The Master of Uradan

Another week had passed since Rohan had been captured by those men. His meridian was almost fully enlarged, and he thought that the vortex would be formed the next day.

Rohan lifted his chin and looked deeply at the building lighted by the sunlight. It was the place where the disciples meditated once a day. All the disciples of the sect came here in a group of dozens for an hour before leaving.

Rohan couldn't control his curiosity, but entering the building wasn't going to be easy. There was only a door, and it was kept by a disciple every single minute.

Rohan had already been inside several times to sweep the floor, and he knew that there was only a large hall, and nothing more. There weren't any windows on the side, and no other way to enter but by the only entrance.

It wasn't a good idea to endanger his plans for satisfying nothing more but his curiosity, but Rohan couldn't help it. How did these monsters become so powerful? It was a question that had appeared several times already in his mind.

Anyway, that was the reason he was here, and he didn't want to back down now. He headed toward the guard with his half-broken plan that wasn't even really one.

"What you want slave? Get out of here and go sweep the floor, shoo shoo." The guard waved his hands as if he was chasing away a fly.

"Elder Kuud had asked me to enter to observe the process of meditation." Rohan calmly spoke.

"Eh? That doesn't make sense at all." The man frowned as his hand posed itself on his saber. "Are you trying to make a fool of myself, slave?"

"How could I? I'm only a puny human slave in front of my mighty masters. I would never dare to scheme against you, nor do I have the ability with your intellect so much more advanced than mine." Rohan quickly bowed his head as a sour taste spread in his mouth. "I only say the truth, Elder Kuud did ask me to come here."

Rohan secretly lifted his eyes and saw the man nodding his head as if it was all true. 'Stupid.' A smile of disgust almost appeared on his face but he erased it. The time was to hammer once more.

"If you don't believe me, ô mighty disciple, you can still ask Elder Kuud directly, he will of course answer you."

The first half made the man smile with all his teeth while the second one made it stiff. In the end, he could only choose to step aside.

"If Elder Kuud had asked you to come here, I can't say anything. You are too stupid to lie to me anyway and I know it is the truth! You can go, but don't you dare to make any noise, or your skin will be seen floating at the entrance of the sect."

Rohan moved forward with an expressionless face. 'If I knew it would work so easily, I would have tried it at the entrance to get out of here. So stupid.'

He delicately opened the door and entered the large hall. His eyes widened.

Dozens of disciples were sitting cross-legged on the floor with their hands forming a circle at the level of their chest. Their eyes were closed, and a focused expression was on their faces.

But it wasn't the important part. It was the red mist floating around them that was infiltrating their bodies bit by bit.

This mist was making Rohan have the impression he had already seen it somewhere, but he couldn't remember where. The strange part was that this mist wasn't coming from any item, but was forming from the center of the circle made by their hands.

The color was the same as the red mana he had on his mana core and mana stone. There was no mistake, it was the same energy. What they are calling 'Breath'.

But mana wasn't going anywhere, it was entering their bodies to reinforce them directly. Rohan couldn't believe his own eyes.

If a human was trying to do the same thing with mana without the mana core, their bodies would simply be destroyed. Rohan thought back at the time he had become a warrior. The mana was constantly damaging everything before he gathered it at the center of his chest.

If he couldn't control it and gather it where he wanted to, his flesh and organs would have been completely destroyed. And what the disciples of the Sect of Averlorn were doing right was with the red mana. No humans would survive such a thing.

Rohan sat down and kept observing the disciples. He didn't understand how their bodies could fuse with the mana in such a way. His body was reinforced by the mana via the mana core and the meridians, but it was completely different from what they were doing.

The principle of the core was to steal the mana around someone so they could have ownership of it. After this, they could control it and reinforced their bodies with the meridians. Controlling the mana outside their body was impossible, and even their mana was dangerous for their body.

That was why if someone destroyed his core, the mana would spread inside his body and corrupt everything, crippling or killing him with unimaginable pain.

At least, he had the proof that those disciples had the power to manipulate the mana that wasn't theirs. Since they could do it, why would Rohan be unable?

He closed his eyes.

He focused his mind on nothing. He wasn't trying to think about the red mana or at least not now. He already had the same dream a few times. What he was trying to do was to have the same image. Rohan didn't have other solutions.

He imagined nothing but darkness. He was there, hovering in the middle of nothing. Nothing happened for a few seconds before suddenly, small red dots appeared here and there.

The flickering dots become more numerous and bigger. Under Rohan's control, the dots connected to form thin threads floating around his body.

It was curiously easy, and under his will, the thread approached his body. They gathered and surrounded him, spinning in a direction. They constricted and soon, a cocoon was fully formed around Rohan's body.

While Rohan was fully focused, the same image was happening in reality. A large dome of red threads of mana had appeared at some point. It was like the dome inside the Kolmos mountain. Then, threads after threads entered through Rohan's body.

The other disciples were all focused on their task, so they couldn't see what was happening near them. If they could, it was sure they would be flabbergasted. Rohan was human. They were sure of it. Even Elder Kuud had himself looked through his body and was sure he was nothing more than a human.

That was why he had kept him alive, as a human shouldn't be able to support the breath demons were using. But if there was something that he had never expected, it was that not only did Rohan's body contain the red mana, but for an unknown reason, he also had the means to use an ancestral method that was reserved for the demons leading Uradan.

Unfortunately, or maybe, fortunately, no one could see what was happening to Rohan.