Stone Will

by Kirill Klevanski

  When Dogar, his adjutant, and the soldier came in with their ‘gifts’, she didn’t believe her eyes at first. Then, after listening to their story several times, she sent for the chief engineer.

  He was overjoyed. He said that using this treasure, he could reduce the number of nomads dramatically and would surely find a use for the huge pelt as well.

  After him, the main blacksmith ran in, as the tiger’s claws weren’t made of bones, but from an unknown metal.

  The blacksmith was delighted too but didn’t touch the materials. He said that they needed an artifactor, because he, an ordinary craftsman, would only ruin everything.

  As a result, the General asked the librarian to come in as well. He appeared almost instantly, and Hadjar noticed a greedy gleam in his eyes.

  “I’ll send a message to the Palace immediately,” the librarian said with a slight bow. “Perhaps they’ll manage to send an artifactor to the fort.”

  “I would be very grateful to you, Honorable Adept,” the General also bowed slightly.

  Hadjar couldn’t understand how the old man could ‘send a message to the Palace’. The capital was very far away, as far as London is from Beijing. The Internet or even the phone hadn’t yet been invented here.

  He probably meant to do it with some mystical spells.

  “General Leen,” the librarian said, “to give the artifactor an idea of what he will be working with, I need... three claws…”

  Three claws out of twelve... He was an old, cunning, greedy fox!

  Despite having come to the same conclusion as Hadjar, the General still replied courteously. “Of course. Thank you for your help.”

  The dried up, old man carried the claws on his shoulder easily. They didn’t leave a cut on his skin and couldn’t even rip his clothes. Damn adepts...

  Finally, when everyone left, the General turned to the hunters.

  “I’ll gather the War Council in the morning and it’ll approve your reward. Now, go to the librarian and tell him that you’ll surely be given a thousand Honor Points.”

  Nero and Hadjar pressed their fists to their chests and bowed. “You can go. And you, Senior Officer Dogar, I ask that you stay behind.”

  Dogar nodded.

  As Nero and Hadjar were leaving the tent, Nero suggested they stay behind and eavesdrop. He was sure that General Leen had asked their commander to remain in her tent due to ‘a very important reason’—to take the edge off. If he made a hole in the tent, he could see the General naked...

  Hadjar warned his friend that if the General found out, she would put his head on a spear. Besides, Hadjar had something more important to do. And he wasn’t a pervert.

  So, they parted. Nero stayed to risk his life, and Hadjar went... to do the same. Which of them would prove to be the better ‘psychic’ was the question.

  Ten minutes later, Hadjar was already at the ‘doorstep’ of the library. As always, it was being guarded by two soldiers in green armor.

  “Officer Hadjar,” they suddenly greeted him.

  “Legionnaires,” Hadjar nodded and went inside.

  As always, several soldiers were sitting inside and studying the scrolls. After all, Hadjar wasn’t the only one who wanted to become stronger—there were tens of thousands of soldiers and officers who desired that exact same thing as well.

  “I’d figured you would be coming by, Hadjar,” the librarian smiled, having already hidden the claws somewhere.

  “Good evening, Honorable Adept,” the Prince bowed. The presence of the old man annoyed him, but Hadjar could do nothing about it. “I’d like to rent the scroll with the Meditation Technique. The Honor points on my medallion are not enough, but the General asked me to tell you that my award will be approved in the morning.”

  “Well, then you should come back in the morning. You’ll have enough time before the march begins.”

  “I beg your pardon, Honorable Adept, but I need the scroll right now.”

  The old man, dressed in amber robes, leaned on the edge of the table.

  “Do you think this will help you in your fight against the adjutant?”

  Hadjar just nodded.

  “Youth,” the old man sighed, and, with a wave of his hand, the necessary scroll levitated onto the table. “Hot blood, sharper blades. You know, sometimes I miss the old days, back when I was the same.”

  He put the hourglass next to the scroll and turned it over.

