Farmer or Cultivator? Why not both?-Chapter 40: A Spirit animal
Ren woke up early the next day, the tiredness of the previous day set his body into a deep sleep much sooner, and he got up fairly early, the suns’ heat still clouded by the hanging moons.
He did his morning stretches, and went on to chug down a bottle of milk, his day had begun. Although it was still quite dark inside his eyes, he could make out the objects about easily, and it was at situations like this that hunter sense instinctively got activated. He stepped out to catch a whiff of the cool breeze that blew at times like this. He looked downhill at the village, there was total silence, no one had gotten out, and quite possibly that no one had woken up.
’When will the soldiers come?’ Ren thought, Neg’s previous owner, the knight had promised he would involve the authorities and hopefully soldiers would come bolster the area, it was a surprise that they were not around in the first place considering that the village sat right at the border.
’Perhaps I should go back to bed, I woke up much too early.’ Ren turned to go back in when he noticed a shadow in his peripheral vision. He knew that it wasn’t the trees nor the bushes that castle that shadow. He stood, tye shadow was like that of a man, a large man, and from the proximity of it, he was quite close, just right behind him. Ren turned swiftly, balled fists held up, mana coating them.
"What are you?" Ren blurted. The thing that used to be his rooster sat still and unbothered on the fence of the pen holding a battle stance. Its eyes were closed. It had one leg up, one down which held all its body weight. Its wings were up and held together as if it prayed. It had grown about two times bigger, and mana burnt ferociously within it.
Ren looked to where ge had placed the apple, and saw that it was gone.
"What have you become?" Ren questioned the evolved rooster. In response, the rooster slowly let its wings apart, and opened its eyes.
"I am still me, although a bit more enlightened." As soon as the rooster uttered those words, mana flared from it, and it when about in an eccentric motion, swaying its body like an ancient woman dancer. Mana gathered at its wings, and they had the wings take a polished appearance, almost like they were sharpened blades. A ball of the energy coalesced on the wings, and the rooster jumped from the fence, rolling in the air, and then landed just some meters away. Ren did not think to defend himself, to him this was all clearly a performance.
The ball spun, and rolled down, and back and forth its wings building momentum and growing in size, until the bird chose to release it up above where it dissipated with a light show.
"Oh oh!" Ren was captivated.
His worries having dissapeared, he walked to the rooster.
"But how? The cows and pigs ate the produce i gave to them, abd none changed. Why just you?"
The rooster bowed, and then raised its head, "I have no idea. I saw the fruit and fed on it, it seemed normal enough, abd then I was nothing, and eventually I awoke as this. I felt a great pain before I saw nothing, I think I was close to that place, that thing where the body ceases to do anything, but I came back."
Ren only understood it because he wielded the skill [General language understanding] and the evolved rooster spoke intelligently enough. The creature sounded like a man with a fairly high pitched voice, and a low clucking accompanied its words, which frankly was annoying to Ren.
’So what now?’ He had not anticipated nor had he read on occurrences such as this, it was a relief that it had not turned hostile, but frankly, Ren did not know what to do.
’The tome should have an answer to this. This must be a record of such occurrence.’
The mother hen happened to be up and moving with her chicks right at that moment, both their attentions were drawn to it, but the rooster quickly looked away. It was entirely apathetic despite that it had been roaming with them the other day.
’It mustn’t be seeing itself as one of them. It had transcended, and even perhaps it sees itself more like me than them.’
"Hold on, I have to go check something." He said to the rooster.
"Yes master."
Ren went into his home to fetch the tome of Mahābodhivān, he needed to understand phenomenon as soon as possible. Understanding it would give him a better way to proceed, that he believed.
The tome was by his bed as it often was, and as he picked it up, the letter from Evo fell from the table he had placed it. He had place the tome above the letter, and taking the book off from it had it fall.
’My letter of recommendation.’ He had not given it much thought since accepting the letter, but he knew he would have to go to this sect eventually, he wanted to go but a number of things still held him back.
He placed the letter into hus drawer this time, and hurriedly flipped through the pages of the book. He had gone through half of the voluminous tome when he found the page that talked about it.
"Spirit animals..." He read.
