The Array Lord's Inheritance (6)

There was once a boy. He saw the burning ruins of his city and watched the backs of his parents as they told him to run. He managed to escape the disaster, but he was too young to survive in the wild. He had no food, no water and no idea where to find some. He kept moving, but his short, underdeveloped legs only lasted two days. With his back against a tree and his consciousness hanging by a fragile thread, the boy could feel the threat of eternal sleep.

Even after seeing the end of his city, he didn't fully understand the concept of death, but he knew that it was something that he didn't want to experience. Fortunately, fate gave him another chance.

A young woman from a nearby village found him while she was picking herbs in the forest. The woman brought the boy home and treated him back to full health. At first, the boy was wary of the woman, but her gentle smile quickly broke down his barriers. The other villagers were suspicious of the boy's origins, but the woman was already an outcast so they didn't say much to her. She had lost her husband soon after marriage, making her a widow with ominous rumours surrounding her, so no one wanted to get involved. The same went for the boy.

It was just the two of them living together, so though the boy felt comfortable, he was curious about the rest of the village. A couple months after living in the village, the boy left the small house to explore. He stayed away from the forest, but he allowed his feet to carry him all over the village. However, it only took him a few days to realize that the villagers shunned him, not even the children would look his way. The young woman wanted to do something for him, but she was just as powerless.

Once he retreated to their house, he began looking at the shelf that was one of the few remnants of the woman's husband. He wasn't fond of it but he was taught how to read so he took down one of the scrolls on a whim. That would end up being a decision that opened a new path in his life.

In this age, the gods had long left the world of man, but they passed down many gifts. One such gift was the art of arrays, and the woman's husband was a researcher of arrays who once lived in the capital. Every scroll was about arrays, with most being so advanced that only famous experts in the field would be able to fully understand them. The first scroll that the boy picked up was filled with jargon that he couldn't begin to comprehend, but he was intrigued by the complex symbols and meaningful arrangement of lines that were on the scroll.

Enraptured by the beauty of arrays, the boy looked for the simplest scroll in the collection and started from there. Even then he needed help from the young woman who fortunately had a good understanding of the basic concepts due to her husband. As the woman didn't know how to help him make friends with the other children, she earnestly supported him in his endeavor for knowledge.

A couple years past and the boy became a man. His occasional trips outside the house were always welcomed by the village women because of his delicate handsome features that couldn't be found in the men here. Quite a number of them were willing to marry him into their houses just based off of his face, but he had no interest in anything besides the woman who he saw as his mother and his research.

The woman found his lack of interest in romance worrying, but she couldn't find it in herself to push him to find a wife. Even so, she hoped that he would discover someone who could be by his side once she was gone. Unfortunately, that day came much sooner than any of them thought.

It started slowly, but the situation escalated in an instant. An epidemic spread through the village, infecting everyone above thirty, including the woman. Like everyone else and their family, the young man was desperate to cure her, but he had little means to choose from.

No one in the village even understood how the disease worked; they treated it more like a curse than anything natural. Additionally, he didn't have any connections outside the city either. The only thing he could rely on was the arrays that he had researched, but medical use of arrays was always a complex matter.

Nevertheless, the young man buried his head in research whenever he wasn't tending to the woman. She often used her scarce words to tell him to be mindful of his health, but her gaunt body spoke much louder.

The young man worked tirelessly to cure her, and his efforts weren't without results. When all of the other infected had already passed, she was still hanging on. No one knew what sort of magic she was using, but no one thought she would last either, not even the woman herself.

One night, as the young man fed her soup so that she had the necessary amount of nutrients, she said to him,

"It won't be long now, I can feel it. $@&#, I'm sorry. I'll be leaving you, sooner than expected."

Usually she would struggle to make a sentence, but she dragged out her final reserve of energy to impart this message.

"What are you saying, Mum? You won't die. I promised you! I won't let you die!"

Perhaps sensing something from the look in her eyes, the young man was jittery. Even so, she continued.

"It's fine. You've done more than enough, I'm thankful. So, make a new promise with me. Promise you won't be trapped here when I'm gone."

"But Mum,"

"Please."

The young man promised her, but as soon as her eyes closed, he went back to work. He had an array in the works that could be the solution to this issue, but it was risky so he wanted more time to test it, however, her words spurred him to hasten its completion. By the next day, it was ninety percent complete and he was sure it would be finished by sunset. He took a break to check on his mother, never expecting what he would find.

****

In a method he could only describe as unpleasant, Shui witnessed the young man's life story from the third person. Through such an experience, Shui gained the background knowledge he needed to complete this test.

Test 6: Character.

Unlike the other tests that focused on capability, this one paid attention to his morality. Though many ancient array masters were disinterested in the concept, it seemed this one didn't want his inheritance falling into ill-suited hands.

After learning of the young man's life, Shui was brought behind him as he sat by his dead mother's bedside. He had laid several arrays to preserve her body, but there was no sign of life left. Even so, the young man refused to cremate her or even place her in a casket. He would likely see the futility of his actions eventually, but it was hard to tell when that would be.

Shui could sympathize with him as he went through something similar. He understand the agonizing pain in his chest as well as the despair driven by his powerlessness. If she was killed then he could turn to revenge, but how could he hate an illness enough to free him from this curse? Furthermore, unlike Shui, he had no one else to rely on. He was abandoned, left to the whims of the cruel world.

And yet, the task for this test, was to show hope to this young man at the brink of ruin.