Thanks to Leo’s relentless pestering, Musa agreed to depart on the next available mission. It was a simple caravan escort job and the hard or rather – the risky part was that the route went trough a tall mountain range and there was relatively low chance of rank six beast attacks.
Neither Leo nor Musa were worried about the darkstone grizzlies that could grow to a size of a small house. In fact, they were here to make sure the Core formation stage students performed well and in the unlikely case a random rank seven beast appeared.
The first few days were quite uneventful and both Leo and Musa floated above the caravan, leisurely observing surroundings. But no matter how natural and casual Leo’s behavior seemed, Musa couldn’t get rid off the feeling that the guy was up to something.
It was on the fourth morning when Leo pulled Musa higher up in the air so no one could hear them and said, “Tell me the coordinates to an immortal realm belonging to the Army of Freedom, please?”
Apparently all this time he was trying to think of a scheme to get this information out of his older friend, but since he was not able to figure out anything, in the end he directly asked.
When Leo got only an annoyed stare for an answer, he continued, “Surely you know a place I can teleport to, right? It doesn’t have to be a major city – any place in one of those realms will do!”
“Just how stupid are you?” Musa hissed in return, while throwing glances around, making sure no one was overhearing, “You’ll die! It’s a whole different world! People are different, rules are different and heck, even the languages they speak are different! The moment you’ll show up they’ll kill you! It doesn’t matter how fast you are – they’ll get you with numbers or capture in special formations!”
“It’s fine!” Leo confidently smiled, “After practicing for a year I know how to properly recover my physical body. It shouldn’t take too long even without a special recovery room.”
“No you won’t!” Musa gravely said. Leo wanted to argue, but he continued, “It’s not that I question your ability, but in those immortal realms there are tons of people who practice techniques that are forbidden by the Immortal Alliance. They kill young lone cultivators like you’ll be over there and gather their nascent souls to refine weapons. That’s why I’m saying you’ll die.”
They stood there in silence until Leo said in a slightly despaired, soft voice, “I don’t have a choice, I have to go! There is a person who knows I’ll do anything in the world to get there! Even if I’m weak or the chances are slim, I have to. I don’t have that many friends!”
Musa’s first impulse was to continue to berate him, but then he realized that just a short while ago he basically did the same thing. And he fought Lily and Mark – all three of them were the students of the same master, trained together for the deep undercover mission and he blew it all because of this guy, well, partially at least.
And then Leo said the one thing Musa didn’t want to hear, “You know I’d do that if you were the one captured, right? And I’m sure you’ll think of a way to save me if I’m in a pinch!”
Fortunately Musa swallowed a retort that now Leo was thinking with his penis and intended to risk his life for a girl, because Leo would’ve fought him right there just to went the frustration that had piled up from everyone saying that he was worried about a girl instead of Jack – the assumption slowly began to turn into a plain insult. Jack’s rule number one ‘bros before hoes’ was finally making sense to him.
In the end Musa gave up and few breaths later he began to teach the basics of the dialect people spoke in the Blood realm – the only place ruled by the Army of Freedom he remembered the coordinates to. Leo’s following excitement turned out to be contagious – even Musa caught himself at the realization that he lost the previous disapproving attitude and looked forward to see if Leo actually could come back alive.
The caravan continued on it’s way below, but the two Nascent soul stage cultivators flew higher above, one of them acting as a teacher and the other – as a student. Long ago, back in the Voodoo sect, Leo learned the main dialect of the Immortal Alliance and it wasn’t easy. This time he was quite surprised how much his mental abilities had improved after he formed the nascent soul.
He always knew he wasn’t the smartest cookie in the jar, but now, after learning the basics of a new language just in a couple of days, Leo realized he had to reevaluate himself. Even Musa pointed out that apart from pronunciation Leo was good enough to lead a casual conversation in the Blood realm dialect.
To the great disappointment of most students, the escort mission went by without any incidents. There wasn’t a single beast attack and the only ones who got attacked were mountain goats that students hunted for food. The caravan owners were happy and upset at the same time and considered if it was worth to risk the next trip without an expensive escort.
After the job was done, Musa wrote a quick note to headmaster Harris, explaining that he was forced to follow Leo who was set on going to the Blood immortal realm in order to ‘make sure he was safe’, and sent the rest of the group back to the academy.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Seeing Leo stupidly gawk at him, he grinned and said, “What? You thought I’ll let you go alone? Stop staring – set the spirit stones in! We’re leaving!”
Leo, of course, was thrilled he didn’t have to go solo, but what Musa said next dampened his spirits a bit, “We’re going to the Blood immortal realm. It’s called that not because of red mountains or rivers, but because it’s the place where the most blood has been shed in the endless wars between the Army of Freedom and the Immortal Alliance. Anyway, the place we are teleporting to is a small town in the western part of one of the realm’s continents. This is the only safe spot I can think of to teleport to, although it is possible I’ll stumble upon on old acquaintances. Anyway, we must be careful … it’s a small town so don’t run around provoking people, ok?”
