“Your sainthood, lord Adil! Please spare me the suffering and explain!” Alex shouted and bowed towards the old man.

The latter awkwardly scratched his head and asked in return, “What do you think was the main reason for the emperor to build the academy here?”

“Defensive considerations.” Alex immediately answered.

“Not bad! You thought of the second reason.” Adil nodded in satisfaction, but fell silent after that.

“Come on, please stop torturing me!” Alex pretended to beg, “I’ve been here for the whole day! I’m tired, thirsty and hungry! I might die from exhaustion, you know?”

“Ye, right!” Adil began to laugh, “You brought enough water and provisions to live here for half a month! But since you ask me so nicely, I’ll help you out … sigh … everyone is taking advantage of me these days …”

“So? What is it?” Playing these word games with the old man was fun, but Alex was actually becoming tired mentally.

“Qi.” Adil said only one word.

“Of course, there is a higher Qi density here. But there other are similar places around the mountain range.” Alex argued.

“Sigh. It’s like feeding pudding to a pig! You read and wrote so much during the last months, but remained the same stupid country bumpkin you were when you arrived here. What a waste of space!” Adil shook his head exaggerating his disappointment.

They sat there for several minutes in silence and only then the old man finally took pity on Alex.

He asked, “What is Qi?”

“Energy.” Alex immediately replied.

“What is its nature like?” Adil asked.

“Well … everything has it or rather, consists of it. Its flow …” Suddenly Alex realized what he missed, “It f*cking flows like the water! The damn Qi flows down from the mountains like the water and gathers here naturally! And mostly at the spot where that stupid lake once was! So that is why the chosen bastards of the empire had their peak built there – they bath in Qi the whole day increasing the disparity between them and the regular mortals even more!”

“Uhmm … that’s one way of looking at it.” Adil was caught by surprise by the Alex’s outburst, “I prefer to think that the academy was built on the spot with extremely rich Qi where young talents of the empire can grow and mature. The fact that the best talents have the best treatment is only logical. Why on earth would anyone waste their time with a hillbilly like you?”

Alex understood he was being rude, but could only shrug in return. He got the answer he was looking for, but the feeling of something else being there kept drilling through his consciousness like an annoying worm.

“Alright. Enough chitchat!” Adil got up and suddenly Alex found himself at the bottom of the library tower.

If not for the motion blur that lasted a split second, he might have thought the old man teleported both of them.

“Thank you!” Alex returned to his previous self and slightly bowed towards the saint.

He knew the old man went out of his way to teach him, while, of course, having fun at the same time. But there was something Adil didn’t tell him or maybe even didn’t know. Either way Alex was certain there was something else he missed, but to rush things is a bad habit. He hadn’t even been here for six months! Compared to that the project ‘Sunflower seed halva’ lasted for several years!

Suddenly Alex stopped in his tracks. Right! The feeling he was getting – it was all about the cultivation resources! Just like back then! His whole consciousness was screaming there was something special around this place – that’s why he was becoming restless. But one could never rush large projects and he had to be patient, investigate, explore and learn! In addition, he had the whole library at his disposal and he was certain at some point one of the three-eyed freaks would hint at the secret hidden on the Western peak.

Unfortunately Alex turned out to be wrong. During the next year and a half he stormed through the second, third and even the fourth floor, but didn’t find anything noteworthy. He almost lived in the library apart from the time he cultivated in his residence and attended the mandatory lectures, but there was not even a hint about something special regarding the Western peak apart from its residents.

In the end of his second year at the academy he was officially allowed to enter the place where normally one could go starting the fourth year, but instead of being proud and happy, he felt miserable about the time wasted.

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Of course, it wasn’t actually wasted. Alex loved the theoretical work with the soul particles and behind the scenes his essays shook the whole teaching staff of the academy without him ever finding it out. Because of the knowledge and experiments he did, his cultivation advanced at increased rate as well, but there was one department he lacked in.

Apart from an hour every morning he didn’t practice any combat Qi techniques at all, but his schoolmates, especially those without any sign to become saint anytime soon, did. In fact, it was all they did in hopes to not fall behind the ‘real’ geniuses, the saints.

Alex never actually enjoyed the fighting and hoped that the Qi cultivation in tandem with the Bond’s technique would be enough for him to ignore the other combat techniques, but he was proven wrong. In addition it happened at the worst time – during the challenge test.

Probably because of his own arrogance and the easy results during the last three times, Alex postponed the completion of his challenges till the last moment. It was today that the second year of studies would come to an end and only yesterday he went over to the office to grab ten tickets at once like he usually did.

