Chapter 8 - Elijah

Nerun struggled to his feet and made his way to where Elijah was gathered with the rest of the children. Tears, which he never showed, even when he was beaten, tired with the exercises, or even when he was attacked by the young Korrans, now appeared in his eyes.

"Big brother! I missed you so much!"

He said as he threw himself into Elijah's arms. For as long as Nerun could remember, the person he had spent the most time with and first identified was the young man. Despite his young years, he had formed a powerful bond with the teenager, whom he deeply admired, and who had become his role model.

"I'm back little brother. I am also very happy to see you again." He said to Nerun. Then he looked up and looking at the rest of the children he said to them: "I brought a gift for all of you."

And he lowered the large satchel from his shoulder, which when it touched the floor made it tremble a little from how heavy it was.

"What's in there?" asked Brandon.

"Hehehe. Why don't you open it up and find out for yourself."

Sylvester walked over to the bag and opened it. Then his eyes widened as he stepped aside so that the rest of the children could see as well.

"This, this, this is ...."

Silvester emptied the contents of the satchel, out of which came a cornucopia of food, with many fruits, loaves of bread, and even half a bull, already chopped up and neatly packed in butcher's paper.

"I see you have fared well at the border," said Maikal.

"That's right, father. This is just a part of my earnings during this year at the frontier. I brought some other things too, which I will later share with everyone."

Everyone was ecstatic.

…...

That night there was a big celebration at the orphanage. Even Maikal did not go out to the tavern as was his custom but stayed home to spend time with everyone. The table was overflowing with much of the food Elijah had brought. He also brought a typical frontier wine, called fire dragon, known for its spicy flavour and high alcohol content as a gift for Maikal, who found himself draining glass after glass, under Maya's reprimanding gaze.

For the first time, all the children ate their fill without exception. Many, even to the point of indigestion, because they were afraid that they would never eat anything like it again in the future.

"Hahahaha. Calm down, kids. There's more where that came from. It's good that everyone is eating a lot today, especially those who participated in the tournament. With all that exercise, the protein will help your bodies recover quickly and gain some muscle mass."

They were all very happy and continued talking late into the night. Finally, Maikal forced them all to go to bed, but the children found it difficult to fall asleep due to their level of excitement. He only called aside Nerun, who was rubbing his left shoulder. He then took Nerun along with Elijah to his room to talk with them both.

"First of all, I had not been able to congratulate you properly Nerun. You have pleasantly surprised me. Your ingenuity when it comes to fighting and looking for tactics and strategies despite your young age has me very pleased."

Maikal began to say. Nerun laughed sheepishly. Suddenly his gaze turned stern and before Nerun could react, he took Nerun's right hand by surprise, placing two fingers on the radial artery to feel his pulse and sending some of his Qi inside Nerun to examine his body.

Nerun couldn't help but feel a little flustered and scared.

"Father, what are you doing, what happened?"

"Hmph... Your core meridians are still closed, there's no doubt about that. Your Qi level, everyone thinks it's 6, but I see that your muscles have accumulated enough and you should be hovering around level 7. But what I still don't understand is... Your auxiliary meridians. I still feel like they're closed, but it's like it's just a veil. At any moment they seem to be able to open up. It's an amazing thing. You have a small crack on your humerus where Silvester grazed you. And yet you still dared to use that attack and lift him above you. You could have broken your arm, you little idiot. What's more, I'm sure your whole body must be bursting with pain." Maikal said as he looked at Nerun sharply.

"Don't be scared Nerun. You have done nothing wrong. Father is just scared that you have hurt yourself by using power that exceeds what your body can withstand. You are still very much a child, and you are still developing. Damage to your bones and muscles at this time could spoil your entire future." Elijah commented to calm Nerun with a warm look.

"You should have said so earlier, I was scared to death seeing Father so serious," Nerun replied relieved. The truth was that he was holding back the great pain that was attacking his whole body. His skin seemed to be quivering almost imperceptibly. At first he thought he had outwitted Maikal, but now he realised that such a thought was nothing more than a pipe dream.

Since Nerun came into Maikal's arms, Maikal had examined him on several occasions. Nerun had a rather unique condition. Although he was born with Qi and Mana levels of 1 like everyone else, all of his auxiliary meridians were in a semi-open state.

