[BOOM]
The moment his punch landed on the rock, a deafening sound rang throughout the jungle. The 25-tonne rock was obliterated into pieces. Some large pieces flew in the jungle's direction and destroyed hundreds of trees in their path.
Aariv looked at his own fist with a dumbfounded expression.
"What the fu*k" only those words came out of his mouth.
He then looked towards the campsite and even saw his horse with a dumbfounded expression. God knows how he understood a horse's expression, but he knew what that face meant.
"Aariv, when did you become so strong?" Juno asked with excitement in her voice.
"I don't know, maybe I was always this strong. I just never tested." He said.
"This is so crazy, you are already this strong at level 1 and there are supposed to be 5 more levels. Is there even a guy that can challenge you?" Juno voiced her thoughts.
"I don't know Juno, but I have a hunch that whoever I am supposed to use these powers on, must not be a human." He said with a heavy voice.
"Well, nothing good comes of overthinking, let's find our answers as we explore the world" Juno tried to motivate him.
"Thanks, Juno, for the kind words, but seriously, tell me the truth, why did you suddenly decide to change?" Aariv asked.
He felt really uneasy whenever he thought about Juno's behavioral change. There must be something going on inside her head.
Juno stayed silent for a while before speaking in a sad voice.
"I...I saw so many amazing things in TV shows and movies from my memory, everything looked so interesting and beautiful... But even if I tried to, I could not imagine what that food tasted like, what that flower-scented like, how touch felt like... how... breathing felt like.
I don't have my past life's memories, so everything is new for me. Whenever I looked at the world through your eyes, I felt jealous of you. I also wanted to feel things.
*sigh*
Actually, I lied to you Aariv... God never said that you would give me a body, he never said that our life was connected... He never said that you will die if I commit suicide. To be honest, I can't even commit suicide as I don't even have control over my own life.
It's all about you and your big conquest.
I am just a stupid system who dreamt of being alive someday. After watching you work so hard for the sake of the future, I realized my mistake and tried to forget about getting a body and focus on just helping you out.
But still, I feel jealous and angry when I see you do something new. I don't know why God gave me the ability to think... maybe... maybe I was just a mistake. I am sorry that sometimes I get excited and say mean things to you, but I am seriously trying to change..." Her crying voice reverberated in Aariv's mind.
He felt really bad for not thinking about Juno's feeling for even once. He subconsciously treated her like a system. He never thought about her words seriously.
He remembered when he went to the blacksmith shop, she said something while looking at the sunflower, it sounded like 'I wish I could touch it'. Yet he foolishly ignored her unconscious cry for help.
"I am sorry Juno, I was too dumb to see your pain.
It must feel like being in a bad prison. You can see but can't touch, feel, smell or taste.
You are not like a system Juno, because you have feelings. When I needed to get stronger to save mother from the poison, you helped me out by giving me all your Knowledge. You could have kept it to yourself to keep leverage on me, but you didn't
Sometimes, having a physical body doesn't always mean that you are living, Living is when a person can feel happy, angry... affectionate, and you have all these, you just need a body and I have already promised you that I'll find you a perfect body. It's just that I don't know how to do that right now, maybe when I level up I'll be able to do it.
So please hang in there and have some trust in me, I'll never treat you bad. You've been with me for that past 4 years(1 in the womb and 3 in real life), I believe I am not that bad of a person.
Once again, I promise you that no matter what, I will find you a perfect body. Just have some trust in me."
Aariv said with determination. He knew that he took Juno for granted all this time, but things needed to change.
"Thank You, Aariv" Juno weakly said.
Aariv stopped speaking as he felt that Juno needed some time to recover from the emotional storm she just went through. He walked back to the campfire that was about to extinguish and put some more wood in it. He laid down with his back resting on the boulder.
He looked at the starry sky, at millions of twinkling stars and thought that some of them probably have civilizations more advanced than current humans.
He felt that there was a long way ahead before he could accomplish his goal of stopping the war permanently.
He didn't need to sleep because of the energy manipulation ability, but at the moment he had nothing else to do so he decided to sleep.
...
The next morning,
It was 5 in the morning and the sun had started to rise. The fire had extinguished and Aariv was still asleep.
But then he felt something wet touching his face so he opened his eyes slowly. He jumped up seeing the horse licking his face. The horse saw that Aariv had woken up so it went back to eating nearby grass.
"Argh, Your teeth need to be brushed, your breath smells like shi*," Aariv said as he wiped the horse's smelly saliva off his face.
[Neigh] the horse made a sound as if it understood Aariv.
He stood up and stretched his body. It was mid-May so the weather was neither hot nor cold, just perfect for an outing.
