Lone Cloud Wanderer (Isekai) Ch.1 to 3 (Patreon)

Lone Cloud Wanderer (Isekai)

Chapter 1:

The following events were not the work of the divine. It was but cosmic coincidences piling up and resulting in a crack in the walls that separated different universes.

The fissure was only the width of a hair and was opened only for a singular moment, but it ran long.

From the middle of Manhattan, it zigzagged to the sea, reached Europe, crossed Asia and stopped on the island of Kyushu in Japan.

No one saw the distortion in the fabric of space time, but any person or animal that entered into contact with the fissure got sucked in.

Across the world, a thousand men and women suddenly disappeared, only to reappear in an unfamiliar world of magic, wonder and danger. Also a dolphin that was unlucky enough to jump out of the water at the wrong time.

Some were lucky to land in civilized territories where they got taken care of by the locals who were not unfamiliar with Otherworlders finding themselves in their lands. Some had more unfortunate encounters with tribes who only believed in strength and used the new weaklings as slaves.

Others were teleported in the air, only to die upon landing. The rest landed in monster-infested territory and were eaten alive or got poisoned by the local fauna where they slowly died in pain.

And then, there was one who landed in an abandoned temple, built atop a floating island and long lost among the clouds.

[hr]

Leon Meyer landed on his butt.

“Damn it!” The blonde Frenchman cursed, putting a hand on his lower back to rub the pain away.

The twenty year old pushed himself back to his feet and tried to understand what happened. Around him, there was a ruined building with moss and vegetation crawling over the broken stone. 

He was in the middle of town just a moment ago.

His brain tried to make sense of it all, but his only conclusions were absurd. If he had been drugged and put in a forest, he would have woken up and felt groggy, not a direct shift from the middle of a city to forest.

He was far too aware for it to be a dream. He didn’t do lucid dreaming.

That left some kind of teleportation, either sci-fi or magic, which was even more unlikely than it being a dream, yet was the only thing he could think of.

He wouldn’t reach an answer by staying in the same spot, so he started walking. He made his way through the woods, searching for a trail that would guide him back to civilization.

After a while, the treeline started to open up and the surroundings became brighter as the leaves stopped blocking the sunlight.

When Leon finally reached the other side of the forest, he stopped clean.

Before him was a cliff.

A cliff that led down to clouds. He looked down and the clouds started to part.

Leon wasn’t afraid of heights, but he couldn’t help the slight sense of vertigo when he saw the drop, and the fact that the bottom of the cliff wasn’t connected to the ground, far, far, far below.

He was way too far up. It reminded him of the sights when he sometimes took a plane. Shouldn’t he be freezing his balls off at this altitude? He was only wearing a white sweatshirt with a tank top under it and a pair of jeans.

Before his thoughts could keep scrambling themselves into a panic attack, the sound of wing beats reached his ears.

Green eyes looked up.

“That’s a gryphon.” he said out loud.

The half-lion, half-eagle mythological beast landed on the ground and looked at Leon.

Leon looked back, one part of him understanding that he wasn’t in Kansas anymore and babbling about isekai and light novels titles, the other part admiring the majestic beast in front of him.

It was that second part that saw how it started wiggling its rear like a cat before pouncing on its prey.

He was the prey. Leon ran, the gryphon screeching behind him as it started to chase him.

The human zigged and zagged between trees in order to not be caught by the giant flying feline. He heard its paws slamming against the ground. 

Leon ran past the ruins he landed in, his breath starting to run short, and it was wrong.

Leon considered himself pretty healthy. He had a sports scholarship and kept to his training regularly, which included a lot of cardio. He shouldn’t be out of breath yet.

And that’s when he realized it was because of the height. There was less oxygen for his lungs to draw so he was getting tired faster.

“Shit! Shit! Fuck! Merde!” The Frenchman cursed. He was not going to be eaten alive by an eagle-faced monster.