In the world, there are multiple bodies with special lineages. For example, there are people who are born with muscle mass better able to store Qi, or there are others who are born with a slightly outlined central meridian ready to open. It is even possible that some people are born with one or two auxiliary meridian open in some extremity or in the head. These people are considered blessed by EON and are the treasures of their clans, and the target of their families and academies to be trained with all kinds of secret techniques, hidden arts and spiritual treasures.

Yet Maikal had never heard of a constitution like Nerun's, even with all his vast experience. This secret was known only to Maikal, Elijah and of course Nerun himself, for if it was known it could potentially unleash a great hysteria among the most powerful Warriors and Wizards in the world.

Why is that, you might ask.

The 9 core meridians are the most important in becoming a great Warrior. Each central or core meridian allows for a greater accumulation of Qi, as well as a much faster speed of Qi circulation, and a higher degree of storage. Each successive step on the Qi path was dependent on many things, but definitely the most important and the main objective of all of them was the opening of one of these core meridians. Thus at level 10 the first meridian was opened, at level 20 the second, at level 30 the third and so on.

The auxiliary meridians, as the name suggests, are not strictly necessary for further advancement in Qi levels. However, one would be making a grave mistake not to give them the importance they deserve. On the one hand, each auxiliary meridian that connects to one of the central meridians allows warriors to have an additional route to circulate Qi, thus increasing reaction speed, storage capacity and power flow considerably. In addition, each auxiliary meridian allows the circulation of Qi to a particular part of a limb, helping to strengthen the structures and tissues of said limb. Furthermore, the auxiliary meridians each serve different functions and allow access to different uses of the power circulating in them, for instance allowing people to increase strength, agility, and reflexes, or even allowing people a certain range of elemental affinity such as fire, ice and so on. All of this, therefore, will later be reflected in the particular "Route" or "TAO" that each individual has chosen.

It is also implied that since auxiliary meridians amplified the amount of Qi that one had in the body, as well as its speed of circulation and flow, it was quite obvious, that if a warrior managed to successfully open auxiliary meridians and connect them to a Core meridian, he would have it a bit easier to keep increasing his rank. It is said that it is impossible to go above level 50 without having at least 12 auxiliary meridians properly connected to a core meridian and that this connection was actually useful.

Each of the Core Meridians can only connect to one auxiliary meridian per limb. This implies that each warrior can theoretically connect one central meridian with 4 auxiliary meridians and there is a huge combination of possible interconnections and once a link has been made it is close to impossible to change it. This somewhat accounts for the great variability of powers that can exist between different warriors.

Another thing to keep in mind is that when a new central meridian is opened, the previous ones lose the possibility of creating new connections with the auxiliaries, which means that if a connection has not been made between a central meridian and 4 auxiliaries before opening the next core meridian, this possibility is lost forever. Therefore, in theory, the maximum and the most optimal number of meridians a Warrior can use would be the 9 central meridians and up to 36 auxiliary meridians of his limbs. This would be considered the pinnacle of power in the entire world and 4 of the limb meridians will always be considered virtually impossible to open and use even when one has reached the top of the world, not taking the head auxiliary meridians into consideration.

That is why the really powerful beings on the continent do all they can to open as many auxiliary meridians at their extremities. However, opening the auxiliary meridians is even more laborious than opening the Core meridians.

As for the meridians of the head and neck, for the Warriors, opening them would be as difficult as ascending to the heavens, since their use is more in connection with the 9 Heavenly Gates, which are the foundation of the Mana Adepts. This is not to say that they are not useful for the warriors, but even for the Qi Masters at the top of the world, finding one with some head meridians open is harder than finding a needle in a haystack.

This explains then, why two Qi Monarchs of level 60 could have so many viciously different power levels from each other according to the number, location and different meridian connections they have opened.

Therefore, the fact that Nerun has the ability to open all 47 meridians since he was a baby is nothing short of a miracle, given that he could have access to the greatest power ever seen in the entire continent. Having said that, Nerun's status was also a double-edged sword. The opening of the auxiliary meridians may sound wonderful and desirable, but always on the condition that it is done in a controlled manner, and in ideal circumstances in which Warriors or Adepts can make full use of them and their bodies can withstand the burden of power that accompanies the usage of these. Nerun on the other hand was a baby when all his auxiliary meridians were opened. These began to accumulate an exaggerated amount of Natural Energy of Heaven and Earth into the child's body, which began to flow uncontrollably and break not only all the meridians but also all the blood vessels, nerves, bones and muscles, in short, his whole little developing body. Maikal had to use his great power to temporarily seal Nerun's meridians, just to prevent him from bursting from all that out-of-control energy.