Children of a Lesser God

Laz wasn't used to acting tough. Or being tough. In most cases, he was more about action than he was acting.

But circumstances have now forced him to do something he wouldn't otherwise do while needing to rely on people he had no connection with.

The stress of the whole thing was starting to get to him. Even if this was an opportunity for him and those with him, it was still going to be one hell of a pain every which way.

With everything on his shoulders, Laz snapped a bit harder than he meant too.

The strange thing was that before, it seemed like everyone agreed with the young lady who was asking Laz the questions non stop. But after his snap, they had all quieted down. And were thinking to themselves.

"One last thing. I'm only taking those at the foundation realm. If you're not there yet, this will be way too dangerous." Laz added the last bit as he looked over at everyone.

Among the crowd of almost 30 people, there were actually ten who had already reached the foundation realm, although they were only in the early stage of it, not including Dwayne who was sitting with them but also apart from them.

Everyone remained quiet, but the most silence was coming from the foundation realm experts. They were barely even breathing while considering Laz's proposal.

"I'll go." The first to speak up was actually Dwayne, surprising everyone. He wasn't known to be someone who volunteered for anything.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I mean, maybe I can find something to help me out with my problem. No matter how hard I work, I can't make anymore progress with building my strength. I know everyone here thinks I am just lazy and they ain't wrong... but the truth is that it feels like I'm doing something wrong and I don't know why." Dwayne revealed his thoughts, surprising everyone, including madam Cal and Aaron. They had always thought that Dwayne was just slacking off in his cultivation as he had never mentioned something was wrong before. Since the infinity technique seemed to work with everyone, they wouldn't have thought that it was causing a problem for their nephew.

"You know... I think that the technique isn't suited for you. To be honest with you, when I made that technique all those years ago, I did it for myself and those close around me. I never meant for it to be the universal technique that everyone would use. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it helps everyone. But that doesn't mean there aren't other ways of cultivating." Laz shared this thought of his that seemed to hit everyone like a bombshell dropping on their heads.

For a good solid few minutes, no one said anything.

"You're fucking with us, right?"

"You made that technique? You think something like that is something that anyone can come up with?"

"You really are an arrogant bastard, aren't you?"

The last comment came from the talented and pretty girl who Laz had told off earlier. Laz had never expected that him sharing this bit of info would cause everyone to seemingly turn on him.

"You don't believe me?"

"Brother, let me just say that no one knows who developed it. But I don't think that anyone would believe that someone your and my age would be able to do that." Dwayne didn't just blow Laz off right away, but it was clear he didn't believe him either.

"Shut yer mouths if yas don't know what yer talking about." Madam Cal was the first to speak up, quieting the crowd before Laz could say anything.

"You be saying this came from you, I wouldn't be believing it either. But as it happens to go, I already knew it be coming from you." Madam Cal said as she faced Laz..

"But you should be knowing that no one would believe dat if you just be saying it like that," Madam Cal added, telling Laz that he was being foolish by saying it, even if it was true.

"You already knew I made it?" Laz asked, confused.

"Sure do. I've been in contact with the people from the Blood Moon and they already told me about you. Although we are not wanting to be a part of dem, that don't mean that we won't be talking to dem and getting some help here and there. And as it turns out, they be mentioning you too and this just so happen to come up."

"Ah." Laz understood.

"So you be saying that me nephew not be right for da technique you made?" Madam Cal asked, causing even Aaron to pay closer attention.

"Yeah. His body is... different. So much so that I can tell the energy wants to run in a different path when I look at him. I didn't have much time to study him closely, but I would be willing to be that he would benefit from using something else.

When Dwayne had been healing earlier at the site of their kidnapping, Laz noticed the problem. But he didn't have a solution or any way of checking it out without seeming weird so he let it go. Since Dwayne noticed he had a problem though, Laz figured he could probably do something about it.

"So then...?" Dwayne seemed hopeful, not knowing that this random guy he encountered would bring so many surprises.

"We can work on it in a bit. I can't guarantee anything, but it's worth a shot. To be honest, I'm surprised that there haven't been other methods developed yet, but I guess it's what it is," Laz replied looking back at the still struggling faces. What Laz didn't know was that there had been other methods developed, but most of them didn't prove to be as useful. And of the ones that might have been better, they weren't being shared.

