Chapter 35: Messing With The Village’s Kids

Days and weeks passed leisurely to Zax in Green Snow village. He mostly kept being a bystander to his relatives and friends, but sometimes someone who was particularity close to him will initiate a conversation over a specific subject relevant to their new life.

As he did his best to answer to their requests, Zax maintained the cultivation arrangement he decided for himself. While outwardly he seemed doing nothing special – either than seeking the company of the people around him, even when nighttime came and they left to their huts for homes –his attention was astutely divided and internally his manifested self on his Inner Panorama dedicatedly deliberated over the dark maneuvers.

Presently. Behind the allocated area for the new arrivals from New Earth.

“Mister, what are you doing?” A bright eyes, nine years old boy in a fur coat stared questionably at Zax.

Together with him were two more boys of the same age in similar attire and a juvenile, reptilian beast on four, a Shenghuo Milky Scales Horned Lizard. The horned lizard was of equal size to the children and appeared to be a member of their group of four. It even wore a specially sewn fur coat that fit its shape. As Zax looked at the little one, whose innate potential was low and before reaching adulthood, rivaling a D level Earth’s Core Holder, will only be as intelligent as a third or four years old human child, he figure that his parents are probably beast villagers.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Zax asked back idly.

“Building snowmen”. Another boy pointed out.

“You’reright”.

“But why so many?” The first boy spoke again.

“One will be insufficient?”

“For what?” All three boys inquired and the little horned lizard waved its tail, annoyingly for the lack of direct response.

“But of course”, Zax halted his hands midway working on the human size snowman’s head. “To take over the village!” An eerie smile stretched across his face as he meanly bent down to meet the frightened gaze of each of the four.

“You- You- are lying”. The boys retreated and the first to speak daringly accused while the seemingly youngest of the group, the horned lizard, got behind the other three and hissed. “This is just snow! You are just trying to scare us!”

“Really?” Zax feigned an unruffled mien. “Well, then let me ask you. Did you ever hear about the Cold Grove village in the Northern Icecaps?” The children did not respond and he continued. “A strange expert who came by this village during a snow storm was expelled by the inhospitable villagers. Though he was stronger than any warrior of in the village, he could not beat everyone and so had no choice but leave. However, the strange expert still wanted to take revenge on the villagers who sent him to the mercy of a snow storm and therefore he cast a curse which caused the snow of the very storm that nearly killed him, to awaken to life in the form of vengeful snowmen ... the rest of what happened to the Cold Grove village, I believe you can imagine. I met the strange expert couple of years ago and after paying a hefty price he agreed to teach me he snowmen’s curse”.

Hearing the story, the four felt the coldness of the weather more chilling than usual.

“Our parents won’t let you!” The third of the three children shouted in protest. “I’ll tell Mister Huland, he will-”

“Banish me from the village? Hahahaha!” Zax almost maniacally laughed. “You can tell your parents and Mister Huland, but know this, once the snowmen come to life whichever adult that would be touched by them will instantly turn into ice sculpture. Only children will not be affected by the freezing touch of the snowmen, but what the bunch of you kids could do to stop my snowmen? Hahaha!”

Face the eerie amusement of this evildoer, the four felt like there was nothing more they could say, be it in human’s tongue or juvenile beast’s. They ran, pale with expressions of terror and unwillingness.

The commotion of shouts and arguing did not go unnoticed by the residents of the nearby huts. But since the majority of these people were still giving Zax’s the cold shoulder and even the children learned by now that for the sake of their free time and not being lectured they should not speak to him, no one came to ask what happened or inquired about the invasive snowmen.

About fifteen minutes later, as Zax completed the twenty seventh snowman, a smirk appeared on his face.

“It’s him, Lorance, he ... he is the snowman witch!” A voice Zax instantly recognized informed in a still shaking voice. It was the first kids to ask him about the snowmen, and with him, apart from the other three, was a larger group of boys and girls, humans and several young beasts, about the same age with most being older.

Lorance, apparently the leader of the fourteen kids, a twelve years old with a hint of Peak D level Earth’s Core Holder’s aura, swept with a scrutinizing gaze the small unit of large snowmen, lingered a bit when his glare met the turning back of Zax and his supercilious face, before returning to the cluster of children beside and behind him.

“This person is a fraud, Nisim. He fooled you four”. Lorance determined with a demeanor that declared he did not fall for this charlatan.

“You think I’m a liar?” Zax rubbed the snow off the sleeves of his fur coat.

“Yes you are a liar! There are no such things as ‘witches’, only cultivators who play tricks with mist energy. And I don’t sense any fluctuations of mist energy from these snowmen!” Lorance countered.

‘Clever boy’. Zax withheld his smile. ‘They truly teach them well here and their cultivation, at such a young age, exceeds what promised in the best of Martial schools in Kingdom Earth, on equal standing as the top three... ‘ He made the appraisal early when he arrived to Green Snow and surveyed the population, but it was a first for him to hold a conversation with the village’s kids.

“You sure are observant, but wrong nonetheless. Have you ever witnessed a ceremony involving God or Gods? When their manifestation occurs odd things that don’t involve mist energy are known to happen”.

Though he was not whole log conversant in the subject, Zax still remembered his first experience in Virgil’s Pasture and the greater part of Green Snow’s population originated from Ercas Mir, so they were all knowledgeable, to a degree, on the matter, even the children.

“You ... you are not a God!” Lorance exclaimed in a feat of contained outrage. A small portion of Green Snow’s population had a sort of “faith” in one God or many, entities embedded in their belief since their previous homelands. Although Lorance was born in Green Snow village, his parents and grandparents indigenous to a village at the northwest marshes of the Western Continent and had educated him in their beliefs.

“No, I’m not”. Zax remained poised, yet said hurriedly to avoid the shifting the subject to an undesired direction. “I only used them as an example. Never mind. If you don’t understand now, soon you will, as well as everybody else in this place”. He finished with the twenty seventh snowman and moved to build the twenty eight.