Caizhi experienced those moments of Seth’s life almost as if through his eyes and she could feel how weak his hatred and revenge were compared with his inability of understanding the whole situation. Truth be told, Seth was lost, totally confused by everything that happened with him.
Indeed, those new emotions were weak now, but they were not shallow. They were seeds that would bloom one day and be part of his will.
While Caizhi was watching closely how terrible and cruel his time inside that cave-prison was, Seth dipped into her past as well.
Seth hasn’t used a Soul Link before but he was expecting that such thing might happen. Your consciousness and all the memories of an individual were part of the soul. It was a lot of complex and complicated information that would lead to the construction of a personality and how the person perceived the world around.
When Seth acquired the Hades inheritance, he knew that it was a power meant for a Monarch that loved to control people. Probably Hades hadn’t been a leader, but a tyrant that had lots of soldier under his banner. Just the number of ways for controlling a soul presented by the initial parts of the inheritance were enough to conclude that.
There were enslavement and torture manuals; capture and trapping; ways to influence and enchant. All in all, Seth concluded that Hades was definitely not a good character. Talking about charity or altruism was not on his vocabulary. The only contract that was not meant for bad things was the Soul Link.
‘Probably, Hades had used it on his wife.’ Thought Seth while his vision was leaving the white screen and arriving in a beautiful and colorful garden.
Seth looked around mesmerized by all the colors he was seeing. The flowers and butterflies here would make a perfect happy painting. The garden was not big at all, but had a lot of variety.
Seth saw a beautiful girl that resembled Caizhi arriving with watering can on her hand and slowly giving different levels of care for each flower. She was very young, probably fourteen years old. Her beauty was starting to bloom, lips getting redder, her scent getting sweeter and her body on the development process.
This was the happiest moment Caizhi had once a day, the smile plastered on her face gave her off. She loved the colorful environment and would come to this garden secretly every morning to care for the flowers growing here.
The rest of her day would just be the boorish routine of a practitioner. Training, meditation, cultivation and more training.
“Caizhi what are you doing here?!” A stern voice woke Caizhi from her blissful moment.
“Mother, I was just having stroll in the morning.” Caizhi dropped the watering can and bowed her head.
“Why are you wasting time with such useless thing?! Haven’t I told you to do you maximum on your trainings? How come you have time to do this useless job instead of cultivating?”
“I…”
“Your father would be extremely angry if he saw you loitering like this!”
“But…”
“Don’t say anything, you are going back to your training right now. You are the genius of our family and I won’t allow you to throw your talent away. Go!”
Caizhi’s happy countenance disappeared. She would be getting back to the activities that unknown to her she started to hate.
Caizhi prepared to grab the watering can and leave…
But Caizhi’s mother fiercely eyed her, urging her to leave faster, even going as far as kicking the watering can.
After entering what seemed to be a dome, she passed through many other halls and entered a luxurious room, slamming the door just after entering. Inside the room, she looked at the special environment built for training and felt suffocated.
Just after Caizhi’s first experience with Qi sensing, her family discovered that she was two times faster on her advancements than any other of her family members. They then, developed a training course for her that would take ‘only’ eighteen hours of her day and this has been going since she was ten years old.
She was suffering throughout this entire course and the people around her wouldn’t forgive her if she failed them.
Tear drops started to fall from her eye sockets as she once again started cultivating. This would mark a turning point on her journeys.
Overloaded with all the stress she was feeling, her body started changing for her own good, but it would lead to many complications.
Caizhi sat on her bed and started to normally absorb Qi energy and while she was assimilating it, her body allowed for sprit energy to join in the mix. At first it didn’t change anything but as time passed it change her whole constitution.
The next day Caizhi went inside the training grounds where she would be able to use the flame techniques taught by her family. There were a lot of her cousins and distant parents training there. Some were sparring and others were hitting some dummies.
When Caizhi entered everyone looked at her with respect. She was not only important but talented as well. They all seemed to admire her, but deep inside there was a hidden wish to be at her place, be the ones, those who were important.
“Caizhi, it’s an honor to have your presence here in the training grounds.” A boy a bit older than her came to greet her.
“Brother.” Caizhi just nodded acknowledging his words. She was not in the best of conditions to enter a conversation.
Her brother furrowed his browns and thought she didn’t give a damn for him. He had a breakthrough yesterday and wanted to prove himself for the family, but now an idea surged on his mind. What if he instantly defeated her to show off how mighty he was?
“Caizhi, I’m stuck at my training and can’t proceed, could you help enlightening me in a sparring session?”
Caizhi had the same cultivation level than him until yesterday, but her brother was a lot older than her. She didn’t know he had succeeded in advancing so she thought he was an opponent at her level. Caizhi needed to practice too so she ended up agreeing.
They moved towards one of the arenas and prepared to spar. A lot of young people nearby joined to watch the show, making a circle around the arena.
“Alright, I’ll start it then.”
Caizhi’s brother pulled his sword and started charging forward, he built up energy for a surprise attack right after the first one and that one would be with his full strength.
Caizhi felt an invisible pressure on her, but didn’t know where this pressure was coming from as her brother was hiding it from her. She was not experienced in combat so she didn’t see his trick, but she didn’t take him lightly.
Her sword started to shine in a red color and the heat around it rose. However, she felt like something was not right.
Clank!
After parrying the first attack, the second one was already coming her way. This time Caizhi’s brother slashed his sword with his new acquired strength and at the same time with the other hand he released a large fire ball.
She was unprepared for that and hastily released her defensive technique, but at that time an explosion occurred within her body and it abruptly increased her flame strength.
Boom!
Her initial desire was to create a fire shield to protect against the attacks, but the shield enlarged and spread towards the borders of the arena as a wave of uncontrollable fire and it was where people stood to watch.
AAAAAA!!!
The entire place starting to catch fire and even Caizhi’s brother was tasting the same fate.
Caizhi, however, laid down on the ground after spitting a mouthful of blood.