Chương 1: A Strange Place
Being ambushed sucks, and it's even worse when done by people you trust. But Axum was one of those people who experienced that exact misfortune. Being an up-and-coming mage with many items and tactics to defend against attacks, his enemies didn't try to fight him; instead, they sabotaged the spatial array that only he had access to. Well, he thought, he only had access to.
The saboteurs made the array malfunction, and instead of a set destination, it instead created a dimensional rift with no set coordinates.
But that wasn't what was going through Axum's head right now, that's because he was falling feet first toward the ground at high speeds that would not have worried him if not for the fact that he could not feel any magic, nor sense any in his surroundings. And as he flew towards the grassy ground, he prayed that someone would see him and send help.
...
Thoughts of curses quickly flew through his head as he awoke with the pain of his legs broken. Passed the initial pain was a strong emotion of confusion. For one, his body was not nearly as healthy as it should have been. His body had training with magic, and once that magic disappears, so goes the magical reinforcement. He also felt anger at his situation and the ambush that was sprung on him. But those emotions faded quickly along with his consciousness.
...
He wearily opened his eyes to a bright blue sky with bright white clouds dotting the foreground with grassy plains for miles around. He tilted his head to see where he was and saw a relatively small and empty wagon, two oxen, and an elderly man walking alongside them. Feeling the rattle of the ground through the wood, he was laying on didn't do anything except exasperate the pain in his legs but the pain had subsided enough that he could stay coherent for now.
"Excuse me..." Axum could barely push out before laying back down. But the sound of the wagon drowned his pitiful cry. The old man just kept walking, and he felt exhausted enough that he might as well give up, he didn't have enough willpower to try again.
He looked over the plains and watched the grass bow and rise against the wind that brought new smells and cold air. His body had entered and come out of shock by now, but even with the rising pain he still repeated mantras and barely resisted collapsing from the agony.
The day soon ended without anything of interest happening as Axum had tried to meditate to understand what was happening within his body. Still, to no use, he couldn't use magic to pulse its energy through his body to detect what was wrong so he could better diagnose and treat his broken body. He confirmed that there was no magic he could detect, but there was peculiar other energy that he wasn't quite able to understand.
Eventually, the sight of a village, probably housing around a few hundred people, came into view. His relief of finding civilization was flattened as he was unable to identify the structures or people that he found around him as they entered the village.
While in the plains the mountains in the distance betrayed logic with their heights, and while Axum had spent most of his life in the cities, none of the houses he was seeing reminded him of any architecture he had witnessed or read about. The uniform tile roofs, with large buildings, tipped with sharp wooden poles and unique wood that he had never seen before.
The people on the streets also seemed to notice his out-of-placeness as well; whenever a person looked into the wagon, they would have a slight surprise on their faces and then a bit of wariness. That probably had to do with the fact of him having a slightly paler complexion and nicely made robes handcrafted by professional seamstresses in the Empire that did not seem to look at all similar to the clothing worn by the villagers.
His anxiety rose as this experience was replicated every time someone poked their head over to look in, he felt out of place and felt like justifying his presence to people he had never met. He had never felt so out of place and alone.
His memories of tracking down wounded animals as a part of his training were now an experience he could empathize with.
He could speak 3 languages fluently and barter in 2 more, but when he heard what the people in the village were speaking, he could not locate nor divine anything. Not a single common phrase, and didn't have the focus, because of the pain, to decipher individual words. As he tried to enter into another meditative state, another jolt of pain sent him into unconsciousness as the cart suddenly stopped.
...
When Axum awoke for what felt like the hundredth time in the past 36 hours, his eyes opened up looking up at a ceiling, black painted timber wood. The walls were what appeared to be the same timber but beautifully stained light, while there was also a gold and green insignia emblazoned in the center. While the floor appeared to be a smooth kind of beech wood. His surroundings seemed to contradict what he saw earlier, a sprawling village constructed with necessity in mind, while this room was constructed expertly, carefully, and lavishly.
Outside of the sliding door to his room, Axum could hear some words said in a slightly raised volume, but not enough to be shouting. They seemed to be purposefully keeping their voices down, to avoid awakening him Axum thought.
Axum kept his sight on the door, with the same green and gold insignia that was on the wall, intricately woven into the flat silk door with the same unique wood as the frame.
The words being spoken outside of his door were quiet enough that Axum couldn't even hear them even if they were spoken in his language. But suddenly the speaking stopped and his anxiety spiked.
The door to his room quickly slid to the side, and a man who seemed to be in his 40's walked in with an angered face. However, seeing that Axum was awake, the man hesitated, before turning around and spoke to a woman that was also his age quickly. Following this, he pointed at Axum and said a few words before stomping out.
The middle-aged woman looked at Axum and said a few words, with an empathetic look on her face, that he couldn't understand. So he quickly spoke in a few languages used around the Empire.
"Miss, I'm very sorry, but I do not understand what you are saying." He also understood that she probably wouldn't also follow, so he also acted in a way that his body posture reflected his emotions of worry and apology.
She seemed surprised but quickly nodded to him and left the room.