  “You have an hour.” With these words, the librarian went back to the shelves.

  After some time, Hadjar left the tent. A detailed copy of the scroll was now stored in his neural network, and all he had to do was wish for it to appear before his eyes and it would immediately do so.

  Its contents... They’ve really opened up new horizons for me. Who would have thought that energy could be absorbed in more ways than just sucking it in like a cocktail through a straw? It can be absorbed in various ways, circulated at different rates, concentrated at different speeds…

  All of this had been described in the scroll in great detail, accompanied by diagrams and drawings.

  If he’d had such knowledge before, he could’ve been at the early stages of the Transformation level by now!

  But, alas, history wasn’t compatible with the subjunctive mood, so he had to work with what he had.

  When Hadjar returned to his tent, Nero was waiting for him at the entrance. He was sitting on a bench, holding his two-handed sword in his lap.

  “What are you doing here?” Hadjar asked.

  “Saving your life,” Nero answered seriously. “I’m sure the adjutant will send someone after you tonight. While you are busy with your cultivation, you’ll hardly be able to ensure that someone won’t pull your tongue out of your throat.”

  Hadjar froze in place. He didn’t know what to say, therefore, he just quietly said, “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Nero nodded. “But... are you sure you want to form your Heart of Power with the help of the animal's? The pain will be awful.”

  Hadjar just smiled at that.

  “That’s one thing I’m definitely not afraid of. Pain,” he said, and entered the tent.

  Assuming the lotus position, he placed the core, or as it was also called, the Heart of Power, of the Emerald Wolf in front of him.

  Closing his eyes, Hadjar began to circulate the energy as it had been described in the scroll. With every breath, he plunged deeper and deeper inside the essence of his being, his mind, and soul.

  It was dark in there. Warm, but dark. The endless darkness would only occasionally be disturbed by eleven blue lines. They flowed through this bottomless darkness like the streams in the valley where Hadjar had relearned how to walk.

  Like thin, almost wispy, but still swift and mighty streams.

  Hadjar reached for them.

  At first, they slipped out from under his finger, but then they succumbed.

  According to the scroll, in order to advance to the next stage, Hadjar had to catch them all. After catching them, he had to ‘decant’ the energy from them, which would give him the ability to form the ‘Seed’ of his future Heart of Power.

  As soon as he touched the first stream, he had to ‘close his eyes’ because of the bright, white light.

  When Hadjar could ‘open’ his eyes again, he was in a beautiful Palace instead of the previous emptiness. Minstrels could’ve sung songs and bards could’ve made up stories about such a Palace for a thousand years.

  There was a man standing in the center of the Palace. He was as proud and majestic as the sky in the afternoon.

  Golden hair fell past his shoulders, over black silk robes adorned with gold patterns. The presence of the horns on his head and the spirals in his pupils indicated that he wasn’t a human.

  “Hello, Prince Hadjar Duran,” a familiar voice said.

  “Greetings, Lord of the Heavens Traves,” Hadjar bowed.

  It was the dragon.

  Chapter 50

  “Is this a dream?�
�� Hadjar asked, looking around.

  The ceiling of the Palace was so far away that it looked more like the sky. All the walls and pillars had been carved and decorated with amazing craftsmanship. The scenes captured on them seemed to come to life easily and the great warriors and battles depicted almost flooded the hall. The marble floor was covered with patterns of unprecedented beauty.

  Such a Palace couldn’t have been built by ordinary masters.

  Hadjar noticed... mysteries in every stone, every pattern, and carving. Mysteries that were unattainable to him, with his limited knowledge of the world.

  Hadjar didn’t know it, but even the librarian couldn’t have comprehended the secrets and knowledge hidden in the Palace. They were beyond the understanding of an ordinary Heaven Soldier.

  Let alone the Prince, who was still looking for the true path of cultivation.

  “Yes and no,” Traves answered evasively.

