“Leo?” Theodore Shaw blurted involuntary.
“You know him?” For a split moment elder Li was surprised, but then flicked his own forehead, “Right, he’s friends with Kevin … I’m really getting old …”
“Kind of, but this is the kid who gave me the petals I mentioned earlier and this is the kid that caused Kevin to forcefully advance back then and as a result was caused the strange phenomena above the Golden city. I wrote you about it, remember?” Theodore Shaw felt slightly lost at the coincidence, “I even gave him a couple advice, but never hoped he could actually get anywhere … that’s right! I remember now! He even said he never had a teacher! That’s the reason for the childish questions that pissed you off! He simply never had the chance to learn the basics! Master, you do realize why, do you?”
“The lightning mutation … his life probably hung by a thread for years and with the reaper’s scythe constantly hanging over his neck he never had any chance to properly cultivate, especially in a mortal realm.” Elder Li said, awkwardly scratching his chin, “Now I feel bad for him … damn!”
“It’s not like either of you are dead, right?” Theodore Shaw said, “You are the best teacher anyone can wish for, so …”
But he didn’t finish the sentence, because Leo arrived at the shore, glanced around, quickly spotted the three Nascent soul stage beasts who apparently were already waiting for him in a silent agreement. Then the youth charged at Rusty, the huge hamster-like beast, only to get smacked to the ground. He did get up though, but his next attack resulted in the same outcome.
For a short while Rusty abused the young human, but then either got bored or got a cheeky idea and kicked him away. Leo flew almost hundred yards and landed in the lake, but soon resurfaced and weakly swam back towards the island. Clearly either his shoulder or arm was broken.
“Ok, I change my mind.” Theodore Shaw began to laugh, “He’s beyond saving!”
“Now you realize why I feel so helpless.” Elder Li said, “But Heavens are trying to tell us something – there were too many coincidences before you came here, but if we add the information you gave …”
“I don’t suggest you discard him, master.” Theodore said with a smile, “He just needs an unorthodox approach. And I have an idea … one thing though – keep him away from Kevin. I don’t want them to accidentally start advancement into the Nascent soul stage. Without supervision it most likely will end with a lethal outcome.”
Leo passed out the moment he got back to the island. His shoulder badly hurt, but he felt like he had made a progress. Due to the relentless cultivation under the Divine tribulation trees, during the past months Leo’s core had grown to the size of a walnut and he finally felt like he made up for the losses during the Seven peaks incident in the Sacred Order.
He also felt he was slowly grasping few tricks and that one of these days he could kick the oversized hamster’s ass. Of course, the rat would be the next, but to Leo it seemed that it was stronger than the hamster. Sadly no one told the youth there was no way it could ever happen before he stepped into the Nascent soul stage, but at least for now it allowed him to live with hope and, well, a delusion.
When he woke up, Leo realized he was back in the shack on the Thirteenth peak. It was upsetting since he much more would’ve preferred to continue to cultivate on the island for years, but apparently he ran out of credit, or whatever rule in the War Academy regarding this was. As the result the elder brought him back and, from what it looked like, intended to put him to work. Actually Leo was not opposed to it, because it gave him chance of earning some kind of means since after living in the forest for the past months he was still a pauper.
“How long will it take for you to fix your shoulder?” The moment Leo stepped out the shack, he was met with elder Li’s nonchalant expression.
“I should be fine by tomorrow morning.” Leo politely said, instinctively touching his left shoulder that still slightly hurt.
“Good.” Elder Li nodded, “Tomorrow morning you’ll report to Musa – you’ll meet him on the academy’s training grounds and follow his orders for the time being. In between deployments you may return to cultivate to the lake – that’ll be your payment.”
While Leo tried to process the implications, elder Li deeply looked at him and added, “… and don’t do anything stupid and try to not embarrass me!”
A moment later he was gone and Leo once again found himself alone. Just like when he first arrived here, the feeling of the wind breeze on his face was the only thing that allowed him to verify this was the reality.
The Cleaver was still where he put it before leaving and while storing it in the amulet, Leo pondered what this all was about. In the end he decided that there was no use of thinking too much about it since he’ll know tomorrow for sure, thus he sat down in the grass in front of the shack and focused on healing his shoulder.
While he still didn’t possess any fancy cultivation techniques, the days he spent with Alice and Fan Yun in the pocked dimension were not wasted. The two girls taught him the basics on how to use his own cultivation in order to heal himself and that was one of the reasons Fan Yun managed to ‘fix’ him. Of course, that was the main ability he relied on during his ‘sparring matches’ with Rudy and Rusty during the past months, otherwise there was no way he could challenge the beasts every other day.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
In order to not be late, Leo departed in the middle of the night. He arrived at the training grounds at the sunrise, but for quite a while he was the only person there. When finally the other students began to appear, he went around asking for Musa, but the answer always was a shrug or ‘he’s not here yet’.
‘At least I know he’s a ‘he’.’ Leo tried to look at the bright side, but then noticed a familiar face.
“Leo!” Alice ran over all full of smiles, “We were afraid something happened to you!”
