“Master Locke probably told you to strengthen the results by cultivating for some time, right?” Master Shaw asked Leo when the youth arrived to his floating island to report.
They were currently in the same room where Leo met the two immortals when he was for first time here, except now he had the honor to sit in the chair master Zaraki sat in before.
“Mhm. Will do.” Leo nodded, “I plan to spend some time at my usual spot … but … master Shaw? May I ask you something?”
“You want to know what happened after you saved the city?” The immortal’s question that was at the same time a compliment full of respect made Leo blush.
“Yes, but … what exactly happened? And did you manage to save the people from the Hubert island?” Leo asked.
“Sigh, I can only say we have our best people working on it.” Master Shaw while nervously ruffing his own hair. Apparently this problem was bugging him since the incident.
“You mean … your best medics can’t …?” Leo felt disheartened, but master Shaw’s expression for a split moment turned into that full of confusion.
Then he dryly laughed and said, “I guess you really have no clue what transpired. I’ll tell you, just let me grab a bottle of …”
“Excuse me, master!” The steward politely called from behind the closed door, “Master Zaraki has arrived and is asking for ...”
“That damned alcoholic! How does he always know when I’m about to open a bottle?!” Master Shaw cursed under his nose, but then said to the steward, “Alright, let him in!”
Then he got up and slowly walked by his friend who came in with a wide grin plastered across his face. The grin disappeared when master Zaraki noticed Leo sitting on his usual chair, but then he just dropped at the spot the host usually sat and comfortably leaned back and with hands behind his head.
“I must say – you, boy, brought me more surprises that all my ex wives counted together.” He said and Leo could only awkwardly scratch his head in return. Master Zaraki didn’t expect any answer and continued, “I thought you’ll surely die in a year or two after we first met, but then you didn’t … and then what you did gave me the chance to slice up that thing … and you didn’t die again!”
“Sigh … Zari, stop confusing the kid!” Master Shaw interrupted him and sat in a free chair. Then he opened the bottle he brought, poured two glasses and said to Leo in a stern voice, “What actually transpired is only known by handful of people, three of which are currently in this room, the fourth is your master and the fifth … well … you’ll meet him one day. Anyway – your involvement will remain a secret. Forever. Clear?”
Leo was baffled, but instinctively nodded.
“Good.” Master Shaw finally smiled again, “Our enemies managed to exchange the places of the Hubert island with their own construct that you helped to destroy. To this day we haven’t located the Hubert island, but a couple of hostages were returned as a proof of life, so we know they are safe for now.”
“But … but a year …” Leo felt the world sway around him.
Jack surely had better chances of survival if the Hubert island was the one who fell apart and crashed to the ground than spending a year with people who were capable of abducting a whole floating island! And it was the Hubert family island, not some chimps!
Master Zaraki probably guessed his train of thought and said, “A year doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Welcome to the immortal realm, kid!”
Master Shaw hushed him with a wave of hand and said, “While what the brute said was correct, they basically abducted the whole Hubert family and it means they currently have the best alchemists of the world working for them – at least in some capacity. While we are already taking some action, there is still a lot of investigation and planning to do. Kevin mentioned there was someone you care about on the island, but don’t worry – she, along with the rest will be fine. Even if the means were lowly, since it’s the Hubert family, even the servants are getting the best possible treatment, to not speak about the Huber family members.”
Seeing Leo’s expression getting more and more confused, master Zaraki added, “In short – no one in the world is capable of facing a direct wrath of the Immortal Alliance. If they do something stupid, we’ll destroy their immortal realms.”
“But … didn’t they already do something stupid?” Leo helplessly asked, although he felt a relief the two immortals were sure Jack was safe.
Both masters looked at each other in surprise and master Zaraki began to loudly laugh.
“Hahaha! … That’s what I said! … Hahaha!”
“Not yet!” Master Shaw hissed back, but then turned to Leo and asked, “Is there anything you need? Can the Golden city help you with anything?”
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While flying over to master Shaw’s place, Leo considered whether he could ask for something and what he could ask for, but in the end he realized he didn’t really need anything. Now that he knew that Jack was fine, at least for the time being, he only wanted to get back to the lake and cultivate. And maybe think.
Surprising both immortals, Leo politely thanked and immediately said goodbyes. He didn’t refuse the sack of immortal spirit stones though the steward gave him on his way out – apparently master Shaw remembered he was as poor as pauper and needed means to return. And since the other guys were long back in the academy, Leo flew directly to the closest teleportation hub.
During the year of Leo’s absence the academy hadn’t changed at all and even though he didn’t expect anything, it gave a comfortable, pleasant feeling as if everything was all right at home. Before jumping into a prolonged period of cultivation, Leo looked up the boys from the Golden city city gang for a chat, but unfortunately he was able to meet only Harold and Kevin.
Claude was still in a closed door cultivation, trying to calm himself down or maybe madly cultivating in order to get stronger to bring his family back. Obviously the last part could only remain a fool’s dream since even his father, being a true immortal, as well as a bunch of other immortals the Hubert family had were helpless in the current situation. Alice, of course, was between the abducted ones, while Fan Yun was waiting at those ‘closed doors’ Claude had shut behind himself and often quite literally at them.
