The Envoy

Late that night, as Ciemnosc entered his bedroom within the dormitories.

"Ciemnosc!" Missa was already opening the door for him when he was just a few steps away from the entrance door. Ciemnosc looked up at her and the letter in her right hand again, but this time, it was much different than the one the academy had sent him. Missa got Ciemnosc in and passed him the letter, which had already been opened. "The report of the last 2 weeks is here, some movement and some bad results."

“Mm,” Ciemnosc responded and took the letter directly with Missa locking her left arm with his right one, guiding him to the east wing dining table, where everyone else was sitting. As he went from the door to the table. He read through it.

—Chief, there have been the following procedures as usual. Last week, a couple of traitors left our side. Now we give them the foul eye directly and wink when the back of our heads meet. There have been a couple of missions done by this new chief. However, he brought tens of thousands of students with him, only to return with a few thousand. Some hundreds died after arriving back at the base. They have now agreed to pay for the Cratfsmaking division. The amount, though significant, still cannot compare to our mines. But we are doing incredibly well now, and a few large ships have been started being built. We would only need a few more months to make sure we don’t have a lack of resources. Chief, we long for your return.—

“So, the boys and girls are having fun out there,” Ciemnosc casually commented with a little smile. His teammates shrugged their shoulders and looked at him, but Gallah spoke with a bit of uncertainty. “Ciemnosc, they are losing a lot of men in simple missions. There wasn’t even a mention of other missions with how obvious their result could be from that explanation. Isn’t the base going to start suffering attempts at being taken away from our hands if it continues?”

“...” Ciemnosc reclined on his chair, his upper back getting some unneeded rest. He looked at Gallah and spoke after blinking, “If it even comes to that, the defense our troops will show will have everyone else in the base realize if the enemy simply became stronger or if it is themselves that are completely useless.”

“Do you expect to return and have everyone there suddenly want you to lead them instead in the future? That chief even tried using what’s not his as his right away, without even asking. There was a bit of friction just because he thought he and everyone else were behind him and assumed they could take what never belonged to them.” Ciemnosc’s tone was just calm and collected as he said this.

“It is certainly bad that students are dying because of him, but they are not our responsibility in any way, not even in the slightest. And why would I help for free? All they have to do is ask, then I would ask something in return, and soon we would find ourselves back at the Little Lake.” Ciemnosc paused and looked into his teammates’ clear eyes, “Don’t think I don’t know how eager you feel to return there. It won’t take long. Take these few months to cultivate and train harder.”

“Alright, as the teamleader, I have lots of things to prove!” Missa said, her bandaged torso, more of an outfit than anything else, rose from her seat at the table as she raised her large cup of liquor. “If you horny dogs don’t reach the 5th realm of the Conflagrate realm in a year, I will have to train you physically every day from then on!”

“Alright!” Gallah stood up, scared and encouraged at the same time as everyone else was of her. And also directed his words to everyone after standing up from his seat. “I’ll become stronger… than the other 3! And Ciemnosc will have to train with Missa for some physical classes. She should also be pushed to her limits!”

“N- no, I would die, don’t you know him? Have you seen his body?!” Missa immediately put on a fearful expression, like a damsel whose whole heart was about to be simply destroyed by a barbarian. But she was cut off. It was her own partner that stabbed her heart so ruthlessly!

“Agreed!” Fatima rose from her seat to her feet, raising her jug. She then ‘elaborated’ in following Gallah’s thoughts. “I will be the one to grow stronger. I am going to put both Leen and Gallah under my feet. And you, dear Missa, will be training harsh and long with Ciemnosc’s body from then on, without any buts!”

“Pl- p- please, I don’t wanna die…” Missa’s eyes widened. She covered her body just like an innocent young woman about to become a woman and a good wife would do. And it was right then that Leen raised her glass of liquor and eloquently cut Missa’s terrified words off.

“I concord! Burp…” Leen rose to her feet, giving everyone a look and smell to the pretending shorty before elaborating as well. “Once I have my arms up Gallah’s arse and Fatima’s twat, I will see how our Little Ciemnosc works the shit out of your body… gulp, gulp… never better said! A- and and and also, you will get extremely enchanted by it. You will… fucking like it, teamleader!”

“Noo!” Missa was beyond terrified by now. She held her body, covering it despite being fashionably covered already. And looked like a young girl about to be kidnapped by a bad old man who needed to be sent to justice and judged!

‘... Why do they make them see if my training will be bedding her instead? Serious… ly…’ Ciemnosc thought in silence as he saw these people in front of him play around like dumb idiots and children but as big adults and of big adult’s stuff. He relaxed and sat on his chair. The others then neared him with their chairs sliding towards him, and some lengthy chatter started.