He once more reached the other side of the forest, this time on the opposite side, and he was in front of a straight drop once more.

He couldn’t deny it any more, he was on some kind of flying island. 

The sounds of paws and talons hitting the ground made Leon turn and he threw himself to the ground just in time for the lunging gryphon to go over his head.

“Haha! Take that!” 

Leon’s mirth didn’t last long. The gryphon’s wings opened and he started to turn back in his direction.

Crackthooooom!

Before Leon could get back on his feet and flee from the monster once more, lightning struck the gryphon midair, followed by the deafening sound of thunder closer than Leon had ever heard before.

The gryphon’s feathers were smoking and the beast twitched as it lost control of its body. With the momentum it had, it crashed back on the island, away from Leon.

A few seconds later, a giant shape cleared the edge of the cliff and threw itself at the gryphon before it could get up.

Fangs pierced the gryphon’s neck, eliciting a screech of pain that was silenced as its throat was torn out. Wings still sparking with electricity folded themselves. A spiked tail lashed out at the ground. Bronze scales glimmered under the light.

The wyvern started feeding on the gryphon, uncaring of Leon standing a few meters away.

The displaced man picked himself up and slowly moved away. He went back to the ruins, hoping to find shelter there.

Once he was back near the broken temple, he searched for an entrance. Thankfully, he found one. The door had been smashed apart and a pillar had collapsed in front of it, but there was enough space for a human to crawl in.

Once inside, Leon found himself in a great hall with the remains of burned banners, but it was otherwise in a pretty good state for what the outside looked like.

It seemed like it was mostly the upper floors that had been destroyed. 

“And what might you be doing here?”

“AAAH!” The sudden voice surprised Leon who jumped and whirled around, hands raised to defend himself.

The source of the voice was a floating hooded robe that was half transparent. Wind seemed to whirl around and cover it like a veil, hiding the face of the person under it.

“GHOST?!”

“Indeed.” The calm answer took the wind out of Leon’s sails.

“You- you’re not going to kill or possess me?” He asked with a slight tremor to his voice.

“I have no reason to do either of those.”

“Oh. Hm, cool. Thank you?”

“Much obliged.” The ghost bowed his head, accepting Leon’s thanks graciously. “Now, would you answer my own question?”

Leon lowered his guard.

“I got in to escape the monsters outside, I guess. Something weird happened and I landed in the middle of those ruins. And then I almost got eaten by a gryphon but it got eaten by a wyvern, and now I’m talking to a ghost! WHERE THE HELL AM I?!” Leon’s voice gained in volume as he realized what kind of mess he was in.

“Peace, child. Since I feel no lies in your words, I shall educate a poor lost person.”

The hooded ghost gestured grandly at the walls of the temple.

“Welcome to the Sky Temple of the Cloud-Striding Monks.”

Chapter 2:

Leon looked at the ghost. The ghost seemed to look back under its wind veil.

“I’m so lost.” Leon admitted.

“I hope to be able to guide you.” The ghost said calmly, not moving a millimeter. “You said you were transported here? Do you have any idea how, why or by who?”

“No, I don’t know how, why, who or where! Teleportation isn’t supposed to be a thing! Islands don’t float in the sky! And gryphons and wyverns don’t exist!”

Leon groaned as the ridiculousness of the situation really hit him now that a giant feathered feline wasn’t trying to eat him.

“Ah.” The ghost made a sound of understanding. “You come from another realm. Otherworlders are quite rare. What were the chances of one falling in this deserted place?”

Leon palmed his face and dragged his hand down.

“God. I’m really in an Isekai.”

Leon sat down, tried some breathing exercises to center himself, and then he slapped his cheeks.

“Ok! No mopping! First, introductions! Hello, helpful ghost person, I’m Leon Meyer. May I have your name?”

The ghost nodded their head.

“I am named Gastus Aurelius, former member of the Cloud-Striding Monks, now an unfortunate wraith.”

