"Elder Windcrest" clearing his throat to hide his nervousness the man gazed at the cross-legged man floating gently in the center of a glowing formation.
Slowly opening his eyes wind and small flecks of shimmering dust flowed around Aaron Windcrest. Manifesting the wind his family took it's namesake from into a large hand. Gesturing toward the petty mortal the hand shot out and grasped the frightened man.
"Why have you disturbed my cultivation" Aaron asked holding him at the edge of the lightly glowing formation circle. "Umm I.. I mean" with a sigh Aaron rolled his wrist dropping the man. Even that little effort irritated Aaron still bitter that after decades of practice he still needed the crutch of basic gestures to guide Windclutch technique.
"Spit it out before I lose my patience" Aaron held his gaze on the sniveling little mortal as he picked himself off his back into a proper cowtow. "Yes elder Windcrest, the delivery from white cloud city has arrived and you asked me to menti-" standing up and immediately stepping out of the formation before the mortal could finish his groveling Aaron Windcrest strode through the door and down the hall his annoyance completely forgotten. With clear purpose glimmering in his eyes Aaron headed through the verdant path compound to the intake warehouse strolling past the herb gardens where the mortals toiled under the supervision of the only herbalist cultivator this sorry branch he was assigned to has. Normally that fact would have him simmering with contempt but not today.
"Stand aside" Aaron waved the two Fondational cultivators acting as warehouse guards aside as he walked into the warehouse. Shaking his head at notion of some foundational realm cultivators actually being considered guards anywhere but a backwater like Westbank "it's enough to make me weep".
Walking up to a table with an ornate box covered in a containment formation with the seal of the Cloud walker sect a top it Aaron Windcrest new his family's punishment of work as an outer elder for an uppity farming peddler was soon over. Good thing too as he'd invest almost every he'd embezzled over the past fifteen years as well as the majority of the funds for training the tournament team.
"A bunch of farmers sponsoring a proper tournament team" snorting at the foolishness of the verdant path corporation leader. "If he wasn't in the submerged realm I'd have delt with him long ago" though now with this treasure he might just have a chance of finally pushing past the core stage to enter the submerged stage himself.
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He knew even with the treasure he'd acquired digesting the power into his Cores would take time and it likely wouldn't be until after the first round of that inane little tournament. "Five foundational realm coins should at least be enough for peasants in this backwater" he thought knowing that it didn't matter as long as they showed up. He'd kill Hector Vale for incompetence when his enviable lost happened. There would be no one who would argue at mismanagement of the ten core realm coins assigned to Hector Vale justified his death.
Hector Vale watched the whirlwind of activity around him in the warehouse turned training facility. It had been a week of rapid action since expert Pryor came back from his mad stunt with the owner of the local underground pit arena. Since then they'd gone through the process of creating four additional cultivators under Markus and Dimitri for a total of six. "Would have been seven" Hector muttered to himself remembering the face of a young man frozen in pain. The alchemist Tang said his body started to reject the alchemical infused blood, he'd frozen solid with the exception of the vain Tang himself was hooked up to.
Shaking off the nasty thoughts he watched the new cultivators lift wight, stretch, complete obstacles and do everything they could to find their new physical limitations. Expert Pryor walked around recording information and adjusted the goals and tasks as needed. It was a strange yet effective methodology. The man had coin scales to get the exact wight of their food and water intake.
Hector had no idea that such basic actions would have such a profound affect on cultivators yet the "athletes" as he'd heard expert Pryor referred to them as they gradually improved without the need for more of the ice baths which was good as he turned his head to look at the frost orb. It sat in the center of an energy gathering formation.
Looking deeply into it a lot of it's luster had faded from the repeated use and Tang had informed him that they'd have to completely stop using it if they wanted to use it as the prize for the tournament. Tang and Pryor had ran to the black rocks auction house to purchase a formation for nurturing water treasures in hopes of restoring it to peak condition in time for the beginning of the tournament. At the price of fifteen Fondational coins such a formation was a costly investment most sects didn't bother with in most situations.
Interrupting his musings Hector noticed expert Pryor walking over. "They have progressed well but are slowly starting to plato, with three weeks till the start of the tournament we'll need a few things" Pryor said glancing over his notes. "Something I can help with?" Hector replied getting a strange feeling like he'd stepped into another plot of the devious man across from him. Expert Pryor looked up from the clipboard with a grin " I'm so glad you asked".