Chapter 007 - The elderly Man

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Standing before Alex Johnson right now was a disheveled and vagrant elderly man who was clad in a raggedy brown garment whose initial color should have been pure white, and his grey hair was filled with bits of flower seeds and small twigs from trees and the woods.

It was as if the old man just came out of a jungle.

Seeing this elderly man, Alex suddenly looked stomped for a while, then a bright and foolish grin appeared on his face as if the old man was his long lost friend, completely forgetting his troubles for a second, then suddenly, he sighed pitifully with a nostalgic expression on his face.

Before two years ago, when their circumstances hadn't gotten this worst, Alex and his grandmother were always able to eat their fill every day despite their struggles. However, ever since he knew this old man which was ten years prior, he was always homeless and extremely impoverished.

Because of how pitiful he felt the old man's life to be, Alex always made sure to sneak food out of their house back then to give the old man.

Because of this, Alex had been punished times without numbers by his grandmother, however, he doesn't stop and rather continued.

In addition to that, Alex consistently divided his savings in half to purchase items for the elderly man that he deemed necessary, such as clothing, shoes, soaps, creams, and more, once or twice every year then, despite Shana's anger, sulking, unhappiness, and selfish actions. This continued for six years until the elderly man unexpectedly vanished.

It was the year of Alex's high school graduation then that the old man suddenly vanished without a trace despite Alex Johnson's frantic efforts to locate him. However, before his disappearance, the old man posed a grave question to Alex if he would like to become his pupil.

Back then, Alex had laughed the old man off and mocked him, thinking he was only joking around and being mischievous again, but the old man, in his still utter solemnity had ended up trying to convince Alex by telling him a fantasy story which Alex felt he must have taken out of a novel and doesn't believe even slightly.

The old man had narrated solemnly to Alex then that he wasn't from the mortal world, that he was in fact, an extremely powerful being on the edge of a major breakthrough from the immortal world, and he had only descended into the mortal world mainly because he was in search of a student and a successor who would take after his rein before his breakthrough and ascend into a higher world which was countless time powerful than his world.

Even till now, despite all that has changed, every time Alex remembered this story and the utterly serious expression on the Old man's face as he narrated it then, resembling an old swindler, he'd gaggle crazily to himself.

So right now, gazing at the old man who hadn't changed at all even after all these years, apart from looking dirtier in the garment he had bought for him for one Christmas, Alex smiled brightly again.

"Old man," he suddenly called out enthusiastically the only name he had been calling the old man ever since he knew him after he finished recalling the old memories.

"I thought you'd died somewhere and some lions had eaten your corpse after all these years, but look at you, healthier and dirtier."

He mocked jovially despite his own pitiful look, but the old man, as if he doesn't hear Alex's sarcastic words, he wasn't angry at all, not even a bit, instead, a huge grin abruptly covered his aged face.

"Little Alex, have you forgotten I'm an immortal? How could I die that easily?" He questioned playfully and also seriously, but the response he got from Alex was only eye-rolling.

Still, though, the old man acted as though he doesn't see Alex. He continued smiling brightly at the same pace.

"Actually, I've been looking at you and studying you all these years, and I must comment," the old man's face suddenly became filled with fatherly love and affection, gazing unblinkingly at Alex, while Alex's face changed slightly, but before he could comment, the old man continued.

"You've done great and have tried a lot these past years. I must say, ever since a million years ago I left the immortal world and have been roaming about and searching the upper, medium, and lower worlds, I've never seen anyone able to endure even forty percent of what you've endured without giving up.

Alex instantly swallowed slightly, then he abruptly became emotional, looking as if he has finally found someone who understood him.

For a moment there, he suddenly felt that he might really break down, well, it wasn't that he believed most of the old man's nonsense, though, which destroyed what should have been an extremely emotional moment for him.

"Old man, I hope you've realized I'm not a little kid anymore, right?"

Alex couldn't help but ask after looking emotionally for a while before rolling his eyes at the old man helplessly. "Could you stop with your nonsense already?"

He suddenly shook his head and sighed heavily before looking serious. "See, I'm actually in a hurry right now, so, could you-"

Just as Alex was saying this, his cell phone began to ring, interrupting what he was saying, then Alex abruptly removed it from his pocket and the moment he saw the caller, his face changed greatly.

"Please, could you give me just more time, I'm still gathering th-"

"Mister Alex!" Alex was interrupted by the caller. "Could you please come to the hospital as soon as possible? your attention is needed here urgently!"

The moment Alex heard the urgency in the caller's voice, his breathing almost stopped completely, but before he could return to his senses and start asking questions, the call was disconnected from him.

'What… what… what… what must… must be that… that urgent?'