“And then?” Lady Evelyn asked.
After six months of closed door cultivation her complexion had become more rosy although the people who knew her well could still tell she had not completely recovered. The four elders currently present, the four heads of the Sacred Order’s divisions, were such people. The meeting was held in the sect master’s residence were the elders debriefed lady Evelyn on the events that transpired during her absence and now was time for Leo to become the focus of everyone’s attention.
“Then he started to come to the training grounds of the Combat division and run. For some reason he never practices any Qi techniques and is solely focused on the physical development. He also doesn’t spar with anyone as if weapon techniques do not matter, but he keeps carrying that strange weapon on the back at all times.” Elder Payne, the head of Combat division answered, “While the kid was sleeping elder Cooper checked it, but according to him there were some strange rune formations hidden under the layer of leather strips and we decided to not mess with it.”
“He did insist he met immortal Theodore Shaw and received guidance from him.” Elder Cooper said, “I find it hard to believe that a kid of such average talents could draw the attention of a Nascent soul expert, to not speak of an immortal and in his case – even two, but I checked the details he mentioned in our archives and they seem to fit the data we have. The fact that he has the strange weapon, doesn’t go around bragging about his adventures in the Golden city and constantly practices could indicate he’s not lying.”
“And the wine.” Elder Willis jumped in, “He brought back two bottles of alcohol that smelled so good I barely resisted confiscating, but instead of drinking or selling he simply gave them away.”“Whom did he give them to?” Sect master asked.
“It was on the fourth day after his arrival.” This time elder Cross, the head of Disciplinary division, replied, “Obviously I ordered one of the elders to secretly follow him to see if he was up to something, but until this day he acted completely normal. He only runs, eats, sleeps and reads that one book about cooking.”
“The bottles?” Lady Evelyn reminded elder Cross of her question. He was the eldest of the four and rarely spoke, but when he did he easily drifted off the subject.
“Sorry!” Elder Cross nodded, “One bottle went to elder Edward from the Administrative division. The kid said something about being grateful for saving his life – apparently the elder slightly bent the rules and gave away a cultivation technique he shouldn’t have, but it seems that practicing it helped the rascal to survive and maybe even advance. But the second bottle … Leo brought it to an elderly in the suburbs of Avila – his name is Noel and he’s just a regular citizen without any cultivation whatsoever. Judging from how they interacted they were quite familiar with each other and the kid referred to him as ‘grandpa’. Neighbors said they’re not blood relatives, but our guess is that Leo was at some point adopted. We avoided asking too many questions to not raise any suspicion, of course. What if he actually is under the protection of a true immortal …”
“I doubt it’s a possibility, but you did good.” Lady Evelyn said, “Anything else?”
“Not really. We decided to postpone any decisions until you returned, sect master.” Elder Cooper said, “I do have a theory though …”
Seeing the sect master’s impatient look, he continued, “Long time ago in our library I stumbled upon a manuscript about concepts of ‘luck’ that described its essence in a very peculiar way. The main idea is that there is a constant amount of it in the world, relatively equally distributed between all living beings. But sometimes a person is born who absorbs the luck from their surrounding community, destroying others in the process while rising to unbelievable heights themselves …”
“I’m familiar with that fairy tale.” Lady Evelyn interrupted, “You’re certain that our Leo could be such person?”
“No, sect master!” Elder Cooper said waving hands defensively in front of him, “It’s only an ancient theory and we can’t know for sure … but I’m not able find another way to explain what happened. Twenty people died, but one mysteriously shows up two years later after receiving blessings and gifts from immortals. That’s too good to be true ...”
“Sect master, what elder Cooper is trying to say is – if there is a slim chance the theory is correct, we should not let that kid hang around the sect – it’s way too dangerous.” Elder Cross said, “All four of us discussed it extensively and we thought of a way of turning the potential curse in to a blessing ... what would you say … if we sent him to another mortal realm?”
“You’re clearly far from being fully recovered.” Elder Cooper added, “But even if we managed to get any remedy for your condition from the Golden Hand society, it would leave us bankrupt. On the other hand I’m confident I could concoct the Crimson purification pill with enough tries if we had the main ingredient – Dark-crimson horned beetle. It’s a peak heaven ranked pill that could cleanse the remaining corruption within you … maybe even completely.”
“Let me guess – we don’t have them in our Aurora realm, otherwise I would’ve been cured long ago, right?” Lady Evelyn said, “But just like any other item or ingredient we can’t purchase them from the immortal realm because of the stupid rule of them not meddling in the business of mortal realms … sigh … where can we find those bugs?”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“That’s a bit peculiar place, sect master.” Elder Cooper said, “We can’t really send Leo there alone, but we also shouldn’t send out our best people. Fortunately regarding the last part elder Cross as the head of the Enforcement division got us covered.”
