The next morning when Ronan woke up he was shockingly not in his room where he remembered going to sleep , but instead in what appeared to be a white open field ?
” Where am I ? ” , Ronan murmured to himself as he felt a grumbling pain in his stomach.
Ronan felt extremely hungry for some reason and every single muscle in his body felt incredibly sore.
His eyes felt burning hot and there was an metallic smell entering his nose , which he assumed to be his own blood.
Standing up , he started to find his way back to the large white building where he remembered going to sleep.
Although Ronan was unaware , yesterday night he had released large amounts of golden thunder discharge after falling into depravity , as he had a duel with the god vishvakarma himself.
Naturally he was knocked out cold in a single strike to the neck , which was the spot where he woke up the next morning , however having no recollection of the actions he took after he let the voice inside his head take over , Ronan did not realize what had happened to him the last night.
Ronan’s body contained a lot of secrets and even Ronan himself did not know much about them.
The bottom line being that , Ronan was not exactly a human.
There were a lot of unknown variables surrounding his birth and there were a lot of big players pulling the strings from behind the scenes in his life.
Being unaware of this reality , Ronan lived his life like a simpleton as he attributed all the problems of his life to being born with the forbidden element . Never questioning the very fabric of his existence , however vishvakarma knew about Ronan’s circumstances as yesterday he saw first-hand as to what exactly Ronan was..
At first even the god felt a bit baffled to see Ronan’s true form , as it was a race that was wiped out aeons ago and it’s bloodline was thought to be destroyed.
However now as he saw a living , breathing member of its brethren he could no longer refute the evidence.
As to how such an individual was able to survive , Vishvakarma had no idea nor did he have the interest in finding out.
He beleived fate being the reason Ronan was in his humble abode and he would treat him the same as a normal human , as from today Ronan’s real suffering would begin.
*******
Ronan returned to the white building and found his way to the cafeteria where 4 other humans were having breakfast with soulless expressions on their faces .
As Ronan took a seat , food magically appeared before him with there being one loaf of bread and one glass of water infront of him.
Ronan heard the grumbling in his stomach one more time , as he broke the bread into smaller pieces and put one morsel in his mouth.
It was at this moment that he realized that he had lost his sense of taste!
He remembered sacrificing his sense of taste as rent to stay in this place for 3 months as now the bread in his mouth felt like sand as he instinctively wanted to puke it out.
Ronan’s hands trembled as he put another piece of bread in his mouth as no matter how hard he tried he could not push his brain to swallow the sand like tasting bread as Ronan had a strong acid reflex up his throat.
‘ PAH ‘. , Ronan vomitted a little on the side of the table as he could feel a burning sensation all over his throat yet could not taste the sour taste that accompanied it as even vomit tasted like sand to him.
The others looked at Ronan and felt pity as one of them came upto him and said ” Hey new guy… “.
The kid looked like 16-17 years of age with signs of early moustache and beard growth in patches and not yet fully developed facial features.
He continued ” Even if it tastes like dirt. Thank the gods for the food and eat for sustainance . Your mind will start playing games with you if you don’t and the hunger will only intensify. “
The kid gave Ronan a fair warning as he watched on in anticipation as to how strong was Ronan’s willpower.
Heeding to his seniors advice , Ronan did pick up one more small piece of bread as he chewed it with much difficulty before deciding to swallow it by taking a sip of water.
To Ronan’s horror however , the water tasted like dirty , muddy water which made him want to puke all over again as Ronan had psychological difficulty in drinking water that had a coarse texture attatched to it.
Ronan felt sick all over , even though he knew he was eating perfectly good bread and perfectly clean water , but his mind would have none of it.
The others sighed when they saw Ronan and moved over to surround him , as they introduced each other.
” Hey , I’m ares , I’m here for 4 months and have the penalty of touch and dreams “.
” Hey I’m Busan , I’m here for 2 months and have the penalty of smell “.
‘ Sign language , Sign language , Drawing symbols on the table with a blue chalk ‘.
‘ Hi I’m Nolan , i have the penalty of speech ‘.
” And i am Gara , I’m here for 8 months now and have the penalty of taste and elemental affinity “.
The four kids introduced each other as they waited for Ronan to speak.
Ronan said ” Ronan , here for 1 day , my penalty is taste “.
The senior kids briefed Ronan about what kind of a place this cave of penance was as Ronan was baffled to know about its workings.
It was a sadistic place where one would start to question everything they knew about life as with every month that the passed inside the cave their needs to survive in real life would be cut down .
It was a psychological remodelling program where one stayed till their psyche either altered or broke down as there was no option 3.
The constant white surroundings slowly turned a person mental whereas the loss of senses made one feel incapacitated.
The worst part was that , with the penalties came additional effects as well.
For the penalty of taste , there was insatiable hunger that accompanied it.
With the penalty of dreams , there was a constant drowsiness that made one want to sleep all the time .
With the penalty of sound , one not only lost their sense of hearing external noises , but also heard constant wierd hushed noises at all times.
This made the whole experience of staying in the cave no different than voluntary torture , but apparently one still did it in the hopes of getting stronger.
From world class martial arts to spells of any element the place had everything .
From monetary rewards to forbidden knowledge to even lifestyle skills , at the end of every 3 months there was an unparalleled reward waiting for the residents and that was why even through all the mental games , one chose to stay inside the cave and hang on month after month.
As Ronan was told about all the debuffs to chose from and the rewards associated with them he realized that to survive in the cave nutrition was of topmost priority.
It was his badluck that he had such a difficult debuff right from the start , however he did not complain about it as he started to eat the remaining bread , even if it revolted his mind.
Still in the grief of losing his master , Ronan’s mind only had one goal to look forward to and that was to get stronger and get revenge for his death by slaughtering the balancers who laughed at his sensei while beating him down.
His resolve was undoubtedly admirable , however he had underestimated the perils of the cave of penance as he was soon going to realize that surviving in the place was not as easy as it seemed.
******
( meanwhile in Avalon)
Percy completed the royal obligations with his grandfather in greeting the foreign dignitary , however the moment the official took his leave Percy bolted to find his beloved Maddy.
Augustus observed this behaviour of his grandchild and knew it was improper , however with Ronan not around and him being soft on his grandchildren , Augustus could not find it in his heart to properly scold Percy .
Feeling helpless , Augustus made his way to the lunch table as he sat for lunch with his beloved wife Luna.
Luna looked at the defeated expression on the face of her husband and said ” So he decided to skip lunch ? , that witch has our boy in her clutches Augustus , this is not the age for romance “.
Luna was extremely stern in her evaluation of Maddy and she did not like her one bit.
Unlike Sierra , Luna was a lot more orthodox and she did not find the talents and background of Maddy to be sufficiently compatible for the house Draco , hence her personality aside maddy had lost the fight to win her approval even before she could introduce herself.
Picking a piece of fruit , Augustus said ” That boy is lost without Ronan . It’s been 4 months since he last gained a level . His instructor *Kek* , h-his instructor …. he ….umm… he called Percy’s swordsmanship as sl-sloppy”.
Augustus said that sentence as if his soul burnt at the very thought of it as he could not handle criticism for his grandchildren who were his greatest pride.
Pouring himself a glass of wine , Augustus took a sip , completely unaware that it contained a potent poison inside it.
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