Chapter 7: Chapter 7 – One with the Wind

Luke has now, in total, absorbed three white specks of light, or better put, three tiny wind  elementals. 

‘I think that I’ve started to understand what the benefits of absorbing the wind elementals are.’

Luke’s body was slightly faster, whether he ran, walked or simply swung his arms around. 

His field of view has noticeably widened as well, allowing Luke to be more aware of his  surroundings than he ever was in the past. 

Luke stretched his left arm out and started swinging it around. 

“Go furious wind! Gather around and vanquish my foes!” 

As for controlling actual wind, Luke was still working on that, albeit with no success. He  lowered his arm. 

“…Crap, it’s still useless. Maybe it’s because of the dumbass chants that I keep spouting out…?”

He glanced at the two Gleem corpses. 

‘I wonder how long the stick strategy is gonna work for?’ 

His knuckles were still shedding blood. His fit of rage earlier proved to be useless, but he did  take advantage of it to hunt not one, but two Gleems. 

‘But there’s no way that I can harvest their corpses today… I need to bang damn rocks together  again, yet my hands are a mess. If I could control actual wind, I think that I’d be able to make a  small wind blade or something similar to it by concentrating some wind in a small area.’ 

He retrieved his sticks, and started walking. He needed to bait out even more Gleems, and  strengthen his wind elemental even further. 

After finding another open plain, Luke readied himself, and took a deep breath. 

“HELLO!!!! I OFFER FREE BURIAL SERVICES! WE HAVE A TWO FOR ONE  DISCOUNT, BUT ONLY FOR TODAY!!” 

*Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!* 

Luke clenched his bloody hands, and started preparing a thick, sharp stick.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

 

After managing to bait out and kill three more Gleems, Luke was done for the day, as the  surroundings kept getting darker and darker. 

‘That should be six in total… I never thought that I would be able to kill a creature like that with  just a stick, but I guess they’re pretty dumb, huh.’ 

The pure white tattoo was emitting a pulsating glow under his shirt, which was now buttoned up.  Luke could have no way of noticing this at the moment. 

Making his way through the bare and dry forest, he arrived at the house relatively fast, thanks to  his strengthened wind elemental. 

This time around though, he didn’t drag any corpses back with him.

Although, there was one  corpse he did forget about… 

Luke opened the door to the house and was about to enter, but instead of sighing a breath of  relief, he inhaled a breath of death. 

Luke stumbled but held onto the door and pinched his nose, almost falling down to his knees.

‘Oh God, not again.’ 

The old man’s corpse. He forgot to get rid of it in this loop. 

The stench was too much to bear for him, so he just closed the door. 

‘Maybe if I speed myself up to my current limit, and then quickly get rid of the corpse…’

Luke nodded to himself, and opened the door. 

He stopped breathing in through his nose, and made his way to the old man’s corpse in a flash.  

Luke still wasn’t used to moving this fast, so he had trouble stopping in place, and almost ended  up crashing into the wall. 

The pure white tattoo was now pulsating at an even faster pace. Luke’s wind elemental was about  to undergo a massive change. 

Luke picked up the old man’s corpse, and turned around to leave. He ran out of the house, and  started running into the forest, all while carrying the old man’s corpse. 

As Luke was in a hurry he didn’t even notice right away that he was moving twice as fast  compared to a few minutes ago.

Small gusts of wind appeared under his feet with every step he took. Luke started realizing  that something was weird. 

He was far enough from the house, so he dropped the old man’s corpse. 

‘Why did it feel like I was running on something soft just now?’ 

He looked at the ground below him. The dirt was very dry and brown in color, with a reddish tint  to it. It developed cracks in a lot of places due to the lack of moisture. 

‘There’s no way that running on this terrain could ever feel soft.’ 

As if doubting something, Luke unbuttoned his shirt. 

His eyes widened after looking at his own chest. 

The pure white tattoo depicting a gust of wind was gone. Instead, there was now a pure white  tattoo of a whirlwind, enveloping the silver hourglass. 

Luke smiled and then started laughing out loud. 

“Ha…haha… there’s no way, right? Could it have evolved or something like that? I did gather  six of those tiny wind elementals, so maybe that was enough for it to get stronger?” 

Luke gently touched his new tattoo, and then buttoned his shirt back up. 

He then stretched out his arm, and thought about gathering wind in his hand. 

Just when he was about to utter one of his ridiculous chants, he felt something flow out of his  chest and move through his arm, and then finally make its way to his hand. 

It felt warm, and enveloping, as it was protecting his very soul. 

