The Mysterious Golden Object

After a few hours, Blacksmith Ethan woke up. He was a thirty years old man. His family clan has been supporting the kingdom for centuries. His father Bhiran Anvil made a sword for the previous King Prithvi and he recently made a sword for King Prida. King Prida even praised him for his blacksmith skill. His Bir Blacksmith workshop was known to be full of soldiers asking him to make a new high-quality sword for them.

Meanwhile, Blacksmith Ethan came out of the tent, he felt a sudden change in his body. He was trying to figure out what was happening with his body. His body figure suddenly became more muscular with abs and curves. He looked at his right-hand palm, there was a weird shaped tattoo which he had never seen before. Other soldiers who were staying on guard duty were surprised by the blacksmith's body changes.

He hurriedly ran back to his tent to not get attention from the others and was surprised to see the same bodily changes happening to Biro Dan who fainted next to him, but his weirdly shaped tattoo was happening on his right arm. Captain Biro was a twenty-four years old man from the side royal family. His dream was to become the general of his country and serve the Kingdom of Birata. He was recently appointed as a captain of his team which consisted of 50 men. His team was assigned to guard the tent where the meteorites resided. Blacksmith Ethan and Captain Biro were looking at each other with a surprised expression because of their sudden bodily changes.

Suddenly, a guard entered the room and told them that King Prida had called both of them to his chamber tent. They both sprinted towards the king's chamber tent immediately.

The king was having dinner. Both Blacksmith and Captain Biro were kneeling in front of him. They were nervous that they could not complete the task properly given to them. King Prida looked at them and said, "I know you guys and your family have served this kingdom for generations, but this time you guys fainted in the middle of work, what happened to the both of you?". They were both scared. They thought the king was angry at them.

Blacksmith Ethan raised his head and said, "My Majesty, forgive me, I was doing my work and suddenly I saw the bright crystal object and touched it then I fainted. After that, I saw myself in my tent resting on the bed." Captain Biro also said the same thing that he also fainted while touching the crystal. Then, the king got even more curious. He thought it must have something to do with the crystal. The king asked, "So how do you feel, sick, uneasy, or healthy?" The two men said that they are feeling better than before and that their body is full of strength. It's like they can fight dozens of people at once.

The king was surprised and excited to know they gained strength so he wanted to see the newly founded strength with his own eyes. The king said that "I will test your strength if it's true that you two are overflowing with power then I will reward you but if I found that you were lying then be prepared to receive the punishment." The two men both agreed. The King asked his soldiers to prepare a wrestling ground outside the tent. The wrestling arena was prepared to test out if the two men were both telling the truth and not lying about their new powers. King Prida was sitting on the throne and both Blacksmith Ethan and Captain Biro were standing next to him.

King stood up and announced, "Today, Blacksmith Ethan and Captain Biro will be demonstrating their strength, so if anyone would like to participate and beat them up, he or she will receive a prize." Everyone was excited because they thought both Blacksmith Ethan and Captain Biro were weak. First, Blacksmith Ethan entered the wrestling ground then a muscular soldier also entered the wrestling ground and said, "Don't worry Ethan, I will go easy on you but only one fist is enough to crush you to the Earth!" But Blacksmith Ethan was standing there with a nervous face.

Suddenly, that muscular soldier jumped towards Blacksmith Ethan with his fist. Ethan was scared and immediately launched his fist towards that muscular soldier, His fist was so fast that it hit right in the muscular soldier's belly and made him fly 20 meters away from the wrestling ground. Everybody looked surprised. Moreover, the king was totally excited. He said, "But you said you can handle a dozen men, so the muscular guy was only one. Now, handle 12 men at once." Then, 12 big men entered the wrestling ground surrounding Blacksmith Ethan from every direction. They both attacked him at once but he defeated them within 10 seconds by punching them in their face, neck, belly, arms, legs, and even in their private parts.

The other soldiers were totally surprised and the king was excited and shouted, "That was perfect Ethan, you can go back to your tent and rest. Now it is Captain Biro's turn but too bad we don't have enough men to test your strength." Biro was smiling deep inside his heart that he didn't have to fight them.

