7 Not Alone

Alastar seemed mesmerized for a second. The crystal had stolen a little bit of his stolen and ran away with it. Cripple punched him lightly, Cripple punched him again, Alastar still wasn't talking for he was absorbed in something not totally human.

In Alastar's mind appeared a man, he was shaped weirdly with strange bulges around his legs. He entered Alastar's head through a doorway that Alastar never realized he had in his thoughts. Then Alastar remembered how someone could even get into his thoughts.

"What, what are you?" Alastar thought. The man looked around for a second in Alastar mind, perhaps he was looking for something? The man shrugged and went further into Alastar's mind. In the deep dark recesses of Alastar's mind he found what he was looking for.

Even Alastar couldn't have thought of it because it was outside of his Imagination Sphere in his mind. A cultivators Imagination Sphere was the part of the mind they could control completely but outside of this Imagination Sphere was the Void of Thoughts.

Sometimes a spare thought would fly out from the Imagination Sphere and leave the mind. In the outside world the thought would then reign supreme dominating lesser beings than itself. This could only happen to the strongest cultivators but when it did happen the world they resided was in true danger.

Right in between the Void of Thoughts and the Imagination Sphere was the middle ground. Everyone's Middle Ground was unique, sometimes it was mountains, sometimes sea, sometimes giant eldritch demons looking to devour anything in their paths. It did not matter the Middle Ground was a world of backwards.

Anything that entered the Middle Ground would be warped, unless they were Special Objects. It turned out the man was one of these Special Objects. Alastar focused his thoughts on looking at the man but he could not break through the barrier that was the Middle Ground. If he could see within he would be wordless.

In his middle ground there was a ocean. The oceans waters were not made out of water though they were made out of ideas. Ideas were small objects in the mind, each one was only the size of an olive but they could contain things from lunch menu's to world shattering plans.

In the middle of this sea of ideas was a women. She was ugly, with a bulbous nose, big wide eyes and thick green eyebrows. She sat on sea of ideas meditating until she saw the man enter the Middle Ground.

"Restlessness I see you have found me." Her voice seemed to come from the sea of ideas.

"Patience, your choice of hosts astounds me. The Thought Father said to pick hosts who best represent your elements, this man does not seem particularly patient." The man spoke, the voice however came from each bulb on his body.

"Unlike you Restlessness I know the meaning of patience. He has a chance to be the most patient man in the Ten Thousand Heavens." She said, her voice seemed to be stuck in the state between laughing really hard and laughing a little.

"Prepare for the Thought Father's test Patience, I'll leave this idiots mind if you don't mind." And with that the man disappeared from the Middle Ground and Alastar's mind all together. Alastar opened his eyes to the strangest sight.

Cripple was doing a handstand in front of what apparently was a giant pink snake. Alastar rubbed his eyes, brushed them off then looked at Cripple doing a handstand in front of a giant pink snake.

The snake seemed amused by Cripple's show. Alastar checked out their surroundings and found that they were in the middle of the city that he had just seen. All around him various men, women and children went about their days.

Cripple got off his handstand, shook hands with the snakes shoe shaped tail.

"Alastar your up again! I had a breakthrough. I realized my problem with [{Village Fist}], I need to not just teach a lot of people, I need to teach stronger people. Mr. Pinksnake over there was one of my first actually strong students!" Cripple said.

"What, where, why?" Alastar said confused with the exact words his friend had just said.

"Well of course I did it for a price, 100 gold pieces for martial arts lessons for anyone. I do need to pay of that 10,000 gold debt or else we will get kicked out of the city." Alastar knew he had picked the wrong friend.

In the highest tower, on the tallest hill, in the room on the tip top, sat a man. He had a long straight nose, wispy eyebrows that seemed to want to leave his head, and a giant afro. In his hands was a staff of ebony wood and on the top of that staff was a certain red crystal. Surrounding the man with the afro was a cabal of hooded figures.

One of the hooded figures had two horns coming from the top of his cloak, the other one had long slithering snake tail trailing off from the back of the outfit. All in all, they were a pretty scary bunch.

"I sense a Special One sir." One of the hooded figures said.

"He covets the Great Crystal sir." The one with the snakes tail said. They all murmured after that, the crystal was their life and they weren't about to let a simpleton and a mortal look at it.

"He must be destroyed, sense out his powers, the Special Ones are never simple." The man with the afro said. His voice was quiet but odd. It felt as though there were two voices speaking through the same man.

"Fire, welcome our friend to the city. Make sure he gets extra comfortable with our arrangements." The crystal on the afro man's staff glinted in the wind, as if it was laughing at the funniest joke in the world.