Cultivation Through Artifacts

Silence. Except for the water’s flow that sounded because of the gentle wind, nothing else could be heard in the lake’s proximity, but sheer silence.

Khal was unable to comprehend why he needed to show his body to Logan.

“Maybe I just heard it wrong, right?”, thought Khal, but the next sentence of Logan’s made him wrong.

“Come on. Don’t be shy. It’s just your body, not like I am asking for your life or whatever.”

“Just my body… This guy has problems.”, thought Khal with an expressionless face.

Feeling that Khal was still hesitant to take his clothes off, Logan sighed and waved his hand.

“Okay, okay. I see, so you are just being embarrassed that’s all. It’s okay.”

The moment Khal heard this, he didn’t know how to react. He didn’t feel embarrassed or shy at all. He went through way worse than this in his past life, so to make him feel nervous about something like this was almost impossible.

No, the reason why he was so hesitant was that he didn’t quite understand why it was important to do something like that.

Especially here, outside in broad daylight.

He was currently inside an Academy where they should teach him the ways to cultivate and how to become stronger.

And not how to take his clothes off…

So to find the reason out, Khal simply glanced at Logan calmly and asked, “Why is it so important for me to take my clothes off?”

Glancing up at Khal, Logan stayed silent for quite a while, and only after a few seconds later did he sigh and sit up.

As he did that, he waved his hand, and immediately a piece of clothing appeared above his palm.

It was a piece of white clothing with beautiful golden symbols presented on it all over. It was placed in a manner that the chest part could be seen on top, making Khal to see the left chest part, where an emblem was visible.

It was the symbol he saw the moment he entered Moon Academy. The symbol of the Academy, a full moon, but instead of white color it was golden.

Looking at it, Khal thought the uniform looked beautiful but suddenly realized a problem. The uniforms he saw back at the enrollment day yesterday were all black in color, so seeing that this one was white, made Khal frown slightly.

However, Logan knew exactly what Khal was thinking, but instead of answering, he just simply put the uniform down to his side and pointed toward the lake.

“Look there. What can you see?”

Hearing Logan’s sudden question, Khal turned his head to the side, and replied almost instantly, “Just a simple crystal clear lake. Why?”

“That is right. A simple lake, which looks like as a polished diamond. Nothing special at all, right?”, nodded Logan and asked another question, “And what can you see in its bottom?”

Walking closer to get a better look, Khal squinted his eyes and said after a bit later, “Stones. With the size of a fist.”

“Exactly.”, nodded Logan and said, “Your task will be to bring all of those stones back up to the surface, and if you succeed, this uniform will be yours.”

As he said that, he patted the white piece of clothing on his side gently with a smile etched on his face.

“Just that?”, asked Khal with a slight raise of his eyebrow, not quite believing that was all he needed to do.

However, Logan just simply put his arms behind his head once again and closed his eyes.

“Just that.”

Without saying anything else, Logan started to nap, making Khal to look at his teacher with doubtful eyes.

“Well, he said me to do this, so let’s do it.”, thought Khal and after taking his clothes off, leaving only his underwear on, he looked at the lake.

“?”

However, just as he was about to jump into the water, he felt a gaze on his skin, making him to turn his head to the side instantly.

But, when he looked at Logan, who he thought looked at him only now, found out that he was sleeping just as soundlessly as before.

“Well… Nevermind.”, murmured Khal and without a second thought jumped into the lake.

*Splash!*

And instantly as he did, Logan opened his eyes slightly, while a small smile emerged onto his face.

“Let’s see how long it will take for him. Taking his physical strength and the stones’ special trait into account, I guess it will take him at least 3 hours.”

After he said that, he pondered for a bit, but in the end still shook his head gently.

“No, let’s make that 6. He will need at least 4 hours to bring up all those stones to the surface.”

As he said that, he laughed gently and after closing his eyes again, he dozed off, but this time for real.

While Logan was relaxing under the tree without any care about the world, until then Khal was swimming deep down toward the lake’s bottom, where the stones could be found.

Because the lake itself was not big in size nor deep in-depth, Khal was able to reach the bottom quite easily and reach the very first stone.

From the outside, Khal found the stone to look just like any normal stone would, so without thinking about anything suspicious he just grabbed it and started to swim back up.

Or at least wanted to, but the moment he tried to raise the stone from the bottom, Khal realized he was unable to.

“What?”, thought Khal with surprise, but no matter how hard he tried to move the stone in his hand it would just only budge an inch and no more.

“!”

While struggling a bit more, shortly Khal felt that he was starting to get out of oxygen, so after one last try, he let the stone go and swam back up.

*Fuah!*

Inhaling a huge amount of air, Khal stabilized his breathing first then looked back down at the stone on the lake bed.

“Just what the hell is that stone? It definitely felt like it weighed over 200 pounds!”

As he thought about this, Khal glanced at Logan below the tree, but seeing that he was still sleeping without any care he turned his head back.

“Let’s try it again.”, thought Khal and after breathing in a huge amount of air, he dove back down again.

Arriving before the stone, this time Khal decided to put both of his feet onto the lake’s bottom and just only after that decided to grab the stone.

After clasping firmly the fist-sized stone with both of his hands, Khal imitated a crouching motion and pulled the stone up with a sudden tug.

This time however, immediately as he did, the stone unexpectedly moved, making him to raise it. But because the weight was still insanely tremendous, he was only able to raise it until his waist and no more than that.

“Like this, I won’t be able to swim back up! The weight would only push me back down!”, thought Khal with a deep frown.

Trying to jump up, but failing every time he did, Khal dropped the stone and swam back up to the surface.

“I need to figure out something.”, thought Khal calmly as he looked at the several amounts of stone pieces at the bottom of the lake.