Stoneson felt like he was going to explode, and so did he. Bang! Stoneson shivered. A loud explosion sounded, but it didn't come from the surroundings, it actually came from inside of him. What's this? He asked no one in particular , in his mind. Almost immediately, he heard a voice, "You have breached your first bottleneck, affinity with element awoken. Type: lightning!" The words shook Stoneson to his core.
At this juncture, the man's jaw almost dropped as he watched Stoneson's body gradually charging with lightning. It looked as if the wolf's lightning wasn't affecting him anymore, instead they seemed to complement each other. One serving as a grinding stone for the other and vice versa.
The lightning engulfed Stoneson and the lightning wolf for hours on end. It was already morning by the time the duo regained clarity of their minds and acknowledged the fact that they have been in the meditative state for over eight hours!
"Rumble, rumble!"
The duo's stomachs rumbled at the same time. The knight couldn't help but sigh, he knew that after that encounter, the wolf cub and the little boy would be inseparable.
His own pet, that he had had for its entire life is now getting more attached to a stranger, someone it met just a few hours prior! What treason!
Stoneson saw the deep shit he was set to be in so he did his best to quench the raging flames, "uhm sir I know how much this thing means to you but you know it's not my fault, I only saw something that needed help and I helped it. It's not my doing that it wants to repay me for what I did earlier. It's its own deci..."
"I'll kill you if you call my little girl an IT again, she is a SHE, do you get that? I'm not letting you anywhere near my girl if you can't simply see her as a living being with flesh and blood like you."
The knight flew into a rage, this showed how much love flows through the knight's veins for the cub.
"Okay sir, this makes me so emotional
, with the extent to which you love her, I promise to love and protect her like myself. You'd never regret to leaving this adorable thi...girl in my care!"
Stoneson saved himself just in time to make the pissed knight halt his fist that was headed his way. His head would have been blown to a bloody pulp had he completed that abominable sentence.
That was especially true since even after hanging the punch, the strong gale that raffled Stoneson's clothes and hair was enough to push him a whooping ten meters back before allowing him to fall on his butt!
Stoneson now understood the meaning behind true monstrous strength. Forget that he meant him no harm, the man could have killed him without breaking a sweat, it will take no more than just a disapproving look to end his pitiable life!
Anybody that looked at this fist right under their nose would definitely feel intimidated but that wasn't Stoneson, he was no pushover, that's why he had come to brand himself as an anomaly, it was true since instead of coating in front of challenges, he was brought eyed and bushy tailed.
Looking at the world sized fist just an inch away from his face, he had an insanely idiotic idea. He wanted to test his limits didn't he? If that was the case, why would he be daft enough to let this golden egg laying goose flee from his sight?
Here was a powerhouse right in front of him, which other situation could be more convenient?
He didn't even notice that he had started grinning from ear to ear like an idiot who just had his first kiss. Looking at the smiley faced boy, the knight couldn't help but take a wild guess, "what's he thinking?"
He had but one idea, just that it was too unrealistic so he quickly discarded it.
"My thoughts exactly, it is as you are thinking sir."
Stoneson said, reading the knight's mind, "scrawny puny little imp, don't bite off more than you can chew!" The guardian knight bellowed, how could he not be mad when the kid just insulted him?
"You worthless brat, do you think you can..." The words had to be withheld so that he would be able to dodge Stoneson's punch. "Let's wager then, if you last a second, you win. How about that?"
"What sort of a wager is that? What do I get if I'm able to survive three minutes?"
Guardian knight's eyes almost popped out of its sockets, for this ant to stand in front of an elephant and proclaim to such astronomical heights that he can hold his ground, there is something wrong somewhere.
There is this old adage that says, "a rat playing a jest with a cat has seen a hole nearby." The guardian knight didn't know where the boy got his seemingly stupid courage from but he didn't care whatsoever, after all in the face of absolute power, no cheap tricks should work.
He was just going to beat him to a pulp, so bad that he would have to be carried in a bundle out of the training platform, and all under a sec!
But first of all, there was something that needed to be done, "okay, if you last one minute, I'll entrust spider into your hands without dilly dally. If you last two minutes, I'd give you something priceless in addition to having spider as a companion.
If you last a second more than two minutes, I'll make you heir of the virtual jungle, so you become the next in line to be the guardian knight!" The knight finished stating the terms and readied himself to pummel the little weasel in under a microsecond.
"Wait! Wh..wh..what i..if I l...last ten minutes?!" Stoneson at this juncture felt like slapping himself for having a lofty goal he could never in his wildest dreams hope to achieve but he remained calm.
"Haha! Although it's impossible, I'll still tell you anyway, if that happens, which never could..." The knight paused and rubbed his temple as a telepathic message reached him from Godfather Zayn, ..."your mission to survive for a month would be deemed accomplished plus all my other terms still apply plus, you get your own luxury apartment on the floating island of Godfather Zayn, which means you earn the right to be his firsthand disciple, skipping the entrance examination and being assigned to the first class freshers' study block!"
Stoneson's eyes almost popped out of their sockets after hearing all those things up for grabs, the statement he made earlier about last ten minutes was just a speculation but heading all that he could receive, his pupils were literally replaced with stars as he resolved tho give it a shot.
As he was thinking, the guardian in night interrupted him, "incoming!" It was then and only then that Stoneson felt the pressure that locked him rooted to the spot from the incoming blow, he knew he had no hope of evading since the punch seemed to lock space itself within it, well well well, the most interesting part is that inability to dodge mattered little to him since he wants even planning on evading!
He made his decision in a split second, he took a step back with his right foot and curled his right fist, gathering momentum in his upper body to propel the right arm to meet the punch! "A frontal collision? Idiot!" That was what was in everybody's mind, from the elders watching from the old antique mirror to the guardian knight himself.
Stoneson didn't bother with anything else, he was too focused as he aimed with surgical precision at the incoming fist, itching to see the result of the clash. It turned out fate had something different in store for him though, the punch headed for him wasn't even real, it was just a clone of the actual attack that was headed for his chest, far from what the clone fist was proclaiming, the head.
His fist hit the illusory fist and it dissipated like a camphor does when at the same time, something hit his chest with the speed and force of a bullet train.
"Poooof!"
He heaved up blood as he shot through the air like a cannonball, smashing through and breaking trees without reprieve, his chest had caved in and he could not control his body mid-air. He could only hope one tree would be tenacious enough to stop his horizontal flight.
After what seemed like eternity, he hit one slightly harder tree and broke it, he didn't go further though as he slid down it's trunk and fell to the ground. Before anyone could utter a word,
"Bang!"
The tree snapped and collapsed on him, burying him under its rubble, a mushroom cloud of dust was formed.
"Yep! That's it, there's no way he could have survived that is there?" Everybody thought it was over, even the myself until, the dust settled and the rustling of leaves reached everyone's ear.
"Cough! Cough!"
"Is he dead? That can't be, he should have been transported out had that been the case, surely he can't be okay from that pun..."
A hand shot up from under the debris, bruised, mangled, bloodied and lacerated with cuts, indicating a thumbs up! His childish voice reached their ears barely a second after, muttering a weak and simple...
"I'm okay."
"Someone tell me I'm drunk and I'm the only one seeing this." Elder Cosmos was the first to wake up from his stupor, speaking what was uppermost everyone's mind, they were just all too shocked to translate the thoughts into words.
"We're all seeing it my friend, your eyes have not gone funny, no tricks, everything you see and hear is true. The little weasel is still in the game!"