A Will Sovereign Chapter 19: Chapter 19 — Difference between world's.

Read chapter 19 of A Will Sovereign by Sloche on NovelPedia.

Crack... Crackle... The sound of burning wood echoed softly through the night. Soldret's eyes slowly opened. The first thing he saw was a dark sky filled with stars. The second — was a campfire. Orange flames danced quietly between several stones while sparks occasionally drifted upward. And opposite the fire sat — San Zheng. The bald young man was casually roasting meat over the flames as though nothing unusual had happened. For a moment — Soldret simply stared. Then — The memory of being brutally beaten and kicked into the ground resurfaced. Without warning — Soldret instantly moved. Several segmented fragments shot forward toward San Zheng. Yet — San Zheng merely tilted his head. The fragments passed harmlessly beside him. Then he leaned backward. Another fragment missed. A casual turn of his wrist redirected the final one completely. The entire exchange ended before the meat above the fire had even stopped cooking. San Zheng sighed. "Do you really have enough strength left in you to fight me again?" Soldret's brow furrowed. "What..." "You almost..." Before Soldret could complete the sentence, his stomach growled violently, forcing him to clutch it in hunger. The sight of the roasted meat skewers in San Zheng's hands made it worse. San Zheng noticed and pointed the skewers toward Soldret. "Help yourself." Soldret grabbed the skewers and shoved them down. He did the same to several others before finally coming back to his senses. *Why did I just take food from him... what if it was poisoned or laced with something?* He sat with that thought for a moment. Then he noticed something else. The injuries from the fight with San Zheng were gone. Not faded — gone. No soreness. No stiffness. Nothing. It was as though the fight had never happened at all. Even with the help of the Will Pathway, he shouldn't have healed this quickly. And it didn't seem like that much time had passed since then. While he was still trying to make sense of it, San Zheng broke the silence. "It seems you've finally noticed." Soldret stared at him for a few seconds before asking. "What did you do to me?" "I healed you." "...Healed me?" Soldret was genuinely surprised. He would have had an easier time believing the whole fight had been a dream — or perhaps — "Are you a user of a unique pathway?" San Zheng was briefly stunned by the question before bursting into laughter. "Don't tell me you actually think I need a unique pathway to heal someone?" He stopped laughing slowly and wiped the tears from his eyes. "I suppose you're one of those who thinks practitioners of the Martial Pathway are only good for fighting." Soldret remained silent. Because admittedly, that was exactly what he thought. Every martial practitioner he had ever come across focused entirely on combat. Seeing Soldret's expression, San Zheng already knew the answer. He casually tossed a piece of firewood into the fire. "That's the difference between the knowledge held by those in the mundane world and those in the real world." "Mundane world?" San Zheng nodded. "The mundane world is what practitioners in the real world call those who only know surface-level knowledge about how things truly work." "And the moment you asked whether I possessed a unique pathway to heal you, I already knew." "Knew what?" "That you're from the mundane world." Soldret frowned slightly. "And how exactly does that prove anything?" San Zheng laughed. "Because people in the real world don't immediately assume every unusual ability comes from a pathway." "The academy system has existed for thousands of years. So has the Martial Pathway." "The inhabitants of the mundane world only know surface-level knowledge about most things." "Including the Academies they look up to." He poked at the fire with a branch. A brief silence followed before he continued. "The mundane world sees the academies from a distance." "They hear stories. Rumors. Legends." "But very few among them actually understand what goes on in the real world." San