The Messenger of Death

After farting, the excruciating pain that Alex felt subsided slowly until it disappeared completely. He started to feel the QI in his core circulate on its own.

-Crack!!

A cracking sound filled his ears from his core, it didn't happen once, it happened 8 times. When the QI in his core stopped circulating it dispersed to different places in his body. Alex could feel the difference in his strength now, he was much stronger than he was before.

He looked into his core. "Wow! I broke through 8 ranks, now I'm a rank-5 nascent realm cultivator. Hahaha!!" Alex laughed joyously.

"Rank-5 nascent realm? That's sufficient I guess. If the petal had matured, you might have made it to the disaster realm." Mr. Guardian pointed out.

"What, it hasn't matured yet? Why didn't you tell me? I would have gladly waited till it matured." Alex blurted out.

"No you wouldn't, I can feel your eagerness to get stronger. Besides you need every boost you can get before you head out of this maze…"

['Very true.'] Lex seconded what Mr. Guardian stated. Alex didn't understand what he meant by him needing every boost he could get before heading out, but he chose not to dwell on it.

"Kid, what's your name?"

"Alexander, what's your name?"

Mr. Guardian chuckled. "My name? You are not worthy enough to know. But if you really want to know then you can search for the remaining petals. If you can gather 5 out of 9 then I will tell you, and if you can gather 8 out of 9 I will present you with a gift. You gather the whole 9 then I will make sure to fulfill a wish of yours."

"A wish of mine?" The first thing that came across Alex's mind was Sheila. He squeezed his fist and said; "Are you strong enough to bring the dead back?"

"No, the dead are dead and the living is living. Messing with that balance will bring forth every wrath the universe has, on you. Necromancers already have it bad. I advise you to never consider bringing the dead back to life, it never works – all you'll be bringing back to life is an empty shell."

His reply made Alex a bit depressed, right until Kain's image crossed his mind. His depression turned into rage. "How strong are you compared to an immortal realm cultivator?"

Mr. Guardian could see the rage in Alex's eyes. "I am stronger than those in that realm by a long margin, how strong exactly? I cannot tell you yet."

"Are you able to cross galaxies at will?" Alex asked.

"Yes, I am."

"Then I will make sure to gather all the petals."

"Good, I will be expecting to see you again. Then we can have another round of 'Go.

It's time for you to go now, if you stay any longer you might be late for what's about to happen. Follow the wisp and it will lead you to where you are meant to be." A wisp of golden-brown straw as thin as a hair, appeared and hovered in the air. Despite its nature, it wasn't hard to see at all.

"And where might that be?" Alex arched an eyebrow.

"Go and find out yourself, I have helped you more than I should. Goodbye Alexander, I hope to see you soon." A blinding light covered the whole bunker and forced Alex to close his eyes.

After a few seconds the light dimmed down and disappeared, he was left with the golden-brown wisp of straw.

"He's gone." Alex turned and saw that the wisp had started to move towards an exit north of where he was. He quickly chased after it, as he too was curious about what was waiting for him.

As they walked through the stone passage the walls in front and the ones behind him started to move. The ones in front straightened out and the ones he had passed closed the way back. It looked like the insides of the cliff was closing.

Alex had only been walking for a few minutes when heard the sound of water running.

['Is there a sea close to this place?'] He wondered.

Soon the wall ahead of him moved and made way for Alex's eyes to come across a huge waterfall. Where Alex was standing was higher than where the waterfall was.

"Wow." He exclaimed at the beautiful sight of nature here, strangely, there were no fishes in the water.

"Where the hell is this thing taking me to, am I meant to follow it down there?" He watched it as it flew down.

['If you dropped from here, you'll surely die'] Al commented.

The wisp flew down stopped a few yards away from the waterfall. It looked like it was waiting, but not for Alex. Roughly a minute later Alex saw a brown bottle gourd swimming in the water, the wisp wrapped itself around the gourd and brought to Alex.

['It's a good thing that you didn't follow it there.'] Xander said.

Alex collected the gourd from the wisp and examined it.

"Why did you bring this to me? Is this what I was going to be late for?" The wisp hovered in front of Alex without giving any sort of indication saying that it understood what he was saying.

['Open it.'] Xander suggested.

Alex removed the lid of the gourd and a dark-green hardcover jotter popped out.

"What the f*ck?" He jumped back and left the jotter to fall to the ground.

['It's just a jotter, rabbit'] Al stated.

He looked at the gourd in his hand. "Is this a storage device too?"

Alex calmed down and picked the jotter up, as he did so, several folded papers slid out of the jotter.

"Huh?" He bent to pick it up, and then he opened it.

The first thing he saw, written boldly by someone with good handwriting, on the top of the paper was;

*A LETTER TO THE FATED PERSON THAT FIND'S THIS GOURD.*

"A letter huh." He looked at the wisp and it was indicating with one end of its straw that he should look at the paper. Alex turned his attention back to the paper.

*It has been a year since I have been cursed and sent to this forest that I later found out that it was called the Agelong forest.*

"A year, why didn't the person write a date? Now I can't tell when this letter was written. And that person called this a letter. Hmph!" He fumed at the writer of the letter. He continued to read.

*My name is Hoppas, a talented cultivator and explorer from the Ordain plain realm, the plain realm just above the lower plain realm. I have a daughter, her name is Sakura; the same name as her mother's – my wife that passed away 3 years after she gave birth to our daughter.

Me and my daughter, Sakura got by pretty well after the death of my wife until she fell terminally ill, when she was 7 years old.

I took my daughter to see almost every alchemist I could find, orthodox and non-orthodox, for them to treat her, but what most of them could do was to only give temporary solutions that prolonged her suffering. None of them could do anything to save my daughter.

5 years after my daughter had fallen sick, I finally found an alchemist that was rumored to be able to even cure death and even raise the dead, and I thought; a sickness like that of my daughter shouldn't be a difficult thing for such a person to cure. He wasn't only an alchemist but he was also a runemaster.*

['Sh*t, a necromancer.'] Al exclaimed.

['Yeah. The same thing crossed my mind.''] Lex said.

['Why do I have a feeling that this has something to do with the berserkers?'] Alex thought.

['I was just thinking about the same thing.'] Xander uttered.

He returned his focus to the letter.

*I searched and searched, highs and lows, every nook and cranny till I found a lead to where this alchemist/runemaster was. I brought my daughter along to see him and at that time she was only 13 years old. The alchemist/runemaster, after he had probed her illness, he told me that he was able to heal her – but at a price that wasn't going to be cheap.

Then I asked what the price was, and he said that I would have to help him gather materials and ingredients when he needed them, that the materials will be a huge help to him when he plans on breaking through to another level of rune mastery.

I agreed without a second thought and told him that I will proceed to do what he wants only after he heals my daughter. He had no qualms about that so he agreed to treat Sakura first.

The alchemist/runemaster gave me talismans and some pills to feed and put on my daughter at specific times. He gave my daughter the treatment she needed and it was working better than the temporary solutions that those other alchemists had prescribed.

When it was time for her final and crucial treatment he walked up to me and said that he wasn't going to continue with the treatment until I drink the potion that he had in his hand. He said that it was leverage to make sure that I keep my part of the deal. I took the potion and drank it without any moment of hesitation.*

['Why does this sound familiar, it reminds me of a mermaid that drank a potion from a sea-witch just so she could have legs and chase after a royal sugar daddy? The similarity is evident.'] Al interrupted Alex.

['Apart from the potion, I don't see anything that sounds or looks similar here. Now shut up.'] Alex said.

He returned his attention to the letter.