As he settled back into his bed, he realized that his injury is not causing as much pain as it should have been. He quickly swept his sheets off and looked at his feet, where he saw the same unique wood around his legs, acting as a splint but also felt some paste in between the brace and his broken legs. Along with some paste also on the scrapes and bruises on his arms and chest.
He couldn't leave his bed because of his injuries, so he instead spent his time trying and failing to meditate because of the fear of his situation.
He was becoming more and more uncomfortable with the growing weight that seemed to be expanding in his chest. He always, no matter what, had his magic he could rely on. Or at the least, his status as a mage or noble, but nothing was coming to his mind that would be able to remedy his situation if someone came through that door and wanted to kick him out, or worse, he knew he wouldn't be able to stop them.
His training, expertise, and knowledge could rival that of any other in the empire, but with no magic and no ability to communicate he was basically worth less than a peasant.
He sat in the quiet but his mind was the opposite of his surroundings, scrambling for answers before someone opened the door. It had been practically beaten into him to prepare for the worst, and he had prided himself for doing so, but he could never have had thought of being in this situation.
...
Axum awoke at what seemed to be a standard time, surprisingly. After yesterday, he thought he'd be dragged out in the night and thrown with the trash. But he was still lying in a relatively comfortable bed and staring at the same door waiting for his fate to be decided.
And long he did not have to wait, after an around half an hour, after eating a surprisingly good meal brought to him by a maid, he saw his second visitor of the day, an older man. Who was not too dissimilar looking to the one who brought him in on the cart.
The man started speaking a few words in a few different languages but soon gave up after realizing that none of them were the ones Axum was speaking. Shaking his head, the older man called the maid back in and spoke a few words to her before she left. He turned to Axum and pulled out a map, he then pointed to him and then pointed back at the map again. Excitedly Axum looked at the map to see if he could tell where he was located but was disappointed to find the recognized neither the writing nor the geography of the region.
He shook his head at the older man, and Axum raised his shoulders as a sign of apology and perplexity. The older man seemed surprised but nodded and then got up and walked out of the door.
...
After a little more waiting the middle-aged woman from before and what appeared to be her daughter walked in with supplies that seemed to be for his legs. The woman carefully took off the splints and wiped off the green paste that was on his legs to prepare for a new fresh coat.
Axum's mind was racing and he finally decided to start with the most basic thing he could think of. He pointed at himself and said "Axum."
The older woman looked at her daughter and smiled, then the daughter pointed at herself and said, "Zhao Wen," and the mother said, "Zhao Fang." The way the woman looked at him, he felt like a child again. Forgetting about the years of hard work and dedication for gaining skills and fame, he remembered that he was basically just a kid.
In Zhao Fang's mind, he was just some injured kid that was found on the side of the road, and he needed her help. Help that she would hope would be given to her children if they were ever in the same situation as him.
Although he was around the age of 19, his training began as a child but recently had spent much of his time in his lab and not getting the necessary amount of nutrients for a grown adult. Although magic usually compensated for the deficiencies, he was now stuck scrawny and weak. His anxiety had mostly died down while being cared for by the mother-daughter duo.
It's hard being apprehensive while a kind woman is treating your injuries. Even less so when she's eyeing you like a wounded puppy.
He felt uncomfortable being looked at like he was disabled, physically and mentally, so he made a mental note to regain his tarnished image in their minds when he gets the chance.
Axum recovered from his line of thinking and smiled because he realized this was his first attempt at communicating and slightly bowed himself to thank them for their efforts to help his injuries. They both nodded and got back to re-applying the paste and setting the bamboo splints.
Then the next few days went by without anything of interest happening, the mother-daughter duo would come in with medicine, and the maids would bring the food. After the fifth day, however, mother and daughter walked in with walking sticks that seemed to be intended for him to use. After getting the hang of it, he took his first 'steps' outside of his room and started to walk through the halls.
Axum came across an open courtyard that seemed to be a training field and kept walking until Zhao Wen stopped him in the halls with a worried look in her eyes that beckoned for him to sit on one of the stools that surrounded the field. She pointed at his legs and indicated that he should limit his 'walking'. He nodded in approval, and after she showed a small smile, he got back up and walked back to his room.
After a quiet dinner and breakfast, he heard the sound of wood hitting wood. But it seemed to be a pretty distant sound and coming from down the hall. Curious, he got back up and walked back towards the courtyard where he came across around a dozen teens squaring off with wooden swords, spears, and staffs. Axum took a seat to see if he could see anything that resembled a technique he knew and if he could see any faults in their moves.
After watching for a bit, he saw strange fluctuations that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Then he remembered the energy from before that he couldn't comprehend, and he made the connection that these teens were using this energy to help with contributing to their strikes. He'd never seen this type of magic before, so he paid extra attention.
Next, he saw something that almost made him fall over; he saw one of the two students bring the energy in their bodies and send it out in a visible force in the shape of a palm!
"What the hell..." he mumbled to himself.
SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO 
un_Talented
un_Talented Hey I'm an English speaker and I know that Chinese can be translated to mean multiple things so I'll fuck up some name or whatever and just wanted to apologize now.
This is the first novel I've wrote and just wanted to see what kinda story I can put together, try to keep this in mind while reading.
Also sorry for grammar errors and miss-spellings.
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