“It all sounds great, but my guess is there is a little chance anyone could find those beetles.” Sect master was skeptical, “In addition, we don’t know what relationship the boy has with the immortals from the Golden city – they are aloof and unpredictable beings …”
“Sect master, please pardon me for interrupting, but unfortunately we can’t wait for much longer.” Elder Willis interrupted, “Only the five of us know that you’re the only remaining Nascent soul stage cultivator in the Sacred Order, but while the whole world thinks our two late grand elders are recuperating in the Spirit tower, Soaring Cloud and Seven peaks are beginning to move. Lately we’ve noticed some strange activities that point at the two sects forming an alliance and there can be only one goal for that – to remove us from the ruling position in the Aurora realm.”
“What do you propose?” Lady Evelyn asked with a sigh.
She knew it was only a matter of time until this happened, but even then she didn’t expect for the other sects to start acting so soon. If her friend, Laura Cloud, didn’t get caught in the blast alongside of her, Sacred Order could always rely on the Angelic Dawn, but now even the ‘all female’ sect was going through hard times with their sect master still unconscious.
“First of all we should ask for help from your ‘contact’ in the immortal realm …” Elder Willis began, but seeing lady Evelyn’s expression darken, rushed to explain, “Let me rephrase that – not help. We should ask your contact to send our thanks to immortal Theodore Shaw for taking care of our disciple. I know you are unwilling to contact Sir Delian, but the Sacred Order is in dangerous situation right now and we are quite desperate. If my guess is right, Sir Delian will inform you on the reaction the immortal had and then we’ll know for sure if we can proceed with our plan.”
“He will not ‘inform’ – he’ll use it as an excuse to come over.” Lady Evelyn was getting migraine only from thinking about it, “Let me guess – besides that you want to ‘generously’ reward that Leo kid with something useless like contribution points and afterwards sent him to that realm if the immortal didn’t show any special interest towards him together with a bunch of others who had multiple disciplinary offenses and should be expelled from the sect anyway … alright, we can try that. What’s the realm they are going to? Why haven’t we sent any foraging expeditions there yet?”
“As I said, it’s a bit peculiar place, sect master.” Elder Cooper said, “There is almost no Qi in the atmosphere thus not a single spirit herb grows in Dreadlands – that’s the name of the realm. We got the coordinates in the package deal together with the others from the Golden Hand society back when they built our teleportation platform. According to the description we were provided with, there are several unique minerals found there and Dark-crimson horned beetles who might actually be extinct. Nevertheless we think it’s worth a shot while we explore other options.”
“And we can send the kid away from the sect.” Elder Cross added. Out of all division heads he wanted to get rid of Leo the most, “Even if there is a minuscule chance that the theory about him absorbing luck of the other people is true – he can’t stay here! Obviously we are a righteous sect and won’t execute a harmless child, but he is a disciple of the Sacred Order so let’s put him to work. And you guessed correctly – I’ve already picked a bunch of others with enough violations to send to a penal expedition to a place without Qi.”
The next day Leo was called over to the Spirit tower. This was a legendary place not only in the Sacred Order, but in the whole Aurora realm as well. According to Jack this was the place where once every inner disciple could come to, but after the war and the implementation of contribution points, only half a year ago the best disciples were allowed to start cultivating here again and only according to their merits towards the sect.
After stepping inside Leo noticed endless rune formations drawn on the walls, ceiling and floor. These looked not less complex compared to ones around teleportation platforms and most likely experts like George and Fan Lia had spent many months setting them up.
According to Jack the main purpose of these rune formations was to gather Qi and even without a special breathing or cultivation techniques Leo could feel its abundance in the air. Since he meticulously followed master Shaw’s advise and postponed any type of cultivation or Qi absorption, his instinctive reaction was to run, but unfortunately he was kind of forced to follow the elder who guided him to a larger room in the middle of which sat a beautiful woman, dressed in a blood red robe. Her claymore lied next to her and besides the rune formations the room was empty.
“Hello, sect master!” When they were left alone Leo politely greeted her, but inwardly reminded himself of the rule number six – always stay vigilant around women.
She looked back at the boy, but besides a slight familiarity there was nothing special about him. Of course, to step into the Qi gathering stage while being so young was praiseworthy, but clearly it was caused by the traumatic experience witnessing the death of his friends.
On the other hand Leo, of course, remembered seeing her, but he was more interested in two things – first, where was the pretty girl he saw her with and second – how to get out of here as soon as possible.
“Sit!” She pointed at the spot on the floor in front of her and Leo immediately complied.
“I’m glad to see you survived the disaster. Unfortunately you were the only one.” Lady Evelyn said while secretly observing Leo’s reaction, “But that provided you with an opportunity to make a great contribution to the sect by finding the Divine tribulation tree. We already sent a notification to the Immortal Alliance and even though our sect won’t become its owner, we received a considerable reward. That obviously means you can also be rewarded. Is there anything you want, Leo?”
“Yes, sect master!” He immediately gave the answer he had prepared for the past two months in expectations of this meeting. Obviously Leo didn’t think of it himself – it was according to George’s advice, “It was pointed out that my fundamentals are seriously lacking, therefore I’d like to study techniques that focus on strengthening the physical body and hand to hand combat. There must be many in our library and if it’s possible I’d like to examine them all.”