Child Of Wonder

A mere kid. The voice that derailed the wisps in their search for reascention belonged to a wimpy, skinny-to-the-bone, human kid.

The voice, despite a fragile body as its vessel, reverberated like a melody from a glass harmonica. Blown by ocean winds, its cadence evoked an uncanny authority that compels one to listen. Too compeling it accomplished a feat not possible for many—conjuring the attention of Heaven Realm's unruliest.

Uncannier was the predicament this kid was in. He spoke the language of gods with such fluidity—too fluent, yet in appearance, he opposed godliness.

In the middle of a great lawn that stretched wide from a luxurious chateau, the kid braced the harsh summer sun. He was on his knees, bruises already peppering its caps from long hours of prostration. His skinny arms balanced books more than their weight. A pitiable sight for those who knew pity; he was obviously being punished.

What a coincidence. Riven thought.

So were they.

After a momentary pause, the wisps reached a silent consensus. There were no signs of Flaura, nor any signs from above. They might as well examine this mortal closely, and satiate their need to scratch the itch of curiosity.

Caelum, the wisp better equipped to holding human conversations, flew in a beeline movement. He spun around the young boy, checking, scrutinizing, putting his centuries of mortal studies into good use. "You can see us?"

The boy's pallid eyes traced Caelum's path. Though curiosity lingered in its depths, exhaustion peered out as well.

"Of all the young maidens... the prettiest of flowers, the handsomest of men... only a scrawny child can see us?" The tone of Caelum's voice failed to mask his displeasure, though he had no qualms in concealing it. He was genuinely upset. Having roamed the land of mortals for centuries, he lucked out being noticed by a scrawny kid? These truly were strange times.

The kid's eyes became half-lidded, hints of disdain swirling in its depths. He regretted the words he had spoken. Carrying books while kneeling was enough punishment to exhaust him physically. Yet, with a slip of tongue, he brought to himself another punishment that would tax him mentally. An exasperated sigh escaped his parched mouth. His breathing had long gone heavy, his limbs stiff, his tongue numb.

He was already knee deep in trouble, he needed not to add more. So, he averted his gaze, hammering it into the cobblestone ground. As if—as if the bright balls of light hovering above him no longer existed.

"It's too late to pretend you can't see us now, kid." A colder, heavier voice rang in his ears.

Unlike the first ball of light that flew around the kid as soft as a spring breeze, barely letting its presence known, the second one was a knife to his neck—a cold spike of icy gust. It brushed past the kid's hair, the inky locks that curtained his sunburnt face shoved to the side, revealing early signs of dehydration from his sunken cheeks and flaky skin.

"Another hour and you're a goner." Riven marveled at the boy's trashed state. He knows a patient when he sees one. "You need water, kid."

The kid remained silent. Hesitant to speak. After deliberating, he spoke. "I only get water when I finish these."

"The hell are those?" Lucius said icily, hovering at the stack of books on the kid's arms.

"Aya, you illiterate snake." Caelum buzzed. "They're called books. We, normal folks, read them."

Three leatherbound, several hundred-paged books bore its weight on the kid's bony arms. Faintly, the wisps noticed an iota of spiritual essence beneath its pages. These books were ancient—not the type to serve its purpose as weights for punishments.

With grit, Lucius blazed a fiery red. "Obviously, I know that, imbecile."

With no intention to help the kid out of his predicament, Caelum leered at the topmost book out of plain curiosity. Hoping it would be another gem, he scrutinized the characters written in human script. "Dual Cultivation for Infants? Interesting!"

His remark besought the other wisps' attention. Both appalled by what they heard, Riven and Lucius rushed to surmise the books themselves.

Lucius displayed irritation upon perusing the words embedded on the aged leather. If he had hands, they'd be rubbing his temples. Not only was Caelum wrong, he was downright demented. "You idiot!" He hissed. "It's Cultivation for Infants. What Dual Cultivation? How your filthy mind would even register that—

"Shameless!"

"Whoops, my bad. Could've sworn I saw those extra characters earlier."

Ignoring the two cunts and their argument, Riven observed the boy's pallor. If this kid were to die in an hour, they needed their curiosity satiate rightaway. He needed answers, who cares if this boy succumbs to dehydration? As a doctor, he had a flawless run, but this was out of his hands—he didn't even have hands.

"Cultivation for infants," Riven repeated the words to himself. How dumb must this kid be to fail a book for infants? He snorted. "You're real dumb, aren't you? I see why you're being punished."

The boy let out another sigh. This time, not for his labored physique, but out of utter exasperation. He had exhausted not just the people around him but also himself for being stupid. "Cultivation for infants? Is that what it says?"

"Hah! And you can't even read?" Riven was stunned, incredulous.

"Worse," the boy replied almost instantly. "I can't understand a single word they all say."

Then came a stretch of deathly silence, the world became deathly still.

His words were laughable but not one of the wisps laughed. Not when a cold shudder enveloped them like a bad premonition, shattering like glass in the silence.

Immortals; gods, demons or ghosts easily grasp the human language like the back of their minds. It came to them naturally, like a second language already imprinted to their cores. Only one in several hundreds of thousands fails to grasp this second language terribly. The three wisps themselves, have only ever met one with such condition.

To make things more complicatedly thought-provoking, this condition was already uncommon among immortals. For it to manifest on a mortal was even more uncanny. Imagine a dog that can't bark but meows. It should not be possible at all!

Unless…

Lucius buzzed, shaking the goosebumps off. He hovered face-to-face with the boy, asking. "What the hell are you?"

The boy shook his head lighty, careful not to tilt the books in his arms. "I don't know how to answer that question."

"Urgh." Caelum's imaginary eyes rolled back to his imaginary head. "Right you're stupid. I'll make it simpler for you." He pinned the kid down with a heavy blaze, inching himself to its face. "What's your name, kid? If you can't even answer tha—huh?!"

The three wisps were appalled when the boy shook his head again.

"…I don't have an answer for that either."