Nostalgic Remembrance

"Halt!" an old man's shaky voice screamed, his shout meddled with distortion.

My eyes were blurry, watery, akin to the same feeling I experienced when I was reborn. I wiped them out, fear of having been reincarnated again.

"Hey, you!" that same voice belched upon my face, showering me with spit.

It was nostalgic for some reason. The very moment I heard it, my heart skipped a few beats and my breath tightened.

"Yugrus! What do you think you're doing?"

"Yugrus?" I repeated after him, stupefied. My voice was that of a child.

Nobody has called me by that name in years.

"Look at this" he chuckled, "the new recruit finally lost his mind and forgot his own name!"

Numerous laughs erupted all around me, forcing my head to bounce forward in a scare. Doing so, I knocked however stood before me backwards, his lips dripping blood.

That hit suddenly made me aware of my surroundings.

Selgen? I was back in Selgen? The headquarters of the covert operates?

Of the kingdom?

Don't tell me I did reincarnate a second time?

"You brat!" the old man stood up, raising the sleeves off his fists. "I'll teach you order."

And that must be…my former instructor!

"Lesolith?" my voice was wavering, trembling, and almost emotional to be reunited with my master.

Lesolith, a man due his sixties, was old but not enough to be retired it seems. He was this semi-bald, always wearing black kind of weirdo. Wherever he went, he wore the same clothes, which I am starting to realize a bit too late they were never cleaned regularly, and fashioned like the kind of man who was always in mourning. He had a knack for screaming at young children, like me, and loved above all to boast about his life and the deeds he had achieved when he served the last king directly.

(None other than Izaresius the old geezer!)

It wasn't the case for him though. His colour quickly turned from red to volcanic. His fists, I could clearly see sparks following their path.

I ended up getting beaten the shit out of.

Last thing I could remember before I woke up, strapped upside down on a pole in the middle of the training grounds, was seeing myself back when I was seven years old. I still remember that day as if it was yesterday…well mostly. Although how I acted now was different from before, the outcome remained the same in the end.

In both scenarios, I ended up being tied on this very pole that I currently hung from.

My only concern was that I didn't actually revert back to my former life…even though it would be nice to see a couple of old faces again.

"Gather round, operates!"

If my memory served me right, it was this day and time when our first practical lesson was due. After months of unending raw training, the master finally deemed us ready to learn the basics.

I just assumed he wanted an excuse to have a few of us bruised, blued and out of spirit.

"Now as a first lesson for you eager brats, I will have you fight operates of the second year."

Yeah. That was sooo like him.

The other new recruits, killed by the shock of this statement, turned yellow in an instant. Words cut deeper than knives, or so I've been told.

"If you don't like the offer" and he pointed his thumbs to his smug figure, "there's always me."

You could tell everyone was dumbstruck, their souls only lingering out of the extremities of their mouths still held by a single and thin thread. There was no need for them to consider anything really. Some seniors in the second year of training were a million times better than fighting the devil himself.

I thought the same back then too.

"Well then. Frail!" a quaking tiny boy emerged out of the lines, pushed by his comrades. "You start first."

Frail was a small boy and during this fight, he was knocked out in a single move. The fight ended so fast, that I had barely gotten the time to bat my eyelids even once. I was not going to mention how disappointed Lesolith was, nor the punishment he gave the poor boy that did not last even a few seconds.

"Skralri" Lesolith shook his head and sighed. "Your turn…"

This fight, although short by usual norms, was not as shortcoming as the previous one.

Skralri was not an innate fighter and had no prior training. To prove his worth, he memorized a sequence of movements his father had performed before him once and imitated them in this sparring match.

Regardless of what he knew, the outcome was still the same anyway. A head plunged in the dirt, bloodied and full of bumps.

"Okay, listen you lot" he flogged the air with a whip, grabbing our undivided attention. "You may think that stronger techniques are always the first choice when fighting, but you're wrong. Your comrade here is proof."

