Southern gate. On that same day. Some one was running for his life.
'Pua' Grog spat out blood and continued running. Grog found himself in a bad situation. Due to the fear that his master had instilled in him, he had been forced to venture out to look for Wesley by his lonesome self. The seeker organization had failed to find any trace of the boy all this while and he was out of credits.
His master would not give him any credits without seeing any progress. Now he was running for his life from a horde of rat like beasts.
He had ventured out of the southern gate and gone to where Wesley's cube of a house used to be but only found rubble. Since the elemental storm, the city had not even gotten time to rebuild the houses when the disaster of the mutant beasts struck out
The mutant beasts came out of the mines like ants and starting killing anything that moved.
So that meant the city had to allow Outers into the city. The frequent attack of the beasts and their faster way of increasing strength lead to some warriors abandoning the city out of fear. The beasts gained strength faster than the humans.
'I want to leave this place. I do not care about that man, he can look for the boy all I care.' he thought as he ran and cursed out
He remembered that as he had been looking in the area where Wesley's house had been, the ground had started to vibrate and huge mounds of black soil had bulged out. Rat like beasts with black scales and blackish oppressive aura being emitted from the gaps of the scales came out of the mounds.
Grog's heart skipped a bit, 'oh no, I have to get out of here'
Although the southern gate was not very far, he knew he was in immense danger. He just turned and ran without a thought of fighting the beasts.
'If I survive this, I will disappear the first chance I get' Grog thought.
The only way to get to other cities without his master's knowledge was to pay credits to the seeker organization to use their portals, he needed to avoid using the city portals.
Portals were a work of the spacial rules and only a seventh level warrior could set them up. They were used for easier movement between rings and from city to city.
This is how he ended up in this situation.
And as he was thinking of how to leave the city, he felt a huge force hitting his back. 'Haaaaaa' he shouted out and fell down. He skidded for few meters and hit one of the remaining metal houses.
'Boom' there was a sound made when he knocked into the house, the house broke into bits and forced him to stop.
'Pua' he spat out more blood and looked at the beasts coming for him.
He looked around and realized he was near the gate but what made him feel despair was that the gate was being closed on him and no one was coming out to help him.
Grog panicked as he felt the beasts closing in on him.
'So this how I die.' he thought in despair. He could feel their approach by the vibrations in the ground as they ran towards him.
But as he waited for the beasts to rip him apart, he realized they had stopped and had started to look around in panic.
'Huh' he saw the beasts back up, start digging holes and burrowing into the ground and disappearing.
'What is happening?' he asked himself in wonder. He was not happy that they had run off but instead greater fear started creeping up on him. Whenever a predator runs, then there is something worse around. And true to this thought, he felt the wind pick up and the clouds above started to churn very fast.
'Oh no, elemental storm" he whispered in dread. He got up and with his remaining strength ran, not towards the gate but to the grooves on the wall that young Wesley had ran too previously. He did not realize that Wesley had done exactly what he was doing.
And as the wind picked up speed, Grog let out a curse.
"If I survive this, I am leaving this accursed city.'
…..........
Eastern gate. First ring. A few days after.
Wesley was practicing the sword technique in order to get used to his growing strength. He had finished tempering his skin, it was now leathery and could stop mortal grade weapons from injuring him.
His movements were like an old man but were beautiful and flowed harmoniously with no interruptions as if they were part of nature, very seamless.
He stopped practicing after a while a let out a breath.
'Now to start tempering my blood' Wesley thought out loud.
He went through the process in his head and made another pose. This body posture entailed him to lift his hands and twist his body sideways, bend backwards a bit and let the left had touch his right ankle of his foot.
Wesley also had to breathe in short and long patterns and after a while he would interchange positions.
This would put pressure on his blood to flow faster and as he breathed in and out, he would take in the spiritual aura which would be infused into his blood.
Wesley realized that this process would take longer than the skin tempering since the fruits were useless at this stage.
And as he continued practicing, he felt something stir in his blood.
He stopped practicing and sat cross legged and using his divine sense, he felt his blood to find out the problem.
'Why can't I find it?' he wondered in puzzlement as he couldn't find what had stirred in his blood. When he stopped practicing, the feeling disappeared as if it was a figment of his imagination.
'Let me practice again and see if I can feel it again.''
'Oh, I wish I could ask Tresse.' he wanted to ask Tresse but he could not since it had told him to only take out the inheritance token when he unsealed his blood line.
Wesley calmed his mind and made the pose again and this time he used his divine sense to follow the movement of his blood.