But he underestimated the growth of his schoolmates who he still perceived as little kids and now had to pay the price. The first eight challenges went relatively smooth, but the ninth was picked up by a young saint. In addition it was the saint with the most promising results during the entrance exams, apart from Alex and Nabia that is, and Alex read his theoretical work and had to agree it was also quite impressive. Basically the guy was an actual genius.

During the first eight challenges Alex got hit a couple of times, but it didn’t hurt or bother him. The problem was that the young saint was much stronger and faster than him and was set on making Alex loose. His name was Malik Nader, but this knowledge didn’t help Alex one bit. It also didn’t help that Alex’s vision was becoming blurry and a burning pain come from the chest along with the difficulty to breathe, indicating that the damn young saint had cracked at least couple of his ribs.

Alex had to admit – Malik did play by the rules. He never used any mental powers and the judge, this time a saint, made sure of that. The problem was – he didn’t even need to cheat. In the two years he had overtaken Alex who spent his life in the library.

‘No! F*ck!’ Alex suddenly realized his mistake.

He actually had no clue how strong this or the other saints were to begin with! The only saint he fought was the arrogant young prick in Haldenburg, but that was ages ago! It only meant he overestimated his own capabilities from the start!

‘Sometimes it’s good to get a painful wake-up call.’ Alex thought to himself while receiving another punch to the face, ‘Too bad I’ll get expelled if it continues like this.’

Last year a couple of boys did get thrown out, but only because they turned out to be complete dumbos. To get expelled for failing the combat challenges that one had half a year to complete was a total disgrace and it was unlikely Adil could save him.

The whole situation was a tragedy. Because the challenger was a saint they had to call for a judge who was also a saint thus attracting the attention of many other students. Since Malik was the most popular guy in the academy, every student rushed over to watch how he would teach the conceited ass from the library a lesson.

Alex didn’t care when Malik suggested their fight would be held in the small coliseum instead of the training grounds and both fighters and the crowd of spectators moved there. He thought to suffer humiliation was Malik’s own fault for being arrogant, but as it turned out the one being arrogant was him.

While the students happily cheered responding to Malik’s elegant moves, the few teachers who came to watch could only shake their heads in disappointment. Alex would’ve loved to join them, but the only thing he could currently concentrate on was to not loose his consciousness. He barely stood on his feet, all dirty from his own blood.

‘You damn useless things!’ Alex cursed at his soul particles happily dancing in his vision.

He barely could discern the outlines of his opponent, but the particles were there as if he had zoomed in on them. During the two years in academy, Alex’s experiments allowed him to multiply their numbers reaching full fifty seven, but since it was too early for him to create the soul brand, there was no real practical use for them.

In the last essay he did describe a theoretical possibility of moving them to different parts of his own body thus enhancing person’s performance and even experimented with it, but in reality it didn’t have any application since sooner or later everyone would create their soul brands thus having the annoying things in their vision was a matter of convenience. In addition, back then he did ‘loose’ one of the soul particles in the process of experimentation and marked the idea as ‘failed’ or ‘requiring a particular techniques’.

‘Arhh! F*ck it!’ Alex quickly decided after Malik kicked him to the ground for who knows which time.

If they fought in the small circle Alex used for spars with the previous opponents, he would’ve long lost, but here, in the arena Malik could use him as a punching bag until he lost his consciousness.

‘Blame yourself!’ Alex thought to himself spreading the soul particles across his body in an instant.

He felt how in the process he lost several of them, but the loss was much less painful than the agony his body currently was experiencing. In addition, this agony suddenly transformed into euphoria, probably similar to what the drug addicts enjoy after getting their shot and every part of the Alex’s body experienced an incredible inflow if Qi.

Feeling the sudden burst of power Alex dashed towards his opponent who for the last five or so minutes continued to kick and pinch him around while widely grinning and, ignoring another punch to the face, headbutted Malik in the chest.

He clearly heard the sound of bones breaking and a split second later the arena fell into a dead silence. Malik’s body lifelessly fell to the ground raising a small cloud of dust, while the crowd stared at the center of arena in disbelief.

Alex’s vision was still blurry, he panted, feeling his legs could give in any second, but when the judge called him a winner, quickly sat down cross-legged on the spot, rushing to gather his soul particles that currently were all over the place.

Alex didn’t notice how Malik was carried away in the rush – he was too busy counting his forty two soul particles over and over again. This was the real pain! The loss of thirteen soul particles in exchange for a moment of power was hardly worth it.