It was an awkward moment but very soon, Rudra felt a radiating energy from his heart, that covered his whole body.
'Is this energy concealing my presence?', as soon as this thought came into his mind, his eyes widened and a plan struck his thoughts.
If it was happening, Rudra needs to take advantage of this thing right now. Using his stealth skills he moved aside and came right beside that guy. But he felt as if that energy had begun to vanish with his movements.
Rudra very carefully stepped aside and prepared himself. Rudra circulated all of his kundalini in his hands as he chanted the Mantra. Rudra clenched his fist and launched his punch which was filled with tremendous power. But Rudra's launch of the black line punch caused a huge movement leading to the disappearance of all the concealing energy.
That guy was able to sense Rudra's presence and turned around immediately, noticing that powerful punch coming towards him, that guy was panic-stricken yet he reacted and swung his spear at Rudra. But it was too late as Rudra's fist had already blown off against that guy's chest.
Due to the impact of that punch, that guy was thrown back, Rudra taking advantage of the moment snatched that guy's spear from his hands, Due to the attack that guy's grip loosed upon that spear. Causing the spear to be left in Rudra's hands.
Rudra stood there as he used the spear for support as he wasn't able to stand due to losing excessive blood from his shoulder. That guy was lying on the ground a few meters away. But as he tried to get up he found a spear pointed at his neck, tightly held by Rudra.
But still, that guy tried to stand up. Noticing his movements, Rudra stabbed that spear into that guy's knees. The tip of the spear drilled through the knee muscles, that spear with such a speed hit and broke the guy's knee joint.
Rudra then turned around to see that all the practitioners of the Masaan clan, were overcoming the Skambha clan members. Rudra looked at one Masaan clan practitioner-level warrior battling against a skambha clan warrior. Rudra spins his spear and throws it towards that guy.
Tearing through the air, that spear went ahead with an incredible speed. Here that guy fighting against the Skambha clan member sensed something, he turned around and grabbed something with his hands. It was the spear that he was able to grab just a few inches away from him
But then, That guy realized that he was distracted until he could shift his focus back, and take some action as a countermeasure. The skambha clan member stabbed his sword into that guy. He stabbed that guy, and due to Rudra's help he defeated his opponent.
Rudra nodded his head and then looked towards Mayaan. This was when whilst fighting that muscular man, Mayaan faced a terrifying hit by an unknown enemy. Mayaan stumbled back a few steps and fell to the ground, that blow was too powerful.
That punch was delivered by a man completely covered in black clothes, he wore a mask which had specific patterns drawn over them. Within a second Rudra realized that this new guy came from black mask.
"So you guys even hired a few fifth-stage practitioners from the black mask, well that's an honor.", Mayaan said as he stood up again.
Suddenly two more black mask people jumped down from the nearby monuments. A total of three more people on the fifth stage practitioner level appeared on the Masaan clan's side. Rudra knew it wouldn't be so easy to defeat them, in this struggle they would lose both the crate and the outpost.
Therefore he sneakily took a few clan members at the edge-beginner level and went towards the cart while the others were busy in combat. He carefully helped the other members and Tarun to load the crates and then all of them jumped on the cart.
Except for Rudra, he picked up the spear of one member of the Masaan clan and then sneaked to the practitioner warrior of his clan he helped and asked him to protect the cart. But when Rudra was about to jump on the cart as well Tarun called out to Mayaan.
"Mayaan, come to the carts, quick!", as soon as a Masaan clan member heard this he swung his dagger at Rudra, Rudra failed to dodge in time and had to take that swing in his left arm. Rudra grabbed his left arm but then threw his spear towards Mayaan.
The black mask warrior grabbed that spear but he also succeeded in throwing it back towards Rudra, during this Mayaan prepared his special attack and hit that black mask guy, knocking him off. Hear the other practitioner warrior on the cart deflected the spear, and saved Rudra.
Mayaan helped other practitioner-level warriors of the skambha clan to get on the other carts as he engaged the opponents, on the other side Tarun grabbed the bridle of the horses tied to the cart and those horses obeying him began to run at their fullest. Following that cart, the members on the other carts moved ahead with their carts as well. Somehow running towards the carts, Mayaan was able to make it in time while he took a few hits on his back, but still, the Masaan clan members chased their carts, the skambha clan members in the carts struggled as they threw their spears at them and forced their opponents to stay back. Taking a straight and easy way to the second exit of the town, they were able to escape.