Not everyone was as giving as Laz.

Of the other ten foundation realms in the room, seven more decided to join, bringing the total number up to eight from the Vodun. Two of the others were both a bit older and already had families and kids to worry about. Although they hated missing the chance, they couldn't leave their families for a random period of time in which they may never return.

This also worked out well for Aaron since it meant he wasn't losing all his members to this.

Strangely enough, neither madam Cal nor Aaron wanted to participate.

After finishing telling everyone the meeting time and place, which Laz determined to be Heaven or Hell, everyone ended up leaving to make their own preparations, not wanting to wait till after class. This gave Laz a chance to talk with Aaron and Madam Cal about them not wanting to go. Even Dwayne ended up listening in as they sat upstairs in a parlor and had some tea.

"Why not?" Laz asked, not understanding.

"That's easy. This is your thing, your lead, your quest. It will either succeed or fail because of you. So it's best if there wasn't any of us older people getting in your way. I'd be willing to bet that even the people from the other groups who be coming will all be a bit younger and that will work for you to. Easy to convince and lead those kinds of people. Although..." Aaron hesitated for a minute before looking like he made up his mind.

"What is it?"

"Can you please allow Gina to come with you?"

"Gina...? Oh. Her..." Laz tapped his foot while holding his tea cup. In truth, he didn't really much care for tea, but this stuff that Madam Cal brewed was way tastier than he thought it would be. He was really glad he didn't decline when he was offered.

Laz didn't want to say yes. He might have gone overboard, but what's done is done and more importantly, if he did just suddenly change his mind and let he come, that would reflect badly on him as a leader. When you make a decision like that, you can't just say, 'changed my mind and it's all good.'

And it seemed like Aaron, watching Laz hesitate, understood.

"Good. I'm glad you didn't just change your mind because I asked," he said with a smile causing Laz to feel confused.

"A good leader has to stick to his choices. Unless it's something like new information causes you to make a better decision, you can't be wishy washy about things involving people under your command. So how about this..." With that, Aaron reached under the desk he was sitting at, opened a drawer and pulled out a stone that he set down on the table. Madam Cal moved to the desk and grabbed the stone before handing it to Laz.

"What's this?" he asked, looking at it.

"I have no idea and neither does my wife, but if you use your spiritual sense, you will notice something," Aaron said with a smile.

Laz did exactly that and figured out what he meant. The stone gave off a weird energy fluctuation, but nothing more than that. Laz looked closer and it appeared to be a yellow colored stone, like a piece of amber with a weird looking little leaf inside of it. The energy was clearly there, but it wasn't like a stone that had energy you could absorb. The energy was actually bound into the stone itself.

"This... is weird."

"Exactly. One of our members discovered this stone washed up on the beach and brought it to us. But we don't have any clue what it is. Even though my wife tried to find something from the spirits she's contracted with, even they couldn't tell us. Whatever it is, it's not something normal." What Aaron didn't mention was that his wife was told that whatever was inside of it was dangerous. Because of that, they didn't just throw the stone away, wanting to find some safe way to get rid of it. It just so happened to be a decent bargaining chip with which to buy Gina's place in the group. She was, after all, another niece of theirs.

"So what do you say? You can't just change your mind, but at least we can call this as us buying you off? That's a good reason for a change of mind right?"

"Uh... yeah. I guess this works. But you better warn her about her attitude. I don't know what's going to happen when we get behind that door, but I don't want someone who is going to second guess every decision I make," Laz replied, playing with the stone.

"Not a problem. I will talk to her myself. And as far as I can tell, I would much rather leave them to you than someone else. You might be young boy, but it seems like you have a good head on your shoulders," Aaron replied with a smile, causing Laz to nod.

The thing was that Laz wasn't paying attention, or even listening. He was focused on the amber stone in his hands while trying his best to hide his shock.

It just so happened to be that whatever that little leaf inside the stone was, it was resonating with the withered, black color tree tattoo that was on his chest.

This only ever happened when he came into contact with A'ruya.