child looked at him for a second bewildered by the answer 'He couldn't clean himself for an entire week?'.
"Can't you just wash it after using anyway?" Unless Bran Ai had never washed himself this would be logical.
"I need water, the sect only gave us enough to drink in the morning" this was the only source of water he has had acess to as far as he was aware.
"What do you mean? Haven't you gone to the back area? You know the one behind our rooms? There is tons of water there" the kid was confused, water just in the morning? Sounded more like an excuse to him.
"What do you mean?" He really wanted to know.
"You know, behind our living place" the child tried to make a gesture with his hands attempting to show the action of going around something.
"Is there water there?" Bran Ai really wanted to kick himself for not knowing.
"Did I say something else? Yeah you can practically swim in it" he said sarcastically
'Enough water to swim in?' Having never seen enough water to take a dip in the concept of submerging the body in water was foreign.
"I see! I will try to go after this. Maybe I'll even take a swim?..." Bran Ai took a look at himself in comparison to everyone here, he was still skinnier then the others but not by much.
His clothes being just rags would probably be the only real standout given his current physical state.
"Why? Just look down. That is all water, want to go for a swim? I'm sure the elder will srop if we ask right?" The child pointed down.
It being night time in this part of the world, from above the ocean seemed like a black desert with only the moonlight reflecting back into his eyes.
Bran Ai looked, not understanding what the other child meant.
"That is all water?" He asked in a voice too low to hear.
"Might be a little hard to ask the old guy to take us for one tho, you think he would?" The child asked half questioning himself.
"All of that is water?" Having never seen a body of water on this magnitude he couldn't believe that everything below him was water, this was a new mind shattering sight for him.
"Yeah, but it is dark out so no longer blue. Pretty hard to see honestly... I could only tell because I grew up near a fishing village." the boy felt some emotion as he recalled his home.
"Blue? So that is the color of the ocean" Bran Ai's version of blue was a bright turquoise that glimmered in the day.
It was from some blue beads he had seen earlier in life among the many stalls set up by travelling merchants. The sect for all it's wonder lacked a great deal of color, at best the greenery of the surrounding forests had given some life to the sect but otherwise it was just a mix of browns and reds.
As for the size of the ocean he couldn't be sure, they were currently several miles up in the sky yet even a sense of distance was difficult to tell at this moment.
All directions one looked down was pitch black darkness aside from the sky, one could try and guess how far it went but the curvature of the earth prevented further speculation.
"Where are you from? I am- come from a mountain town, not sure where exactly... But there were rivers and mountains that headed into the sea, I remember that" the child went a little quite toward the end.
"I don't know where I came from, It was very hot most of the time, very dry. At least that is what I saw, but my parents told me that once there had been more then just that once" Bran Ai didn't have much recollection beyond a years time, he along with most children being too young to remember such things could only tell of recent events.
The sect made sure that the children were only taken during a time when memories first started forming, with just enough mental growth so that they knew who they were and where they came from but not much else.
"I remember being taken to the sea side village a few times by my da- no. Was it my uncle? Ah I can't quite remember, maybe it was both of them" The child feeling like he had lead the conversation to a bad area both for him and Bran Ai changed topics.
"Can you use spells yet? I tired to copy some of the older people but couldn't quite do it right, although I did manage to move the Qi half a revolution around my body"
"Um no I don't really know what a spell is, let alone know to use one" A spell what was that? Half a Qi revolution? Ah Bran Ai really did not understand.
Not counting the forced cultivation experienced when awakening his spiritual veins he knew how to meditate because he was shown how to do it as such he was able to visually learn to cultivate, spells however are new to him.
"Ehh what, you mean you haven't tried out the spells in the book yet? You know the one's near the end" the boy was eager to compare with someone this wasn't going great.
"The back of the book? Oh! You mean the basic's of cultivation? I haven't gotten that far yet"
"LET ME TEACH YOU THEN!" The kid looked at Bran Ai with excitement, yes it was better this way, now he could show off.
He searched throught his clothes only to notice a hole inside one of his pockets.
"Ah wait a second I don't have my things with me, let me teach you later ok?"
"Yeah! Sure!" Bran Ai replied eagerly, this boy could be considered his first friend maybe?
Elder Qez had been quite so far, it had only been a few minutes since their departure from the final edge sect yet he had already traveled over 8000 kms nearly arriving at his destination.
This was not his peak speed, it was laughingly slow by his standards he could double his traveling speed should he really be in a hurry but this was fast enough for his current needs.
The planet wasn't very large after all, then again there really wasn't anywere the elder could go that would require him in general.