“Thanks! I’m fine!” Leo smiled back.
It did feel good to finally have someone friendly around.
“Where are the rest of the guys?” He asked.
“Probably with their squads.” Alice shrugged, “Right, which squad were you assign to?”
Before Leo could answer, a young man at the Nascent soul stage landed next to them and said, “Alice, let’s go! The rest are waiting!”
He was dressed in all black from head to toe and even wore black gloves.
“Sorry, Musa! My Seventh peak is quite far away.” She gave a random excuse while raising hand as if admitting guilt at the same time.
“Oh! You’re Musa? Hi!” Leo immediately reacted, “I was told to report to you!”
“So you’re Leo, huh?” Musa evaluated him with a glance, “Ok then. Technically you’ll be a part of our squad from now on. Meet up with the rest of us in two days at the central teleportation platform. Be fully prepared.”
Musa turned to leave, but before Leo could ask ‘for what?’, Alice stopped him, “Squad leader, doesn’t he need to practice formations with us?”
“That’s why I said ‘technically’.” Musa shrugged, “It’s not my decision. Both elders Stan and Li gave clear instructions – he was to tag along, but he’ll be on his own during the action, therefore there is no need for him to practice with us.”
“But …” Alice wanted to argue, but Musa interrupted her.
“It’s not up for a discussion.” He said, “Of course, if he wants to, he can come and observe, but its not like it’ll help him in any way.”
While Alice pouted, Leo quickly weighed his options. He still had no clue what was going on, but since there were only two days time, he could use it to cultivate. On the other hand, he needed a full day to get to the lake and another one to get back, that is in the case he found it straight away, thus to go there was a waste of time. It would probably be wiser to hang around and understand the situation, especially since Musa mentioned the teleportation platform – it was not hard to guess they were about to depart for some kind of a mission.
“I’ll take a look if it’s alright with you.” Leo politely said.
“Sure, but don’t bother others during the practice.” Musa said with a short nod, “Their lives depend on it. I … I’m not sure what training elder Li has put you through, but according to his instructions you’ll be on your own and don’t need to rely on the group. In fact, I’m supposed to remind you no one will be looking after you, so you better be careful.”
Then he beckoned and flew away, and both Leo and Alice rushed after him, trying to catch up.
They didn’t go far. Musa landed on a wide, grassy field at the side of the forest – Leo recognized the place since he took this route in order to get to his shack. From what it looked like, the rest of the group was already here. Leo counted eight youths and two young ladies and together with Musa and Alice it made twelve students in total.
Musa pointed further to the side and motioned for Leo to move over there and, despite Alice’s pouting, the youth wordlessly complied. After sitting down in the grass Leo began to observe the group and at first there was only a discussion led by Musa and another female student. Shortly after though she, Musa and another guy flew up, indicating all three of them were at the Nascent soul stage.
Leo even had to rub his eyes to verify he was not seeing things. Back in the Aurora mortal realm, only the strongest experts were at this level, but here it looked like every other student was like that.
The trio, while floating in the air, gave several loud instructions and the nine people below quickly formed three neat triangles. Leo was not a genius, but it was not that hard to guess that the group was practicing combat formations. Apparently that was some kind of advanced stuff, because even though a triangle was one of the most basic formations, the nine students formed three of those on the ground and the three Nascent soul stage students formed another one above.
But that was only the beginning. Soon they began to imitate combat situations with one group charging forth and the rest following while protecting the rear. Meanwhile the trio above served as their eyes and backup.
After watching for a while Leo realized this squad was fully assembled and he was the redundant piece, the third wheel … or in his case – the thirteenth wheel.
It was embarrassing and upsetting at the same time, but Leo decided to ignore the humiliating feelings since just a few moths ago he intended to run away from the academy for good. And now he was about to take part in something really interesting, although most likely dangerous.
‘F*ck!’ Leo cursed, suddenly suspecting the students were about to be sent to a war, ‘I really hope it’s not another one!’
It was one thing to fool around in a mortal world, but here, in the Savage immortal realm he was a worthless ant. Even in the academy he was probably one of the weakest students and if they were about to go to war, Leo knew his chances to survive were rather slim.
Fortunately it was not that bad. During the break Alice jogged over and finally brought the youth up to the latest events. Turns out the academy was preparing to protect towns and cities against some large scale beast attacks and the students became the workforce. At the same time this was a great opportunity to hone their skills and earn contribution points that could be used in exchange for cultivation resources and techniques.
Before Leo got his hopes up, he was brought back to earth again. Turns out the moment he arrived, a couple of squad members immediately raised objections – they didn’t want to share the rewards with the newcomer whom they defeated few months ago in duels. Musa immediately calmed everyone down, explaining Leo was going to earn his contribution points himself and he’ll be only traveling and staying with the squad formally.
Leo, of course, couldn’t blame neither the two guys who kicked his butt, Hiro and Dante, for looking down on him, nor the rest since they were a full squad already.
For the safety reasons he would’ve preferred to be an actual part of the group, but he was already used to being alone so it was not that big of a deal. The main thing left for Leo to figure out was how to earn the contribution points.