historical

Panda: You stinkin' CEO are you here?!

The message hypothetically could have reached across the entire world and even the entire galaxy in the wildly vast space. Humans already had enough technology to communicate across the world and even distant satellites—if celestial, divine and other upper realm beings couldn't do the same, then it would have been a shame to their divinehood.

But just because they could—didn't mean there wasn't energy spent and consumed to do so.

Something couldn't have been borne out of nothing.

Well, the ones at the beginning of it all might have argued otherwise, but finally—finally! The message received its intended recipient. And that meant that the man was somewhere close within this galaxy and domain.

The only problem was—the creature ended up meeting a block. A minor hindrance to following the trail as it was met with something else from the void. Something—no—Someone had yawned and opened their eyes in the vast realm of the stars and halted the creature from the direction they were following.

.

"You—what Celestial Age are we in now? Have we finally crossed into the next cycle of life and death?"

"Argh, are you not up to the news?!" Bao growled at.. her? Whoever this being was.

Golden eyes stared down at the cursed creature. "I have woken up from my slumber, so you Traveler must inform me of changes within the realms."

.

.

.

Ding!

Li Yang had been blindfolded when he heard the message, and he quickly pulled up the cloth to the behest of the Priestess training him. While the message might have been heard by his ears or even implanted into his very brain—reading was still a comfort and a pleasure.

At least, he was still prone to believe what could have been put into words.

Panda: You stinkin' CEO are you here?!

The man almost heard the somewhat annoyed and upset tone of the creature in the message as if it was a voice message. His lips twitched for a moment, but he let the notification drop.

"Why did you stop?" Priestess Mitsuko stared at him a bit perplexed.

Li Yang smiled and inclined his head. "Apologies, something came up."

The Priestess gaze flickered momentarily to his robes and then back up at his face with a frown. "If you need to rest then tell me."

"Would you like some water, Mister Yang?" Priestess Leila called out to him.

He smiled at her, "Thank you."

During the mornings, Setsuko had to attend classes and catch up on lessons in using Ao with proficiency. She worked hard at it, never letting it drop as if her life depended on it. But some other of the Priestesses were allowed to relax and not really attend the lessons—as if it were optional. Everyone was free to do it at their own pace. Almost everything was voluntary.

The blonde Priestess sat at the wooden porch just outside of the temple that met the clearing to the forest. Leila had a fan in her face and was enjoying the chance to see the man use his sword and practice as promised.

But at the word of the man, she sprang up to her feet—poured a glass of water from the pitcher that she already had prepared and readily gave it to him.

"I would like one too, Leila." Mitsuko eyed the lower-ranked Priestess.

"Oh, I'm sorry! Please let me get one now." Leila rushed back to the porch and offered the Priestess some water, embarrassed at her mistakes. She should have offered them both—if it had been anyone else, then she might have offended them.

Priestess Mitsuko sipped the cool water and sighed inwardly. She did not have problems with the girl that Priestess Rei was fond of, but did think that this young woman could have spent her time elsewhere than ogling at the bonded partner of Setsuko.

Although Mitsuko was the only one who knew that.

Truth be told, except for the mere fact that he was living in the company of women and they all had the ability to manipulate the energy of the world.. life was quite simple here. It was far too easy to let the days pass by him and acclimate to this lifestyle.

Out of the five beast cores he had received, he was down to his last two.

The man thanked the Priestess and drank down the water, still mulling with his thoughts.

But it did seem like his peaceful and unrestricted days were coming to an end if the Panda—Bao, rather, had found a way to contact him. Perhaps the creature had always been searching for him for the past weeks he had been gone, but only reached this place recently.

The urge to consume the two beast cores and see if the World Warper glowed and was fit to use was apparent—he did not yearn to have any missions imposed on him. But his world and home were on earth and he couldn't simply abandon it, could he?

"Are you alright, Yang?" Mitsuko asked.

He stared at the Priestess and at the sword in his hands—he had learned how to fight blind by only using Ao and his hearing. The art of the training was being capable of attacking without even using any of one's five senses, which was intense.

The man's back was still sore from getting launched thirty trees back into the forest. It was a sheer surprise he hadn't broken anything like bones or injured himself at all.

Or if there had been any, any bruises, wounds in his abdomen or all over his body, he didn't care about it. It was only minor and he refrained from using healing potions—well, he had actually depleted it all during the test in Mashiro Temple's Sacred Forest.

But he had already grown by a looming part due to it.

And yet—

"I'm still not strong enough," he said. In a Universal Scale of things, that was the truth. His own System even failed to notice his spiritual roots before because of how 'lacking' and 'pith' it had been to a System presumably made from the Heavens.

"But you're already amazing! I don't know how you're able to block Sister Mitsuko's attacks with your eyes closed!" Leila said and gestured at him aghast. Why couldn't he see that he was wonderful?