This trip was a sect mission yes but at the same time it was a personal wish of his to discover lost and hidden areas of the world.
'Should I teach them a thing or two before we get there or just leave it up to fate?' Elder Qez struggled internally, these kids were nothing short of sacrifices in this venture.
A few might make it back from this adventure but they won't be the same anymore.
'If they weren't required I would rather not bring them along at all'
Elder Qez took out a green information jade from a small pocket, pressing it to his forehead as he closed his eyes.
Research notes with different dates were recorded in order.
Some of these notes had been written to the sides overlapping older notes with newer research.
It described his travels across a particular part of the world where an old sect once inhabited a mountain range, it was a sect of golden beings hidden among cold and dry mountains inhabiting cities covered by clouds high above the reach of mortal beings.
This sect was not around during the time of man being dated back to a time when the world was covered in frost and snow, it was a place that the man of today would find an impossibility.
By all accounts any remnants of that civilization and the beings that inhabited it was long removed from the world leaving only a deep rooted nightmare to the lesser beings of the time. Had the sect not been around for as long as it had been it was likely that no one would have found records of this lost sect tens of thousands of years later.
'I only managed to find the location of one of the entrances after spending years combing the sect private libraries. Even then I failed to even catch a glimpse of the entrance until just recently. If I had not found that stone tablet I would still be like a chicken without a head' he flipped through his notes in rapid succession.
In one page a certain passage was discribed as translated by elder Qez:
At dawn gold will shine on water.
Men of gold praise the skies.
Golden will be men no more.
Among men will beast reside.
Men no longer only the beast remain.
Golden be the blood of men.
Red be the blood of beasts.
What flows will be of both.
What is lost returned.
What is gained retained.
Only the glimmer of men remains.
Only the golden lead the way.
'A fucking sacrificial ritual, how outdated' Elder Qez had experienced all sorts of things in life, these types of rituals still took place regularly across the world but he considered it as something from a forgone time now.
In general they weren't considered good or bad in the cultivation world, it would all depend on the person that practices them.
Most rituals heralded for good fortune, others for mercy.
Barbaric? Sure, but the results were quite real.
Not every ritual would have asked for blood sacrifices, some simply took objects with special energies as the median for the ritual.
This one was unfortunately for the children - the worst type.
'If I teach them, it would give either one of em an advantage over the other, I will be directly affecting their fate but the beast part of the ritual is still unclear'
Beast could mean one of lf two things for most rituals.
One: it will turn man against each other, the end result being man turning into animals, not factually but metaphorically giving up morality for a more primal nature.
Two: There will be actual animals summoned to fight against them, hence the men will fight and only the beast remains.
Elder Qez hopped for the first one, he didn't like their chances otherwise.
The second option could lead to a total wipe out, that would not help his end goal.
The first option at least allowed for there to be victors hence the part < Only the golden lead the way > would become true.
If the ritual worked the way elder Qez believed it would - due to the research he had done, then this would be a trial by combat.
Hopefully between men. This was after all a sect of a bygone era were men had yet to rule, it was likely that the beast was speaking of beast man, if so the children were undoubtedly fucked in the second option.
The reason elder Qez did not bring more experienced cultivators along for this was simple.
He couldn't.
The golden or gold part referred to cultivators, it was a way to differentiate between a nomal human or creature from a being with cultivation potential..
While men was the opposite, it refers to normal humans irregardless of gender.
'Why it specifically asked for 'men' I cannot say, humanity was in its very primal state at that time' the elder knew something was wrong but as long as he was there it should be fine.
When the phrase < Only the glimmer of men remains > was used, it should mean that one was closer to being a cultivator then a mortal man.
This ritual would act as some sort of awakening ceremony, similar to the final edge sects own.
'Since the children are already awakened I cannot do anything but hope it accepts them, what is important is that they are new to the cultivation world'
Currently there was little differences between the children here and any child off the streets, no features can really be seen as different from one another to call them special.
The only advantage the children held was the faster then average mental development and the use of spiritual Qi but both of these aspects wouldn't be notable on a glance.
The former would eventually became noticable while the latter could only be shown when they use spiritual Qi.
Participating in the awakening ceremony a second time wouldn't really impact them much, at best it will help them raise one stage.
If the children had spent at least a year cultivating howerver things would change drastically.
No longer will the body be as weak as it once was.
Even a child as young as five could easily lift a teenager weighing 52 kgs with little struggle.
This was due to the spiritual Qi becoming more condensed and spread throughout the childrens body.
At that point the body's cells would all have been replaced by something similar to a normal humans cells yet different.
Every part of the body would have had slight changes that lead to the child no longer being considered entirely human only the visage of one remaining.