Ch 3 | Awakening

After Genus climbed the tree that Hope ascended onto, he could see way farther than the unending jungle of despair reached, and as he saw a mountain amidst the sea of trees, Hope entered his heart again.

"With hope in my heart, doubt may vanish and despair won't be endless, I shall journey to the mountain of discovery!"

"In my pursuit of Purpose discovery will be the most important!"

---

Thia already walked through half the pond, her expression remained mostly unmoved with just the smallest amount of strain perceivable.

"Not even the Xiang super clan would have such talents!"

"Over 50 steps! She will definitely reach the rumored demi-immortal realm!"

"Imagine having a demi-immortal like those super clans supporting us, we'd be the locally strongest clan, what can the Zhuj and Fu Peng clan even do then?!"

"Locally? Hehe, we might even be able to rival some of these super clans!"

As the elders excitedly mused about the possibilities of what would happen to their clan if they got a demi-immortal power supporting them, the head elder started to frown.

'What will happen if one of those super clans ever figures out that we are hiding such a talent? They would destroy our clan in the worst case, just to for a single talent! The world is so unfair, for a single person can be worth more than a whole clan!'

'It might be better to sell Thia to them and at least receive plenty of compensation-'

While this new kind of commotion broke out behind her, Thia never ceased to move, step after step, she came closer to the end of the pond, she had walked 67 steps now!

Though now she was bathed in sweat, and every step she took was heavy, even the waves, in the crystal clear aratra, that her movements caused seemed to grow.

But she kept persevering and reached 70 steps before she finally stopped to take a deep breath.

After a short while she did her last step, now getting assaulted by about 868 times the aratra purity of the very first step, it was finally too much for her.

With every step, the aratra's purity would increase by ten percent of the previous step's purity.

And with that much strength the aratra was now raging inside her internal pond!

At her seventy-first step she finally fainted.

---

Darkness.

'Darker than the night.'

'Where am I?'

A frown.

'Who am I?'

"Hello? Is there anyone?"

Absolute silence.

Then a deep breath.

'Seems like there is no one.'

'So, how do I get out of this endless darkness?'

At this moment something moved beside her.

~You wake up! This is how you get out!~

A slightly squeaky voice suddenly spoke up.

As she looked at where the voice came from, she saw a small golden core hovering in front of her, it was shining in bright golden light.

"Are you Wake Up?"

~I am Wake Up!~

Wake Up happily chirped.

"I hoped to meet you, that means future events will probably continue the way they did. Could you turn down the shine a bit?"

As it dimmed its golden light it couldn't help but ask,

~Tell me, what is your name?~

Silence for just a moment.

"Thia Fan Yang."

Her eyes glinted, she remembered.

~Okay Thia, do you still want to get out?~

The friendly core spoke.

"No-"

"-Please help me find Hope first!"

~Oh silly Thia, Hope was inside you all along!~

She smiled, "I just wanted to make sure."

"Now in truth, you only reach out to people who already have hope in their heart, right?"

~You are a weird one, Thia, knowing thyself without even having to Wake Up~

~I have only met six other humans with that ability~

Thia decided to ignore the core clearly playing deaf to her question.

"Oh? Can you tell me more?"

Wake Up shook left to right.

~No, but you will learn the truth soon enough, now you should go, or let the endless dark consume you, if you so prefer~

"You already want to get rid of me?"

"-I'd rather have the possibility to meet those other humans."

~Oh, that will be difficult, for they lived long ago, but it might be possible~

~Now you should Wake Up!~

"We will see each other agai-"

---

She came back to her senses on her seventy-first step again, as she turned around, the elders started cheering in joy.

"I can't believe we have such a talent in our clan!"

"We need to nurture her with all our resources, even if that means less for the other youths."

She smiled at them, but secretly she thought to herself, 'This time I better keep my initiate core secret-"

"-Or they will find out about my crippled aratra spring!'

Innerly she smiled sardonically.

'Though this is for the better, even if it will be a lot harder to cultivate!'

'I will be able to receive a lot of resources from the clan before that geezer over there tries to sell me!'

She sneered as she looked at the head elder, but quickly hid her true emotions lest someone got suspicious of her.

