"You want to know about me?", the old saint asked in a serious tone. Rudra nods, agreeing to the old saint's question.
"Well, I don't know!"
"What you don't know about yourself?", Rudra asked.
"How would I, if I am not actually myself."
Rudra was confused by these words, 'is something wrong with this saint, or are his words too meaningful that I am not able to understand them?'
"You see, that stone tablet, I always come into form by the light particles that fall from it. I am just a mere shadow. Therefore, I don't even have the memories of the person I am. The only thing I possess with me is control over this stone tablet through which I cast myself out in this form and a few specific memories. It is that I am mainly formed to teach you.
I can somehow access your memories and process the things you say as a real mind, but the only memories I have of myself are a pack of information that I need to pass on to you.
"What! Are you not real? What if you are a projection of the same person who made this talisman?", Rudra thought about a possibility.
"I don't know, but right now I myself, am a mystery."
"Okay, so what about this talisman, how did I enter it?"
"It is all because of your spiritual energy, at first time I teleported your consciousness inside the charm here, but during the battle, when this charm itself absorbed your spiritual energy, it activated a specific mode to conceal your presence for a specific period. That period depends upon how powerful your spiritual energy is.
This talisman is specially created to protect its host, if a critical moment is detected when you could get killed, this talisman activates a specific mode and plays specific tricks to protect you. But it will continue only until the energy within it is not diminished.", the old saint explained.
"This talisman's creators may have done this, to limit your knowledge for your safety, therefore work hard, become powerful and eligible to know about them, don't waste your time on them for now.", the old saint explains after seeing the expressions on Rudra's face.
Rudra understood what that saint was trying to tell him. The silence remained there for a while.
Suddenly Rudra sighed and asked, "You said you were made to mentor me. Does that mean you will be my master?"
Listening to this a smile appeared on his face, "You can call me your master or Acharya¹!"
"Okay, master!"
"Have you ever heard about magic?", Acharya asked.
"Yeah, magic too is a specific type of cultivation way. Would you teach me about it?"
"Ha Ha Ha Ha, you seem to be very curious, The magical way is a way of cultivation in which people only increase their spiritual energy, and the techniques they use with their spiritual energy are called magical skills.
Magic can be considered one of the best abilities among saints. You need to use specific mantras to use magic. You can form specific mantra seals, and barriers, and perform strikes that damage a person's spiritual energy.
You can also use spiritual energy to control some objects in your surroundings, like this.", Acharya took out a knife.
He threw it up in the air. The knife fell back to the ground, but before it could touch the ground, it began floating.
"Although this is just an image cast by me, you could do something similar with your spiritual energy.", Acharya demonstrates, "You can use it to increase your sensing ability within a specific range. Now, you should go back to your senses and give it a try, ask me if you have any doubt.", with that being said, Acharya's ghostly body faded and disintegrated and all the particles went inside that tablet.
After a few moments, a light flashed in front of Rudra as he opened his eyelids. All he saw was that his left arm and waist were covered in bandages, he was lying in one of the carts. He got up and found only a few people, who told him that they already reached the Kashvyagiri while he was out of his senses, they had also given him a few medicines that would help him recover fast.
Rudra sat right there and viewed the monuments of the city that he hadn't seen for a month, he then looked around to find three carts filled with those supply crates, each cart had four people and three crates. Those crates were really heavy and all of them had to be loaded in three different carts.
But the fight in that town, caused many of the Skambha outpost members to lose their lives, and now only these members were left from that town, this enraged Rudra even more.
After a few minutes…..
The carts were standing in the compound of the clan mansion.
Elder Vasuraj stood near the carts and instructed the members to take the crates into the mansion very carefully.
Rudra came out of the cart. He felt very content to see the mansion after almost a month.
"Hey, Revaant are you sure he is the grandson of the clan leader?", another man asked.
