Kaian's steps echoed around the forest. His feet moved rhythmically, crossing distances. His eyes, however, empty, not in this time and place. He was thinking about what he did to the villagers. To Cole, to Wod. Did they all die? Did they survive, agonizing over the deaths of their families and the unveiling of their false idol?
His feet stopped and his hands shot up to his head. He desperately tried to not think about his sins - he couldn't. The faces of the people he left to die floating up in his mind. Kaian needed a distraction, fast. Vexastone could repair physical injury, despite of that, mental damage was outside its expertise.
Fates were kind this time, the forest thinning, revealing stretches of land. The sun shone everywhere, tickling him. The green landscapes overwhelmed Kaian's eyes and for the first time in the days of his travels, the torturing thoughts stopped. A new beginning was coming.
Kaian strolled across the plains, taking in the fresh air. His mind empty, foolish. His face sporting a smile of the same foolish degree. His dark experiences buried in the back of his memory, intentionally forgotten, suppressed.
Before this unhealthy method of coping could continue any longer, burying the memories even deeper, clouds hid the sun. It was fast, rain following soon after.
As the drops of water splashed on Kaian's face, they woke him up. He was no longer mindlessly walking. His rational side finally took over, clearing his head. Kaian took a deep breath. This was dangerous! He was already lucky that no animal on the level of the lake demon jumped at him.
He had to make plans on what to do now, he had to survive! And so Kaian directed his mind into thinking about his next move, ignoring the villagers, leaving the memories about them buried.
"I need to become stronger or get enough money to compensate for the lack of power. Then, I need to get ready for the eventuality of losing Vexastone yet again. Lastly, I need to learn how to read."
Kaian thought about the way to accomplish his goals and came up with one surefire way.
"I have to get to a city."
A city has people, people have skills, skills are what he needs. A brilliant plan. The problem was money, Kaian doubted that anyone would teach him for free. At least he didn't need food, that would be an unnecessary expense.
How would he get money, though? The only thing he could think of was playing Azir and cheating with the inventory trick. He already purchased a space for a ball so it would be pure profit.
However, Kaian didn't think that playing some gambling game with villagers would be extremely profitable. At most, he'd get enough to.. - Well, he didn't know. Not much, probably.
"Haaaaah, why does it have to be so complicated?" Kaian grumbled.
"No point in thinking about this when I have no idea about Kecralon yet. I will make a decision when I reach the city. There will definitely be opportunities then."
Kaian sighed, shook his head and went on his way. It didn't take long before another idea popped into his head. He took out the flower he stole from the demon and looked at it, his eyes shining.
"I just need to sell this thing! It's definitely unordinary and will fetch a high price!" Kaian tried to suppress his laugh and failed. It started ringing around the plains, pure and joyful.
"HAHAHAhahaha.. Hah.. ha"
His laughter faded when he realized that he was just some random bozo who had a rare plant. And said plant most likely took its nutrients from dead people. They wouldn't let him go away with money peacefully. Kaian hasn't read that many cultivation novels but he knew that this was asking for trouble.
A young master would pop out of nowhere, take this treasure for little to no coins and send some elder after Kaian. Sure, reality wasn't a cultivation novel, but that didn't mean something similar wouldn't happen.
Kaian's shoulders slumped, dejected at his plan being ruined, before rising again.
"I am going to regret this…" he groaned, his hand with the flower rising to his mouth.
CHOMP
Kaian took a bite out of the fruit-looking part! He swallowed it and took another bite immediately, as if afraid that someone would steal it. The flower disappeared in a flash, even the roots got consumed.
Kaian ate something strange again.. Did he have a thing for putting items in his mouth? Whatever, it worked well for him so far and he always had Vexastone to fall back on.
He looked at his body for anything that could've changed. Nothing. He tried using a superpower or casting a spell, still nothing. He didn't feel any different. Kaian was about to mourn the waste of a precious plant before his body started tingling.
He felt like there wasn't blood pumping inside him. As if it was a syrup, forcing its way through his veins, tearing them apart. Oddly, it didn't hurt as much as you'd think from a description like that. Kaian felt extremely calm, in fact. Too calm. Like this wasn't his body and he was an observer.
Was it really his body anyway? With the amount of times it got replaced, repaired, by vexastone, could it still be considered as such?
His thoughts got interrupted by a certain phenomenon happening to his skin. It started getting a blue-ish hue similar to the plant. He was turning into a smurf!