But here Rudra couldn't endure the pain anymore, he was too injured and the excessive blood loss was causing him to lose it. Very soon his vision blacked out and he collapsed right there on that cart. But Rudra felt a pain in his head even when he had fainted and at the very next moment, the same lightning talisman from one year ago appeared in front of his eyes. As soon as Rudra saw that, he went into a state of shock, he was stunned. Suddenly a lightning flashed before his eyes.
Rudra felt very dizzy and his vision was blurry as he opened his eyes the next moment to find himself lying in a huge field filled with greenery, and a mist that blocked his vision. It was the same place where that saint taught him to form pills.
Rudra again heard the noise of the movement of a large rock. He followed that sound through the mist. With the help of the noise's direction he was guided through that mist to arrive in front of the same massive stone tablet with intricate and weird carvings, that seemed to have grown out of the ground.
But as soon as he touched that tablet, again the carvings on that tablet began to shine with a luminescent light, and as Rudra had expected, when he peeked towards the tree hidden behind that stone tablet, the image of an old man formed with the particles that came out of that stone tablet.
That image of the old man looked a little shady in color as if he was a ghost.
"It's nice to see you again", the old man covered in orange and white clothes says.
But then that old man sensed something that caused his facial expressions to change.
"Great, within this period of time you were able to break through your first chakra! You are admirable."
"Thank you, if it wasn't for you who taught medicine formation to me, I would have never reached this level, sir.", Rudra thanked that saint with due respect.
"No need to thank me! If you just keep working hard like this and stay determined then you will become a very strong warrior one day, And Did you master the Rank 1 spiritual pill recipe I gave you?"
"Actually I was able to make it, but I didn't master it, because I didn't have enough ingredients to keep trying. The two important ingredients, green line flower, and spiritual somna fruit are very rare.", Rudra replied.
That saint was lost in thought as he rubbed his chin, "Hmm, maybe you should try to use the ingredients with similar properties, although you will be able to form a spiritual pill, it will be less effective than the actual one."
"Yes, sir, but there is a question that is destabilizing the peace of my mind."
"What is that?"
"Recently, when I was engaged in a battle, I felt an energy release from my heart that concealed my presence, and when I fainted due to excessive blood loss, I saw a glimpse of the lightening talisman, that depleted all my energy one year ago, then how come did I appear here?", Rudra kept his doubt.
"Ha ha ha, the lightning talisman you are talking about, is the thing you are standing inside right now.", the old saint laughed out. Rudra's eyes widened upon these words.
The old man smiled as he continued, "The talisman is right now within your heart, not physically but magically, the talisman that you think actually depleted your energy, was the one that granted you power. It was also the reason why you were able to unlock your first chakra.
"What?"
"Yes, Didn't you realize that recently, your fire elemental talent reappeared in an even better state, and you have also gotten an additional elemental talent, lightning?"
"Do you mean that this talisman did that all, then why did I become so weak?", Rudra was in awe to know all this.
"This talisman's energy was actually refining your talent sign, and forming another specific talent sign of lightning, it was also strengthening all your body cells, resulting in the disappearance of talent. It also sucked all of your cultivated kundalini, not the one you had since birth, then when you ate that mystical fruit, the talisman released all the absorbed kundalini in your heart which later circulated through your energy channels and with the pressure of cosmic energy as your kundalini increased due to this, you broke your first chakra barrier.
This all is because of that process, and the main objective was to help you unlock your first chakra..", the old saint explained. Rudra was lost in thoughts, at the beginning all the events gradually made him mad enough to believe that the lightning talisman was a curse. But now the revelations screamed out clearly that instead, that talisman had helped him as a boon.
Also, he wondered what this talisman was and the massive stone tablet inside it. The lightning talisman was really nothing more than a mystery. With all those thoughts flooding his mind Rudra asked out another question, "Sir, who are you, what is this lightning talisman actually?"