He found his way down the cliff, towards the rushing water his sister had pushed him into previously, and took a bath…

After cleaning himself up, he changed into another outfit that was within the two bags he had just recovered; these were the bags he and his sister put all their supplies for today’s mission;

“Speaking of missions; the rest are still yet to arrive…”

“Have I and sister been schemed against?” Dara finally saw the truth…

But he also decided that if that was the case, then he needed to thread carefully around the people he called family or friends…

He sat cross-legged by the water bank and began to meditate as he began to breathe in some mysterious pattern…

The stages to doing this was to first find inner peace, and once he was peaceful within, then he would be able to find his center [Something that was similar to a human ENT node…

But instead of Ear, Nose and Throat joint, it was Body, Mind and Soul, for Dara]…

This was the only technique his father had owned and protected with his life…

His father had learnt it, taught his mother, and finally taught his daughter when she clocked ten; the year when anyone who is chosen by the heavens to cultivate would see their first meridians appear…

He was supposed to teach it to his son also, but who knew he was going to die even before his son would clock seven…

Thus, when Dara clocked ten, and his meridians still didn’t appear, he became the subject of ridicule in the entire Sang village, and some even went as far as insulting his dead parent, saying that, they decided to commit suicide out of shame of their son’s mediocre talents…

Dara got bullied a lot and mocked, until his sister actually opened her eight meridian at the age of just 12, something which meant she could now start manipulating the natural energy of the planet with her thoughts, then the bullying stopped, as everyone began to fear his sister; Ji Dai…

After clocking ten with no meridians in sight, Dara’s sister; Dai decided to still impart this meditating technique to Dara in hopes that should anything happen to her, he would at least still be able to cultivate whenever his meridians finally decides to show up…

Dai knew she didn’t have much longer to live because she had been searching for the true cause of her parent’s death…

Though, the village head after a meeting with all the elders of the village had decided to label their deaths as suicide, even though they weren’t told how, or even presented with a body…

But the moment she started to search for all this, she had begun to fell that someone was watching her at all times, and that person was strong enough to watch her without being discovered, something that scared Ji Dai on a daily basis, because she knew for sure that the person watching her would one day stop and finally attack her…

Furthermore, she couldn’t leave her little naïve brother alone, since he would just be like a helpless new born wildebeest who wouldn’t last a single day in the midst of all the wolves, lions, and vipers hidden within the village…

It was the same moment she thought about this, that she started receiving missions that took her farther and farther away from the village…

These missions also took longer, some takes days and even on some occasions weeks, making her find herself most times alone and very far away from her only kin…

Until one day when Dara was being chased by a Aridi; a black boar looking beast who was very famous for its aggressiveness, speed and deadly bite, and Dara actually outran the beast…

Since then, Dai had requested that her brother be appointed as he partner on all missions, claiming that not only could it force out his meridians, but it could also serve as a learning experience for Dara, something the entire group of Elders agreed to, especially when they insulted him that his ‘Passion For Fleeing’ could make him a perfect candidate for a bait…

Then she had her brother very close to her in all cases, just an arm length away in most cases, where she could easily protect him from the wild beasts and monsters that roam these dark lands…

At least here, she would be sure that everyone around her were enemies and won’t need to explain why she killed some beast or anybody that gets too close to her brother…

But there was no way a little 12 year old girl like her could match with the scheming experience of about six Elders who were at least fifty years old, and eventually, this happened…

She was giving a very difficult mission that only elders were supposed to take, and then assigned ten extra people to assist her with the mission, only for these ten youths to desert her and her brother in the face of an Elder Class danger level…

But all that were the regrets of the dead which can never affect much in the land of the mortal…

Dara’s emotions calmed to tranquility after just about five minutes of his first try [Sam’s composure level being at work]…

Then he began to search for his center, and soon enough, he found it…

It was a massive tree, with no branch or leaves of any nature, just a simple tree trunk with three massive roots;

one attached to his body, the second to his mind, and the final one into his soul…

Then he found a white soul seated cross-legged beneath the tree in the same cultivation posture he was meditating in…

He came closer to the tree and felt a deep sense of familiarity with the tree, but there was also something different about the tree; it felt like it was two in one, like he could feel two different vibes coming from the same tree…

But because he didn’t know much about trees [Damn, this came out wrong!], he simply pushed it to the back of his mind, as he focused on simply scrutinizing the tree and learning everything his little mind could understand about the tree for now…

Thus he began to slowly walk around the tree, surveying every inch of it, until he roamed to the back of the tree and got the shock of his life; there in front of Dara was a pitch black soul, with a bright light pulsing like some sort of beacon within its head…

An instinct kicked in within Dara who suddenly began to fear if the pulsing light was actually calling out to something or someone stronger out there, won’t that mean a certain death for him?

Out of anxiety of not knowing what or how to solve the perilous situation he was currently facing, Dara touched the soul;

Boom!

Instantly, this entire dimension trembled intensely as Dara saw the black soul transform into a stream of energy that was absorbed by the tree before surging down the trunk into the root that was attached to his soul, before gushing and flooding into his snow white soul…

But on entering his soul, just like water and oil, the soul forcefully separated themselves, as one half of Dara’s new soul was now pitch black, with the other side remaining the same, but from what Dara could sense at this point, he knew he had just been granted tremendous power, because the black part of his soul was radiating a power level that was infinitely stronger than the white part of his soul…

He also felt that he could tap into that power, but he didn’t know how, or what might happen if he did, and since he couldn’t come to a definitive idea about the situation, he decided to put it at the back of his mind, as he sighed at himself angrily;

“It seems I wasn’t only weak, but dull and stupid as well…”

“The least I could do since I can’t cultivate is to gather as much knowledge as possible, but here I am, with an empty brain, useless talent for cultivation and a dead sister…”

“Could things get any worse than they already are?”

Dara face-palmed himself as he suddenly jerked at a thought;

“If the soul energy entered my soul, then where is-?”

Dara had not even finished his train of thought when he saw the homing beacon of light head towards the roots that led to his mind, and he instantly felt chilly as deep fear gripped him totally…

He bolted towards the beacon of light, but could never be as quick as it was moving, and instantly, the beacon of light entered;

Boom!

Dara felt as if several nuclear missiles just exploded within his brain as massive amounts of information he knew nothing about began to flood his head…

“Arrghh!”

Dara yelled as he felt a splitting migraine hit him point blank as he blacked out almost instantaneously…

Splash! Crash!

The roaring waves of water smashing into the banks was what woke Dara from his unconscious state…

“~Ugh~” He blurted as he felt his head get giddy…

There was this flat line noise blaring in his ears, as blood began to leak out of it…

He was also bleeding from his nose and eyes…

He was so weak, stunned and groggy that he couldn’t even balance himself, as he struggled to keep himself steady enough…

Splash! Boom!

This time, the rushing waters smashed into the bank so hard that Dara was jolted out of his giddy state, as he looked backwards and got a fright of his life;

“What the hell!?” Dara blurted;

“Fuck my luck!” he cursed as he began to flee from the aberration he just saw…

It was already nighttime, and this was the most dangerous time of the day in these Dark Lands…

This was the time where true evil walked and roamed about the lands, a phenomenon that was always kick-started by another phenomenon; natural disasters of catastrophic proportions…

Behind the aggressively fleeing Dara was a massive hundred meter tall and at least twenty meter wide tornado that was spinning at more than enough speed to shred him into pieces…