Chapter 0019 - New, Old, Red, Gold.

"Wu Hai, are you certain this is the road you with to travel? Its been paved with blood by generations. You've been given a chance to leave this type of thing behind you. To tell you the truth, settling your family in the capital with my help will be painless. The Minister owes me more face than he'll ever accumulate." Old Man Jiang did have some pull in the City, his Bookstore was one of the best in the area and always clean. "You have to decide, are you prepared to come back, knowing what future lays ahead of you?

"Yes, Master." Wu Hai understood that it was extremely important to make a choice in the matter, whatever it was, he had to be decisive and resolute.

Zao Ooran was stabilized after a few hours but in the morning the wound had healed over nicely. Ooran would have to take it easy, especially over the coming weeks. The Zao family was standing close together as they were being escorted to the Ministers Office. They were set up with a House near the Old Master so that things wouldn't be too complicated or distant.

When they were leaving the offices, Calistown spotted a group of Men riding large Wolves. One of them stopped and turned sharply to Wu Hai. The Wolf that the Soldier was riding pounced on Wu Hai.

The Firewolf wasn't biting him, he was licking him. The rider, having been thrown clear to his ass looked on as his Mount was licking the young man.

Still confused at the state of things, Zao Wu Hai didn't seem offended. Instead, he was laughing uncontrollably. He looked at the Armored Man and said, "I don't know whats come over your mount but you could you please call it off me so I can stand up." The beast was easily four times his size but he wasn't being crushed. It was apparent that the Firewolf wasn't a problem.

The Fire Wolf obviously wanted to show his affections but Zao Wu Hai vaguely understood that he was not in any danger.

The Rider stopped to focus on what was happening, he shook his head and started to speak. "My name is Sergeant Morris, I command a troop of elite Scouts near the border, we haven't met. What is your name? What brought you to Portano City Management Offices? The only person this animal likes besides me is a man named Zhan. Is there some special trick?" Sergeant Morris was holding his helmet in an awkward pose, trying to not admit fault. He held the reins and tried to pull him off the young boy and certainly didn't expect his mount to be like this.

"My Family's name Is Zao. Is this Zhan, Zao Zhan of the Zao clan? My Brother?" Zao Wu Hai spit out the sentence in amazement, Elite, could his brother not be so hard to catch up to.

"HA HA HA HA HA HA" Slapping his thigh, Sergeant Morris called his Firewolf and stroked its back, mounting it again.

"So that's it! Zao Zhan is commendable, you should be proud." Looking over at Ooran and Calistown he couldn't help but comment. "Your Son saves a lot of lives, he's currently stationed in Herl, it's a lot closer to our Northern border than here. I will give him word of your arrival in the Capital when I see him. He keeps talking about wanting to see his family again, it will be a few months before I see him again, I'm sorry it can't be faster."

Sergeant Morris grabbed the reins and started off down the road before pushing his Wolf to a sprint, all in an effort to return to his unit.

'Fate is a strange thing' Mocking himself for not being fast enough to catch up to his brother, Zao Wu Hai looked at his parents as they made their way to their new accommodations.

It happened when he was walking through the city on their way to the new house.

They passed through a district of wonderful looking shops, they were covered in fine decorations and the City looked like it was on the rise.

Passing a few more stores in the area, a red Cube caught his eye. It was just was sitting on a shelf. If Wu Hai hadn't felt a strange pull from his wrist in that direction he surely would have missed it.

Walking into the store, he looked up and noticed that the cube was already missing and asked the clerk about it. The Clerk could only throw his hands in the air claiming that he had never seen anything like a red cube inside his shop. 'It must be my imagination' Wu Hai thought for a moment, shrugged and then rejoined his family.

Having finally made their way to the house, there were empty and dead planters on the doorsteps. The house wasn't big but it was a perfect size for the five of them.

The City was filled with people and space was tight. Just knowing that the house had three bedrooms was enough. Soon, the contents of Wu Hai's spacial bracelet were laid about. Retrieving a few important personal items from the pile and storing them back into the bracelet, he helped his parents settle into their new home.

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Going over the Weapon while sitting in his shack, a few things were uncertain to Zao Wu Hai. Just who would forge such a weapon? What was its use? What sort of power did it possess, and how much power did it hold? As he was looking over the slots in the mass of the weapon, he though to himself, 'Is this thing suppose to be a Hammer?'

Although, the weapon looked more like a giant multi-colored stick of metal than a hammer, its weight and size made it difficult to call it by any other name.

Wu Hai kept inspecting it when he saw the compartment on the bottom of the sheath again and decided to pull the wooden cube from his spacial bracelet. Wu Hai noticed there was a third cube there, it was the Red Cube that he had seen in the shop window before it had mysteriously disappeared.

As he was pulling all three Cubes from the bracelet, Wu Hai confused his Master. Old Man Jiang had only seen the two and now suddenly a third had shown up.