They were already on edge enough, by having two great talents in a single year, it might be impossible for even the whole clan to bring her so far, but what about other clans?

Sooner or later the elders would also end up with that conclusion and then they would agree with the head elder, selling her for ample rewards!

She clearly didn't want this to happen and there was only one way to prevent this, grow strong enough before they would inevitably try to sell her in half a year and leave if possible!

If it wasn't possible for her to leave she had to use more forceful methods, with her memories of her past life, it was easy for her to fight across ranks, as long as she had the right resources.

In the meantime, she would need to quickly find a way to mask her defective aratra spring!

'Not an easy feat, but possible with my future knowledge, I just have to be fast so that I can start cultivating my human core.'

If they found out, they would sell her immediately!

--- After the ceremony, inside the head elders abode. ---

Thia, the head elder, and a few other elders sat on one giant round table.

The head elder sat on the place of honor, facing east with Thia right next to him on his right side, the place to his left was empty.

'The head very clearly wants to show me my worth to him and the clan, even going as far as placing the other elders in seats of lower status away from him!'

Her brother was also present, but he sat in the least prestigious seat, and with one glance Thia could see he was internally fuming.

'Oh brother, if you weren't so terrible at hiding your expression, you would have sat to the head's left-'

She threw him a smile and shook her head, causing him to nearly faint from anger.

Then she glanced at the head elder, she knew what was going through his head, being in a situation that may cost him his head.

Though even she couldn't see a single flaw in his expression with her three centuries of experience, she sighed.

'This old geezer here is a real sly fox, with his talents he should maybe do theatre-'

'The next half year won't be easy, with them keeping a close eye on me, I'd rather have a smaller aratra pond and not walked those 71 steps, though then I wouldn't even be in this conundrum.'

'The heavens always prioritize balance!'

'Well, now I definitely know that my defective aratra spring wasn't caused by the heavens, at least not directly, but by my initiate core!'

'If being able to go back in time even once is gonna cost me my aratra spring, then I am still willing to make that sacrifice! But as far as my hypothesis goes, because my initiate core is the -time cascade traveler- and I receive it as soon as I awaken, this should mean that I can theoretically reincarnate indefinitely!'

'If it wasn't for me not knowing how to actually activate it, last time was by pure chance, so I shouldn't rely on it.'

She took another glance at all the participants of the banquet, they were far too caught up in their own discussion of today's events to notice her appraising glances.

'The head is by far the strongest, with rank four, minor realm three, cultivation! After him the others, all rank threes.'

'Ideally, I stage my prison 'scape when he isn't around or preoccupied!'

'As long as I reach rank 2 cultivation I should be able to deal with at least one of these elders!'

'But surviving outside with such a low cultivation level will be hard, I should aim for rank three if possible.'

As she was caught up in her thoughts the banquet slowly came to an end and the head elder, slightly drunk said his few final words.

"Now- Now, we all agree to keep Thia's potential a secret, we can't risk other clans knowing, so please don't even talk to your partners about this! Absolute silence!"

"I already instructed Bai Zu to make sure the kids stay quiet too."

"And now before we finish, I hope that you, Thia, won't go around bragging about your feat. This is for our clan, I hope you understand, keep a bit of a low profile please."

She smiled.

"Alright, today was a day like no other, it was a day blessed by the heavens! Now kids go into your rooms, your cultivation journey starts tomorrow!"

As Yuan Fan Yang turned to leave, the head elder shook his head.

"No No, you don't have to go to that unfitting former home of yours anymore! I let a bedroom be readied for you in my abode!"

"You can now live together with your sister, isn't that wonderful?"

'It seems like the old geezer is good at acting, but really not so good at reading the room-'

Thia slightly shook her head and sighed.

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Definitions:

'I think therefore I am' < ' ' Are used when characters think something to themselves.

"I really like talking to you!" < " " Are used when characters talk in any way, that includes knowingly telepathically

???What are words??? < ??? ??? Are used when I don't know the word of something on top of my head while writing, so if you see this, then I have screwed up, let me know!

--- < This is kinda a transitionary thing, it is used when either location or time, or both, change in a significant way.

--- great jade-ice mountain : noon --- < place description and time, like the first one, but when the place and time are important. Either place or time can be unspecified.