19 Mist?

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*Grunts*

Sieg furrowed his brows as he woke up, he was in total pain. Every limb on his body aches, his spiritual energies are also depleted, there were traces of dried blood on his clothes, he pulled out a small mirror and looked at his reflection. He was shocked to see more of the dried bloodstains on his face, his eyes were also reddish. His mind was pounding, it felt like there were hammers hitting it multiple times.

"What happened? How did I ended up like this?" Sieg whispered, he tried his best to remember the scene before he lost consciousness, he looked at his surroundings and said: "Where am I even? Just what happened before? Why I can't remember anything?"

"Well that's because 'ya overdrawn your soul, in other words 'ya bit more that 'ya can chew…" Sieg heard someone spoke, he gazed at him alertly, he was unconsciously glaring at him since he doen't know why/how did he end up here.

Gin was already expecting this scenario since he too, experienced this type of thing. What surprised him is Sieg was emitting a heavy aura, he can't believe that such a young lad can emit a fierce killing intent already, just what did he experienced growing up.

"Aish~ here!" Gin tossed him a pill which flew so fast and ended up on Sieg's mouth. He didn't had a chance to react before he swallowed the pill, he just felt that his condition was recovering at a very fast speed. He was also starting to recall his memories and after a few more minutes, his eyes recovered it's usual brilliance. Gin saw this happened and smiled at him, "Feeling better now?"

"Yes! Thank you big brother and I'm sorry as well…" Sieg was embarrassed, his face flushed red a bit. But his back was also drenched in cold sweat.

'That was terrifying. I just lost all of my memories just because I've overdrawn my soul. If Big Brother Gin wasn't here then I'm totally screwed.' He silently thought.

As if reading his mind, Gin started to explain everything so that Sieg could understand:

"Body, Ki, and Spirit. Even though they exist as one, they're still separate entities. The body is the most solid entity since it can be seen with the naked eye, it is also can be referred to as a 'container' since inside of it exist the other entities which are the Ki and the Spirit."

"Ki the slightly solid entity, it exists inside the body and acts as a 'nutrient' for it. Without Ki, the body will deteriorate faster which can also be known as aging."

"Spirit is the mysterious entity. It can be said that ever since time immemorial, the people that had a total understanding of Spirit can only be counted in hundreds. We experienced the Age of Chaos, The Warring Era, Era of Humanity, Age of Gods and finally our current era, Era of Immortality. The minimum length of an Era is about 1,000,000 years. So for the people who mastered Spirit to only exist in only hundreds is enough to pass a message right?"

As Gin was stating these fact, Sieg on the other hand was shaking. 'One million years for an era? Big Brother just stated five Era's so that's more than Five million years! And there's only hundreds of them who mastered Spirit? How can this be?'

Sieg was thoroughly shaken, he didn't know what to say. He was starting to imagine a lot of things but nothing made any sense at all.

"The body contains the brain, the Ki nourished you mind, but the memories and mind doesn't exist in the brain, it exists on the Spirit, since the because the brain is part of the Body, brain is only a 'container' for you memories and mind."

"If the Soul, which is a major part of the Spirit, was overdrawn, it will be like someone poked a hole in a bottle of water, the water will leak out. Substitute the soul as the bottle, the mind as the water and the hole as you overdrawing it. 'Ya know what will happen right?"

"My mind would seep out…"

"Exactly, your mind is where your memories are stored so if it seeped out?"

"I will lose my memories…"

"Indeed. But that's on the premise that you've done so consciously. But if 'ya didn't mean to do it, for example 'Enlightenment' which was also what happened to you, then it would only take time for 'ya to recover the lost memories."

"Enlightenment?"

"Yes, Enlightenment."

"What is Enlightenment?"

*Urk!*

Gin was caught unprepared by Sieg's question, he looked at him and was actually waiting for Sieg to say that he was kidding but what he saw instead was a curious gaze in him. He sighed and explained.

"Enlightenment is some sort of a strange state. In that state, everything else aside from your thoughts don't exist. If you're under enlightenment then no matter how hard it rained or even if there is an earthquake 'ya won't notice it nor care either. Enlightenment cannot be sought after, it is an incredibly rare chance that would be given by the heavens depending on your luck."

Sieg was confused, he then asked Gin: "Is that it? I would only enter a state of not knowing anything that's happening around me? Nothing else?"

Gin merely smiled when he heard this question he then said: "Know what? Let's leave that aside for now, why don't you be an official student of ours first?"

Sieg's eyes sparkled, whatever this 'Enlightenment' is, was already thrown in the back of his head and he nodded his head towards Gin.

They stood up and went outside the room. The walk didn't took that long since where they went was literally the next room. Inside this room is huge stone tablet, the edges we're cracked and filled with strange characters.

