“Leo! Come over!” A shout echoed over the lighting waters.
Leo immediately stopped cultivating and flew to the shore where he was met by elder Li and another man he hadn’t seen for many years. The guy was still dressed in plain linen clothing and wore wooden sandals, just like when Leo met him for the first time. The only difference was that this time Leo could float above the treetops along with the two immortals. Obviously they were miles apart in their levels, but he still felt a bit proud of himself for getting this far.
“Master Shaw!” Leo was shocked to see the legendary immortal in the middle of a forest, “I was meaning to go to the Golden city to report to you, but, you see, I’m too poor and can’t afford it … and before that I was busy ...”
Theodore Shaw threw a questioning glance at his master who helplessly spread his hands. He had long given up to find logic behind Leo’s train of thought and now was more bothered that for some reason the kid called Theodore Shaw ‘master’ without any reservations, but for years kept calling him ‘elder’.
“It’s fine!” Theodore Shaw dismissed Leo’s worries with a carefree wave of his hand, “It’s even better this way. Let’s talk. Is it fine if we do it here?”
The question was addressed to elder Li, who said, “Sure, the view at the lake is nice. And I have no tea back at the Thirteenth peak anyway, so there’s no reason to go there.”
Theodore Shaw received the invitation to question Leo over ten days ago and for both, him and elder Li, the few days of building up the intrigue felt refreshing. Unfortunately they were bound to face an utter disappointment. Besides the curious fact that Leo’s advancement was initiated by the thunderhawk’s tribulation while the beast died in the process, junior couldn’t remember any other details.
What followed next shocked the two immortals even more. Turned out that Leo didn’t remember any of his advancements! The kid did proudly stated that with every advancement he was unconscious for less and less time, but he was the only one who saw an achievement in that.
After being defeated by Leo’s ignorance, master Shaw began to question him about the techniques he employed during the cultivation process. And once again he was stunned silly. Turns out the young cultivator was ‘going by the feel’ since the first arrival to the lake and motivated his decision by the fact that ‘there were too many lightning trees’. Leo’s idea was that since there was so much lighting, the old techniques surely didn’t work and he had to figure out a new one that fit the situation.
While normally one would applaud his initiative, the problem was that the ‘new technique’ Leo developed was nothing new at all. It strongly resembled the most basic practice for newbie Qi gathering stage cultivators who were learning to sense Qi and feel its flow through their bodies.
Both master Shaw and elder Li found it impossible to comprehend how someone could advance to the Core formation stage this way, to not speak of forming their nascent soul. Regarding the latter, Leo knew that in theory every cultivator merged their own soul with the Golden core and afterwards they had this small copy of them residing within the dantian and that actually was the representation of their soul.
The problem was that what resided in his dantian resembled not a person, but a bird that very much looked like a thunderhawk. When Leo first noticed it, he almost got a heart attack, but after a more throughout inspection he was forced to realize that in fact it was his own soul – the closeness and the intimacy he felt were the biggest proof of that along with the strange sense of his consciousness somehow originating from it.
The best guess was that its form had something to do with the thunderhawk dying at his hand while he advanced, but it was not something that could console Leo. Obviously he was the one to be blamed for this ‘failure’ since no one told him to loose consciousness during the advancement, but it was too late to change anything, so he had to somehow live with it.
Thus, when master Shaw questioned Leo about the details of creation of his nascent soul, he lied through his teeth without batting an eye. Leo already decided to take this secret to the gave and there was no way he would reveal such embarrassing fact to anyone, even his closest friends.
After the discussion that somewhat resembled an interrogation and lasted for half a day, the two immortals had to admit they hadn’t learned anything apart from the fact that one needed ‘to get lucky’ if they had the lightning mutation. And since they knew it already – the whole endeavor was a complete fiasco.
The only one who gained anything from the meeting was Leo. In the end he asked if he was allowed to visit the Golden city to which master Shaw obviously said ‘of course’. The next question neither of the immortals expected – Leo asked if he could have a bit of ‘pocket money’ and elder Li couldn’t do anything, but to promise he’ll take care of it.
Afterwards Leo politely thanked the two immortals and comfortably parked between the divine lightning trees to continue the process he considered ‘cultivation’, while they watched him in confusion and disbelief.
“Alright, little Shaw … I have to admit … nothing I know about immortality or cultivation matters anymore.” Elder Li said with a sigh.
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“Master, don’t be like that!” Theodore Shaw grinned back at him, “Don’t you think that abnormalities are the most fun to research?”
“Maybe for you!” Elder Li pretended to get upset, “This kid had not brought me closer to understanding Heavenly tribulations one bit despite his lightning mutation! But if not he, who will?”
“Give him some time – I feel he’ll bring more surprises.” Theodore Shaw said, but then turned serious, “Right. Regarding the abnormalities and surprises. There was a reason for me being late and in a way its connected to this kid. But let’s continue the discussion in the headmaster’s office … and we’ll need to invite the rest as well, particularly elder Roon ...”
It was late in the night when the immortals of the War Academy ended their meeting. The news Theodore Shaw this time brought were rather gloomy. It seemed that the ‘Leo’s incident’ two years ago was caused by someone messing with the teleportation coordinates around the Golden city or rather – in the space above it.
