‘As expected – an idiot can’t become a true immortal.’ Leo sighed to himself.
He was the last one left at the plaza and patiently stood in front of a small group of the academy elders. Most of them seemed to be middle aged men, by mortal standards, of course, but there were also a couple elderly and two rather alluring women among them. If one ignored the fact that few had their weapons, the group looked like a bunch of tourists who arrived to take a look at the famous War Academy of the Immortal Alliance.
What Leo couldn’t understand was why they were going through all this hustle. In their stead he would probably kill the intruder and forget about the event. He didn’t realize that these thousands of years old masters have seen enough unbelievable things in their lives. Yes, the youth suddenly appeared in the pocked dimension from nowhere, but that only made things more interesting. In fact, most of them already made bets on how he did it, while elder Roon was almost the only one who took Leo’s incident seriously.
Headmaster glanced at his elders – there was the bored bunch who were present when the irregularity occurred, a couple other division heads and elder Li, who apparently yielded and decided to honor the bet. Indeed, honoring bets was a strict rule around here and, according to many, the best rule the academy had.
“Alright, explain.” Headmaster said with a smile to Leo and the youth felt his heartrate accelerate.
“Mhm.” He nodded, trying to take a deep breath to calm down, “But I’m not that important or dangerous – there is no need for all of you to waste your time.”
Seeing there was no reaction and facial expressions of the elders didn’t change, Leo sighed and continued, “I entered the wrong coordinates during teleportation and ended up here. There is nothing more to it.”
When neither the headmaster nor elders reacted, he sighed again and gave the long version – with what his name was, age, description of the Aurora mortal realm and so on. Meanwhile his attitude surprised most of the present – not everyone could stand straight in the presence of dozen immortals due to sheer moral pressure, no matter if they were guilty of anything or not.
After Leo finished his story, the headmaster said, “We’ll have to verify your words, of course. For now you’ll stay with elder Li.”
The small crowd parted and Leo was met with the stare of an old man, probably over eighty years old – that is if he was a mere mortal. Besides getting uncomfortable, it felt like the look the elder gave went right through him and exposed his deepest secrets.
Nevertheless, Leo gathered all his willpower and gave a slight, polite bow and said, “Hello, nice to meet you!”
“Why aren’t you kneeling in front of your master?” Elder’s voice was a bit crispy, although calm, but in Leo’s ears it resonated like thunder.
He slightly swayed, but managed to remain conscious, mostly due to the shock.
“Mast … Master? … weren’t you all teachers?” He has been a slave in Dreadlands, but according to Alice and Fan Yun the War Academy was purely an educational facility and belonged to the Immortal Alliance where slavery was not really a thing. Him suddenly becoming someone’s slave was upsetting to say the least, partially because he hadn’t done anything wrong, but mostly because his master wasn’t Anna. If he had to wash this old creep, he would much more preferred if they executed him on the spot!
It took few moments for elders to realize what the youth meant and a heartily laughter echoed through the academy’s grounds. His train of thought was amusing, especially considering who was the ‘master’ in question.
Feeling that to annoy elder Li completely was not the best idea, the headmaster said, “Elder Li is, probably, the most experienced teacher in the academy, although a bit orthodox. Don’t worry, you’re in good hands.”
While Leo heaved a sigh of relief, elder Li suddenly appeared in front of him, gently poked his forehead and the youth blanked out and collapsed to the ground.
“I don’t like him.” Elder said, turning to the crowd, “He has no talent, no future prospects and the worst thing – he’s stupid! This kid is worthless! He shouldn’t even be allowed to step in the academy! It’s a disgrace!”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Actually this was the ‘endgame’ elder Li thought of as the last resort after he realized the others won’t let go of the thousand year old bet and will force him to accept another disciple no matter what. In his long life he had groomed quite a few geniuses, some of which even became the founders of the Immortal Alliance!
The thing is – he always picked the most talented individuals and like a sculptor created masterpieces out of them, but this youth … there was nothing to create since there was nothing to create from! The only thing the kid apparently had was luck, but with luck alone one couldn’t get far in life.
“It’s fine.” The headmaster patiently said, “Let’s ignore the strange sign of his amulet actually resembling your family crest … don’t make the long face, elder Stan didn’t plant it and you know it. A lost bet is a lost bet, even for you. In addition, you were looking at this the wrong way from the very beginning. It’s all about honoring the bet, not forcing you to make something out of him. And you had the first pick for this batch and could’ve easily taken someone like little Shaw or anyone else under your wing, but chose no to, thus you can blame only yourself. No matter, if Leo’s, if that’s his real name, story checks out and, judging by the behavior of the kids from the Golden city, it will, you can make him your … I don’t know … gardener, if you wish. You have a garden, right?”
