"..Help me... Aunt Kira..." The naked youth who was locked inside an iron cage moaned.

"Hmm? Still alive? Finally, the first one who didn't die from the pain," the gaunt old man snickered, picking up a key bundle on a stone table, watching the naked boy all the while. His bony fingers prodded the youth's abdomen, examining the infected wound that was being feasted upon by maggots and unidentifiable pests.

"Be grateful to me, boy. Although you will not be as powerful as the Four Horsemen, you will still be reborn as something new, something special. And then..." The gaunt old man's voice trailed off, cackling as he dragged the naked youth out of his cage and up the stone stairwell, leaving behind a trail of blood and writhing maggots that had fallen out of the unconscious naked youth's open wound.

.....

"Master, you should rest..." Choronzon's voice rang out in Asura's head.

Ignoring the voice in his head, Asura continued swinging about his 'Demon's Avatar: Blade of Shadow Flame', reenacting the fight he had with Khara earlier, causing the grasses around him to sway to and fro from the wind that was produced by his Demon Avatar. After his spar with Khara, both of them were walking back to the orphanage when Asura suddenly excused himself, claiming that he wanted to look around the districts alone.

"I don't understand. Just how did Khara do it?" Asura frowned. During his spar with Khara, Asura's sword was instantly cut into pieces, and he only realized it a second too late. At first he had thought that Khara had also reinforced himself with mana, and had used his 'Mana Sense' to look at Khara's 'Origin of Life', but it was of the same density as most 1st Level Warriors.

Was it a trick? An illusion? Various questions popped into Asura's head, but none of them could be answered, nor did the answers make sense. Even though he was a disciple of the White Serenity School, he had only learned basic sword techniques, and spent most of his time cultivating his mana and body, while sparring occasionally with Yong. He was never exposed to real, lethal death matches. Even though the four men he had killed were somewhat seasoned fighters, he had won only thanks to the element of surprise and the Demon Force within him.

"Ugh, this is getting nowhere." Asura sighed, giving up on trying to figure out the secret behind the last technique that Khara had used.

The black sword in Asura's arms immediately burst into a black cloud of gas, and seeped into Asura's body through the pores on his skin. As he sat down on the dry grass of the isolated hill he had found that was just a short walk away from the orphanage, he took out the 'Thousand Essences Absorption' scroll to study it, continuing his quest to decipher the complicated instructions on the manual.

"Eh? Somehow it now seems easier to understand?"

Upon reading the words of the scroll, he felt that the speed of his deciphering had doubled, and was pleasantly surprised at himself.

"That's because I'm reading it too, and transferring what I had understood towards your consciousness." Choronzon explained.

"Ah, is that so? You're finally being useful, Choronzon," Asura chuckled.

"Why, you..."

From noon to sunset, Asura and Choronzon persevered in studying the scroll, and made tremendous progress. By now, Asura could understand 80% of the scroll, and felt that he was extremely close to finding out how to utilize the technique. He would have continued reading, but he had to return to the orphanage before curfew. Not to mention that he was feeling rather famished after exerting himself during the spar.

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Looking at his right hand, he could feel that the mana vessels within his right hand were swollen from having forced too much mana into them. Other than having being unable to reinforce or use mana with his right hand for the next few days, his muscles were not really affected, other than the soreness.

"If Khara hadn't shattered my sword, would he have been able to block it?" Asura wondered, before a simple truth dawned on him. Even if he had immense power within his muscles, it would still be useless against someone who could easily dodge or nullify his attack, which was exactly what Khara had done.

"Master, why are you still standing around, the sun has almost completely set..."

.....

"You're back, Asura. So, have you adapted to life in the city?" Khara had been wolfing down on his dinner and had spotted Asura walking into the Dining Hall.

"Mmhmm," Asura nodded, taking a seat beside Khara, grabbing a plate of what seemed to be a combination of scrambled eggs and shredded chicken breasts.

"Mate, look at that gal. Being surrounded by clingy boys, that'd suck, huh?" Khara grinned, jerking his head towards the direction of a girl. Looking closer, Asura could see that it was the bewitching girl that had brought him to the Dining Hall. She was surrounded by a group of boys that appeared to be 15, judging from their height and builds.

"That's Ishtar," a high-pitched voice came from behind.

Turning their heads towards the speaker, Asura and Khara saw that the high-pitched voice came from a boy who looked no older than 10, with short jet-black hair and sharp eyebrows that seemed to highlight his features. But his most prominent feature was his golden eyes, as if there was a star shining through from his soul.

"Is he an orphan too?" Asura stared at the boy's golden eyes. "Do people in this world have golden eyes too?" Asura wondered.

Looking at Khara, Asura could see that even Khara was stunned by the sharp gaze of the golden-eyed boy.

"Hi, I'm Sehn, and could you please do me a favor and stop staring at my eyes?" Sehn said with an irritated look on his face, clearly regretting his decision to approach the pair.

Quickly apologizing, Asura and Khara introduced themselves to Sehn. Looking back at Ishtar, Asura could see that she was feeling uncomfortable from the company of the boys who kept following her around.

"Ishtar, here, want some grapes?" One of the boys plucked a grape from its vine, putting it in front of her mouth.

"Fuck off!" Another boy forcefully pushed the boy who was holding the grape. "You guys aren't even a 2nd Level Warrior, what makes you think you can get near her, huh?" Sneering at the sobbing boy who was sprawled on the floor, he turned towards Ishtar, and asked, "Ishtar, should we go somewhere quiet? There're too many irritating flies here."

"It's like watching a sitcom," Asura chuckled at the hilarious sight of the boys who were pathetically attempting to grab Ishtar's attention.

"Hm?" Ishtar heard someone laughing, and with a quick glance towards the source, she found that it was the plain looking boy she had brought to the Dining Hall the day before. Suddenly, an idea struck her.

"Hm? Is she looking at me?" Asura saw the bewitching girl look at him, and was even smirking.

"I have a bad feeling about this..."

Chapter 33: Davins