  In the guise of a human, he looked like a young man of about twenty-seven. Without the horns, he would have looked like one of those handsome men whom young ladies dream of.

  “Then why and, most importantly, how are you here, talking to me?”

  Traves was standing in the center of the hall. His long sleeves were almost dragging across the floor. A wide belt with the emblem of a dragon on the buckle cinched his robes.

  “I put my heart in you, Hadjar,” Traves’ voice was thick, entrancing, like the sound of the wind blowing through the treetops. “Not the whole heart, of course, only a tiny fraction of my blood, from which I created a small heart.”

  Hadjar ‘touched’ his chest involuntarily and started. He was in a world of illusions, but it had felt just like a real heart. Hadjar had felt his own touch.

  He squatted down and touched the floor.

  It was cold.

  It was stone.

  “How is this... pos… sible...?” Hadjar said, stumbling over the words.

  “Even if I tried to explain it to you, you wouldn’t understand. Simply put…” Traves came closer. His every step was immensely powerful like a mountain was approaching. “You received a fraction… a billionth of my power, Hadjar. And with it, you also got a bit of my mind.”

  Hadjar rose and looked at the creature that had given him a new life.

  “So, you are actually dead?”

  “I am,” the dragon nodded. “What you see is just my shadow. My last bit of will, left behind to help you find your justice and my revenge.”

  “Why have you come now?”

  “So, you want to know about the ‘why’...” Traves looked around. He looked at the Palace with a touch of sadness and inexhaustible pride. “You don’t even realize what’s in front of you and where you’re standing.”

  “I think I’m in a Palace. A very strange Palace.”

  “A Palace,” Traves repeated. “You could call it that, I suppose. We have little time, so I’ll speak plainly—I shouldn’t have appeared to you.”

  Hadjar looked into the dragon’s eyes. The same amber colored and bright eyes that he’d had during their last meeting.

  “Then why did you?”

  “To stop you from making a stupid mistake, Hadjar. The scroll you’re about to use is a trap.”

  “I don’t understand...”

  “If you advance to the Formation stage using the methods described here, then your best will always be the initial stage of the Heaven Soldier. You’ll never be able to go above that, no matter the circumstances. This kind of Technique is called a ‘slave’ Technique, and they were created specifically to make a lot of slave adepts. They live longer than ordinary ones. Are stronger than ordinary ones. And they can be used for many different purposes.”

  Hadjar flinched.

  Everything made sense now. Why should the Empire create strong kingdoms around itself? Why would it need extra organizations, ones that could have cultivators at the Heaven Soldier level, or even higher than that? It’s constantly rocked by internal conflicts. Sects fighting against sects. Clan intrigues aimed at ruining other clans. Kingdoms trying to steal land from their neighbors…

  And this library... is just a front. On the one hand, the opportunity to become stronger lends credibility to Primus, as well as the Governor, who represents the Empire in Lidus.

  On the other hand, even if there are geniuses capable of getting enough Honor Points to acquire a Meditation scroll, these geniuses... They’ll never become a threat to the Empire. It’ll stop them and weaken them while they are in their most vulnerable phase.

  “Damn, that’s clever,” Hadjar cursed, acknowledging the imperial officials’ cunning scheme.

  They would kill not just two birds with one stone, but entire generations.

  “I’ve already begun forming my Heart of Power with the help of this accursed scroll!”

  “But you haven’t finished yet,” Traves reminded him. “You have the whole night ahead of you to correct your mistake.”

  “One night,” Hadjar said. “And tomorrow morning, I’ll have to fight.”

  “Is your enemy strong?”

  “He’s probably at the Awakening of the Soul stage, at least.”

  The ‘Transformation’ level, which came after the ‘Formation’ one, was divided into three stages: The ‘Mortal form’—the stage where a practitioner cleansed their body. They would get rid of all filth, diseases, and other dead weight acquired during their life.

