The patch of sand appeared as though out of thin air, one moment all underneath his feet was grass and fallen leaves, the next he was stepping on desert sand. By now he had walked maybe five or six steps, six steps that felt longer than they should, long enough that he was already sweating buckets. Aether had saturated in his lungs enough to make breathing torture. Ten steps later, he saw the lake, his momentum carrying him to his knees as the pressure eased up all around him, all at once. He knelt there panting like a dying dog, each breath easing the pain in his lungs a little. The densities were similar if not exactly the same to Gabriel but the aether was not as oppressive as on the path, now, it felt soothing almost healing inducing. After his breathing had eased up, the main perpetrator appeared before him hands out stretched to help him up, Gabriel ignored him, partly because of what he did and partly because he never wanted to get up, till he heard the words that poured out of Min's mouth
"Do you know what we call this place?" Shi Ming asked, Gabriel glared at Shi Ming with a side eye.
"We call it the sacred Oasis" Shi Ming answered himself ignoring the glare.
"Sacred Oasis, a little flashy don't you think?" Gabriel asked amusement stealing into his voice
"It is cheesy; I know but it is accurate."
"Accurate for oasis sure but sacred?" asked Gabriel as he sat up to look around, the naming was accurate enough, a lake surrounded by a body of sand but the devil was in the details. Sixteen pillars of the same gargantuan height stood surrounding the oasis, a single tree huge in comparison to a normal tree but still dwarfed by the pillars around grew directly from within the lake. "Isn't it a little too easy to be accessed to be called sacred." Gabriel finished
"No it is not so easy to access, many people don't know that this place exists, only the five patriarchs of the institute's ruling council are aware. Of course there are exception like me, my uncle, the guard and any other person that may have been told but it is a secret." Min continued "and it is cool, isn't it?"
"Sure it is" Gabriel patronized "what is it for anyways?"
"Come on, let's get closer"
The first thing that caught Gabriel's attention as he reached the lake shores, was the koi fishes, they were as big as his torso and swimming without a care, one fish was white with orange spots and patterns on its back while the other fish was the exact opposite orange with white spots and patterns. Gabriel watched the two fishes as they swarm, their paths were odd around the tree, zig-zags, straight line, circles. It was chaotic, both fish moved in sync with each other transitioning from one movement to another seamlessly, the more he watched the more he felt there was something more to the way they moved; while performing the different movements their paths crossed many times but they never blocked each other's paths coming awfully close but never really touching, it was captivating in the way chaos was beautiful. The other thing he noticed was the tree, its root grew deep and curved to form the floor for the lake, like a bowl, the wood cupped the water, separating it from the sand. He also noticed that the leaves of the tree looked strangely fuzzy at the edges, like each leaf was blending into its surrounding and spilling its color.
"don't stare too hard, it won't make much of a difference the longer you do so." Said Ming said from beside Gabriel "want a snack?"