While elder Li could only sigh at the headmaster’s logic, the rest of elders were all smiles. When one lives for thousands and thousands of years, similar events tend to keep repeating over and over again, and pretty soon they loose their entertainment value no matter how huge they might be. But small things like making fun of an old monster will give them leverage allowing to tease him for millennia to come.
“Alright, the show is over!” Headmaster said with a clap of his hands, “Elder Neely, I’d like to have report on this matter in two days, preferably tomorrow. If the corrupted path … if the Army of Freedom actually had something to do with it, this will become a matter of a completely different scale … if they are capable of teleporting someone in our own pocket dimension it’s … disturbing, to say the least. During the past centuries they are growing restless and even dared to send a dozen of their talents here, just to wipe out over a hundred of ours. The hit that the Immortal Alliance took during these exams was enormous! Of course, the sacrifice of those youths will not be in vein – if the spies got in, our losses would’ve been of much bigger scale … and … don’t get complacent – there still might be few spies left, therefore I want you all to remain vigilant!”
Leo didn’t know he was knocked out. To him it felt like he blinked and suddenly the scenery had completely changed – instead of plaza surrounded by neat buildings, he found himself at the top of a small mountain surrounded by grassy fields on one side and forests on the other. The only thing that remained the same was the unhappy expression of his new master. He was not certain if he did became slave or a student, but fortunately that part was immediately cleared up.
“This is the Thirteenth peak.” Elder Li said and pointed at a small wooden shack, the only structure in the vicinity, “You’ll stay here. If you want to learn something, you can go and listen to the lectures the other elders are giving – just run along the forest line towards the west until you see the training grounds. Most lecture halls are located behind those. In under no circumstances you’re allowed to step in the grassy fields – if you damage a single plant there … you’ll … uhmm … don’t step in the grassy fields no matter what. You can wander around these forests, but don’t hunt wildlife – if you’re hungry, go to the academy’s canteen. Other than that – don’t do anything stupid.”
And then the elder vanished, leaving Leo standing alone and confused. The wind breeze he felt in his face proved this wasn’t an illusion, but the whole situation seemed surreal. A short while ago he was happily chatting with a couple of beauties from the Golden city and now he was in the middle of nowhere, alone.
He was alive though, therefore anything else could be considered unimportant nuances. He spent the rest of the day cleaning the shack, that apparently became his home, and scouting the nearby forest. Leo clearly understood that the elder’s warning about not stepping into the grassy fields was serious and obviously intended to follow it.
What the youth didn’t know was that elder Roon asked elder Neely to investigate the suspicious person and the circumstances surrounding him personally and that elder Neely teleported to the Aurora mortal realm right away, following the headmaster’s orders and elder Roon’s pleas. The same evening elder sent a message to the academy that Leo was ‘clean’, but he’ll allow himself to take few days off to investigate the boy more thoroughly.
Three days later elder Neely returned and headmaster gathered a bunch of elders, including elder Li, to listen to his report which turned out to be a funny and slightly unbelievable story of an orphan who in order to migrate to the immortal realm managed to impregnate half a city, including both daughters of the two co-sect masters and as a result had to escape to keep his sorry life.
One had to give the proper respect to elder Neely’s meticulousness – he met with everyone related to Leo, including Jack, grandpa Noel and even the owners of the two brothels – madams Francesca and Ottavia. As the result his report was so detailed, Leo couldn’t have written a better one.
Elder did arouse sect master Evelyn’s suspicion, but it was not like he cared about the puny Nascent soul stage cultivator’s feelings. In addition, in the Sacred Order he happened to meet the false immortal Christopher Delian who actually asked him to take good care of the father of his grandchild. Turns out that the junior elder of the Treasury department had more common sense than his former lover.
While most of the story was accompanied by giggles and funny replicas form both – male and female parts of the audience, when elder Neely reported on Leo’s prowess while holding against an opposing army for two days, everyone was caught off guard. Even elder Li left the gathering deep in thought, but it was not like he was going to do anything about it. He still considered Leo to be a talentless individual and waste of space.
On the second morning Leo woke up before the sunrise and immediately departed towards the west. He put his good old Cleaver on his back as means for training, although at the current level it didn’t slow him down much.
Elder Li didn’t specify how long it would take to get to the training grounds and Leo didn’t want to arrive late. Yesterday he saw few mountain peaks in the distance and guessed that the main part of the academy was located there, but it was hard to tell how far exactly it was.
For a Core formation stage cultivator it wasn’t really tiring to run tens of miles and, truth to be said, Leo enjoyed the exercise. The scenery was pleasant, the air fresh and he looked forward to meet his buddies from the Golden city again.