I did hear this somewhere not that long ago.

Someone had certainly clarified to me that using a technique that was unfit for me right now was not going to be full of potential. If I wanted to strive at the beginning of the road, I had to start simpler.

"If your body is not fit to perform an act, however strong it may be, there is no use for that power."

I had forgotten that lesson which master had taught us on the first practice. Was what I was seeing simply a memory jog? Something to teach me through a past occurrence I had already experienced?

"Even the smallest of bees could disconcert a lion if it strung true and effectively."

Words of gold. I feel as if I had learned the contents of a whole library only by these words alone.

A strange tingling circled near the area of my head, something deep within and unseen to the naked eye. It was as if someone or something had rewritten past events into my consciousness, engraving the memory back into myself as a measure of learning.

It was fascinating that I could delve into this specific frame and relive it in my unconscious state of being.

Simply amazing!

"Well, how about one last go for the day…" Lesolith skimmed through the recruits one by one, all looking terrified and to the point of cracking under the pressure. If a glare was thrown at them, I fear they would soil their trousers.

He glanced towards me, a smirk on his wrinkly face.

My expression was like all during that time, all red, caused by my upside-down status.

"How about you, Yugrus?"

The vision became blurry again and I sensed myself returning like a bird floating through the air. My consciousness landed back into my current body and I managed to open my eyes once again.

The scenery was indeed familiar to my eyes, but this time, I was in the correct time and space.

I moved not, but my eyes scanned all around me in the darkness that prevailed. I was back at my father's farm and I was Lei Ba this time, not Yugrus.

Wu was sitting still beside me, eyes attentive and a sword near the grip of his hands. He guarded me during the night as if his own life was at stake.

Wait…its night already?

How long have I been delving through this sudden epiphany?

Attempting to move, a searing pain struck me in the head and I grunted as a result. Wu noticed it and realised I was finished with the assimilation.

"Young master" his voice no longer holding seniority and it appeared as if he was the one subject to my will, "how was the realisation?"

"You mean the things I saw while I was in the trance?"

"Exactly!" he tugged closer to hear the details. "Were you able to draw meaning from them? Something that could help you advance in your cultivation?"

So whatever I saw during this vision was meant for me to advance in terms of my cultivation, huh. It was as if this specific memory of mine was thrown at me in order to help me gain insight on what I had been struggling to achieve for a while. The answer was always inside my head but I failed to notice and reap from it and thus my own consciousness kicked in automatically, serving as a helper.

A massive grin arched under my nose, giving the one-handed man the answer he awaited.

I now knew what I had to do in order to advance properly. If I tried to cut short on the efforts and begin with things I was not yet ready to achieve, then I could only blame myself when all fails and crumbles before my eyes.

The encounter was no longer a far event. It was only a matter of time before I had to deal with whatever was in store for me and if I kept overreaching, then my death would be certain.

"Senior Wu…" I finally spoke after self-reflection. I had clenched my fists firmly, a seeming of certainty firing up my features.

"Hm?" leaning forward on the sword I gave him.

He was a bit interested in what I would have to say.

"I would like to take you up on the offer" I turned to him, conviction seeping into my gaze.

"Offer?"

"I want you to teach me your technique. I have only a few months left to prepare."

He remained seated, watching me get up and retreat back to the house.

The boy he sparred with earlier was gone so to say, lost in the vision he had just experienced. Whoever it was that he had met today, was left behind, never to surface again.

"My decision was correct" he rubbed his own itching head after loosening the tie on his hair, "this boy will allow me to see interesting things."

Shui Wu leaned back on the ground, admiring the starry sky above as I was no longer in view of him. Losing an arm was no longer a tragedy he was concerned with. This mere loss of a limb would, if he predicted it correctly, grant him the opportunity of a lifetime.

He was almost thankful for the Shui clan for offending Gudu Xing Chen.

"A few months left?" he thought back on my words. "What will happen when that time comes?"

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*Check the very first chapters at the very beginning for the Index*