The seasons shift, marking time's steady flow. Spring blooms, summer thrives, autumn blazes, and winter rests. In this rhythmic cycle, nature celebrates the passage of time, until fifteen years have silently slipped away.
Time passed by quickly, and now Ma Rue Bu is a man, even though he was never a child to begin with. According to their tribe's customs, at this age he is meant to awaken his primeval essence sea, his main storage for his future gu and primeval essence, his aperture. But he was quite nervous at the moment. 'I tried really hard not to think about it for the last 15 years, but I guess anxiety is a bitch. What the fuck is going to happen if I don't have any talent? I would even pray for a D grade talent, but please, for the love of God, I don't want to be talentless in this life too.' He was dead serious, in this cruel world, having the worst talent as a gu master is one million times better than just being a mere mortal.
"It's gonna be okay, Rue Bu. Don't worry, both your father and I are gu masters. Your chances are way higher than normal." his mother tried her best to comfort him, but even he could hear the hesitation in her voice. Even she knew what she just said was bullshit.
'Please, you both have two of the worst talents—one with a 24% primeval essence sea stuck at rank 1, and the other with 35% who is going to be stuck at rank 2 middle stage for the rest of his life.' he thought to himself while forcing a smile on the outside and saying, "Of course, Mom. I'm going to get an even higher talent than you, just watch." He wasn't very fond of how he sounded like a naive little brat, but in the eyes of his parents, he should be just that—a naive little brat.
She looked concerned for a moment but managed to restrain herself and just laughed. "Yeah? Don't come crying to me when you have a talent worse than mine then."
'This bitch.' he thought. He wasn't really going to cry if he got such a talent, but if he got none, he would absolutely shed tears of blood. "Hahaha, when did I ever come crying to you? I will never do that, I'm a man." he pretended to be an obnoxiously proud youth and retorted.
She smiled at him again. "Yes, yes, you are a big man. Now come here." she said as she came closer and closer to him.
'Fuck! Not this again!' he thought, feeling a sense of dread. "I think I'm going to be lat.."
She ignored his protest and grabbed him, hugging and kissing him on the cheek. "Now you can go."
'Ahhhhh!!!' He thought he would get used to it eventually, but in those 15 years of his new life, it always made him feel sick.
'The worst parts were in the early years, though. I never want to experience that again.' It has been a little over 15 years since he came to this world, and he has been stuck in this vicious cycle of sleeping, eating, and playing with Rue Sa. He felt very awkward about Ren Shi breastfeeding him considering his actual age, but what could he do? Just die out of hunger because he doesn't like it? Yeah, as if. The time with Rue Sa was the most humiliating thing he had ever gone through. That monster kept treating him like a baby doll—swinging, throwing, and catching him. He wanted to cry most of the time but controlled himself as it would be weird for a child to always be grumpy like an old man.
Funnily enough, the only thing that kept him sane this whole time was the voice. He got to understand it a little better, like how it had a personality of its own but didn't at the same time. For example, it couldn't formulate thoughts independently like a human being. In the whole 15 years of them both being here, it never initiated a conversation on its own but only when asked a question.
"The only exception to this was when I met it in that white space between the two worlds, and even that was after a lot of shouting and cursing on my end. And it doesn't even respond if I'm thinking of it like I'm doing right now. When it does speak, it's always in a bland way. Its pattern of speech doesn't change unless it's analyzing a lot of different stuff." He passed his "free" time like this, always thinking of this world, gu, and the voice.
"Mom, I'm already 15. Please stop kissing me like that, I'm not a child anymore." he made sure to sound embarrassed but angry at the same time, while cursing her and his luck on the inside.
'God damn it, how can a 61-year-old man like me be humiliated for 15 years like this? How did I not kill myself already?' After he said his goodbyes to his mother, he proceeded to the location of the spirit spring of their tribe.
He didn't bother asking about his father, he knew he was on a mission. 'That son of a bitch did the same thing that his wife did to me before leaving. They're trying really hard to make me run away from them like a little kid, sigh.' he grumbled in a low voice on his way to the spring. "It's kind of working, hmm?" He got startled.