After meeting up, the trio – Harold, Kevin and Leo, went over to have a lunch in the academy’s canteen and since they hadn’t met for so long there was a lot to talk about. Actually, the last year’s events in the Golden city was all they spoke about, just like everyone else in the academy and in all the taverns and alehouses across the Immortal Alliance.
“That’s master Shaw for you!” Harold said with a laugh and turned to Kevin, “How come you are not as genius as your father?”
“There is only one Theodore Shaw in the world. I have my own path.” Kevin nonchalantly replied with a shrug.
“No, you just think of it!” Harold couldn’t calm down, “The damned Army of Freedom had prepared this attack for decades, if not centuries and not even the best informed spies had a clue! But your father comes out from nowhere and shoots the thing down with his self invented Tribulation cannon! Do you even get what the implications are?”
The last question was addressed to Leo, but before the youth could admit he didn’t, Harold rambled on, “That means Kevin’s old man is on a whole other level! The deadliest attack in the history was neutralized with a wave of his hand! And we suffered almost no casualties!”
“Sigh, I did advance though …” Kevin was still unhappy about the fact.
“Ye, but you advanced a month later after thoroughly preparing for that. Fan Yun couldn’t hold back and advanced the next day, just like hundreds of others. But it’s no big deal – most of them never had the chance of becoming a true immortal while you, my friend, will for sure!” Harold stated.
“But what if they launch another attack at the city master Shaw doesn’t live in?” Leo asked.
“No way.” Harold snorted and Kevin shook his head as well, “Such endeavor is way too costly and there is a high chance master Shaw has his Tribulation cannons replicated and stationed all around our realms.”
Leo did slightly blush every time Harold called him the ‘Tribulation cannon’, but neither he nor the other two noticed that. He was much more interested in the most important matter.
“Are there really no clues where the Hubert island disappeared to?” He asked, “With how powerful the Immortal Alliance is there is no way they haven’t found out yet … the Army of Freedom only rules over three immortal realms, right?”
“What do you mean ‘only’?” Harold snickered, “They’re humongous, just like the Golden immortal realm or the Savage immortal realm, or any other immortal realm that belongs to the Immortal Alliance! But ye, officially there are no news. My best guess is that the higher-ups know stuff they don’t make public.”
“You’ll just have to wait, Leo” Kevin said in a consoling tone, “Patience is a virtue. I understand you want to rush to save her, but where can you go and what can you do? Even if you had someone from the Army of Freedom to ask about her whereabouts … sigh … leave the complicated politics to our leaders and let’s get stronger first …”
At first Leo almost got annoyed everyone implied he was eager to save Alice, but the second part of what Kevin said gave him an idea. He barely managed to hide his eagerness and politely ended the conversation only to rush away to look for Musa.
Unfortunately his former squad leader was away on a lengthy deployment and was only to return a couple of months later. That left Leo only with the option to follow everyone’s advice and stabilize his nascent soul’s condition along with the newly recreated physical body while cultivating under the Divine tribulation trees.
The two months crawled by at the speed of a snail. Not being in a control of the situation, even if it was a bad one, made Leo feel helpless and stress out at the same time. Luckily elder Li came over once every few days and his inquisitive questioning managed to distract Leo a bit.
The old man was fascinated by the fact that Leo, or rather – his soul, survived in the tribulation clouds since it went against anything he knew about the Heavenly tribulations. The sad part was that as always Leo was of no help in advancing the immortal’s research because he had no clue what happened to him. Elder Li got so desperate he was starting to have ideas of developing a recording formation he could put on Leo so it was possible to get data on anything that happened to the youth. It even became so uncomfortable that Leo dropped the cultivation and mostly hung around the teleportation hub in the academy.
When Musa saw Leo impatiently waiting for him the moment he stepped off the teleportation platform, he didn’t even bother to say ‘hello’, but directly waved his younger friend off and said, “No! I don’t know where she is!”
“That’s not what I wanted to ask!” Leo instantly got upset even though Musa almost guessed correctly.
He obviously wanted to know where Jack was and while he wanted Alice to be save, it pissed him off everyone assumed everything was about her. No wonder she grew up spoiled, right?
“Then what?” Musa didn’t really believe him.
“Squad leader, when is our next mission?” Leo suddenly changed tactics and cheekily smiled and his question drew attention of the students Musa arrived with, “I’m dying of boredom here! Let’s go eliminate a beast tide or two!”
“Sigh, let me clean up and have a meal first, ok?” Musa gave up.
For the past year he was leading a new squad, completing missions around the Golden immortal realm, but none were as action packed as before when they were fighting against the beast tides. For some reason the Army of Freedom almost stopped all activities after the fiasco at the Golden city and only some minor incidents like random assaults on teleportation platforms in smaller cities took place. These were good news since Musa didn’t intend to show off anywhere to attract unnecessary attention and hoped to continue for a few decades this way, and then disappear in one of the largest cities in hopes he would be forgotten by both sides.