Luke stared at his hand. He could see a tiny whirlwind, no bigger than his forearm, floating  above it silently. 

Luke started grinning widely, akin to a little kid receiving his present on Christmas eve. 

What Luke didn’t know though, was that this growth was indeed on the level of a child in this  world. 

The being that he presumed was the monster overlord N’Gool, was no more than simple fodder. 

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But for now, Luke reveled in his growth, feeling like he was at the top of the world. Such simple  pleasures were a part of every man’s soul. 

Luke turned around, leaving the old man’s corpse behind, and ran back to the house.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

 

Luke made his way back to the house. The door was left open once again, to rid the house of the  stench and air it out. 

Luke proudly walked into the house, as if he was returning from a date with a supermodel.

He was grinning from ear to ear. He sat down at the table, and stretched his right arm out. 

Luke willed for a gust of wind to form on top of his hand. He felt the warm sensation yet again,  and a small, formless ball of wind appeared on top of his hand. 

This wind was basically just concentrated air, so Luke couldn’t see the shape using his eyes, but  as it was made using his own elemental and mana, he could simply feel how it currently looked like. 

The reason he could see the whirlwind he formed earlier was simple. A whirlwind has a pretty  strong rotating force, even if it’s a tiny one, causing the surrounding particles, such as dust and  dirt, to get sucked in, thus giving it its shape.  

Luke’s goal was to mold this wind into a sharp blade that he could use as both a weapon and a  tool.  

He willed for it to compress into a thinner, but longer shape, and the small ball, as if responding  to Luke, slowly started changing its shape, and molded into a thick stick. 

Luke then flattened the said stick. The wind took the shape of a thin strip.

‘How can I sharpen wind, though?’ 

Several ideas floated through Luke’s head. 

‘Wait, maybe it doesn’t need to be sharp, just thin, but then it would rely too much on the speed  of the strip itself, and I’m not powerful enough to swing the strip around at a speed that would  cause any noticeable damage.’ 

That’s one idea down. 

‘If I reshape the tip of this strip, it could probably be used for stabbing, but I need this wind to be  able to cut, not stab.’ 

But then, something clicked.

‘Wait… I’m looking at this from the wrong perspective. Why would I need to be holding this  strip in the first place? I can just release it from my hand, as if I was throwing a frisbee, just  much faster and stronger than that, of course.’ 

Luke stood up. He decided to test his idea out. 

He left the house. Night was rapidly approaching, so he didn’t have much time.

He walked a dozen meters away from the house, and saw a small, lone tree. 

Luke willed a very thin strip of wind to form in his right hand, and then he got into his throwing  pose, causing him to remember many of Alex’s baseball games in college. 

Luke smiled bitterly. 

‘This one’s for you Alex…’ 

He took half a step back, aimed at the tree, and threw the thin strip of wind as hard, and as fast as  he could muster. Luke closed his eyes, nervous about the prospect of his idea not working. 

*Cut, crash* 

Luke peeked through his closed eyelids, but then opened his eyes completely right after. 

He was bewildered. The tree was cleanly cut in half horizontally, leaving only an oddly tall tree  stump. 

Luke couldn’t help but laugh out loud. 

“Hahahaha!! That’s what I’m talking about baby!” 

Luke clenched his fists and raised his arms, and then started jumping in joy, while grinning. 

Luke was feeling very excited while thinking about how killing Gleems would pose no problems  from now on, as long as he used this newly devised attack. 

He could finally kiss the sticks goodbye, although he would probably keep some of them on him,  as a last resort. 

After calming down for a bit, Luke was starting to feel sleepy. 

It was a pretty tiring day after all, but most importantly, his mind was tired of repeating the same  day for the 2nd time, although there were a lot of differences between the two loops. 

Luke made his way back, and entered the house. 

He crashed into the bed, falling asleep almost instantly.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

 

*Crunch, crack* 

Two people were moving during the dead of the night, making their way through a bare forest. They moved so fast that not even their shadows could be spotted. 

As they ran, they passed by dozens of Gleems, the latter being completely oblivious of the  former’s existence. 

A female voice sounded out. 

“It should be close by.” 

It was a husky voice, full of sneer. 

The other person looked towards the woman and nodded their head. 

“We will soon meet face to face with that old bastard.” 

It was a young male voice. The young man narrowed his eyes. 

The pair were both wearing silver robes with detailed, golden embroidering, leaving big gusts of  wind behind them as they ran. 

Compared to Luke’s speed, the pair would be at least ten times as fast. 

Luke would soon realize that getting a quiet night in this forest was probably impossible.

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