As time passed and night fell, Ciemnosc had 3 heads leaning over his body and using it as a pillow. Meanwhile, Gallah was with his left cheek against the table. With some of his modern uniform stained with saliva, Ciemnosc let his head incline backwards. And with his eyes looking at the ceiling, he slowly closed them as the torches on the wall slowly dimmed… with an ordinary orange suddenly sparking, only to dim out in the next instant.

***

Time passed.

Ciemnosc continued his doing with his Creature-renting services. At first, his store was basically just a tourist sight. Many would come or go, and they would all just look at it from afar. But after a couple days, some tried it out, and some were fucking delirious of the strangeness of the Genius Ciemnosc’s Creature-renting services.

The first customer was a rather simple… yet extraordinary choice. A horse. Yet, this seemingly ordinary and incredible Creature had scales at its belly and under its neck, almost like a chain mail… could run through the steepest slopes and run at an even faster speed down the mountain, yet having control over its body and the space that immediately surrounded it to not be affected by its sudden stops; for it was able to stop at impossible speeds and anywhere, even during rainy days.

The best feature about this seemingly ordinary horse, however, was that when ‘riding’ on it, one didn’t even feel the bumps that one would feel even in other Creatures who would be uncomfortable traveling unless using several gadgets that are as fast as this horse.

There were many of these, but the students were curious, and soon they found new and much more different and strange Creatures to rent. One of them was an armadillo, from which a seat that allowed one to remain still and ‘on top’ even as the armadillos rolled to an incredible, pretty fast, and rotundly shocking speed.

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And being the Earth Creature that it is, the armadillo was even able to sometimes jump upwards or down the mountain’s sides, effortlessly and as if connected by a magnet to the mountain. But that was only one of many that were unique in their own way.

One day, a fearless student simply took his balls to Ciemnosc’s Creature-renting services and laid them on the table… as he went out of the building riding an elephant. Despite its evident weight and clumsiness at just moving around, the elephant was ferociously fast and barely able to turn once it started running up the mountain.

The view of the elephant going up the mountain was crazy, especially considering the reverberating sounds that traveled from within the mountain with every step the elephant took; down. But when it came down the mountain, it was a magnificent image. The elephant wasn’t like the armadillo, it didn’t even have an Elemental affinity, but when it came down, it was practically flying as it lay on its stomach with its legs sprawled to the side for as impossibly as that should’ve been.

When it came down the mountain, it not only contained an impossible level of agility, it was able to even hop for less than a second before crashing against the mountainside right after, but that allowed it to cross over a hundred meters all at once!

Creatures weren’t ordinary animals, but even as they had a lower cultivation base, they were many times more magnificent than any Obsidiafying realm cultivator. The latter, at most, could fly faster than Conflagrate realm on their own. But they still made use of either a new vehicle or a Creature for some actual traveling. Meanwhile, those Creatures didn’t need anything else but themselves to be able to directly employ such capabilities.

Ciemnosc’s Creature-renting services became extremely popular when one clueless student went over to rent a massive rhinoceros. Its size was already considered a small hill, without taking into consideration all parts of its body, that is. When it went up the mountain, to the shock of everyone who was near or even far to notice it, in the evening, it set itself ablaze before going up the mountain like a flash of sparks tearing the mountainside into two.

The most amazing feat about this Creature was, however, that despite it setting itself ablaze to a degree that was just melting the mountainside if it remained within the same place for more than a few seconds, its rider was completely unharmed, unscathed. It seemed like the rhinoceros was purposely not harming its rider, only using its Fire element to enhance its speed and mobility, which the latter would only be seen as time went by and it had more directions to take.

The rhinoceros’ presentation was what made it. And after that, Ciemnosc’s Creature-renting services began seeing little riches pouring in every day. From the moment the rhinoceros showed itself, Ciemnosc had to be ‘ascended’ to a medium sized Creature-renting services not long after. That only fueled to boost his business, whose amount of Creatures and ordinary animals could at least double.

Each Creature took no more than a few minutes in cases where the clients rented one for several trips in a row, as in the form of delivery, which was many times more expensive than simply renting one for a trip up or a trip up and down. On the other hand, most Creatures were freeing themselves below 2 minutes at the very least. That was all the time they needed to complete their job under Ciemnosc’s Creature-renting services.

With time, his business had to be expanded, but it could not be done by becoming a large Creatrue-renting service. The difference between medium and large wasn’t just double the number of Creatures he could make use of and ordinary animals he could experiment and succeed with when there was a chance to evolve them into a Creature.

As weeks went by, and after his initial massive experiments every week since he started his business, his bought animals began becoming Creatures one after another, diminishing in number under his ordinary animal shelter and adding them all to his Creature shelter.