Although it might sound pretty funny, it didn't feel like that for Kaian. Blue tinge is a sign of a lack of oxygen, though, that wasn't the case here.
Normally, he would've changed forms already, but his detached perspective refused to do so. He didn't seem to be dying and he could recover anyway, why shouldn't he wait a bit more?
And he waited, he waited until his body started bloating, he waited until it started cracking, he waited until he caught on blue fire, he wai- oh shit, he's on fire! Thankfully, this was too much, even for the cold Kaian.
[Vexi, Snail.]
The moment he transformed, his head cleared up and he realized what he had done. He grew horrified at the thought of the process finishing. Kaian didn't know what would've happened and he was glad about it.
"Better to not know than to experience it first hand." Kaian exhaled sharply. But even though he said that, he was very curious about it. Curious enough to go looking for the answer the moment he gained access to some library.
[Vexi, Human.]
"11:59:32"
Not surprising, he literally changed colors. In fact, Kaian was surprised that it wasn't even more. That degree of damage… Well, whatever, Vexastone carries as always.
And at this point Kaian realized that he has been depending on the stone a bit too much. The goal of becoming more Vexastone-free just shot up in terms of importance. Kaian tried to work on a solution since he had some free time and failed miserably. It would have to wait until he had more resources.
[Ahhh, this is so frustrating!]
Kaian wanted to punch something and it resulted in his snail body shaking. This made him even more furious and he wanted to punch something again. And so, he continued to be stuck in this loop until the 12 hours were over.
Ok that might be over exaggerated. He just went to sleep since he had nothing better to do. When he woke up, it was night. He changed back into a human and checked his body.
His skin turned back into the usual color and he wasn't on the verge of exploding so he guessed that everything was normal now. Too normal, actually. He wouldn't have minded an ability.
At least he wasn't dead, that was neat. He wasn't even tired because of his snail nap and he finally continued on his way.
The landscapes changed and despite the beauty of the land, Kaian started feeling exhausted mentally. He yearned for human contact, he wanted to sleep on a bed, not on the cold, hard ground.
Even worse was the filth. Kaian wasn't some germaphobe, but staying clean was certainly appreciated. This resulted in what he felt like was constant mental torture. It rained often too, so the filth wasn't dust he could wash off.
Kaian had two theories on the rain; it poured way too often. The first one was simple - rainy season. He used to live in a place where there wasn't anything like that so he couldn't be sure. Nonetheless, it was an option. The second hypothesis was a bit more complicated.
It was based on the color blue. This one color was very abundant for some reason, he saw blue trees, the tomb was blue and even the plant - and him for a while - was blue. This couldn't be a coincidence. Blue is also associated with water. What is rain? Yeah, exactly. Water.
And that crazy old man from the tomb did some wild stuff with a water-like substance.
This led him to think that it was done artificially. Maybe some ultra powerful mage is casting a spell and changing the world. How cool was that? Kaian wished he could know how it worked and learn it himself. That was if it was really a spell, of course.
Kaian's thoughts wandered even further than his feet took him. They wandered so much they got back to earth. They wandered so much they nearly missed a village that appeared on the left. This one being way bigger than a certain previous one.
It was of much higher quality too, the houses were colored - mostly blue, of course - and a few were even built from stone. There were some signs of roads and the people didn't dress like beggars. Literally heaven. A small problem was that Kaian was the one looking like a beggar now. His clothes looked more like rags with dirty spots and tears.
His hair was long, falling to his shoulders, so filthy you couldn't even see its previous blonde color. In short, he looked embarrassing. There was no other choice but to hope there would be a bath.
Thankfully, he won some money from Azir already. The problem was that he'd have less money to bet on more games. As he thought about this, he recalled an interesting fact from Earth. All gamblers decide to stop one game away from winning Bazillion Trillion dollars.
Kaian chuckled at it and stepped to the village with confidence. It was time for an actual new beginning.
He neared the gate and was stopped by two soldiers in, what looked like, iron armor.
"Halt! Do you carry any weapons?" The taller soldier asked. He had a rough beard and his eyes were sharp, the typical warrior. Kaian didn't feel very intimidated due to his previous encounters and replied with a no.
The soldiers were clearly asking out of protocol and weren't intending on checking, or touching him at all for that matter, so they let him inside.
And there he was, dirty and smelly. But inside. Inside a village. Inside civilization.