Chapter 58 - Fifty Eight - Advancing in These Times (2/2)
Coming here, finding more people with powers was unbalancing, but no sooner had they arrived, they'd gone out raiding, keeping his mind from being overly bothered about it. Tyler and Patrick proved that they were strong, but not without weakness, that their powers didn't mean they weren't vulnerable. Admittedly, Ren Zexian and Chang Min were something else, but keeping his body busy meant he didn't need to dwell on things.
In the end, though, he couldn't ignore reality forever and when Cole, one of their own that despite his history of being on the other side of the law he could claim as brother now, had developed powers, he felt that last straw of normality turn to ash.
Silently, he was trying hard to accept things, he knew his chances of survival would be pretty slim if he could not get over his issues. But the weirdness just kept on getting weirder. He took a deep breath and followed in the wake of Patrick and Aslan, finding them both outside of a closed door.
”Whose room is this?” He indicated the door casually with his thumb.
”Tyler's,” Patrick replied, excitedly. Before he could ask any further, the door beside it, but further down the hall, opened. Ren Zexian stepped out, with Nathan following. The oriental man's smile seemed less like a physical boundary for some reason and more welcoming, while Nathan's face seemed flushed with feeling. Patrick clearly could detect the alteration in the aura about them as he clapped his hands together and took a deep breath. He waggled a finger, pointing at both of them, even as he bounced upon his heels in giddy excitement.
Neither man said anything in response to Patrick's unspoken question, however Arthur could see that Nathan's hand no longer grasped the sleeve of Ren Zexian's robe, but instead the man's pale fingers. What was there to question?
Ren Zexian's sparkling, black eyes glanced towards the closed bedroom door. ”It seems that Tyler will be advancing soon,” he murmured, causing Arthur to frown. He didn't understand what this meant, however the smaller man beside him was obviously aware.
”I thought it would be me next,” he pouted, childishly. ”I mean, I've been cultivating longer than he has!”
Cultivating... that had to do with those mediation techniques. There were officers in the force that used to swear by things like that, claimed that it helped to loosen the stress of the job. Arthur had favoured physical exercise over those 'well-being' methods. However, at that time, he'd never imagined that such would become the norm in this small base of survivors and even considered beneficial to strengthening powers and abilities.
”I have explained,” Ren Zexian was saying, ”that the speed in which one can advance has to do with technique, talent and fortune. I have given you the best techniques that I am able to, talent is innate, I cannot help that. A single root means the concentration of spiritual energy is focused upon a lone path, two roots and the energy is split two ways. Your fortune may not be as great as Tyler's but it is greater than others, mine for example.”
”Really?” Patrick questioned, sceptically.
”Truly,” Ren Zexian agreed. Otherwise, how could he have only been of nonary stage after ten thousand years?! Nathan gripped his hand more tightly, revealing his discomfort in the stirring atmosphere centring on the man locked in his room. ”Come, his advancement still may take a while.”
”You aren't going to help him?” Patrick recalled how Ren Zexian had been there throughout Dexter's advancement.
Ren Zexian simply smiled and replied with a slightly wry expression; ”I honestly do not believe that Tyler requires assistance.” And with that, he calmly lead Nathan away.
Arthur sighed, he really didn't get this shit at all.
Tyler advanced in the middle of the night. The first thing he did following his advancement was to fumble to his en-suite bathroom in the dark, leaving sticky black prints upon the wall. Once there, he proceeded to create hot water for a good bath.