The journey back home was really tedious for Cole, his injuries impeding most of his movement.
Albeit all of that, he still pressed on and headed back home amidst the gaze of the surrounding people.
Though scenes like this are quite common in the slum, it was still quite rare to see someone this young with this kind of injury.
"What did he get himself into for him to get such injuries?" A woman whispered to the trader in front of her.
"Cruelty of the slum," Cole responded internally as he continued his journey.
About twenty minutes later, Cole finally arrived back home.
His room was just as he left it, looking really shattered, but none of this seemed to bother Cole as he directly headed towards his bed and lay there to sleep.
He drifted off into another world quietly; his increased amount of sleep appeared to be a side effect of his overuse of the Eyes of Scrutiny.
"Uhhhhmmm!" Cole woke under the cover of the moonlight that shimmered through the window.
He looked towards a point in his room; there lay the golden-edged letter that Cole previously read.
He struggled to pick himself up and headed towards the letter. He read through it again, paying more attention to the details this time, and as expected, he found something he seemed to have missed.
In the envelope containing the letter, Cole found a small golden emblem.
He carefully studied the emblem in his hands; the emblem had an insignia printed on it.
Cole now paid attention to the details of the insignia. The insignia looked like a curled-up infant—a representation of the nascent soul—and around it was a circle with multiple inscriptions.
Cole flipped the emblem that was with him, and behind it a name was written: "Mozzart Isaac."
"Mozart Isaac, could he be the one who took me to that building?" Cole thought, a slight anger welling up in him.
He was quite annoyed by the man's actions, as he didn't enjoy being so useful and completely restrained.
"Ohhhh, true, how do I actually get to the Academy?" Cole wondered.
He continued to inspect the envelope for clues, but he still couldn't find anything.
After searching fruitlessly for a while, Cole decided to give up and put it aside.
Having nothing else to do, Cole decided to cultivate for a while, as he really enjoyed the feeling of life energy actively flowing through him.
With the letter still in hand, he sat back down on his bed and began chanting the World Absorbing Mantra slowly, due to the fear of absorbing all of the life energy in the surroundings at once.
The life energy peacefully flowed into his body, invigorating him largely, and Cole could even feel some of his wounds very slowly healing.
The letter on his leg also seemed to respond to the flow of life energy, the golden seams pulsing softly.
This continued for a while before "Poof!"
A soft poof rang out, dragging Cole out of his cultivation state; he looked to see the letter on his lap gone, now replaced with some text that seemed like coordinates.
Cole looked at it with rapt attention, trying his best to memorize the coordinates in his sight.
About a minute later, the texts slowly vanished like they never existed.
"So it actually needed life energy. Who the hell designed that? How am I supposed to know that?"
****Somewhere else****
"Ohhh, I feel like I forgot something," Cole's hidden guide thought.
"It can't be important then," he continued to say dismissively.
****Cole's room****
"Since I now know where I should go, should I head there tomorrow?" Cole reasoned.
"I need to prepare something though," he said while looking around his room.
He rose to his feet and began heading out of his room towards Mr. Evans's room.
"Knock knock." Cole respectfully dropped two knocks on the door.
"Mr. Evans," Cole called out.
He waited by the entrance for about thirty seconds before he started hearing signs of activity by the door.
A sleepy face appeared in front of Cole when the door opened.
"Good evening, Mr. Evans," Cole greeted.
"I came to inform you that I would be going away for a while."
"Away….. "For how long and to where?" Mr. Evans asked, slightly worried.
"I don't know, and…I don't know," Cole answered quietly.
"Are you alright, kid? Do you think you can just tell me you are leaving without telling me where?" Mr. Evans raised his voice slightly.
"You have become like a wayward son to me; I just can't let you like that," he continued.
"So you better give me a good explanation for why you decided to rob this old man of his son."
"You aren't even that old," Cole grumbled.
"I really don't know, but I will make sure to come back and check up on you," Cole said.
Cole felt a lump in his throat while he was doing that, but he tried his best to hide it.
Mr. Evans continued to stare straight at Cole before saying.
"It seems you have decided, but let this old man treat you tonight to send you off," Mr. Evans said while he looked away, avoiding Cole's eyes.
"You won't rob me of that too, right?"
"Okay, let's do that," Cole replied after regaining his composure.
The rest of the evening went smoothly; Cole and Mr. Evans went out for dinner at a restaurant not too far from their building. They went back home, and after saying their goodbyes, Cole went back into his room to continue cultivating, though all through their interactions, Cole tried his best to hide his injuries.
After cultivating for a while, Cole decided to go back to sleep and begin his journey the next morning.
The next morning, Cole woke up energized; the previous bout of cultivation allowed Cole to move well, and though not healed completely, the pain had dulled enough to be ignored.
He packed his important belongings, which were actually just some money and a little amount of clothes, before deciding to head out.
At the door, Cole looked back to his room, thinking of the time he had spent there. The happy ones and the horrible ones and the neutral ones. They all came flooding back.
"I will be back," Cole said resolutely before slamming his door and leaving, trying his best not to look back.
Cole left his building with heavy steps, heading towards a new beginning.
About thirty minutes later, Cole finally arrived at the location that he got in the letter.
His face was scrunched up as he looked around; the expected grand buildings and all that were nowhere to be found, but instead, in front of him was a sprawling forest that seemed to have an overbearing presence.
Cole gripped the emblem tightly as he wondered what exactly was going on.
"Welcome, Cole Bremont; you will arrive at the Spiriters Academy shortly," Cole suddenly heard.
He looked around swiftly, trying to pinpoint the origin, but he couldn't; the only thing he felt was the world slowly going dark.
"Am I in trouble?" Cole wondered before he completely lost consciousness.