"Ohh, Rue Bu! Rue Buuuuu!" He heard a very annoying voice from far behind him. He tried to quicken his footsteps, but to no avail as the streets were very busy today. Today is the awakening of the new tribe's heroes, after all. People had to prepare for the celebration with their kids tonight, well, most of them at least.
The annoying voice finally caught up to him. "Why are you running from me? Anyway, you are going to the awakening at the spirit spring, right? Right? Let's go together..."
'Well, I tried my best. I guess I will have to go with her in the end. I just hope we don't meet that other psycho.' he prayed silently and showed a smile on the outside. "What do you mean running away, Rue Lan? I didn't even know you were behind me." He deliberately didn't answer her request, holding onto a last hope that she would leave him alone.
"Oh, so that is why. Okay, let's go together then, since you're alone anyway." she said.
"Okay." he resigned to his fate, finally. 'I just hope we wouldn't cross him.' he thought. He didn't enjoy her presence, but it wasn't that bad really. They just talked like normal 15-year-old kids about their awakening, how their fathers' team managed to kill a hundred beast king, and how they couldn't wait to see the spirit spring—normal stuff really.
Ma Rue Lan is his cousin. He didn't try to run from her because she was annoying or anything—well, he saw everyone who treated him like a child as annoying, but that's beside the point. The reason why he tried to run from her was because of Ma Rue Gang, who is also their cousin, and he doesn't like Rue Bu. 'I was pretty surprised the first time we met. He was very "big" for his age, one head taller than me despite us being roughly the same age.'
Rue Gang didn't bother him in the beginning that much, really. He would just pretend to play with him whenever they were together. But one day, out of nowhere, he started to not get along with him anymore. Rue Bu was confused, not that he minded being free from his pretending, but it was out of character. And one day, he finally got it. 'When that brat punched me in the nose and said never to come close to Rue Lan again, what a fucking dumbass. You could have just told her that you like her. Not that I care, but why the fuck would you punch me for? Just for trying to act like a normal kid? That's not fair.'
"By the way, did you see Rue Gang? He said he would meet me here at the market." she said with a smile on her face, and he suppressed the urge to break that dumb fucking face to pieces.
'If I did that, I would be in even deeper waters.' he calmed himself. "No, why would I ever want to see that brute anyway." he pretended to be angry at him, although the punch he got was a month ago, he could swear he still felt it.
"Hahah, why did you guys even fight for?" she laughed at him.
"..."
"I guess you guys are having fun without me, huh?" Rue Gang said from behind them before Rue Bu could answer her.
"Oh, since when did you get here? You almost scared me." Rue Lan was a little startled.
'I thought he was just going to keep hiding there. He is really just a kid after all.' Rue Bu already saw him hiding. He was almost a soldier for his entire previous life. In front of the eyes of someone like that, it wasn't even a challenge for him to spot Rue Gang staring at them. If he really wanted to, he would have been able to dodge that punch from Rue Gang, but he chose to take it at the time. Even though he obviously trained publicly as every other kid trying to be a gu master, Rue Gang's punch was supposed to be a "surprise attack" though. So, even though they both basically trained together and fought each other multiple times, he had to take the punch. That didn't mean he didn't see it coming.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to hit you today. Let's first see what fate has in store for us, shall we?" Rue Gang said to him sarcastically, but Rue Bu didn't reply. Rue Lan just kept shouting at them to get along again, but they both ignored her.
'It would definitely be annoying if that guy gets a better talent than me. Even by 1%, he would mock me for it the rest of my life.' He didn't care about what talent Rue Lan would get. He wouldn't have cared about Rue Gang either if not for what had happened. Even so, he didn't take him that seriously, he is just a 15-year-old that thinks he is in some kind of love story.
The three of them arrived at the tribe's leader residence, which the spirit spring is located in a system of caverns under it. They saw a lot of children gathered around in the same area, and they assumed they were here for the same reason and joined them. After what seemed like forever, mainly because of these children's anxiety, which was just a little over 30 minutes, the leader of the tribe came out and stood in the middle, surrounded by them.
