"Cultivation is the refining of the soul, the slow ascent of man toward godhood. A little god I shall become. A little god." The small man had a maniacal chuckle, and Ren was creeped out, but he could not move. He could only watch as the brown-skinned scrawny man sat with his back at him reciting the words like they were a holy mantra while a massive burst of energy welled from him.
"Who are you?" Ren managed to mutter. It was like he was in a trance over the few minutes he stood watching. He turned his eyes upward, and could see pointed rocks jutting from above, walls of rocks flanked his sides, but behind was the outside. He could see the clouds from where he stood, but where actually did he stand?
"Where am I? What am I doing here?" Fear was creeping in now. He could not recollect his last memories, all he could remember was that he was Ren Hanaki, but for some reason he understood what the man was uttering, he understood the bright energy that enveloped him.
"Behold, I am made a thing beyond, I am a cultivator." The man said brightly and turned to Ren, sitting up swiftly and smiling like a maiden in love. He was scrawny but Ren hadn't thought that he was an old man until he saw his wrinkled old face, and the white beard that hung from his chin.
He squinted his eyes, he knew he had not seen the man before, but his body remembered from somewhere, it was like the old man called to a part of him that wasn't there, that wasn't present.
"Thick white beard, brown skin, and a bright smile." Ren fitted in the details.
"You are Mahābodhivān!" Ren said with eyes opened wide in surprise. The Tome of Mahābodhivān not only contained stories of his cultivation exploits, but also mundane stories about his life. The Cultivator had thought of himself too importantly, and since he was learning what none had known at the time, he thought to write about himself in earnest. In his words;he believed himself to be a god.
The old man's smile broadened once Ren made the correct guess. Old man Mahābodhivān was said to have lived for thousands of years, and over the course of those thousands did he begin to age. Not only was Ren meeting the father of cultivation, but he was meeting the Mahābodhivān that had mastered and discovered all there was to know about cultivation. At this point of the cultivators life, the arts of cultivation and mana manipulation had spread all throughout the continent, some owing to his teachings and some from other teachers.
Mahābodhivān was a villager in the small nation of Gashna which now was part of the great nation of Alaeac which explained his brown skin and peculiar face.
"So you have come. You must be reading my book." He said, "How far have you gone?"
"Sir Mahābodhivān, truly, it is an honour. I am at the world energy assimilation, I have increased my base mana sir."
"Oh, drop the formalities. I am not real, I am merely a memory that has found itself from my tome to you. You have come so far to have gotten to world energy assimilation. How good are your stances? Show me your Shen, Ryuk and Gan!" He now wore the serious countenance of a teacher.
Ren hesitated, but this was Mahābodhivān he was speaking with. He had to do what the Cultivator asked, especially as it pertained to cultivation.
Ren executed the stances almost flawlessly, hundreds of times of repeating a position would do that to anybody.
"Good, good. You are a little old but you are good. You've mastered the basics. Those with the talent these days are made to start learning much earlier."
"Remember, the key to the mastery of the energies…" Before he could utter the last of words however, tremors began to ripple through the ground, an earthquake, and the pointed rocks from above began to fall.
"What? This is not from my memory, this is not how I remembered this. What's happening?"
A giant snake suddenly lunged through the opening. Ren escaped the giant scaly thing wielding massive poison fangs. Mahābodhivān however could not, the snake caught him tightly in its jaws, and pulled him out of the mountain.
Ren immediately ran to the edge to see what it was that was happening. He saw that Mahābodhivān had now escaped the jaws of the snake with the creature missing a huge chunk of its mouth, with large scalds around what remained of its head. Other beasts lunged from the heavens, all drifting towards Mahābodhivān with unmatched ferocity. Just what had the old cultivator done to anger so many great beasts? Mahābodhivān however was an underdog, he glowed like a sun, his aura challenging the powers of the heavens.
This dream, memory whatever it was, existed to relay a message to Ren. Mahābodhivān had said it himself, this was not part of his memory. Something from the outside has spilled into his mind.
"The gods do not tolerate outside interference." Ren recalled the words of Enoa. Was this truly an act by the gods to keep Mahābodhivān away or was this actually part of the memory of the cultivator. Either way, the old man cultivator was having no trouble with mincing the bodies of the heavenly beasts that came at him. He splitted a giant Pegasus with a chop, and spilled its guts. A mighty large scorpion lunged its poison tail right down at him, but he dodged with ease, grappling the tail with his arms, and snapping it right off. He pumped his right fist full of fiery ki, and hovered to the scorpion. A fiery hot blade morphed around his hand, and he drove it right into the scorpion's head, snuffing life out of it. The beast fell from the clouds, and struck the earth, creating a massive crater.
Ren watched with admiration and elation, Enoa had said the potential of a cultivator was boundless, but he had not expected heaven-defying boundless, he was floored.
"So this is the true might of a master."