When the familiar flash of light disappeared, in front of Leo’s eyes didn’t appear anything that could resemble a town. In fact, there wasn’t even a house or a shack nearby. Besides piles of rubble overgrown with bushes there was only a campfire at which six people were leisurely sitting, roasting meat.
Apparently they were as surprised as the two arrivals, but while Musa was thinking of the best approach, five of the men jumped to their feet and summoned their weapons. Leo, of course, didn’t wait for an invitation and, leaving behind a blurred purple streak of light, dashed at the two closest before Musa could stop him.
“Idiot!” Musa cursed and threw out three windblades that instantly split three men in halves.
They turned out to be at the Core formation stage at best and died in an instant and Leo killed the other two at the same time. The sixth one though didn’t intend to test if he could go against the two attackers and darted into the nearby bushes, on the way setting them on fire. Leo, of course, didn’t care about the flames and rushed after him, but Musa directly flew up to look for the target from the above.
The local Nascent soul stage expert wasn’t actually half bad. For a fire affinity cultivator he was incredibly fast and managed to keep Leo away while zigzagging through the bushes first and few moments later – through the forest he fled to.
“Watch out!” Musa shouted from the above and released several windblades, trying to block retreat routes to the sides so that Leo had a chance to catch up.
After fighting together against the best tides for over two years, Leo immediately guessed his intention and caught up, but before he managed to successfully grab him, seemingly on purpose the guy dived under one of the windblades and his body was separated in two.
If in any normal situation it would mean the death of a person, then in this case a reddish, slightly translucent sphere in a size of fist emerged from the top half of the body and, faster than a meteor, flew away in a direct line.
“F*ck!” Musa cursed. This was what he feared the most – neither him nor Leo had means to capture souls, but if the guy managed to return to his master, in a day the whole region could be after them. And the soul, even though it was only a soul of a fire affinity Nascent stage cultivator, flew even a tad faster than Musa’s maximum speed was, so now when it was beelining away they had no chance of preventing its escape.
But then something happened that made Musa’s jaw drop. He could swear he saw Leo’s wide grin flashing and the next moment the guy turned into a streak of purple light and in a couple breaths of time caught up to the soul. And then he slapped it … and then that was it. The soul strangely dissipated in a flash of red particles, leaving behind only Leo who surprisingly was out of breath as if he just ran a marathon.
“Huh, huh … daaaamn, that bastard! Huh, huh … what a quick one … huh, huh …” Leo happily complained, trying to catch his breath.
Ignoring the fact, that the phenomenon of running out of breath normally was impossible for a Nascent soul stage cultivator, Musa focused on a more important matter.
“What did you just do?” He almost angrily barked.
Technically he switched sides to the ‘good guys’ who had rules and considered the corrupted techniques and items off limits. But now Leo clearly used something to eliminate the person’s soul and, while Musa didn’t care for the dead guy one bit, he knew that if Leo continued on this path he’ll end badly no matter where he went.
“What item did you use? Was it Lily’s or Mark’s?” Musa rephrased his question.
His train of thought was not that hard to understand, but it did take Leo a couple breaths of time to realize the meaning.
“Oh that?” He grinned, “No worries. I didn’t break any rules. I had this suspicion when you were attacked by our two former team mates. Remember – after I killed them we didn’t notice how their nascent souls escaped. That made me think whether I somehow managed to kill them completely – after all I practice under the Divine tribulation trees and the tribulation lightning technically can kill even immortal souls … so … just now I had this idea … and it worked out great!”
“Great, my ass!” Musa cursed, but then calmed down and seriously said, “Do you realize that if anyone ever gets the wind of your ability – they will hunt you down to the end of the world! And I mean anyone! Even the masters of the academy!”
“What?” The previously cheery Leo paled in an instant. This was his coolest move! And he already thought of such a great name for it – ‘the Lightning smack’!
“What ‘what’?” Musa scornfully laughed, “Why do you think the immortals never really fight between themselves or personally go to wars? It’s because their souls are basically undying – they can’t kill each other for real, except if some forbidden weapons and formations are used, of course! But if the word spreads you can eliminate them with a punch, no one in the world would ever want to risk you going rogue or picking a fight with them! Not even the people from the Immortal Alliance!”
If a moment ago Leo was delighted to discover a new ability, then now he felt his feet grow cold. How could he even ever fight? Not use his lightning element? But can he even do it at the Nascent soul stage? After he returned from the Golden city and practiced at the lake, he felt like he housed limitless amounts of lightning Qi and every cell of his body vibrated with it’s power. Did he even remember how it was to slap or punch someone without using Qi?
“Alright, let’s leave it for now. We need to check these guys and see on whose orders they were guarding the teleportation platform.” Musa said with a sigh.
“You mean those weren’t bandits?” Leo cluelessness was back to the regular level, “Weren’t they about to attack us?”
“Of course, not! Pulling out weapons is just a normal way of showing the position of power! Someone stationed them here after the town was destroyed. And since they had a squad leader at the Nascent soul stage, it means there was a reason for that. You know, even here Nascent soul stage cultivators don’t grow on trees ...” Musa bitterly laughed.