Sieg was familiar with these patterns, they were inscriptions. The stone tablet is filled with different type of inscriptions, it was like someone inscribed it long time ago and was being gradually forgotten and thus lead to it's current appearance. Sieg felt a bit bad as he thought of this. These knowledges worth more than a treasure chest for him, if he could he would want to be the caretaker of these from now on but he knew that's impossible.

"For the next part of the test, 'ya need to revive that stone tablet." Gin nonchalantly said, Sieg however was dumbfounded.

"Revive the stone tablet? This is alive!?" Sieg's exclaimed in bewilderment.

"Dumbass!" Gin berated, his head hurt a little bit, it seems like Sieg didn't understand what he meant so explained: "By reviving, I meant to activate the stone tablet completely!"

Sieg actually heaved a sigh of relief, he also felt a little embarrassed since he really misunderstood, then he said: "Should I fill the missing inscriptions to activate it?"

"Yeah, but your time is limited to half hour. There's also a catch to that stone tablet, however that's secret. Okay! Timer starts now."

Sieg didn't have any chances to ask anything else, and since the time was already started, he looked at the very bottom of the stone tablet and filled it with Inscriptions. He decided to start with the bottom first, going up as he goes. The reason is very simple, it was easy to control an inscription and place it nearby than sending it a distance. Since the stone tablet in front of him is about three times his size, sending inscriptions to the top would waste a lot of his spiritual energy. He also kept in mind what Gin said, that there was a catch to the stone tablet, so he thought that if in any cases he made a mistake, at least he wouldn't waste unnecessary energies as much as possible.

He went and filled the stone tablet however before he can finish inscribing the last inscription that would completely fill the very bottom of the stone tablet. The stone tablet shook a bit and the inscriptions that Sieg made was dispersed.

He frowned upon seeing this, but he didn't waste too much time and made another attempt. He tried filling the very top of the stone tablet this time and like before, the stone tablet shook the inscriptions he made off. He did this for the leftmost corner and rightmost corner of the stone tablet as well, he even tried to start at the middle but none of those work.

By now he spent at least five percent of his spiritual energy already, he didn't mind these too much and kept on trying different ideas that popped on his head. Sieg don't usually do trial and error methods quite often, but this is his only choice as of now.

Gin won't give him any clues, he didn't want to ask since he wanted to do it on his own, he nothing about the stone tablet aside from it's appearance and he has a limited time and energy. These facts are what lead him to ceaselessly try to hit a miracle while also paying attention so that he can have an idea.

And just like they said: 'The hardworking shall be rewarded.' As Sieg made one random set of inscriptions in the middle of the stone tablet, it went through and was currently shining in there. Sieg ceased his movements and properly observed the inscriptions that he made accidentally.

He saw that he made inscriptions that looked like a tree branch, a mist, a spark, a flame, tree trunk, a thread, a worm, a wave of water, a fish and a small dot. He frowned and brainstormed.

'I don't get it. Just why did the stone tablet accepted it this time?'

He thought more and more…

'This doesn't make any sense at all! A tree branch, mist, spark and a flame? What does this mean?'

'Are they connected? Are they following a pattern?'

'Tree branch and a mist, a mist can't do anything to a tree branch so why did the tree branch was placed first?'

'Mist and a spark, now this really doesn't make any sense, it would if the spark went first before before the mist since a spark can potentially burn a tree branch to form a flame which is the next-wait…'

'Tree branch? Mist? Spark then flame? If I could, I would certainly remove this mist then the idea of the inscriptions depicting a 'process' would be plausible! But it is there and was accepted by the stone tablet so I'm sure that it has a purpose right?'

'If I rubbed two tree branches together then they would emit heat or even spark and a flame would be born, this is I understand but why the mist though?'

'I mean, is this really a mist or am I just blind? That shoudn't be the case.'

'Two tree trunk, rubbed together would heat up, if something is hot then it should-WAIT!'

Sieg's eyes brightened immediately.

'Smoke! That's not a mist that's a fucking smoke! Holy shit I'm an idiot! It is a tree branch, SMOKE, spark, and flame! This right here 'translates' into the process of producing fire. What about the other ones?'

And since Sieg already grasped an idea, best believe that he won't let go. He was able to translate the next few inscriptions and it was about the process of catching a fish.

If the two translations were put together, it was simply conveying how one could prepare a food. Sieg's eyes were so bright right now and then he started making inscriptions that formed simple 'process' such as running, climbing a tree, swimming, washing clothes, waving a sword and etc. The stone tablet accepted all of this.

Even though he spent about 10 minutes in figuring out why did the stone tablet accepted his random made inscriptions before, plus 5 minutes of trial and error before that causing his remaining time to more or less 15 minutes, filling the stone tablet became much more easier this time around and he only used a total of 5 minutes to fill the front part of it.

As Gin watched this happened, he just smiled and said: "Are you seeing this geezer? He's such a freak right?"