As Zephyr tried to open his eyes slowly, he was imdiately flooded with a torrent of stimuli from the outside world. Everything was bright. The sounds were too loud. Hunger. Thirst. Pain. The weight of gravity on his body. He could consciously feel every single limb of his body. He had weight again. Everything was hitting him all at once. A cacophony of stimuli that he was struggling to process. He felt like an outsider in his own body. Coupled with the sluggishness he felt due to his extre ntal fatigue, he instantly slumped on the bed where his body was sat. Unconscious.
.
.
The next ti he cracked his eyes open, he found himself staring right at the face of his teacher— Jon.
His heavily lidded eyes that struggled to fully part open, scanned the room just as his teacher observed him.
Zephyr was still in his room inside his quarters at Jon’s compound. But now there was dical equipnt around the room and a couple of healing artifacts on the desk too. His eyes eventually settled back on Jon who was still watching him blankly.
"You’re really not normal at all..." he muttered in thought, looking at Zephyr like a puzzle. "You’ve been asleep for only nine hours, and yet you’re already awake." He shook his head, leaning forward in his seat by Zephyr’s bed. "That’s not normal by any standard at all. And it can’t be explained away by simply saying you’re an ’Exalted’." He continued, more to himself than to Zephyr. "Even if you’re a special kind of Exalted— perhaps you’re of a special bloodline or you have a unique physique, it still can’t be explained fully by that."
Zephyr kept silent, turning his head away from Jon with a sigh. He tried leaning up, pushing his weary body into a sitting position. It was still hard, since his body was not fully recovered. But whatever Jon had fed him while he was unconscious gave him enough energy to adapt better to his body again. It wasn’t like the sensory overload that he had felt earlier when he ca back to the real world.
He quickly leaned his back against the bed rest, sorting out his thoughts as Jon watched him with interest.
"I tried comprehending a word." Zephyr said.
"Yes. I could tell that." Jon replied.
"How long was I in a state of comprehension?" Zephyr nodded and asked the question he already knew the answer to, trying to act like a normal person should act in his shoes.
"Three days and counting." Jon said. "Almost four days now, considering the nine hour ’sleep’ you took." He added with slight sarcasm.
Jon considered himself a person that didn’t really get surprised or thrown off guard by anything. But imagine his surprise when Zephyr, his new student, and one of the most important assets of the Freehold Sanctuary as of present, was nowhere to be seen for a whole day.
Jon had expected the boy to co to him as early as he could the next day after their first eting. He had even cleared up any minor matter that might cause a distraction. Yet Zephyr didn’t show up.
Jon chalked it up to being young. He thought that Zephyr had most likely gone out with that friend of his to have fun, probably had a few drinks too, and was now hungover. This thought was aided by the fact that he had heard the boy co into the compound a bit late the previous night.
He had at first thought Zephyr was different. The zeal he showed for learning looked very genuine, so Jon had ntally profiled him as a diligent type. But it turned out he was wrong?
Eventually, noon struck and Zephyr was still nowhere to be seen, making Jon give up for the day and delve into his own research work.
But when night fell and Zephyr was still nowhere to be seen, he began to discard his earlier thoughts. What had happened to the boy? Was he okay? It was Jon’s responsibility to cater to the boy’s safety now that he was his student, but Jon had not yet deed it fit to give him so protective asures— things like one-ti artifacts he could use to defend himself if anything happened.
Had Zephyr been attacked within this short period of ti? If he had, then who was it that entered his compound the previous night? Jon’s thoughts spiraled.
He stood up imdiately. He had been complacent. Trying not to make Zephyr feel restricted or pressured. Usually, no one could enter his compound at will even if they had a key. They needed his consent in conjunction with their personalized keys before they could ever enter. Coupled with the fact that this was Freehold, a safe place, and Zephyr’s true identity was still unknown to the public, he had relaxed his guard a little bit.
He quickly moved towards Zephyr’s quarters, knocking on his door urgently. But the boy didn’t answer.
Jon imdiately used his master key, and opened the door to the quarters with a slam. He went directly for Zephyr’s room by the side, spotting him with his legs crossed in ditation, rigid, and with barely any color on his face, like he was dead.
Comprehension state! The boy had foolishly tried comprehending another word! Why did he decide to do sothing so stupid and dangerous?! Jon thought to himself in a panic. He was going to be the one to bear the bla. The boy was his student. And it had barely been more than a day at that point.
What pained Jon even more was that there was nothing he could do now that Zephyr had started his comprehension process, except hope. Hope that Zephyr ca out of it sane. He didn’t even entertain the thought of a successful comprehension. That would be absurd. The boy had only just comprehended his first word during the day. He was ntally fatigued and hadn’t built up the necessary knowledge to even have a good design. So he was simply hoping the boy could co out of it still ’himself’ and not hollow. That would be the best outco.
He stayed with the boy, careful not to shake or move him at all. He considered reporting the situation to the higher-ups imdiately, but decided against it. He would see how Zephyr would fare for the first few hours before he’d take that step, regardless of the penalties he was going to face.
As he stayed there watching after Zephyr, the boy’s decision looked more and more rash and foolish to him. He hadn’t even prepared hunger pills— round, tasteless, food-in-a-small-size pills that packed enough nutrients to last one at least six days. It had its drawbacks, but it was a very effective and necessary aid if one wanted to enter into seclusion to comprehend. Had the boy not even bothered to check the several lines of warning in the inheritance manual?
Jon watched for a few hours, waiting to spot the tiniest first signs of body deterioration that would occur as a result of Zephyr’s unpreparedness... but it didn’t co. Not after two hours. Not after four hours. Not after six, eight, and even ten hours. Zephyr’s body still looked vigorous, if only pale.
What was going on? What sort of creature was this boy?
That was what prompted him to wait the whole three days. Watching as Zephyr repeatedly defied his expectations.
Now, he was more than perplexed. Even with all that, Zephyr had still co out whole and fully sane.
In fact, he seed to have comprehended a word successfully. Though from the little ripple in origin feedback he felt from the outside, it didn’t seem to have been a very great comprehension. But that was not to undermine the feat. That little origin feedback still felt stronger than what he felt when Pascal had forged his own path to Tier 4 based off the little he understood from the Ashworth Inheritance. By Pascal’s singular feat—though his future progression path now was uncertain— he could boldly call himself a pathfinder- one of the rarest sets of people.
And yet, this kid— Zephyr, had done it too. At Tier 1. Not 2 or 3, but 1. He had comprehended a word. Without prior knowledge. All on his own.
Jon watched with a silent intensity as Zephyr reacted to his words, surprised at the ti he had spent in comprehension, asking Jon a question that went unheard as he considered various possibilities, lost in thought.
Was this boy a pathfinder...? A true pathfinder?
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