71. Recovery (I)

“Sugo. Oh, Sugo. What are you going to do? Run away? All your seaweed belongs to me!”

“Gu… gu…”

“Wahahaha!” An excited, barking laughter rang out. “Come back!”

A light-green-colored slug crawled along the beach. There was a distinct level of desperation in its slug-like movements as it slid its bone-less body over the stones. As it fled, the seaweed that grew abundantly from its round body was dragged along.

Right behind the slug followed a large turtle. Its shell was about a meter across and shaped like an elongated octagon. The exposed skin of its head and limbs was leathery with a dark green hue. The beast’s round black eyes were full of mirth while its wide, beaked mouth was busy spewing nonsense.

Zachary sighed and got up from his fishing spot, “Wander, you just ate. Don’t bully Sugo again!”

“I’m not bullying! We were just playing around, right Sugo?”

“Gu…” Sugo sounded very unwilling.

“Let him be. Wander, come here.”

“Wan!” Wander waddled over cheerfully. He stopped beside Zachary and barked again, “Big Brother Zach, do you want to heal again?”

“Yeah,” Zachary rubbed the turtle’s head and smiled wryly.

It had been a few days since they had formed the eternal bond. Being able to fully understand Wander’s speech still amazed him. Such a feat was normally reserved for adept rank summoners and their adept rank Ensouled. Even with Yaoyao, he had to wait until the adept rank to talk to her like this.

At the novice rank, a summoner’s bond with their summon was at its weakest. It was already good enough to understand a summon’s feelings while feeding it simple commands. With Wander, they could fully understand each other as if they spoke the same language. They could hold entire conversations through their souls.

“Alright, Big Brother Zach, you can rely on me!”

With a laugh, Wander transformed into a beam of green light and entered Zachary’s soul through his brow. Zachary hadn’t commanded Wander to return. The turtle had done so of its own accord.

This was another strange feature of the eternal summon. They established the bond as equals. Therefore, Zachary’s soul sea was not a prison. Wander could instead come and go as he pleased.

Wander arrived within Zachary’s soul sea and replaced the visage of himself that resided at the life path, forming the physical body of a turtle. He then started to swim, zooming around this space filled with swirling soul energy like a fish in water.

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“Wow! Very cool!”

He did a summersault, several spins, and then another summersault.

“Look at meeee! I’m flying!”

“You’re a turtle, you can’t fly.”

“Meanie, why do you have to crush my dreams?”

“…”

Zachary felt helpless. Wander was more than a little strange. He was probably as old as ruins but liked to act like a child. He also insisted on calling Zachary big brother, even after Zachary had clarified that he was only twenty years old. It made no sense.

“Alright, alright. I’m just teasing you. Don’t be so serious.” Wander said and arrived in front of the sky path. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Zachary said.

The spiral patterns on Wander’s shell started to glow. After a period of collecting energy, he opened his mouth and let out a continuous breath filled with healing energy. This surge of Eternum rich with the life attribute swept over Zachary’s broken sky path. Wherever the breath touched, that patch of the sky path would quiver slightly before transforming at visible speed. Twisted and mangled flesh knitted back together the correct way until it was smooth and spotless. What had been completely blocked off like a wall slowly opened like a doorway.

Sometimes it was a little painful. Other times, it was itchy. It was the strangest feeling in the world. Most of all, Zachary felt sheer joy.

At first, he didn’t know if Wander’s healing ability would work on his soul wound. Now, after several sessions, there was not a trace of doubt left. He was going to make a full recovery. It was only a matter of time and effort.

After a long time, Wander’s breath ended. A large portion of the sky path had healed but it wasn’t open yet. There was far more work to do.

Wander panted tiredly, “Big Brother Zach, your soul wound is so terrible. It’s so difficult to heal. How did you have such a powerful soul bond? It must have been painful after it broke.”

“Yeah… it was painful. I almost wanted to die… But I guess it was partly my fault. My previous summon, Yaoyao, I’ve told you about her, she grew too fast. She was too strong. I had to hide her but the result was this wound.”

In truth, Yaoyao was too much for him to handle. As the offspring of a saint rank Ensouled, her talent was frightening. She broke through to the adept rank when he was thirteen years old, meaning that he was an adept rank summoner at such a young age, a feat that would have earned him fame across the republic.

However, his parents had convinced him that this wasn’t a good thing. He was forced to hide until he grew up. But as the years passed, Yaoyao never stopped growing either. She had already reached the Eight Paths Adept Rank by the time he entered university.

He should have also been at the Eight Paths Adept Rank but that was still too eye-catching. His mother was still worried and taught him a method to resist each one of Yaoyao’s advancements in the adept rank. As a result, he was still a One Path Adept Rank summoner while having an Eight Paths Adept Rank summon in a soul bond. The consequence of breaking such a soul bond was naturally disastrous.

Wander sighed, “You’ve suffered a lot. I could sense it when I was swimming around the lake before. So much sorrow, so much misery, but you kept on living. You chose to do that, just like me. We were meant to be brothers.”

Zachary chuckled, “Yeah…”

He neglected to explain just how he ended up in this underground lake.

“Alright, I’m out of energy,” Wander said, “Zach, lend me your soul strength and I can keep going!”

“Wait, what?”

“Just do it! Direct your soul energy to me.”

“Uh… okay.”