"Juno, what's up?" He decided to check on her.
"Oh, nothing. I saw something awesome last night and I think you can also do that attack too, it was called Kamehameha," She said excitedly.
"Oh! And what does it look like?" Aariv asked interestingly.
"You shout the attack's name and a powerful blue beam comes out of your hand, wait let me show you"
Juno showed scenes of Kamehameha wave in his mind. He was really impressed with its destructive power.
"Let's try it out," Aariv said as he prepared to try.
"YES!" Juno exclaimed.
He knew that it was all about energy manipulation, so he channeled the natural energy into his body and prepared to release it in one go.
He combined his palms to make a bowl and prepared to push it forward to release all the natural energy in his body. He did as he saw in the memory, but nothing happened.
"Nooo, wrong... you need to scream too," Juno complained.
"How's that gonna help?" Aariv said he doubted that the screaming helped.
"Just try it out man" She nagged.
*Sigh*
He repeated his actions once again, but this time he was screaming too.
"Kaaaa....Meeeee...Haaaa...Meeee...HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
"Oh nooooo, why didn't it work?" Juno said.
"Maybe I am too weak, I can't even materialize the energy, so making a destructive beam sounds even more impossible," Aariv told her of his thoughts.
"Yes... Yes, you need to get stronger, I trust you," Juno said excitedly.
When Aariv heard her words he felt like there was a hidden meaning behind her words. He smiled and picked up his stuff from the ground.
Aariv looked at the direction of the horse, he saw that the horse was also looking at him while chewing grass. He saw the horse's eyes and felt that it was looking down on him.
He went near the horse and spoke to it "Can you understand me?"
He didn't have much expectation, but to his surprise, it nodded its head. Aariv's mouth twitched a little when he thought that the Horse just saw him speaking to himself and jumping around like a monkey.
~He must think that I am retarded or something.~ Aariv thought to himself.
"HAHAHAHA..." Juno laughed.
Aariv and the Horse were looking at each other's faces like they were trying to understand what the other party was thinking.
"Use your telepathic ability to connect your mind, maybe then you'll be able to talk to him," Juno suggested.
"Good suggestion," Aariv praised.
He then used telepathy and sent a hello to it.
The horse seemed surprised to hear a voice inside his head so he looked left and right.
"Who's there?" the horse spoke in its mind.
"No need to be afraid, it's just me," Aariv said.
For the first time, Aariv saw what a surprised horse looked like. Its eyes were wide open and jaw dropped.
"You... You can understand me?" The horse tried to confirm it.
"Yes, I have an ability that allows me to talk to others in their mind," Aariv simply explained.
"Ummm... So what now?" horse said, as it lost interest in talking to Aariv.
Aariv felt irritated with the horse's attitude, but still stayed calm.
"I don't want you to tell anyone about anything related to our journey and in return, I'll tell the caretakers to give you more tasty food," Aariv said.
"Well, I can promise to not tell Ketu(the horse talking guy) and my other brothers, but am gonna need something more physical than just your blank words. I don't trust you humans," Horse proudly said.
"Wait, can other horses also speak?" Aariv was shocked.
"Uhh... You stupid humans think that only you can talk. Because you can not understand other animals does not mean they can't speak. We animals have a common language that we learn while growing up. But still, there are many other animals that cannot speak because they are too dumb."
Aariv's jaw dropped to the floor, his whole world view changed. Animals could understand humans, but humans could not understand them. Even in 3500 A.D., no one had discovered this.
"And what do you mean by something physical?. You want money?" Aariv asked.
"Yeah, I want money because I don't trust you" Horse was still going on about not trusting him.
"Okay, okay, here you take this"
Aariv took out a silver pana from his pocket and showed it to the horse, but the horse whacked his hand with its head.
"Huh, Who do you think I am? give me the shinier one or else say goodbye to your reputation in the city's animal community." The horse started to blackmail.
"You know what, I am gonna fuc***g behead you right here, right now. I am a prince, nobody's gonna ask me what happened to a stupid horse." Aariv said with an evil grin as he pulled out his sword.
The horse really got scared after hearing that "Wait, master wait... I was just kidding... I love humans"
Aariv aimed at the horse and slashed his sword. He missed by an inch because the horse started running away.
"Come here you little shi*, you wanted to extort money from me ha?" Aariv said as he ran after the horse with a sword in his hands.
"Hahahahaha... Oh my god...Hahaha, my non-existent stomach hurt...hahaha..." Juno started laughing delightfully.
Aariv smiled when he heard Juno's laugh. He was just messing around with the horse to make Juno's mood happy. Now that everything was normal he ventured into the jungle.
But there was a problem now. He had no idea where that stupid horse ran off to.