"Today, you will awaken your apertures, and tonight, we will celebrate your awakening. But tomorrow, tomorrow is the end of life as you know it, prepare yourself." he finished speaking and nodded at an elder, then walked away.
"Listen, children. After today, some of you will finally get to be men of our beloved Ma tribe. So prepare yourselves for the worst, as all the men of our tribe always do, if you understand then follow me." Neither the leader nor the elder explained anything further to them, not that they needed to anyway. And like that, with a lot of them puzzled about what did the leader mean, the awakening began.
The spirit spring was a beautiful, magical, and big body of water resting under the whole of the tribe leader's residence. The children didn't get to appreciate the scenery when they heard the elder shouts.
"Whoever hear their name, come over, understood?" they shouted. "Yes, sir!" responding in unison. Then the elder started shouting thier names.
"Ma An!" A very small kid stepped forward, you wouldn't believe that he was 15 if you just looked at his body. "Start walking in the spirit spring until you can't move anymore, understood?" The elder didn't even bother to explain anything and basically ordered him to do exactly what he was told.
"Yes, sir!" Ma An was very excited as he answered with enthusiasm while walking to the spirit spring with big strides. He almost started running, like a dog chasing his master, begging him for the keys to the chains around his neck, restricting his breathing and almost suffocating him to death. And his master finally notices him dying, but just looks at him in the eyes until he breathes his last breath, as if to say, "know your place." Ma An collapsed, not even making it past 4 steps.
"Ma An, 4 steps, no talent. Next is... Ma Bo!" The elder shouted again, bringing everyone back from the illusion of freedom to the hard-pressing reality of life. Ma Bo was the same as Ma An, taking 6 steps before he collapsed.
'There are 500 children here today. If we take the numbers of the previous year and apply it to this year, we should end up with almost 60% of the children awakening their aperture. If I remember correctly, last year had around the same number of people as this year, and the results of that year was: 260 with D grade, 38 with C grade, and just 2 with B grades. So we should expect roughly the same numbers. Those aren't really bad numbers, it's the average in the tribe. This is going to take much longer than I thought.' he tried to comfort himself while listening to the elder shouting "No Talent" over and over with the more common "D grade" occasionally, and the much less common "C grade", he never said "B grade" the whole time, which made him even more anxious. With his anxiety growing bigger and bigger, his thoughts turned into Total chaos, with him thinking of the worst possibility that could happen the whole time. It even reached the point were he wasn't hearing the elder clearly anymore.
The elder already shouted the name of one of his cousins, and his heart was beating so fast when he heard "Ma Rue", that he was panting hard enough, his chest almost felt like it was burning. When he managed to calme himself down just a little a lot more time has passed, and when he looked around him, everyone was looking at him.
He almost panicked again, then he heard the elder say, "Ma Rue Bu! Come and start walking."
As if his anxiety and nervousness about being discarded by the tribe weren't enough, all of them were staring at him right now with mockery, laughter, and what even seemed to him like pity in their gazes, he began to become afraid once more, not afraid of them, no, the opposite really. 'Are you going to stand here like that, again? Like in the past, and prove these new masters of yours right, like you proved the old ones?' He was afraid to prove these gazes, that came from them or maybe came from deep down inside of him, right.
So he steps forward, trying his best not to look at their gazes. He strides forward with a little more momentum, with a little more determination, he grittes his teeth and stride forward. Like that little specks of light come flying around him from everywhere, and they eventually accumulate enough to start entering and fusing with his body. His mind regains its clarity, and his thoughts finally calmed down.
'What are these... Oh, is it Hope Gu? This feeling is amazing.' Forgetting what had just happened, he lets these little specks of light enter his body while he continues to step forward. His momentum isn't thwarted, he takes step after step without thinking about anything but this "state" that he is in. "It is so... peaceful." he mutters out loud unconsciously, which bringed him back to reality. He wasn't progressing anymore, that was his limit.
"Ma Rue Bu, B grade, 79%!" the elder shouted.