Divine Beast Ascension

Chapter 113: Waking Up

“Uhhhhh...” Oli groaned.

He laid bare on a cold stone floor. Opening his eyes, Oli noticed the rough cave walls and the well-lit open space.

“W-where am I?” Looking back and forth, Oli searched for the bandit who had captured him, but to no avail.

Instead, the young gorilla found himself laying inside an unknown formation. He wasn’t sure what it was for until he forced himself up and walked out of the formation. Suddenly, a wave of tiredness and exhaustion rolled over his body, weighing down Oli.

Keeping the circle in mind, Oli explored the rest of the cavern. The most peculiar part was the orb of light at the top of the room, lighting everything like a tiny sun stowed away for a rainy day.

Other than the formation, Oli found a desk and a chair. Atop the desk, were some books and manuals, as well as what looked to be a void ring.

He glanced around again, still finding no one around him as Oli inspected the ring. But he was baffled with what was inside.

.....

“Human clothes and silver coins? Food rations and water?” mumbled Oli. Next, he read the title of one of the books, startled. “Human... Metamorphosis?”

Without another thought, the gorilla opened up that scroll and scanned over its contents.

To his disbelief, Oli found it to start describing a process similar to what he had felt when trying to take human form before. To think that there was a manual for it and that he would happen across it like this was too good to be true. It had to be a setup.

“But... how would that bandit know? And... why would he just hand this over to me?”

Nothing was making sense to Oli. No matter how he thought about it, there was no reason for the bandit to leave him behind in an open cave, especially with such a valuable manual behind for Oli to take.

Even the ring suggested that Oli transform into a human, giving him clothes to disguise himself and what Oli guessed as pocket change, assuming that silver coins were more common among humans than gold coins.

Again, Oli scoured the cavern with his eyes. And every time he came up short, not finding any evidence of any living thing. Even the manuals and the desk seemed to be old, and smelled of over a century of dust, even though they were perfectly preserved.

Oli stood back up and looked to the only entrance and exit to the cavern. The young gorilla thought he might find some more answers outside.

With a deep breath, he stored the human metamorphosis manual and neared the rooms narrow exit.

All seemed fine and not a person was sensed anywhere near him, so Oli started to let his guard down while in the cavern.

But suddenly, just as Oli took the first step out of the room, the walls along the narrow exit lit up. They were filled with etchings and engravings that were invisible moments ago. Yet now, they produced a faint blue light and formed an ethereal wall before Oli.

The young gorilla grunted as he extended a hand to the wall, which he immediately regretted.

As he came in contact with the wall, that ethereal blue energy sent a jolt through his arm, almost knocking Oli to his knees.

“What is this? Is this some kind of formation?”

Oli inspected the walls, paying close attention to the now visible patterns drawn into the cavern walls.

Still intent on leaving, Oli stood proud with his chest out. Earth essence gathered around his fist, compacting over and over until it became as dense as Oli could currently get it. With his full strength, Oli hurled his fist at the illusory wall, determined to find a way out.

Yet, again he regretted his actions.

This time, Oli was thrown back from the recoil. The gorilla was launched back a few krin, grinding himself into the stone floor.

“... Uuuhhhh...” Oli groaned in pain.

Finally, he understood what the barrier-like formation would do. Any attack or energy thrown at it would just reflect back at the one attacking it. Oli had been thrown back by his own energy, completely caught off guard and unprotected.

Things seemed to make some more sense though, now that he realized that he at least couldn’t leave whenever he wanted. But Oli was still confused as to why such a valuable manuscript would be left there for him by that bandit.

As his joints and muscles ached, Oli crawled back to the formation he had found himself in originally. Once he was back inside it, the aches of his body slowly vanished.

A long while passed before Oli was willing to get back up. He walked back to the desk and sat himself down. Combing through the other manuscripts.

He found somethings useful, and others not so much. But they all had something to do with either dark essence or earth essence.

At first glance, Oli wondered if they were human cultivation techniques. None of them mentioned anything about bloodlines and they spoke heavily about body training in order to strengthen their natural body, to become more similar to a beast’s natural strength.

Thinking about it, Oli was convinced that whoever had put him inside that cavern wanted him to become a human.

There was no logic as to why, but everything was pointing at him training to become a human despite him only being a novice ape. And according to the rest of the world, he didn’t have a mutated king grade bloodline, so id made no sense as to why someone would even believe that Oli could pull off a human transformation.

While Oli was going through the two cultivation manuals, a brand new piece of paper fell out.

Since it stood out so much from the old manuals, Oli quickly grabbed it. He was both happy and sad to figure out what it was.

That parchment was a newly drawn up map labeled “The Trighton Territory” and it showed no similarities to anything Oli had seen before.

Just in case, Oli retrieved his map of the region and searched for the Trighton Territory.

Sadly, after minutes of scouring over his map, Oli found nothing remotely similar to it and couldn’t even find it in the areas surrounding the region.

From the look of it, he was far from home. And he had no clue where this Trighton Territory was in comparison to the Iron Territory.

It quickly became clear that Oli wasn’t going to be finding his way home anytime soon.

Pondering his situation, particularly the formation blocking his exit, Oli wondered what exactly it would take to get out. Also, who was the bandit that had captured him and why was that bandit so intent on Oli becoming a human despite it seeming impossible?

Nothing really made any sense. Yet, here was Oli, trapped inside that room with his own healing formation, which Oli guessed would also help his cultivation. And there on the desk, Oli would have all the means to blend into human society.

Even if Oli had been forcefully recruited, it made no sense to have Oli take a human form with human warrior cultivation techniques when Oli would be stronger in his beast form, according to the manual.

Everything confused the young gorilla. Nothing added up as it should.

But Oli was left there, alone. And all he could do was cultivate.

However, even that was easier said than done.

As Oli tried to relax and focus himself on cultivation, he struggled to clear his mind. He was surrounded by mysteries, and he had no clue what had happened to his friends and family back home.

His wandering thoughts were hard to control, leading to Oli being unable to cultivate in peace.

Too many things were on his mind without any explanation. There was no way for him to calmly cultivate and meditate before he could somehow slow down his train of thought that was charging ahead at full speed.

“A coin for thoughts?”

Oli’s eyes jolted open, caught off guard by the sudden voice sounding out. “Who are you? And why did you put me in here?”

“Wow, someone’s wound-up a little too tightly,” laughed the voice, seeming to come from both everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Searching every nook and cranny of the cave, Oli tried to find the man speaking to him.

“There’s no point in trying to find me. No matter how hard you look, you’ll never see me. If you paid more attention to your surroundings, then you’d notice where my voice is coming from though.”

Calming his wandering eyes, Oli tried to hone in on the origin of the voice.

“That’s a bit better, but your mind is still blocked by your curious thoughts to actually do any cultivating,” added the voice. “Did you figure it out yet?”

Still thinking, Oli struggled to triangulate the direction the voice came from. “You... You’re on the other side of the exit, aren’t you?”

“Wrong!” the voice chuckled.

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