Chapter 24 – Reckless, 5 years

He carried her for a while, and there he saw Hazel looking around.

He shouted in a weak voice, "Hazel, over here."

Seeing that Hazel noticed them.

He got on his knees, and Sara saw her mother swiftly got off and ran towards her.

Aile mumbled, "You are safe now."

He lost the energy in his body, and he could no longer keep his gag reflex. He threw up blood and then face planted on the ground.

He lost consciousness.

Sara, seeing his state started to cry.

Hazel quickly came and checked on him and noticed all the injuries. His whole body was damaged.

Hazel asked Sara what happened. Sara told the story with tears and snot coming out.

She kept on asking if Aile would be all right.

Hazel used a talisman and called a few guards that had been searching for Sara and asked them to carry Aile. Then, with the rest of the guards, they went to the location where Aile disabled the person, who had kidnapped Sara.

Seeing the person, they immediately realized that he was part of the bandit group.

Everyone was surprised that a stage 1 cultivator was knocked out by a kid. They were even more appreciative because if they kidnapped Sara, there is no telling what they could demand.

Hazel told everyone to keep it a secret, as they were her personal force, they immediately agreed. She wanted to interrogate the person to deal with the bandit group. She had always assumed that there was someone behind the scene involved. The town has improved, but not enough to attract three big groups of bandits and pirates to come to the city and cause trouble. This looked like a setup and a planned scheme against the city.

Hazel did not want anyone to know that she has a member of the bandit group to interrogate him with peace.

She wanted to find the mastermind behind the scene that targeted her town.

Therefore, she needed to know what and who she is dealing with before making her move.

She was also curious about and grateful to Aile. This was not the first time she saw him do something unthinkable. First was the case of finding Jana, if not for him, they would not have found her in time.

***

Aile woke up 2 days after, his body was hurting everywhere.

He was in his room. Sophie and Emily were monitoring him.

When he woke up, he saw Sophie's troubled face in deep concentration.

"Hello, Sophie!" Said Aile, his voice sounded unnatural after not speaking in 2 days.

She beautifully smiled and said: "Aile, you are fine, that's wonderful!"

Aile and Sophie knew each other very well, and this one sentence and the smile filled with relief was enough for Aile to understand that Sophie had really been upset for him.

Aile raised his hand and gave Sophie a short one handed hug and told her, "Thank you!"

He really had someone that cared about him now, how could he not be touched.

"You should not do dangerous things!" Sophie said with concern and firmness.

The door of the room opened, and it was Sara and Hazel. Sara heard Sophie's voice, and she thought she was blaming Aile, so she immediately jumped in and said, "It was not his fault, it was mine…" her voice lowered by the end of the sentence.

Sophie looked at Sara, and her personality turned cold again and said: "Yes, it was!"

Sara had been blaming herself all this time, and when someone actually blatantly accused her of that, she could not help but tear up.

It annoyed Hazel, it had taken a lot of effort to calm Sara, and she knew that Sara had learned her lesson. She had been sad and crying all this time. There was no reason for Sophie to bring this up again.

Emily also knew that children could make mistakes, so she said: "It is not Sara's fault, she did not injure him, Sophie."

Then she looked at Hazel coldly and said: "But that was not a place for a child to go."

Hazel was now disheartened too.

The room turned quiet. What people did not know was the mentality, and the personality of Aile had developed way ahead of his physical age. In fact, if anyone is to be blamed, it would be him.

He had taken the risk and injured himself. That person would not have gone too far, had he just waited for Hazel. They could easily rescue her. But Jana's injury was a scar for Aile, and he wanted nothing like that to happen, so he had acted rashly.

Aile smiled at Sophie, "Sophie, it was not Sara's fault, she did not injure me."

Then he looked at Emily, "Emily, it is not Hazel's fault either, I insisted on going."

He just brushed off the tense situation and then looked at the teary Sara, "Haha, I have been sleeping for 2 days, so you have to talk to me three times as long today, and tell me what happened."

Seeing the same smiling Aile, Sara was happy that he did not blame her.

Then Aile started asking Sara questions.

She would not talk too much at the beginning, but slowly she opened up and was having a full conversation with Aile. Aile also brought Sophie into the conversation and made her less tense. The tension all died down.

It surprised Emily and Hazel at how calmly Aile acted, and they were both impressed by the fact that he did not blame anyone.

Aile had seen a lot of things from his memories. The Voice had allowed him to experience the memories without their emotions. This way, he can be an observer and learn things without the memories changing his personality.

Thus, he knew that nothing will come from blaming each other. It was his decision to do everything, and if anyone is to be blamed, it should be him.

The three talked for a long time, and they had almost forgotten about Aile's wounds.

Halfway through the conversation, Aile's body started aching.

He noticed he had not healed. His internal wounds were stabilized before, but the talking and moving had reopened and irritated them.

His pained expression was slowly visible on his face, but he did not want to worry Sophie and Sara, so he did not stop them.

His tiny glimpses of pain went unnoticed. Time passed, and Sara left with Hazel.

He then told Sophie and Emily to rest back at their place as he would sleep again.

They too got out and left.

On the way, Hazel remembered that she forgot to ask how he found Sara. So she told Sara to go to the location of her training, and she went back to Aile's room.

Similarly, on the way back, Emily had a weird feeling, she had never remembered Aile pushing them out of the room. She felt something was wrong; she told Sophie to go back, and she went to check on Aile.

Aile, after everyone left, could not handle it anymore and puked another mouth of blood and his face contorted in pain.

Both Emily and Hazel arrived and saw his terrible state.

They quickly checked on him and saw that his injuries had been reopened.

After a while, his injuries stabilized. They were curious why he let it reach this state. His response was that he did not want them to continue worrying or blaming one another.

He wanted to make it clear to everyone that it was his doings and no one's fault.

They felt that his current bravery was stupid, but they also felt touched that he cared about them and would suffer himself rather than make them worried.

Aile took his time to heal, and in one month, he recovered. His injury was far worse than everyone assumed, but his cultivation aided him in the healing progress. He found another advantage of it.

After he was fully healed, he turned back his schedule of training his senses, body balance, speed, reaction and more. He found his shortcomings from the fight and started training to overcome those.

He also planned to fight more often to overcome his weaknesses. This was his plan after he reached the third or fourth level. Because his body had not even grown halfway to be able to be used effectively now.

***

Time passed, and another 5 years passed, during this time not much happened. He had steadily grown, physically, mentally, through his cultivation, and he had established a lot more connections to the energy channels. He had also gotten used to his dual elemental soul.

He had reached the second level of cultivation shortly after he was healed from his injuries.

Now he was very close to the third stage of cultivation, with his Surmounting Spirit Cultivation.

He had physically grown too. He was now 1.5 meters (4 feet 11 inches) in height. His facial feature was getting more defined now. He had a natural wavy black hair. His eyes were mat-black with a circle of white at the centre, around the iris. From all his different training, he had developed a toned body. He also had an intimidating bearing from his training.