"Hah?"
Damian was dumbfounded by the question of Uncle Adam.
But moments later, he realized why the old warrior would think such a thing.
Land and Sky Physiques.
In the Lands of Stone, not all power came from cultivation alone.
Some individuals were born with something more. A deeper connection to the primal forces that shaped the Lands. An inheritance written into their very blood that set them apart from ordinary Warriors before they ever drew their first breath of Mana.
These were the Land and Sky Physiques!
Damian knew they were called such because the ancient shamans who first documented them believed that all power in existence stemmed from two sources: the Land beneath their feet, stable and enduring, and the Sky above their heads, vast and ever-changing.
Every Physique, they claimed, drew its nature from one of these two realms, or in the rarest cases, from both.
He actually held far too many bad memories when he thought of Physiques.
Because he had never shown any sign of a Physique unlike the other Young Lugals in the Empire. It was something he always blamed himself for, because it had been used as one of the pretenses for the horrific events that unfolded which led to where he was now.
He closed his eyes briefly to keep these memories away.
Man, it fucking sucked and hurt at the same time just thinking about it.
But back to Land and Sky Physiques.
They could manifest early. Some revealed themselves in childhood. Others emerged during moments of extreme stress or breakthrough. A few remained dormant until death, never awakening despite the potential lying coiled within the blood.
They were gifts and curses.
They were the reason empires rose and bloodlines were hunted to extinction.
Uncle Adam spoke with a desperate voice, as if he had to know whether his Young Lugal had finally awakened a Land and Sky Physique. It would explain everything. The ridiculous actions Damian had taken. The way he had managed to be alive and not dead after having his chest torn open twice.
A Physique would make sense of the impossible.
But when Damian truly thought about it...
How could he explain the Primordial Tongue?
It felt grand and dangerous at the same time. He trusted Uncle Adam with absolutely everything, including his life. The old warrior had proven that trust a thousand times over across years of exile and hardship.
But his own instincts told him that even the knowledge regarding this Primordial Tongue felt dangerous and sacred. Something that should not be spoken of carelessly. Something that might draw attention he was not yet prepared to handle.
So maybe for now...he could keep it.
For now, until he studied it a little further and understood exactly what he had gotten his hands on, he would hold this secret close.
Because unless everything he knew about Land and Sky Physiques was wrong, the Primordial Tongue was absolutely not a Physique. It was something else entirely. Something that did not fit into any category he had ever learned about.
So for current purposes, he simply nodded and said:
"Something like that. Though I cannot explain it too well."
...!
"Haha... Haha!"
Uncle Adam's weathered face split into a grin that shed years from his features.
"Good! Good!"
Damian watched the old warrior raise his fist as it thrummed with Mana, blue tendrils coiling around his knuckles as he expressed tremendous happiness at this fact. The Bloodmoss Paste covering his wounds seemed almost forgotten in the surge of emotion.
Because Damian had been called trash and a failure because he never held a Land and Sky Physique.
Many had died because he did not show the power other Young Lugals had shown.
His lack of a Physique had been used as a weapon against his family. It had given their enemies justification to question his legitimacy, to undermine his father's rule, to plot and scheme and eventually bring everything crashing down.
As if just thinking about this brought back all the memories, Uncle Adam's face twisted with savagery.
"This means that there is a possibility, Young Lugal."
His voice dropped low, intense.
"A possibility to reclaim what was yours. To avenge the Masters. To make sure that when the ancestors look down upon us, we can look up with pride!"
He stood, his injuries forgotten, his body trembling with the force of emotions too long suppressed.
"Young Lugal Vakochev! With a Land and Sky Physique! They will all bow before you and-"
"Woah woah woah, slow down there, old man."
Damian shook his head as he had to stop this old warrior from jumping past far too many steps.
Uncle Adam's enthusiasm was understandable. After years of protecting a broken Lugal, of watching Damian plant seeds and pull weeds while the killers of his parents walked free, the prospect of finally having a path to vengeance must have been intoxicating.
But intoxication led to poor decisions.
And poor decisions led to death.
"If you and I even get near the Vassal Tribes, we will be killed on sight."
Damian's voice was calm, measured, the voice of someone who had thought about this many times during sleepless nights.
"Not to mention that cursed Empire itself. The one that rose from the ashes of my father's Rule. They have Warriors at Circles we cannot even dream of right now. They have armies. They have spies in every tribe from here to the endless wastes."
He paused, letting that reality settle.
"Do not worry. I have not forgotten."
His dark eyes hardened.
"I have not forgotten how I was treated. What they did to Father and Mother. I have not forgotten!"
As he said this, the wisps of Mana within him buzzed with agitation. The power he had only recently regained responded to his emotional state, stirring in his chest like embers catching wind. His eyes turned a shade watery and crimson just from thinking about it, blood rushing to the surface as grief and rage tangled together.
Oh, his Mother!
His Father!
'Ama... I really, really miss you, you know?'
The thought rose wildly, a child's longing wrapped in a young man's pain!
'I may have gained a power to right many wrongs, but I still miss you!'
Damian could not help but look to the skies. The purple-tinged clouds that always surrounded the peak of the Roaring Stone Mountain seemed impossibly distant. The heavens felt empty, uncaring, a vast expanse that held no comfort for those who had lost everything.
The rims of his eyes made sure that not a single drop of liquid fell.
He was a man.
And men did not cry.
Men did not...
As he thought of this, he trembled.
He remembered words of his mother from a distant past. Her voice soft and warm, her hands gentle on his face, her eyes holding all the love that the Lands of Stone usually lacked.
"My Little Lugal, remember, when your Ama is here, it is okay to cry."
It was okay to cry?
Was it really?
Because his Ama was not here now.
They had taken her away from him!