Chapter 139: The Lost Immortals Memoir - I (1/2)

The Lost immortal lived in the orphanage till he was of eight years of age. At that time, the orphanage was shut down and nearly all the children living there were left with no choice but to leave. Only the very young children were able to get transferred to other orphanages.

The lost immortal was one of the unfortunate ones that had to leave the orphanage. He didn't know what to do, thus he just begged on the streets. Years went by and when he was thirteen years of age, he accidentally offended one of the officials of the kingdom when he came in front of his carriage.

He was punished with imprisonment and was beaten up harshly. His body was already weak and malnourished thus it was with great fortune or perhaps misfortune that he survived it. While in the prison, he was forced to work as a slave and did various jobs and tasks.

One of the most dangerous tasks was the task of mining. Hundreds of prisoners would die every month, and it was nearly considered as a death sentence. The lost immortal was lucky to not get selected for the job since he was too weak and scrawny to do it.

Even in the prison, he would have to bear the beatings of the guards and the other prisoners. He didn't fight back and just bore with it. He had seen what happened to others that fought back and anyway he was not strong enough to resist.

More years passed by and the lost immortal was now seventeen. By now he had grown a lot and had surprisingly built up some muscle. Ironically, he was getting better food in the prison than he did when he was a beggar or back when he was at the orphanage.

But with his better condition, the lost immortal came to the notice of the guards and was selected for the mining job. He had nearly given up hope at that time and knew that this would be the end for him. Still unable to resist, he was forced to do it.

A month later he was shifted to the mines and started working there. The conditions were worse than the prison there, and he had a tough time at the start. He would get small injuries such as cuts and scrapes every day.

In just his first week, he had witnessed around a hundred prisoners die. Watching the process over and over had made him numb, and he became closer to a doll than a person. Eventually, a year passed by and there came a day when a large collapse had happened in the mine.

Something had destabilized the ceiling, and rocks had started falling from the top. All the prisoners ran towards the surface to escape their imminent death and pushed others in the process. The lost immortal was lucky enough to reach the halfway point when he suddenly saw a large boulder shifting from the walls of the tunnel.

He saw that the boulder was about to hit an old man. He didn't know what happened to him, but he lunged forward and pushed the old man aside, saving his life in the process. But unfortunately for the lost immortal, his own leg got crushed under the large boulder.

He was pinned and screamed in pain. The tunnels were still collapsing, so no one paid any attention to him and neither tried to save him. All except the old man that he had saved. The old man looked to be eighty years old and was bald.

Wrinkles covered his face and body, which was only accentuated due to his thin stick-like body. The old man was at first stunned and couldn't move after being pushed down to the ground. But a little time later, when the nearby people had moved away and the sounds of shouts had calmed down, he came to his sense.

The old man couldn't believe that someone would be willing to save his dog of a life in a place like this. And the person that saved him was even a young man that perhaps had some life ahead of him. Unable to bear the gratitude that was rising within his heart, the old man tried to pull out the lost immortal from under the rock.

But it took him far longer as the lost immortal kept screaming in pain and the old man was not strong enough either. The collapsing tunnel had finally stopped shaking, and the rocks had stopped falling. At the very last moment, by a stroke of luck, another falling rock hit the boulder that was pinning the lost immortal and set him free.

The old man pulled him out and dragged him to the surface after a rough two hours. By now, the lost immortal had screamed his throat hoarse and had passed out unconscious. The overseers of the mine didn't pay any heed to the injured and dead prisoners. For them, they were just expendable slaves.

Still, because the lost immortal was injured, he couldn't work and was most likely crippled for the rest of the life.

The old man who he had saved took care of him in this period and gave him food. In a surprise to him, the old man underwent a complete change in the coming few days.

The old man no longer looked as haggard and even the wrinkles on his face reduced. The other prisoners paid no attention, so these changes went unnoticed for everyone except for the lost immortal. Every day the old man would change the bandages that he had on his leg and would give him a strange kind of treatment.

It seemed like a massage, yet different. The old man would tap on certain places on his leg and the pain that he had would decrease. During this period, the lost immortal never talked and even the old man didn't say anything.

A few months passed by and finally, the lost immortal's leg was completely healed. He was shocked, as he knew that this should have been impossible. The only people that could heal from injuries were the cultivators, and he knew for sure that he wasn't one.

Finally, one day he made up his mind and spoke. He asked the old man if he was a cultivator and received the answer that he indeed was. Shock filled his body as he would have never expected this. To him, cultivators were people beyond his understanding and were people that belonged to the upper echelon of the world.