Chapter Two: Bones (2)

Raider felt like it was the spirit of the skeleton, or maybe a soul that had possessed the skeleton after its death.

As the spirit congealed into a clear form, Raider could start to discern its features. It seemed like a human man, about thirty years old with a slender yet tall body. The man had long colourless hair, floating around even though there was no wind. His arms and legs were long and skinny and ended in long and thin extremities. He had no facial hair but extremely sharp eyes, nose and mouth. His expression was neutral yet seemed cold.

This man looked like an entity from the worst nightmares.

As the man took form, he opened his eyes with unconcealed joy. He gave the feeling of a kid receiving a present he had been dreaming of.

"Kid... I've been waiting for someone like you..." rejoiced the spirit in a raspy voice.

All of a sudden, it darted forward toward Raider and passed straight through his chest.

It paused for just a second before shooting back and passing through Raider again.

In the space of a few breaths, the spirit passed through Raider dozens of times before coming to a rest above the skull of the skeleton once more.

He looked intently at Raider for a moment, as if in thought.

He raised his hand mechanically and pointed at Raider.

At this moment, Raider was panicking. When the spirit passed through him he felt absolutely nothing and had no idea what was being done to him.

He was used to being tortured due to his identity as a slave.

But here, there was no torture, even though the man in front of him was clearly some sort of human looking devil. Raider had no idea what was happening and was expecting the worst; could it be poison? a curse? a time bomb of any kind?

To Raider, the worst part was the look on the spirit's face when it reappeared above the skeleton. Confusion.

Raider had seen this look before. In the past, he had received several types of physical attacks from cultivators. Some were physical attacks and hurt a lot, some were magical attacks and hurt more.

However, for some reason, Raider was immune to a few basic magical attacks. These were attacks that kids learned before and after reaching the Puddle Realm. The strangest thing was that he was immune to these techniques even when adults tried to use them on him.

When that happened, the same look would appear on their faces... and then a stronger attack would follow.

When the spirit raised its hand and pointed at him, Raider expected the worst.

His face clenched as he squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the pain. He knew there was no use in running or resisting, that would only make matters worse. Right now, all he hoped for was a quick punishment.

One spirit, high and mighty with its finger pointed at a child. One slave, bravely awaiting correction from an unknown entity. This scene held for about three breaths of time before Raider probingly opened his eyes.

Strangely, nothing was happening.

Once more, Raider couldn't feel anything.

The spirit looked visibly confused and retracted its finger and brought its hand to its chin as it went into deep thought again.

Any person in Raider's place would be relieved right now but he was actually horrified. For this devil spirit to fail twice in doing something to him meant that what would come next would be atrocious.

The closest times he had ever come to being beaten to death had been precisely those times when the clanspeople's attacks repeatedly failed when they tried to hurt him with magic. When that happened, they would fly into a rage and beat him up using physical attacks. There was no way for him to resist these.

"Brat who are you?" asked the spirit after pondering for a while.

"R..Raider! Slave of the Barren Settlement!" declared Raider, afraid to anger the spirit further.

"Raider... Barren Settlement... Where is that?" asked the spirit with a bit of a growl.

"I.. I'm not really sure... Somewhere in the East Canyon." replied Raider a little embarrassed.

As a slave, he was never taught much more than how to read and he didn't have the time or means to learn by himself. The little he knew came from tidbits of conversations he had overheard. He had never even seen a map, how would he know where the settlement was?

Raider couldn't tell anything from the expression of the spirit, even though he could see it quite clearly. The man only seemed to be in deep thought.

The spirit raised its gaze to examine Raider. The latter suddenly felt naked and that everything about him was completely revealed.

"Where do you come from?" asked the spirit.

"Um, here, the Barren Settlement is close to here..." said Raider hesitantly.

"Were you born there?”

"No... I don't know where I was born or who my parents are..." confessed Raider.

There was silence again for a moment as both Raider and the spirit thought about different things. Raider's fear was receding slowly, he didn't feel much aggression from the spirit.

He wondered exactly who this man was before his death. He had never seen this sort of thing in the settlement. He was fearful and slightly curious as to what would come next.

As for the spirit, he was actually in a state of shock. He was an expert that had lived for tens of thousands of years and had been dead for just as long, continuing his existence as a spirit bound to a skeleton in this formation instead of entering reincarnation.

He had lived through countless things and had seen countless people. He could tell, the boy in front of him was a simple cultivationless mortal without anything special about him.

In addition, the purpose of the formation around the skeleton was not only to help it survive and avoid detection but mostly to select a suitable candidate for possession. This was what he had tried to do earlier.

He could not figure out why it hadn't worked. His attempt to directly refine the boy hadn't worked either for some reason, but that reason was not apparent on the body of the boy in question at all!

How could there be such an ordinary person that was so extraordinary?

While the spirit thought about just what kind of person was in front of him, Raider wondered about the same thing.

The spirit did seem evil, and had tried to harm him in some way as far as he knew but its tone when speaking and its attitude from the beginning were never malicious. Raider felt like he was looking at an old man clinging to life.

The spirit suddenly broke the silence.

"Do you want to be able to cultivate?"