When the door of the room was opened, a man of about 30 years old, tall, muscular and with a large beard entered, which gave Abel the impression of a lumberjack in his previous life, when he saw that Abel woke up, he spoke with a great voice:
"Wow, it seems that you finally woke up son, when I found you, you were barely alive, not to mention that the amount of injuries you had already exceeded the ones I had in my life, hahahahahaha."
This mysterious person's laugh was so loud and shrill that it made Abel a little dizzy and nearly made him pass out, but it still forced his mind to race to create a compelling story.
"This is a typical situation in any novel, although I was lucky that this man found me instead of being eaten by beasts, I have yet to come up with a convincing excuse for my situation."
Thinking about it, Abel tried to shape his situation in different ways to find one that is appropriate to use.
"The only problem here is the fact that I am only 5 years old, if I was older maybe I could pretend to be a cultivator fleeing for his life from his enemies…, or maybe not, or maybe the memory loss method. , that would help me since I have no idea where I am, or what the distribution of powers is here in this lower realm. "
Concluding that opting for memory loss would be the most convincing, Abel waited for the right moment when the other party's laughter finally ended to properly address the situation.
A short time later, the stranger realized that Abel had not said a single word, so he stopped to look at him for a moment before saying:
"Ummmm, it seems that you still need to wake up completely eh, well it does not surprise me, with all those wounds you had it is already a miracle that you are still alive, you should thank all your fortune for running into me."
Noticing that it was a good time to speak, Abel decided to act the role of him appropriately, thus, with a plaintive, low and somewhat hoarse voice, he asked:
"W-Where am I?"
At this, the old man raised an eyebrow, thought for a moment before answering:
"Ummm, it seems that you also hit your head, and you forgot certain things, well, not that they interest me either, well, let me answer you child, this is a cabin that I found on the outskirts of the Couvet forest, one of the areas prohibited from this place."
"Restricted area?"
Hearing this, Abel almost wanted to curse, it should be noted that a node like the one he entered through had a fixed entrance, but a random exit, so when leaving the node, he could end up in a city, desert, plain, or any other place from this lower realm, but of all places, he had to end up unconscious in a forbidden zone, he couldn't really tell if it was good or bad luck to end up in such a place.
"Well, thinking about it, if I suddenly appeared in a city, the local authority could well have stopped me and who knows how it would have ended, although ending up in a forbidden area shows my bad luck, at least it was compensated in that this man found me and got out of there. "
Thinking this way, Abel consoled himself a bit, but he didn't think about it further before continuing with his performance.
"Couvet forest? Where is that? Argh, my head hurts"
Seeing the boy's reaction, the old man nodded to himself, before placing his hand on Abel's head.
"Ummm, I don't find anything strange with your body, your wounds are improving rapidly, it seems that you really hit your head, memory loss I suppose? Even though there are no children of your age in a forbidden zone and even less without a crop. support you, although your physical body is amazing, it healed your wounds quickly."
Noticing that he managed to sneak in his little lie, Abel sighed in relief, although he trusted this old man a little because of the fact that he saved him and took him out of that "forbidden zone", he was not so gullible to the point that he would blindly trust him, for which began to think about his next course of action.
"I don't know anything about this place, so going on my own could be suicide, for now, maybe the most reasonable thing would be to stay with the old man or ask him to tell me the address of the nearest town, and then start there, not to mention that I already want to start cultivating, not having strength in a place and world like this is a sin."
Without having any knowledge about the place he was in, Abel could not travel like a headless fly, he needed to at least know the area he was in, nearby towns and even the cultivation levels of the area, only then would he have a minimum of protection and self-preservation.
The old man on the other hand had no idea what was going on in the boy's mind, rather, he wondered what he should do with him, when he found him, he thought that he should be the young master of some powerful family or sect, with what which when rescuing him would give him a great reward, what he did not expect was that the boy seemed to have lost his memory, so he was now debating whether to take him back to his village or not.
The old man thought for a few moments before sighing to himself.
"Well, since it took me so much effort to rescue him, I can't leave him here in this place and let him die, also maybe after a while he will recover his memory, with which I can help him return to his family and be rewarded for it, yes, for the moment, I will take him to the village."
Thinking like this, the old man did not hesitate any longer, so he quickly told the boy.
"Since you do not remember anything, I will take you to the village for the moment, at least until you recover your memory, but first, rest and finish recovering."
Saying this, the old man did not wait for the boy's response and went to the exit, but not before turning and saying something to the boy:
"By the way, my name is Ben, but you can address me as old Ben, everyone in the village does."
And saying this the old man, or, rather, old Ben left the room leaving Abel speechless.
"Hahahaha, I didn't expect this old man to be so authoritarian, he didn't even ask my opinion and decided everything on his own."
Abel was a bit speechless by this, but he also calmed down a bit, the old man would take him to a village, so gathering information from there would be easier for him.
"Thinking about it like this, the old man did me a favor, besides it seems that he is the straightforward type, people like that tend less to lie, so he should rest easy for now."
Feeling the burning and itching in his wounds, Abel decided to rest for the moment and recover as soon as possible, after all, you never know when trouble knocks on the door.
It was only until the fifth day that Abel made a full recovery, in part it was thanks to his body condition that he managed to recover quickly, the rest was the help of the old man with the occasional concoction that helped him accelerate the recovery of his body, in addition During that time, he managed to gain important information about the place he had come to from his conversation with the old man.
"According to the old man, I am in a place called the Azure continent, specifically in Nill County, in the southern part of it and just outside the Couvet Forest."
"The old man belongs to a small village within this county, and those who rule him are 3 sects, who apparently from time to time recruit new disciples according to their talent."
Remembering the information he obtained from the old man, Abel began to weigh his options.
"First of all, I am concerned that the old man's village from what he told me is so close to a 'forbidden zone', which is the Couvet forest, but I suppose I will have to investigate that later, now regarding the sects. , there are many of them in this county, but the hegemons are three, I suppose it must be because their teachers or elders must have a very high cultivation, with which the others can only kneel before them. "
Another aspect that surprised Abel was the fact that they all seemed to cultivate, in reality, Abel expected to find a situation where noble families of common mortals existed with the occasional cultivator, as he read in Kunlun about the lower realms, but when It seems the situation in this was very peculiar.
"All the people here seem to cultivate or have knowledge of it, which is very different from what I read in Kunlun, which leaves me 2 options, or this county of Nill, is a prosperous area with high spiritual qi, so that everyone here cultivates, or is there something else I'm missing."
Because the ancients sealed his heavenly path, Abel couldn't sense the amount of spiritual qi in the environment, so he couldn't give a clear answer to his thoughts.
"Forget it, I'll put that issue aside for the moment, rather, now that I've fully recovered, I should find a suitable place to see if the ancient range manual can indeed help me cultivate."
Thinking about this issue, Abel felt somewhat anxious, although Daniel told him that with his help it should be possible for him to cultivate again, without confirming it himself, Abel would not be calm.
"I guess it's time to go to that village, once there, I'll find a good place to start farming."
Reaching that conclusion, Abel got up from the bed in which he stayed for more than five days and went out to look for the old man.