“Nice to meet you M. Aurelius.”

“Please, call me Gastus. There is no need for formality when I’m but a shade of myself.”

That guy must have been the chillest ghost ever, Leon thought.

“As an Otherworlder, you may be unfamiliar with those lands and their history, so let me educate you upon the basics before you ask further questions.”

This seemed fair to Leon.

“Please.”

Gastus put his hands behind his back and straightened up, seemingly pleased at the idea of teaching.

“It is not often, but through rituals or even mere happenstance, the border between worlds may be crossed. Sometimes, rifts take people from our world or deposit people from another here.”

Gastus floated from one side to the other, like someone pacing as they explained something, his wispy, ghostly voice gaining enthusiasm as he went.

“You have arrived upon the world of Galitea, and if the frontiers haven’t changed since my death, we are currently in the kingdoms of Franta, though the Sky Temple itself was an independent entity.”

Leon nodded, showing he understood.

“You are most likely wondering how you can come back to your home world. I must unfortunately inform you that I do not know how. From what little I know, there are more realms than there are stars in the sky, so even for those who can breach the veil between worlds, searching for one in particular is a fool’s errand.”

Leon didn’t have the time for his heart to break before Gastus continued.

“However, magic and science keep developing everyday. What was true before I died may not be anymore.”

Hope was rekindled.

“So, I need to go find some space-time wizards?” Leon didn’t believe the words that were coming out of his mouth.

“Exactly!” Gastus pointed a finger in Leon’s face. “However, you can not currently leave.”

The blonde Otherworlder jumped to his feet in shock.

“Why?!”

Gastus’s face was still hidden by his hood and wind veil, but Leon suddenly felt like the ghost was raising an eyebrow and was looking at him like he was a particularly dumb puppy.

“Can you fly?”

Leon realized his mistake and felt his cheeks warm up in pure embarrassment.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Apologies accepted. So, you now have a single choice. Wither and die here, or learn the art of the Cloud-Striding Monks to escape, and hopefully find a way home.”

A spark entered Leon’s eyes.

“Wait, I can learn magic?”

“Later, yes. First, you’ll need a body and spirit able to step on clouds.”

Leon nodded.

“Right, monk. It means punch wizard.” He blinked. “You’ll teach me? Don’t you have a floating temple so that you could keep your secret martial arts?”

“Well, yes. But you may be the first prospective student I have had in the last century, and haunting a ruin has made me incredibly bored. Teaching you is the only thing I can do right now.”

“That’s kind of sad.” Leon noted with a wry expression.

“It really is.” Gastus bowed his head, his voice echoing with sorrow before he tilted it back up. “Now, let’s begin your training. Follow me.”

Gastus started floating away, and Leon followed the monk poltergeist.

[hr]

Leon found himself in an underground chamber with his ankles cuffed. The cuffs lead to chains linked into a wall. 

“Run to the other side of the room.” Gastus told him.

The other side of the room was 500 meters away in a straight line.

Leon started running, and he felt the chain trying to tug him back with every step. There were obviously some give but the chain tried to snap back every time he lifted a foot off the floor. This was some harcore version of resistance training.

With the addition of his difficulty with breathing due to the high altitude, those were the worst 500 meters Leon had ever run, and he barely did it before the chains’ pull increased and he was dragged back to the start.

“Ok. Your form isn’t terrible.” Gastus praised.” We can go up a level.”

The ghost glowed a bit before markings on the floor flashed too and the floor suddenly changed, gaining obstacles and moving parts.

Leon watched as the flat ground suddenly turned into a reality tv obstacle course.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Run.”

So, he did, and he failed.

He ran, he timed his speed to pass a swaying bag, but the chains pulled harder and he got hit. He stumbled and the chains dragged him back to the beginning of the course.

“Ow.”

Still, he got up and went back at it. He eventually finished this course after multiple tries and falls.