But King Prida questioned, "Now how can you demonstrate your strength, Biro?" Biro became nervous, he thought, "This might be the perfect time to show my strength and loyalty to the king. If Blacksmith Ethan is able to handle 12 men, then I must be able to carry that horse to show my strength!" Biro was thinking and looking at the direction of the horse.

King noticed his intention and said, "Fine, go and carry that horse and bring it right in front of me!" Biro's heart was full of joy because the king said the same thing that he wanted to say. The horse was eating straw. Captain Biro first tried to calm down the horse and suddenly lifted up the horse onto his shoulder. The other soldiers were surprised because they were looking down on Biro and thought, "How can a weak guy from the side royal family who hasn't done any labor have that much strength!"

Biro stepped towards the king's direction and yet the horse was still calm and chewing the straw. He lifted down the horse. The king smiled and clapped to Captain Biro. King Prida said, "Finally you are no longer the weakest member of your family, your parents will be proud of you."

Then the King stood up and said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that and we have obtained the light that can change our kingdom, now everyone shall go back to work."

Everyone is rustling back to their original position. But Blacksmith Kio was called mentally ill because of his deep belief towards the gods and was sent back to his home. He was still murmuring and saying, "We have committed grave sins." So Blacksmith Ethan was the only one who was working in the extraction of the crystals within the meteorite.

He wore leather gloves so his hands won't touch the crystals, only the leather will. Blacksmith Ethan used his new power and was able to work 10 times faster than before. He was retrieving a lot of crystals that had different shape and size and found a golden box-like crystal which was glowing brighter than the other crystal. It's like that glowing golden crystal has its own source of light.

On the other hand, Captain Biro was guarding the tent with some men, he was observing the work of Blacksmith Ethan. Blacksmith Ethan said, "This is something we have never seen before and it looks more valuable than those other crystals, we should hurry back and report this finding to the king!"

Blacksmith Ethan gathered all the crystals and packed up the golden crystal and rushed towards the king chamber tent along with Captain Biro. They saw that the king was looking at a map of the Birdesh Empire. It seems he was planning something for his conquest. A soldier guarding his tent informed him that Blacksmith Ethan and Captain Biro are here to report! They both entered the room and kneeled in front of King Prida.

The king was excited to hear their report and said they could sit down on the chairs in front of him. Both of them looked at each other and believed that they wouldn't dare to sit in front of the king. The king sighed and said, "You know sometimes, I also want to live a normal life like you fellows, but I have a lot of responsibilities as a king and I can't abandon my kingdom." Both blacksmith Ethan and Captain Biro were confused about what the king meant.

King Prida also said while smiling, "This is my order and I hope you don't dare to refuse a king's order!" Both of them got scared and sat down on the chair. The king asked them to give every detail about the crystals and the meteorite. The blacksmith said, "My majesty I believe the stone is called a meteorite which came from the outer world, so its origin is unknown. In our entire history, we only have the data of objects falling from the outer world but all of them are just some rock but this one is very different and it's like an object sent here by the gods."

The king was listening to him carefully and asked about the crystal and its power. Blacksmith Ethan answered, "My majesty, we have found more than 400 crystals and I think those who touched it by their bare hand or have contact with the skin, the crystal will vanish to enter the body and attempt to make the host strong and powerful.

The crystal is able to change the human body into a perfect shape, such as increasing the muscles and making the crystal's host healthy in an instant. The crystal can also cure incurable diseases because I used to be allergic to strawberries. I have consulted with many Ayurveda doctors and they couldn't cure my allergy. But this morning, someone mistakenly dropped some strawberries onto my plate and I didn't realize after I tasted it. I was scared but nothing bad seemed to happen to me, it's like I am somehow cured.

But, I have already extracted around 400 crystals and found a golden square-shaped crystal which is double the size of that crystal and glows brighter than other crystals." The blacksmith took out all 400 crystals and the golden crystal on the desk.

The king started to inspect the crystals and the golden object with keen interest. Then ponderly said, "If the crystal can give the power to the people then this golden crystal must be even more powerful than these other crystals. However, I am happy with the crystals because I was already planning my conquest with the help of the crystal by implementing them inside the soldiers." Both of them were listening to the king quietly.

