The old man didn't look old at all. He seemed no older than 30.
Dark wild hair framed his face, bereft of any impurity. Yi Jong smiled wryly. The man's shoulders were broader than his, and he did not need to see underneath the robes to know that his body was muscular.
"Shinichi is the name. I'm the village head," he said. His voice was a surprising contrast to his rough appearance—it was light and soft.
A black fireball, the size of a man's head, formed in the man's knuckles; sparks flew, not damaging anything around. Yet, it was enough to terrify him.
Yi Jong stepped back. Eyes wide. How was it possible? First, the little girl, now this man.
The man raised his hand, and the fire turned towards him at a speed that he could not grasp. He barely dodged, not on purpose, but as a clumsy reaction of his body staggering back and stepping on his robes.
The fireball followed. There was no running from being torched.
He held his hands up, covering his face, but the fire, though it engulfed him, didn't do any harm. It died on his robes, with Ji Yong patting them away.
The village head, however, did not seem pleased.
Shinichi walked towards him at a rushed pace, his hand over Yi Jong's stomach, a glow emitting as he concentrated on doing whatever he was doing. He staggered back.
"You're not an immortal, are you?"
An immortal? Was that not a term about humans who could transcend beyond the limitations of mortal life, achieving inhuman things? Ji Yong had heard tales and had read his fair share of scrolls of made-up stories published by unnamed authors, any he could get his hands on to pass the boredom of his daily life. But those were just tales.
His silence was an answer.
"Do you know of realms? Of qi?"
"Qi is one's vital energy, their life force. Imperial doctors use it to gauge whether a concubine is pregnant or if someone falls ill but.…"
"Nothing beyond that?" He finished for him. Ji Yong nodded.
"How did you even survive? Tell me all that led to this point and to you here inside the dome."
Ji Yong started. From the wrongful accusations of his brother to the chase, the gates that he had seen to the melody of the guzheng that had saved him.
The man listened, showing no reaction until the guzheng was mentioned. Shinichi's head snapped up, his eyes meeting Yi Jong's.
"A guzheng?" His soft voice had an edge. The air grew heavy.
"Yes," Yi Jong stammered. "A beautiful melody... I did not see who played it, but a woman's voice carried through it, and when I woke up, I was here."
Shinichi's concentration broke. He looked away, a pained expression on his face, as if the simple mention of the instrument had stirred a long-buried memory in him. One he did not wish to be reminded of.
"You were found outside the gates, a miracle in itself, as few who fall in this barren realm survive. The guards and the doctor who nursed you back to health could not get a feel of your qi well, of what realm you belonged to. At first I thought maybe you were a powerful immortal able to hide it though unconscious, banished like many others in this prison realm, but you are just human. The original qi you contain is too small. You should not have made it here, nor should you have survived afterwards. But it was her doing... that explains it all."
"Her?"
Shinichi didn't answer. He sat, legs crossed close to him, his hands once again emitting qi. Ji Yong felt his insides stir. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the feeling.
It was as if a snake was crawling inside his veins, underneath his skin, slowly circulating around with his blood until it found it.
He did not know what 'it' was, but there was something, like a shard within him, that he had not been aware of until the other man had stumbled upon it with his qi.
Ji Yong closed his eyes, his pose almost as if he were meditating.
It was not one shard, but many, small and big ones inside his stomach, melting in a mass of white.
The mass of white swirled, not too different from a small snake that had tried to gulp down prey twice its size but was too stubborn to spit it out.
He breathed, in that state alone with his thoughts, watching on.
Some shards, the smaller ones, began to dissolve, making the white mass grow bigger, but it was slow. When he finally opened his eyes the day had turned to night.
The world felt more vibrant, more layers becoming apperant before his eyes. There were faint auras on the plants, insects and people walking by. Shinichi's was the strongest. Blinding overwhelming, Shinichi's being the strongest of all living things in his view.
"What is happening to me?" Yi Jong was dazed. Hunger overwhelming his thoughts and belly.
"You are on the path of becoming an immortal."