  ‘Awakening of the Soul’—the stage where the energy in the body changed its quality. It became denser, stronger, and visible.

  And the ‘New Soul’, which was the most mystical of the stages. Few people understood its essence, but they said that, at this stage, the practitioner’s soul would be strengthened. Whatever that meant...

  Because of these three stages, it was believed that the ‘Transformation’ level was the transitional period between being a simple practitioner and a true cultivator, a Heaven Soldier.

  However, stepping over the threshold that separated the ‘Transformation’ from the ‘Heaven Soldier’... Well, only one out of ten thousand people were capable of it.

  “So, he is much stronger than you... Well, that’s good. It’s only in the face of a deadly threat when you need to do the impossible, that you can really progress down the path of cultivation. This is the only way to reach the top, to gain power over your destiny, and then true freedom.”

  “That’s great and your speech is really inspiring, but...” Hadjar shook his head. “I don’t have another scroll.”

  “Are you giving up?” Traves asked.

  In response to his question, Hadjar’s eyes filled with that same indomitable will that had once impressed him so much. The will that would one day be able to break the heavens themselves.

  “I thought as much,” Traves turned to one of the columns.

  A horde of all kinds of monsters, numbering in the thousands, were depicted on it, and all of them, hungry for blood, were descending on one figure. And this figure, standing proudly and bravely in the middle of a sea of enemies, was crushing them one by one.

  “I shouldn’t have appeared before you reached the stage of the ‘Heaven Soldier’. My knowledge, the legacy which I bequeathed to you… only a true cultivator could begin to comprehend it.”

  “I’m sorry I inconvenienced you.”

  “This isn’t your fault.” Apparently, the shadow of Traves’ consciousness didn’t really understand the concept of sarcasm. “I’m only going to teach you the Techniques I personally created. I can’t give you the ones that were taught to me by great masters, even after my death. Not because I don’t want to, but because I am bound by oaths.”

  Great masters! Traves had actually referred to them as great masters? Damn it! A thousand times damn it! Even now, Hadjar didn’t feel like he had made even the first step along the long road of cultivation.

  “Nevertheless, I can give you one Technique right now. A Technique that is used by dragons, for our meditation.”

  “Sorry, bu
t I do seem to be a human, don’t I?”

  “Precisely. ‘Seem’ is a strong and meaningful word, Hadjar. Haven’t you noticed the various transformations brought on by my heart?”

  It was true. In the last few months, he had been plagued by one simple question—why were the indicators shown by the neuronet so different from reality?

  “Are you turning me into a dragon?”

  Traves smiled for the first time.

  “No, you won’t become a Lord of the Heavens, but later, maybe in a hundred thousand years, or even a million years later, if you survive, you’ll cease to be a human. But you won’t turn into a dragon. My heart is changing your blood slowly, drop by drop, and no one knows what will come of it. It’s unprecedented. Your very heart and soul have been interwoven with my hearts’ blood.”

  Suddenly, Hadjar understood.

  “Neuronet, show me the measurement system!”

  [Measurement System: Unknown.]

  “And now show me the scanning system.”

  [Scanning system: Human]

  Hadjar read the messages again and swore.

  “Perfect. When it scans people, everything works fine. When it scans its host… it’s like I’m asking it to ‘calculate something’ in a totally unknown system.”

  That’s why the data was so wildly inaccurate. The heart had transformed him, and the neural network didn’t understand how, why, and what data to operate on now. And it had gone crazy as a result.

  Apparently, in order to provide the database with all the necessary information, Hadjar would have to dissect a dragon. Yeah… dissect. A dragon.

  Totally possible.

  “Damn it,” Hadjar growled, angered by yet another failure.

  “The Technique which I’ll give you will allow you to advance your cultivation up to the level of a Spirit Knight.”

  “And then?”

  “Then? Then you’ll have to look for a stronger meditation Technique. The one I used is sealed because of my oaths and I can’t share it with you.”