After several weeks of sprinting with occasional breaks every few hours to replenish life force; he found that he was in a field of cultivated plants, a huge field at that so he reckoned it was something akin to the wheat of his world; though he couldn't tell how you would eat this plant.
After looking around he saw a cluster of wooden huts and as such began sprinting towards it in the hopes for shelter for the night.
Of course he didn't need to sleep, but he wanted to assimilate with society and learn the language as fast as possible, so he had few choices.
He had been a polyglot in his previous life, but with no frame of reference learning the language had been hard, especially since he didn't have vocal cords before he had flesh, and learning to speak anew just using the crackles of burning lifeforce had been hard to even get the sounds as he wanted them, much less the words he wanted to spell, once he got flesh he gave up on speaking without a vocal cord as it sounded inhuman and alien.
Though it seemed the magic incantations were easier to pronounce using his flame of lifeforce, something he couldn't wrap his head around.
Knocking on the door, he knocked according to his breathing rythm unconsciously.
A little girl with blonde hair and rags for clothes opened the door and said a few intelligible words before closing the door in his face.
Bewildered and curious he decided to knock again.
The same little girl with a clearly inconvenienced expression opened the door and looked at Cola in a questioning manner, saying a few words in an inquisitive tone.
Cola decided on being proactive and so pointed at his own face while saying «Cola» as if he had something stuck in his throat, after clearing his throat he repeated himself in a clear and slightly deep voice «Cola».
The litte girl went silent before pointing at Cola and said «quola?», he decided to not bother correcting her as it would probably be futile with his language skills, she probably associated his name with an item or something like that anyway.
As cola nodded the girl straightened herself into a proud pose and pointed to herself while saying «Mari!» in a decidedly adorable fashion.
After the janky self-introduction ensued several attempts of communicating using gestures and maris' name and his own in order to convey his desire for shelter for the night, after a few moments of this, there came an older lady towards the door to question why this was taking so long, was what Cola assumed.
The woman said some questioning words towards the kid and the kid responded with a few decisive words and a mention of «Quola».
A few attempts at communicating his intention later, he was brought inside one of the other huts, one filled with what could only be considered hay and he was left there alone.
After making himself somewhat comfortable on the hay, he decided to try meditating again. This time something was decidedly different, he could feel that wierd feeling he had felt in his joints while using sage feet moving out of his joints and moving around his body as if part of his blood.
Feeling creeped out he immidiately stopped and began reading through the booklet again. He noticed the drawing of the paths with these so called «limiters» coincided with a few of the paths he felt the thing moved through, so he sat down and tried again out of curiosity, and much like the paths depicted, the feeling moved through his body, though he couldn't control it, and there were a lot more paths depicted than the feeling followed. The book had referred to the feeling as a force, though it wasnt clear from the book what kind of force it was.
It also mentioned that one should have control over this force and try to break into the paths closed by the «limiters» it also mentioned another book, one that wasnt present in the library of the hermit and how that book would explain the limiters and the force in greater detail.
Cola concluded that this was how far this booklet could help him in this regard and sat down to meditate and try to control that force, to little effect. He did feel refreshed and energetic the day after though, so from then on he would meditate like it was the equivalent of sleep.
The next day he was led along and shown how to do manual labor around the farm, realizing their meaning he began working day in and day out for these farmers, all the while learning snippets of their language as best he could.
There was an issue though, little Mari had seen the way he walked and could barely contain her laughter, while that old lady and her husband had dismissed it as the actions of a lunatic. They had all apparently written him off as a dumb maniac only useful for manual labor, which undoubtedly slowed down his progress with learning the language.
He spent several years with them though, and he had noticed he could gradually excert more and more power from his muscles, something which he attributed to the farm-work.
Having learnt most of what he could learn of their language from them he decided it was time to move on to greener (and prejudice free) pastures.
He said his byes to the farmers, got half a bread in gratitude and a finger pointing out where he should go.
Mari had apparently decided to walk with him to the edge of the property before waving him off so he slowed down to her walking speed until then, having got his last directorial guiding he said his byes and left in a manner which left Mari rolling on the ground out of laughter. Though the speed at which he left was nothing to scoff at; he was faster than a horse by now, due to the farmwork and his daily meditation. It was truly a sight to behold.
But the change was too gradual for Cola to notice any peculiar difference himself.