"He could be, I am not sure, although he has the same name as the grandson of the leader, 'Rudra' but it doesn't mean it is him, I haven't even seen his face for a few years. Also, why would a leader allow his grandson to roam out of the city, when he is at such a weak stage, that he is believed to die in almost a year.", Revaant kept his reasons.
Rudra with his shoulder injury being easily revealed to everyone, walks towards the mansion. Here, as soon as Elder Vasuraj saw a familiar face coming out of the carts and walking towards him, his jaw dropped down in silence, as he was stunned by the scene in front of him.
The familiar face was Rudra of course. Elder Vasuraj already knew that Rudra had gone out to travel within the forest for a few days. But when no signs were found of him for 15 days most of the people believed that he was dead. But his appearance out of nowhere just after a month was unbelievable.
'How is he coming with the group from the riverside town, these injuries, did someone attack him in the forest?', with these thoughts Vasuraj ran towards the group.
As soon as Rudra saw Vasuraj approaching him, he prepared himself for all the questions that were about to be asked. Meanwhile, the other clan members had an ugly look of disgrace on their faces.
"God, how is this bastard still alive?"
"Why didn't the mystical beasts tear him apart?"
Although he was the grandson of the leader, no one missed the chance to tease him. After all, they had no fear because they knew about Rudra, he would never complain about something like this to his family.
But, would prefer to deal with it on his own. Rudra avoiding those background noises kept walking.
"Rudra, where have you been? Do you even know how much your grandpa and sisters have been missing you?", Elder Vasuraj said as he shook Rudra while taking a look at his injured shoulder, "How did you get this injury?",
"Actually he helped us confront the Masaan clan warriors when they attacked our outpost, he defeated a few of them, but when the situation got out of control he helped us escape with these crates but in that while he was injured by the opponents.", Revaant explained.
Vasuraj seemed very concerned after hearing this. He simply dragged Rudra inside the mansion, "You were in the forest how come did you get to the riverside town?"
Vasuraj seemed to have a soft side for Rudra. Although he was not the chief elder Vasuraj always favored Rudra. But since Rudra weakened, he stayed a little worried for him from inside and Rudra too knew this fact.
"Wait, your energy seems to have increased!", within all this mess of a situation Vasuraj finally realized Something.
"Your energy seems equal to that of a practitioner on the third stage or even more, what happened with you?", Vasuraj Said.
"You are right, it is now equal to that of a practitioner.", Rudra said with a smile.
"you have unlocked your first chakra?! It is unbelievable, but still it's great.", his voice revealed a sense of contentment.
After walking for a few minutes, they entered the main hall which was empty, Vihaan was seated on the large throne-like chair alone, with a saddened face. Dwelving in loneliness, he seemed to be lost somewhere.
But as soon his eyes fell on the figure with Elder Vasuraj who entered the main hall, his eyes widened as they shone out with a starry shine.
"Rudra!", Vihaan called out to his grandson as he ran towards him.
Vihaan hugged him tightly, "Fool! Where have you been since one month, didn't mine or your sisters' thought come to your mind?", tears welled up in Vihaan's eyes which streamed down his face, as he patted Rudra's head.
"Sorry, Grandpa, I didn't mean to cause any problems for you, it was just that the circumstances delayed everything."
"Where did you get this injury, were you ambushed by some mystical beast?", Vihaan asked as he inspected the injury on Rudra's shoulder.
"Actually he got involved in the battle at the riverside town outpost.", this time Vasuraj said.
"what those Masaan clan members? You fought them?"
"it is nothing, Grandpa, I will recover soon.
But what are the extracted materials that you have imported here from the riverside town? Why are they so important?", Rudra simply asked his question.
"I will tell you later after the clan meeting with all the members that are summoned here from the surrounding town branches.", Vihaan agreed to answer the question later.
"What? You ordered all the members of our clan from the nearby town branches to come back to the city? Why did you do that? I guess there is a solid reason behind this!", Rudra asked.
"There is a reason behind it.", Vihaan says.
1)Acharya – it is a term that was used to by disciples to address their masters in ancient india.