After arguing with people in the group about work, Aatrox was walking alone when he felt something familiar. Energy! Someone was using energy somewhere around here.
Curious, Aatrox began to feel where the energy was coming from and started walking toward the basketball courts. Arriving there he saw a group of students playing. Looking at the way they played and their uniforms, it seemed that all the students were from the basketball club, plus a single student who was wearing the usual high school uniform with no sweat falling off him.
It was exactly him that Aatrox was feeling the energy leaking from. Observing the student's speed, strength, and control over the ball, Aatrox immediately understood why the student was exuding so much energy. He was also a cultivator. Aatrox could feel that the boy was at least Knight's level.
After the game was over, Aatrox heard the players talking.
"James, why don't you join our basketball team?" A student asked in the varsity uniform.
"Yes! If you joined us, surely our team would be the national champion." Said another student.
"Look, we're dying of tiredness and you didn't even start to sweat," said another student.
"Hahaha, actually I already play on a basketball team, but we only play between ourselves. But don't worry, I can come train with you from time to time." James responded.
Aatrox hearing that found it interesting. For a cultivator, playing with mortals was like an adult playing with a child, the difference in strength is too great to have a fair game. But what did James say about him already having a team playing against each other... 'Maybe they are other cultivators?' Aatrox thought.
The only person Aatrox has known so far who has contact with the cultivating world is Annie's father, and Aatrox is not even sure if he really is a cultivator or just a well-trained mortal.
After James said goodbye to the basketball players, Aatrox approached him and even in his usual cold, tried to look a little friendly. "Hello." Aatrox greeted with his hand extended for a squeeze.
James was startled but thought it was a random student who had seen him play and was fascinated. But when James looked to see who it was, he was amazed. As all the other high school students, James knew who Benjamin Gray was. The novice student who still in the first week of school but managed to record one of the biggest advertisements the college has ever had, and also known as the Frosty King since all the students who ever tried to talk to him were caught talking to themselves. As mere commoners in the presence of a true King of blue blood.
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James had never tried to talk to him, he thought he was just an ordinary person a little talented, but seeing Aatrox's hand raised waiting for the squeeze, James was surprised and began to have a cold sweat. From an early age, James was trained for battle. He has been through various types of training, and even a special forces agent did not give the same feeling he was getting from Benjamin.
James couldn't find an opening in the stance of the handsome student with long black hair in front of him. Looking into the student's face, James saw that he was not worried, this open-minded stance was probably his usual already. James knew from his elders that after going through several battles, a person's body will begin to become a fortress of its own accord, only by instinct would he protect himself from injury.
A cultivator's mind worked much faster than that of a normal human. In the time James was thinking and noticing each of these details, not even a second had actually passed.
"Hello, how may I help you?" James asked as he shook Aatrox's hand.
All the emotions that floated across James' face in that split second didn't go unnoticed by Aatrox. First Aatrox saw a slight pride, followed by a slight shock, and then yes when he had quickly observed Aatrox from head to toe, a great shock, followed by caution. As a cultivator, Aatrox could understand what James was feeling. If Aatrox met an opponent who showed him no opening, if that opponent was of the same strength or even stronger than him, Aatrox would also be concerned and prepare to lose a limb or two to kill him. Not to mention that Aatrox had not even shown that he was also a cultivator, for James, Aatrox was just a normal human with a well-trained body and instincts.
When their hands were connected, Aatrox answered. "I think we'd better say that in a more private place," he said as he sent some energy through James's hand.
James, who was already on the alert when he felt the energy coming from his hand, prepared to attack. Aatrox thought the amount of energy was low, but that was little to him who cultivated the God-Killer technique, possibly the most powerful technique in the universe. For James, the amount of energy that came into his hand was as powerful as an attack. Possibly even all the energy used during the basketball game with the players for a few minutes, James had used barely the same amount of energy. Now the student in front of him had poured that same amount of energy in just a fraction of a second.
James released Aatrox's hand, wrapped his wrist in a great deal of energy, preparing to punch Aatrox as he spoke. "If you want to talk, why did you attack me?"
Aatrox seeing this felt surprised but quickly understood. He had never interacted amicably with another cultivator in his old world, so he lacks basic sense about it. To lessen James Aatrox's suspicions he raised his hands in a supposed act of surrender, but James couldn't care less and continued with the punch toward Aatrox.