Kaelen, who was, like, super strong, totally made the mountain groan. Not because he was struggling, obviously, that'd be dumb. Nah, it was 'cause he was so ridiculously powerful, every step was like a mini-earthquake. Trees, the really old, twisty ones, wobbled when he waltzed by. Their leaves, they weren't rustling from wind. Nope. They were just, like, vibrating from the sheer awesome *Kaelen-ness* of him.
He hadn't really *tried* in, like, forever. This whole "climbing" Mount Cinder thing? It was just, whatever, a way to kill time because he was bored. This mountain, by the way, made those wimpy Himalayas look like ant hills. He'd killed gods, ripped continents apart with a pinky, and one time, just for laughs, he arm-wrestled a black hole until it gave up and went *poof*. Yeah, he was strong. Too strong, maybe. Annoyingly strong.
"Another one," he mumbled, watching the gigantic sun plop below the horizon. The sky went all fiery and stuff. He'd seen a bazillion of these sunsets. They were still pretty, he guessed, but the "wow" factor had worn off, oh, about a million years ago.
He got to the top, which was flat and made of, like, super dark rock that hummed. Below him, the whole world looked like a crumpled up picture. Cities were twinkling like someone spilled glitter, and the oceans were shiny like a new car. It was all so… meh. So not-forever.
"Is this it?" Kaelen grumbled. His voice was so deep it probably made tiny rocks vibrate. He'd done everything, survived everything, and outlived everything. Fighting was boring now. Learning stuff was boring 'cause he already knew it all.
Then, a thought! It was like a tiny little bug flapped its wings next to a giant thunderstorm (which was Kaelen's power). It wasn't a smart thought, or one he remembered. It was just, like, this weird *feeling* from way, way deep inside him.
**Immortality.**
He stopped. Well, he was already immortal, duh. He didn't get old, and nothing could really hurt him. But this whisper? It wasn't about not dying. It was about something… more. Like, totally, utterly, completely never-ending. Even the *idea* of ending wouldn't exist.
Kaelen frowned, making a giant crease between his totally unmovable eyebrows. He'd never even thought about it. Why would he? He was already the best, the strongest. But this whisper just kept going, like a little kid poking him, showing him a new toy. A new thing to conquer.
He closed his eyes, and his senses got all huge, going past regular stuff, poking at the very fabric of everything. He was looking for where that whisper came from, the tiniest little wiggle in the cosmic pond that might lead him to this super-duper, absolute immortality thingy.
For the first time in, like, ever, he felt something interesting. A tiny little spark of excitement in the super-strong Kaelen.
"Huh," he growled, a slow, kinda scary smile spreading on his face. The mountain groaned again, this time like it was saying, "Uh oh." "Let's see what this 'immortality' is all about."
Kaelen, who was still ridiculously strong, like, stronger than a million bodybuilders with super-powered protein shakes, scratched his chin. Not because it itched, obviously. He was just thinking. And thinking made his brain kinda vibrate, which was probably good.
"So, immortality, huh?" he grumbled to himself. The mountain, still trembling from his awesomeness, probably just wanted him to leave. Too bad. He was on a quest now, even if he didn't know what a quest was, really. It was like, a super important thing to do.
He needed a map. Not a regular map with, like, little roads and stuff. No, he needed a **super-duper secret map to immortality**. He knew these things existed because, well, everything existed, right? And if it didn't, he could probably just punch it into existence. He'd done crazier things. Like that one time he made a new planet just to have somewhere to put his really big rock collection.
He squinted his eyes, which probably looked intense. He was trying to remember if he'd ever heard about this immortality stuff before. He'd met, like, a bunch of really old dudes and even some gods who thought they were immortal. But then he'd, you know, accidentally squished them. So they clearly weren't *that* immortal. This new kind of immortality had to be better. Like, **immortality-plus**.
Suddenly, a memory! It was a tiny, fuzzy memory, like trying to remember what you had for breakfast three thousand years ago. He vaguely remembered some really annoying little wizard dude, like, super-nerdy, with a pointy hat and a long beard that kept getting stuck in his spellbook. This wizard had once, many eons ago, tried to impress Kaelen with a glowing scroll. Kaelen had mostly been focused on trying not to step on the wizard, but he vaguely recalled the wizard babbling about "the Shimmering Path" and "the Eternal Wellspring."
"Aha!" Kaelen boomed, and a flock of really big, surprised eagles fell out of the sky. Oops. "The wizard guy! He had the map!"
Now, where was that wizard? Kaelen rarely paid attention to where people went after he was done with them. Most of them usually ran really, really fast in the opposite direction. He closed his eyes again, concentrating super hard. He pictured the wizard, really, really hard. He thought about his funny hat. He thought about his squeaky voice. He even thought about the weird smell of old parchment and desperation that clung to him.
Then, *ding!* Like a lightbulb going off, but in his super-strong brain. He "remembered" the general direction the wizard had scurried off in. It was towards, like, a really swampy, gross place with giant glowing mushrooms and squishy noises. The **Bog of Blarg**. Lovely.
"Time for a walk," Kaelen declared. He didn't just walk, though. He took one giant step that covered about five hundred miles. The ground rippled behind him like a disturbed waterbed. This was going to be easy. Finding a little wizard who probably still had that map? Piece of cake. A very, very old, squishy, and probably gross cake.