20 Chapter 20 — XX

Jacquard said a short prayer for Jean before he asked Paul to leave with him. Paul used his hairs to latch onto him and they began their journey. They travelled past many trees, and Jacquard soon began to feel dizzy.

He turned to Paul and asked, "Are you sure we're heading in the right direction."

"Yes, we are." Paul replied with so much confidence that Jacquard couldn't do anything else. It wasn't that he didn't believe Paul. But no matter whether it was the sight or the barrier, all he could see was the exact same information.

They continued for a while and Jacquard's situation didn't get better, he was as confused as he first was when they began the journey and he could have sworn that they had passed Jean's grave many times. He began to think about how could help himself and soon he had an answer.

He could clearly remember in all the cultivation novels he had read, there was something called an imprint. Each person's own was unique and with it they could sense the position of whatever they imprinted, no matter where they were.

'If they could use it to track people,' Jacquard thought to himself, 'Why can't I use it to keep track of my location?' With that he told Paul to stop.

Paul stopped moving and turned to look at Jacquard, but Jacquard didn't mind, instead turning to face the work that he had given to himself. He thought for a while about what he was to do. He released the akram that he had stored in his zebenisu and tried to gather it together, but no matter what he did it didn't work.

He continued trying to control the akram that had left his body until all the akram in his zebenisu had been emptied out, then with a sigh he asked Paul to continue with the journey. Within a split second, Paul wrapped him up tightly in hairs and began to drag him away from there with a slightly increased speed.

"You're moving faster," Jacquard began, "What happened?"

"I just feel slightly uneasy, like something is following us so, I wanted to be on the safe side."

"Something following us?" Jacquard mused to himself, "What could it be?"

He activated his barrier and the sight and tried to see if there was any change to the surroundings, but there was nothing out of the ordinary, yet he couldn't help but feel like something was off. He studied the information brought by the sight again, a little bit more careful this time in case he missed something, but he couldn't find anything out of the ordinary.

They continued for a while before Paul stopped.

"What happened?" Jacquard asked, extricating himself from trying to come up with a way to control his akram out of his body. "Is it those things that were watching us? Have they finally made their move?"

"No, it's not that. There is something weird in the air here. It is not malicious, but I feel like if I enter there my senses might become muddled."

Jacquard frowned internally and activated his sight. Immediately the information began to flow in and an image began to take shape in his mind. It looked like a circle that contained within it, many winding lines contained within it. The lines were all interconnected, with a line seeming to pick up from where another ended, until they formed the circumference of the circle.

The symbol floated a few meters above them, just out of his barrier sight range. Jacquard thought about using his akram to try and reach it but decided against it in the end, choosing rather to continue the journey.

"So where are we going to?" Jacquard asked, finally stopping his other work.

"A nearby village I used to go to before. It has a lot of food and water; we should be able to survive there for a while." Paul replied.

Jacquard inwardly gave his approval, although he didn't comment about the fact that he didn't really need to eat to survive, choosing instead to keep the information to himself. They made their way towards the village, and before sundown, Jacquard finally saw the village in question.

Many small yemephu moved around, with large yemeru milling about among them. Some of them were exiting, other returning with baskets full of crops that Jacquard didn't know. They talked in a language he didn't understand and some laughed together, at jokes he couldn't understand. Others had an intense frown on their face, probably contemplating some problems that they were unable to solve.

The sight made Jacquard feel funny. He wasn't a very prejudiced in any standard, at least not any more than the average person, yet he found it weird watching all these apes with green spotted or stripped black fur interacting like humans. It took him a while to get used to the sight before he turned to face Paul.

"Is this the village?" Jacquard asked, a little dumbfounded, still trying to recollect himself.

Paul nodded. "Yes, this is it."

avataravatar
Next chapter