It only got harder from there.

In the end, he couldn’t go past the fourth level of the running course, because at this point he wasn’t running alone anymore.

Gastus had activated another set of runes on the floor, and two humanoid mannequins  had popped out. They had started running after Leon and beating the crap out of him while he tried to get to the other end of the chamber.

He could barely run, and trying to defend himself against the two golems only made it harder.

If he wasn’t focusing on the chains, they would trip him up. If he wasn’t focused on the course, he would fall. If he wasn't dealing with the golems, he would get hit.

Eventually, Gastus stopped the training room. The cuffs snapped open while Leon laid on the ground, trying to regulate his breathing while his body throbbed from the pain of rock fists bashing his ribs.

“Good warm-up for an uninitiated.” Gastus said, looming over his new student.

“Urrrgh.” The sack of meat on the ground groaned.

The ghostly teacher twirled his wrist and a bottle floated above Leon before it turned upside down, dropping its clear, liquid content all over the downed student.

Leon gasped as he felt all of his bruises sting at the same time before the pain and soreness faded entirely.

“What?”

Gastus nodded approvingly.

“Good, the healing potions haven’t gone bad yet.”

Seeing Leon’s dumbfounded stare, the wraith started to explain.

“To speed up training, we used those potions to accelerate the students’ recovery so that we could train them harder without having to worry about breaking their body.”

Leon blinked. That sounded reasonable. Strict and hard, but he saw the logic. With magic to heal, suddenly all the cooldowns between training in order to not strain the body too hard disappeared.

“And lucky you, we have a full inventory intended for a hundred students, but you’re alone, so I can push you even harder.”

Leon gulped.

[hr]

Chapter 3:

After two months of torturous body training and sparring against superhuman automaton dolls, Gastus said that Leon was ready for the next step.

“Essence flows through and is produced by all things. It is the spiritual energy that makes the material world more than it is.” Gastus was in teaching mode while Leon listened and took notes.

The blonde was still physically training at the same time. He was currently doing splits. The Cloud-Striding Monks’ fighting style, the Tumultuous Sky Fist relied a lot on agility and nimbleness. If he wasn’t a boneless liquid, like a cat fitting in a fish bowl, he was doing it wrong.

“There are many schools with many names, but the use of Essence can be divided into two great categories: Inner Arts, pertaining to the manipulation of one’s own body; and Outer Arts, dealing with the manipulation of the outside world.”

Gastus raised a hand, and one of the puppets that had been beating Leon’s ass came to life.

The ghost could feed the enchantments of the temple and let the dolls accomplish their functions, or Gastus could directly control one of the automatons like he was piloting it, or in his case more like possessing it.

That was a trick Gastus had used to show Leon the proper forms of the Tumultuous Sky Fist.

Still, while he knew that Gastus had complete control, he flinched when the automaton threw itself at him.

The doll ignored his reaction, flipped over Leon and did a handstand on the otherworlder’s shoulders.

The doll’s body was heavy. Leon knew that. He had tried tackling and lifting one during his training and it had barely budged. However, he was barely feeling the weight on his shoulders. It felt more like a leaf had drifted down on him, instead of a two hundred kilograms magic robot using his body as a perch.

“The Cloud Step is a mix of multiple Inner and Outer Arts. The first is the Leaf Body technique which allows one to act as if their body weighs almost nothing.”

The doll flipped over and landed on its feet.

Gastus waved his hand again, this time a small cloud appeared in front of the ghost. The possessed automaton jumped and landed on it, balanced on one foot.

“Turning Essence into wind and water, you then create a cloud to step, one which is slightly more solid than a naturally occurring one. With the Leaf Body, you can then step on it.”

And then, the doll blurred, disappearing from Leon’s sight. It reappeared a dozen meters away.

“And finally, Earth Shrinking Step to cover great distance in a single step. The different stages are not complicated, but using multiple techniques and principles at the same time is what makes the Cloud Step so arduous.”