By now both elder Roon and Theodore Shaw had calculated that the incomplete or rather – unintended coordinates Leo set to teleport to were somewhere high above the Golden city. The problem was that at the exact moment the youth teleported, there was a strange ripple that interfered with the process and dislocated him, luckily saving the two girls and killing a spy as the result.
Even though the micro result was fortunate, the implications were serious and this time Theodore Shaw brought enough evidence that proved something big was about to happen in the Golden city. And since it was not initiated by the Immortal Alliance, it could only be something bad.
Of course, he didn’t come here just to share his findings. Since the Golden city was the unofficial capital of the Immortal Alliance and the symbol of freedom and righteousness, it held the uttermost importance in the immortal world. While any attempt to attack the city that housed hundreds of immortals and a whole army of Nascent soul stage cultivators might seem simply moronic, the Army of Freedom had proven to be endlessly innovative in their terroristic approach and the latest weapon, the artificial beast tides, were the best example.
Theodore Shaw offered multiple scenarios to mull over as well as ways to improve the defenses of the city. He left the experts of the academy with a heap of research papers he piled up in the past year in order for them to add their own ideas and disapprove his. In short, he brought a bunch of work.
Obviously no one felt pressed by the urgency of the matter. All of them were immortals who had gone through many challenges in their lives and knew that they would get through this one as well. Some, like elder Roon, for example, were all fired up at the prospects of a new research, some were annoyed by the ‘city bum’ to come and throw a load of work at them. In the end it went like it usually did in the academy – after there were placed over a dozen of different bets, everyone dispersed and the meeting finally ended.
During the next few days Musa came out from the closed door cultivation and Leo, with the rest of the bunch from the Golden city, left the academy. Everyone agreed that during the spring it was a great idea to have a break from cultivation and fighting, especially if one could spend the vacation in the Golden city.
If Leo knew it was so easy to get a vacation break, he would’ve asked elder Li a long time ago. Turns out he had some formal contribution points for fighting the beast tides piled up during the past two years and now, after exchanging portion of that for immortal spirit stones, he was rather wealthy.
The strange feeling of returning home once again struck Leo in the face the moment he stepped off the teleportation platform. Obviously only Kevin, Harold, Claude and Fan Yun were going home, but he and Musa were only guests. Nevertheless Leo was certain that sooner or later he would find a way to get his hands on a small house in the suburbs and call himself a fully fledged citizen of the Golden city.
Everyone quickly agreed to meet later in the King’s kitchen and went on their separate ways with Leo and Musa tagging along Claude. After all the main reason for Leo to come this time was to meet Jack.
“Alright! Lead the way!” Leo grinned at Claude and slowly levitated upwards, enjoying every inch of his rise. This has been one of his life long dreams – to freely fly through the Golden city among the immortals and their floating islands.
“Anxious to meet her, huh?” Claude grinned back at him, “Don’t worry. Father won’t allow her to ascend to the Nascent soul stage too soon. After all just like me she has the potential to become an immortal one day.”
“What?” Leo was completely confused.
“Hahaha! What ‘what?’?” Claude laughed, “Didn’t you think of an excuse to come and see how she was doing after she left all pouted and upset?”
“She?” Leo was still lost.
“Ye, Alice! … don’t play dumb with me!” Claude winked, “It’s fine, I know you have been treating her well.”
It was true, Leo actually has been treating Alice well during the deployments, but he couldn’t get what his visit to the Golden city had to with her. Fortunately Claude ended this confusing conversation by speeding away to one of the smaller floating islands belonging to the famous Hubert clan, probably the best alchemists of the Immortal Alliance, maybe even in the world.
The moment trio arrived to the island, Claude was immediately recognized and, without anyone questioning him, led Leo and Musa to the largest building in the center of the island. It was only three storeys tall, but built in white marble and both sides of the main entrance were proudly decorated by the Hubert family crests.
“I live here, or rather – I live in the eastern wing of the mansion.” Claude said, “Most of the smaller structures on the island are the alchemy laboratories and warehouses. We have our own armory as well, but you’re not Harold and are not interested in it, right?”
Neither Leo nor Musa were disappointed by what they saw inside. Every single item including carpets, curtains and furniture, to not speak of pieces of art, looked exquisite and expensive. It was to the point the two were afraid to touch anything, feeling completely out of place. For the past years they had done nothing but killing beasts in the wild and cultivated in rather ascetic conditions, thus the sudden opulence was quite overwhelming.
“You wait here.” Claude said after they arrived to a room with several large, comfy looking chairs set around a small tea table made of pure jade, “I’ll see if she’s around.”
At this point Leo guessed he was talking about Alice again, but realized it was only logical to meet her. After all this was her home and technically she had to play the host.
While the two were waiting, a butler brought them drinks and snacks and Leo used the opportunity to ask if it was alright to meet one of the alchemists they employed. For a moment he was disheartened with the answer that the alchemy production in the clan was huge and not all of it was done on the floating island, but when the name ‘Jack Brown’ was mentioned, the butler, after pondering for a moment, said he knew the guy.