Chapter 338: The tale of the First lmmortal

Looking at Lith getting fired up and cultivating with a lot of enthusiasm, Lilith smiled. 'It seems giving him a push has helped.'

She had inscribed a spell that helped one have a better connection with the elements and be calm and think rationally at all times. It wasn't anything exaggerated such as helping Lith understand the laws better or straight up raising his cultivation.

Lilith could do it if she wanted but doing so would shake the well built strong foundation of Lith and he would end up suffering in future when his cultivation would see a drop. Not only would that happen, Lith would also become the weakest in his rank with time and this would end up making him a lot depressed.

Lilith would obviously want the best for her child and she wouldn't do any of such stupid things. She only gave him a small push and he was on his own from there on. It was his own comprehension that was leading him to make a breakthrough.

.....

Time passed.

It had been five days since Lith felt he was about to break through. Now, that is, five days later, it was a different situation.

He was about to undergo his ascension to Rank 6 finally. All he had to do was comprehend the Fire laws a bit.

Lith took a deep breath and started recalling everything he knew about the Fire element.

Two days later, he was done recalling everything and he started to take in the Fire elements around him to get a better further understanding of it.

Three days later, Lith had finally comprehended the things and now he was summarizing the things he understood.

Fire is a boon for all creatures. Since time immemorial, it has helped creatures with a lot of things. Comprehending just this one law would help a person better understand the nature of life itself.

After summarizing this much, Lith recalled the tale of the being who became the first immortal.

The first mortal to have ever walked the path of immortality and opened up new possibilities for every creature in this world.

From what Lith knew, in the most ancient times, way before the start of the Immemorial Era, the beings present in this world were just like the ones from Earth. They didn't know anything about cultivation and were just mortals having a lifespan of less than hundred years.

These mortals were sparse in numbers and at that time, the beings from the other races, the angels, demons, vampires, dragons and everyone else also shared similar traits.

Every being had a limited lifespan and sentient beings were very few in number. The world was filled with irrational monsters and beasts and these sentient beings had a tough life. They had to hide and defend themselves from these powerful irrational monsters and these mortals hunted these monsters for food, clothing, etc.

So, far before the Immemorial Era, there was once a small settlement of mortals. In this settlement, around fire, during night, a mortal was sitting and gazing through the burning flames.

It was cold outside yet he was still present there. The burning flames didn't provide much heat but it didn't matter to the mortal. He simply kept staring at the naked flames with a lifeless gaze.

Emotions were something that all beings felt, be it irrational or rational ones. The mortal sitting around the fire was no exception to this. He was out in the open at this hour of the day because he had no joy in life.

Every closed one of his was gone. His wife, children, family, friends, everyone. This made the man lonely and sad. One could feel his emotions just by staring at his lonely back.

A plague had occurred recently in his settlement and everyone was affected by it. Only a few ended up surviving and this mortal was one of them. The man's appetite was lost as well and he felt no drive to hunt monsters for food or anything.

The mortal, having nothing to do and having no drive, simply sat around the fire and stared at it.

As he was doing, his lifeless eyes suddenly felt something coming towards him from the fire. It appeared like a thread and had the same color as the fire.

The mortal's lifeless eyes suddenly had a trace of curiosity appear on them. But soon his melancholy took over again and he ignored the thread coming towards him.

The thread didn't stop and came closer and closer to the mortal. Soon, it touched the man's stomach, just a few inches above his belly button.

The mortal jolted awake as something foreign suddenly touched him. He felt a warm sensation all throughout his body and within a few moments, he felt this sensation travel to a certain place in his body.

"O mortal, why are you so sad?" The man suddenly heard a gentle voice in his head.

The mortal looked around, but found nothing.

"O mortal, why are you so lonely?" The man heard the voice again.

"Who?" The mortal asked, alerted.

"I am Fire, I saw you lose all your desires and your heart felt lonely and cold. So I took shelter in it." The gentle voice said again.

"What!?" The mortal was shocked. "Get out of my body!"

"O mortal, worry not, for I am not an enemy. I am here to help you."

"But I can't even see you! How am I supposed to believe something like this!?" The mortal questioned.

"Look with your eyes, and you shall never find me. Feel me with your eyes closed, and you shall find me everywhere. O mortal, I am the element, Fire. I am everywhere in the world, going from place to place. But I wanted a resting place and I found the coldness in your heart. This is a perfect resting place for me."

The mortal was dumbfounded hearing this. He panicked once again, knowing something foreign was residing in him. The mortal asked Fire to get out of his body but Fire refused, stating it was very comfortable in there.

The mortal soon felt helpless as no words made Fire go away. He gave up his struggle and sat back around the fire. He was once again back to gazing at the fire burning in front of him and his eyes soon became lifeless as he recalled how his closed ones died and he was alone in this world.

"O mortal, why are you sad?" The gentle voice asked again.

The mortal sighed. He knew that asking the thing to get out was useless. So having no other choice, he started narrating his tale of why he was sad.

Fire listened carefully without interrupting. After the mortal was done speaking, Fire said, "O mortal, I know why the plague occurred."

"You do?"

"Yes. It was the fault of your own people."

"What are you saying..." The mortal sighed and said. He was mentally too tired to argue or bicker with anyone and so he didn't say much other than that. How could his own people cause a plague to occur, they had done no such thing in their life to cause an outbreak such as that.

Fire soon explained, "O mortal, you underestimate the desires of the sentient beings. Your people, they never cremated the dead and just left the body lying in the open. This caused the plague to spread in the village and killed many."

"How is that even possible? From what I know, the dead are left in the river and they are washed away by it. They go to the afterlife along the flow of the river." The mortal said.

"No, you got it wrong. The dead are not made to travel the river as your people believe that it would make the water dirty and unfit for consumption. So they simply let the bodies lie around. Their thinking was that it would be eaten up by some monster sooner or later but such a thing never happened, and for various other reasons, the plague spread in your village through these bodies." Fire explained in a calm manner.

"The deaths of everyone in the village was caused by themselves. Had they shown a little respect to the dead and cremated them, such a thing would never have occurred." Fire said.

The mortal stopped speaking as he heard this. Was the thing that was inside him saying true? He had no idea and couldn't believe it.

Fire could sense this and so it said, "O mortal, come, I'll take you to that place and show you the truth."

"How can you even do that? I don't see you anywhere." The mortal said.

"As I said, I am everywhere." Fire said and soon a strand of the color of reddish-brown flames appeared out of the mortal's belly and went in a certain direction.

"Follow." Fire said.

The mortal did that. Even though it was dark, the mortal didn't care. He didn't have anything on him, no family, no materialistic attachments, no nothing. He didn't feel afraid to die and also didn't have any interest in staying around the fire.

Soon, the strand stopped and Fire said,

"We are here."