Easy in theory, hard in practice. Leon understood.

“But first, you need to learn to use your Essence.” Gastus pointed out. “You need to become aware of the boundary between your body and soul, where one meets the other. We can do it the slow, gentle way with meditation and exercise to slowly coax your Essence out, or we can do it the fast, painful way where we force it out and you’ll curse my name.”

Leon didn’t hesitate.

“Option 2, please.”

“So hasty.” Gastus shook his veiled head. “But I figured you would choose that one. Lay down on your back and prepare yourself.”

Another doll came, carrying a jeweled box. The automaton opened it, and Gastus made a motion with two fingers. From the open box, multiple golden needles, thin as a hair, but long as chopsticks came flying in formation.

Leon licked his lips. Acupuncture did have mystical connotations, even on Earth, considered a way to control the flow of energy in the body in ancient Chinese medicine. It wasn’t that surprising that magic monks on  another world had something similar.

It was just like going to the doctor and having your blood taken. Hell, the needles were so thin that even with their numbers, they shouldn’t hurt too much.

Piece of cake.

The first needle, guided by the hold Gastus’s Essence had on it, pierced just above his groin.

“GNGH!” Leon bit his lip to strangle the shout of pain and clawed at the floor.

“Good, you didn’t move too much. You have no idea how many start thrashing around after the first needle.” Gastus’s tone was conversational. “If you are wondering why it hurts so much, it’s because I’m not just piercing your body, I am also aiming at your soul. An easy way to picture what I am doing is that I am poking holes into your soul so that its Essence can leak into your body.”

The second needle penetrated his belly button. Leon bit his lips hard enough to draw blood this time.

One of the dolls offered its hand to bite into instead of his flesh. Leon gnawed on the reinforced wood without hesitation as a third needle pierced the center of his chest.

Fourth and fifth pierced through his nipples and he felt his lungs seize. Sixth went through his throat and all noise ceased to escape him.

His teeth still threatened to snap as he bit into the doll’s hand. From there, multiple needles were inserted in his arms and legs. Leon stopped clawing at the floor as he lost control of his limbs, but the pain still was there, boiling as it heated his blood, turning into lava that parcoured his body.

A needle fell between Leon’s eyes and he went blind while he felt his optic nerves itch so badly that he wanted to rip his eyeballs out.

The last needle stabbed his forehead. 

The Otherworlder ceased to be in pain. For a moment, all was silent, nothing existed but his thoughts.

Then his heart beat, and something else in addition to his blood started to flow through his body. It was something he had never felt before, yet it was familiar. It was his. It was like how you were never aware of your heartbeat until you ran to exhaustion and could now feel the organ pulse against your chest now that it was overworking.

Leon opened his eyes. The blinding pain had turned into full body soreness. The needles were being cleaned with a rag and a clear liquid before being put back in their box.

He sat up and looked at his hands. Molten gold flowed through his body like a river, focusing at multiple points.

His ankles and wrists were leaking some of the gold in vapor form. Leon went back up the stream until he reached the centerline of his body. If the energy flowing from his limbs was divided into streams, then from his groin to the top of his head there was a waterfall that provided those streams with their content. The sources of the waterfall were at the center of his stomach, his heart and his brain. At the base of his spine, there was another leak of energy.

He couldn’t see his own head, but he could sense how the Essence, it could only be that, flowed up his throat and cycled through his head, and flowed out of two spots on the crown of his head, through his eyes and the middle of his forehead; like with his ankles, wrists and spine.

He looked outside of his body and saw that Gastus was a clump of green Essence in the shape of a man, and he controlled strands of his own Essence that were holding the needles while he was putting them back in their box.

And then, there was the Essence just floating in the air, free and flowing like air currents.

“Wow.”

“From your expression, it was a success.” Gastus’s voice pulled Leon back from his awe. “Good, now we can begin the real training.”