King Prida said, "We shall head back to the palace tomorrow as we have completed our task here already, and this crystal might be the source of our late king's dream to make the Birdesh Empire into a nation. You should not leak any information about this to other people if other kingdoms find out about this they will rush towards our kingdom to obtain the crystals." The two were listening to King Prida's lecture like a student listening to a wise teacher lecture. They said, "No, your majesty we will not dare open our mouths about this even if I become a ghost." After some small talk, Blacksmith Ethan and Captain Biro head back to their tent to rest for the departure to the palace tomorrow.

Within the king's tent lies a king who was thinking deeply about the golden crystal. He thought the golden crystal had the same power as those crystals but stronger than those other crystals. So, he was confused about whether to give it to his son or use it for himself. Even if he decided to give it to his son, he didn't know which son he should give it to because he was too busy with his work and didn't have time to spend with his sons and also didn't know what their views were about the kingdom and their individual behavior.

As he was thinking alone and got up from his chair, he suddenly touched the golden crystal. He was scared that it would have a negative effect but the golden crystal did not vanish. He was totally confused. He touched the golden crystal again and it still did not vanish then he looked at the golden crystal properly if it can be crushed but there was no sign of weakness. He tried to crush the golden crystal for an hour and no method worked. He was sweating tremendously. Finally, he thought, "I think this golden crystal is not made for me, I should preserve it for later because someone in the future could use this golden crystal and save this kingdom from a disaster."

In another tent lies Blacksmith Ethan who was sleeping on the bed and suddenly felt so hot around his body. He got up. His body was sweating dramatically. Even the people sleeping next to him in another bed also felt hot. They got up and were looking at Ethan curiously. It seemed like his body was about to burst with overwhelming power. He shouted louder and tried to hold his power back. But it went running out of control and he suddenly produced a fire burst. The people surrounding him were so scared and ran outside shouting, "Demon! There's a demon! It possessed Blacksmith Ethan!" The other soldiers rushed towards the tent where the blacksmith was bursting with flames. The tent was burning. But thanks to the distance made between the tents that the fire did not reach the other tents. After some minutes, Ethan's body calmed down and his hand and hair were still burning with fire. It looked like he was holding a fireball and wearing a flaming hat.

Ethan was amazed that the flames were not hurting him anymore. It's like those fires were part of his body. He looked at his right hand, his tattoo was glowing. Suddenly, there was a thunderstorm in the tent where Captain Biro was resting. Even his 4 men were injured and other soldiers who were not injured were taking those injured men out of the tent. The other soldiers were too scared to get near Captain Biro because Biro's full body was covered with sparkling electricity. That is why no one dares to go near him because they were frightened of getting electrocuted by him.

King Prida came outside his chamber tent with his guard and was observing Captain Biro. Biro was grabbing his hair and screaming crazily, "What is happening with my body? AHHH!" Everybody was just watching Biro cry in pain but they could do nothing. After half an hour he calmed down. His body came back to normal.

Blacksmith Ethan also came to Captain Biro area where he was going crazy. But Biro already calmed down and was kneeling on the ground. His surroundings were a disaster. The king saw everything and he asked both of them to come to visit him tomorrow morning and headed back to his tent.

Both Blacksmith and Captain Biro headed back to their tents to rest.

It was morning, Blacksmith and Captain Biro rushed towards the king's tent. The king was having breakfast. They were totally scared because they created a total mess yesterday night. Although they had a powerful ability due to the crystal and could easily kill the king in his tent and defeat all the soldiers guarding the king, they don't dare to do that because they are loyal to the king who always thinks about his kingdom and his people. The king said, "You don't have to be afraid, I know it's because of the crystal and you both are having difficulty adapting to your new power, I think it will take time to adjust."

But Captain Biro said, "Please forgive us, your majesty, we are totally unaware of the crystal power, it seems like these crystals are more mysterious than we thought, we need more time to be familiar with it to be able to control it."

King Prida laughed and said, "It's okay, we have a lot of time to prepare ourselves, but with the help of this power our dream to create a Birdesh Nation will come true. From today, the world will change, it will become absolutely different than you have ever dared to imagine. Let's head back to our kingdom and prepare for war!"

This is how the conquest of the Birdesh Nation began and the beginning of a changing world.