'They are multiplying!' Fascinated with the cubes Old Man Jiang reached out to grab the new addition. When his fingers came into contact with the cube, a warping sensation started to emit from the Red Cube.

Zapped by the cube's latent power, he immediately backed off and exclaimed his dissatisfaction. There were plenty of objects in the world that wouldn't accept just 'any' owner, some objects would only let a single individual hold them and there were even objects that would attack anyone looking to possess them. Being zapped was nothing but it still annoyed the Old Master as it trounced on his interest. "What a unique item," The words had just left his mouth and Zao Wu Hai fell into a trance.

He had not considered what could possibly happen and did not know what the cause was exactly but Old Man Jiang was reluctant to interrupt Wu Hai. When people fell into states of unconsciousness while awake, there was a lot of danger. Virtually all moments of being unconscious were seen as the body trying to cope or heal itself. Master Jiang believed that the lapse into such a state was fortuitous. Unless he really hated the child, he would never do such a thing as to interrupt his blessings.

Guarding his body, Old Man Jiang stood by the doorway and waited. No matter where in the world they might have been, anyone who understood the principles behind such a state would know that if if they wanted to harm him, right then was the best time to rob him of his future. If it took minutes, hours days or weeks, someone had to watch over the people who fell into such a state.

The longer the period of enlightenment, the more profound the understanding.

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"Jigui, Jigui... PROFESSOR!"

Zao Wu Hai could hear voices in his vision, his daydream and waking experience was driving him into a deeply spiritual and hypnotic state. He was seeing strange things that he couldn't identify.

Voices and phrases kept passing through his consciousness, some of them made zero sense to him but he did his best to remember them. It was like he was drifting through the memories of another but these images were similar to the dreams he had been having his whole life.

"MMO Monthly has put out a limited and unique item list for its new upcoming epic adventure game 'Unrivaled', prizes will be sent out to winners after the tournament next month, See our website for details. All participants are to create new characters and start from Level 1. Any cheating will result an immediate ineligibility for all top prizes and rewards..... ... "

"Unique Item"

"Unique Item"

"Unique Item".

"... .... .... .... ..."

" ..... ..... .... ..."

The images changed, one after another, unfamiliar yet familiar things ran across his scope of understanding and slight recollections started to build. He recognized some of the things, the concepts they were discussing. It was like he was remembering but for Wu Hai, that was impossible.

"Courses will be given out according to ability.." Wu Hai was staring at the image of Professor Quanli, he had a strange jacket that covered his upper body only and his shoes were completely impractical.

"I see we have a new hire here. Please welcome Professor Quanli Jigui, he'll be developing our new students projects. His experiences include the work he did with Unrivaled, Planets of Death, and Tales of Modern Justice. Of course we all know his ability.. so please give him a hand to Professor Quanli"

"....."

"....."

"..... I heard you use to be a bad ass in Unrivaled until you got hired by the gaming company, exactly how did you find the time to create new content. I've seen some fast workers but its like you live in the game."

"I'm just so thrilled to meet you!! I'm Sheril, I'll be your Teachers Aide while I go through accreditation."

".... .... .... ...."

".... ..."

"Once your inside the construct just do what you normally do, these new pods are going to change the World."

"for now we can only use them for Development purposes."... ....

Such phrases kept getting repeated in the darkness. Terms like Mana Pool, Health Bar, Minimap and Inventory kept catching his interest.. but everything felt like a headache wrapped in a loud bell. Ringing to its hearts content, like the chime of a bell.

"Dong"...the noise played in his head. It was deafening.

The noise startled him and he saw a bright flash of gold The Words 'Level up' floated in front of his eyes in green Text.

"What does Level up mean?" Wu Hai went through his thoughts and tried to process the things he kept seeing

"Experience points?"

"You have gained 1,330 more experience points"

"You have gained 1,330 Experience points."

"DONG! You have gained a Level, Congratulations! Level 2"

Images of fight scenes rolled in his sea of consciousness.

"MAN, this game is too easy.. Look.. I'm already Pk'ing."

Not quite understanding the majority of what he saw or heard for a few minutes, he didn't dare disturb its process and think stray thoughts, he stared at the happenings.

All the things he saw were quite interesting, especially this concept of experience points. 'A way to gauge power levels would be a good thing.' He thought to himself and kept watching the happenings in front of his eyes.

Another scene of Professor Quanli running to hide, played in front of Zao Wu Hai.

He couldn't help but feel familiarity with the story taking place. It was obviously a dream, but its so vivid.

Jigui went into the Whiteroom, Wu Hai started to feel like he was trying desperately to remember something.. then a blue dot appeared before him. In moments, more words showed up, hanging in the air... "You Have Died" was present in giant bold red letters, mocking him from above.

"Due to your accumulation of Karmic Credits, you've been.." A voice trailed off while reading the text, it was angelic and serene. The words traveled into the distance and the images stopped.

Zao Wu Hai collapsed from his standing position, he was mentally and physically exhausted.

Turning to catch his falling body, Old Man Jiang caught him and laid him to down on the floor.

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