There were a few methods that Ciemnosc made use of in order to have his ordinary animals evolve into Creatures, successfully, and not horrible aberrations forced to become something, yet not something good but something else.

Those who had the luck of having enough properties to evolve into a Creature were either sent to coexist with Creatures which were already trained by his ways and were rather respectful of the ordinary animal even when they saw it as a toy still. This would somehow give the ordinary animal an inkling of knowing where to go and where to follow, and with Ciemnosc’s training, they would understand the social life between Creatures even if they didn’t have that intelligence yet.

The easiest to evolve were horses, strangely and not at the same time, while the hardest was the wildlife that mostly drag their own bodies through the land. But there was this other method in which the ordinary animals were… ‘currying favor’ with other Creatures. And because of the latter’s training, they didn’t plant their seed into ordinary animals, merely having them as partners exactly how humans would. If anything, they could start actually mating after evolving.

Those who did not have the properties to evolve into creatures were sent to his bedroom where a little farm for livestock was created, where breeding and then slaughtering would occur and ‘feed the family’ with.

It would’ve been easier to kill them right away and give some use to their bodies, hides, and even bones for a thing or two, even as they were just ordinary animals. But their fate was decided as such by Ciemnosc.

It took some long time, but as all kinds of land Creatures were seen populating his side of the mountain, winged fellas finally appeared within his business menu. Though those weren’t all the things that changed; for once, Ciemnosc started to have others enter his Creature-renting services building, ‘merging’ those from other buildings nearby to become part of his staff and work for him after convincing them… and after they themselves saw Ciemnosc’s obvious potential in rearing Creatures.

While all that was happening, his classes became much more obvious. He went from teaching these few thousand students, whose cultivation base had either raised or been attained at last, giving their first steps into the path of cultivation for the latter.

Alchemy, forging, tool-making, and even some caretaking were all taught to his students without hiding anything. Ciemnosc had, of course, nothing to hide. When it came to his students, all he had to teach them were the principles. Such things could never be considered so important he could only teach them to his ‘disciples’ or so. And without them, how were his students supposed to find inspiration in any of the Craftmaking creation professions?

But from teaching those few thousand, Ciemnosc’s classes began transmitting all over the department he taught at. The traditional classes became filled with more space than there was for chairs and even the supposed teacher’s desk, all taken by the butts of many students, some cultivating at last and some close to beginning their own path.

And even then, every month, Ciemnosc’s teachings from the month before would be released to the public. The academy could now really be called shameless in doing just that. However, they took not a single penny, and Ciemnosc’s earnings went from a couple hundred Inferior grade Powerful Stones to 10,000 Powerful Stones as a teacher. It was nothing compared to his Creature-renting services building, but being paid off so well gave many to think about.

Ciemnosc no longer continued to research his Craftsmaking path. He was already… in the first bottleneck he had ever faced. But it was correct that he would’ve met one sooner and at a worse level if he hadn’t had the instructions from that unknown force. Thanks to it, however, his bottleneck is already beyond what this world is capable of holding. Only, he was studying and… keeping on making use of the grand array whose initiation was at the workshop.

… Months went by, and just as Ciemnosc was applying for the upgrade to a large sized Creature-renting services, changes occurred within the whole Rocaloi Academy.

Step, step step step-...

“...” Ciemnosc was walking back from his bedroom’s entrance, it was just morning, and the rest of his teammates were having breakfast, which was a rare thing as they only had dinner and together. He opened the letter that was the first and only one from the academy, sent to them and to ever be encrypted in array formations.

Frowning, Ciemnosc walked back to the dining table at the west wing of the bedroom and opened the letter with just a flick of his Spirit Sense against the letter’s array formations, breaking it right away yet protecting the letter’s contents without spending any effort.

“I hope I can do that soon, too, nom nom.” Leen looked at Ciemnosc to do just that and said, her eyes giving him a sideglance as she jealously said, trying to hint the viring boy to teach her more and better!

“You don’t even know the difference between receptor an-” Gallah commented from the side before going silent. A hand had gone into his pants and destroyed the sleeping snake. He could already feel his body’s flesh and skin so deformed he was already praying for salvation.

“It’s from… an urgent notice of the academy. Mmh, and as its Genius, I…” Ciemnosc read through the letter. The others didn’t read it with their Spirit Sense and just looked and heard Ciemnosc out, while Leen made Gallah slip out kittenish moans now that her arm was blatantly moving up and down. “Must attend right away. They even said I was crucial for this matter… that I was asked to be seen.”

Ciemnosc looked up at his teammates, his eyes clear and bright, despite being darkest and all-consuming. When they looked at him, their eyes glinted with understanding. His following spoken words further fomented that understanding. “You should ready the troops to go back, and you 4 should too.”

…