Taking A Master

Hours later, Heian Ciemnosc slowly woke up in a room full of black. The floor he woke up on was very smooth and fresh, and there were close walls nearby, but it looked like he was just in a passage before getting somewhere. Scanning his own body, Heian Ciemnosc found no wound was visible or felt. Only some of his shirt was broken, but his hands and wrists felt new. And the foreign energy that tormented him like never before was gone, and he could stand up properly.

Looking around, Heian Ciemnosc felt 2 possible ways from here. It was his instincts kicking, as there was nothing showing, like a road, pathway, or door. He ‘felt’ he could either go towards a deeper section or leave the place. The young girl from before was nowhere, and all he could do was decide which way to go.

He only took a couple seconds to decide as he fell into thought. Picking his light feet towards the most in-depth section, he slowly disappeared from where he was standing and found himself walking through a tunnel for a few long minutes before a change finally occurred.

Step… step… step… step… step. His footsteps resounded everywhere, and the steps he made a couple seconds ago would still follow to echo close around as if following him forever before quickly dissipating. But then, a different sight was before him, as the silhouette of something or someone lying on the ground was differentiated from the rest of the black within Heian Ciemnosc’s darkest eyes.

“...You have come…” A female, incredibly aged voice resounded. It carried with itself a mighty presence, and it made Heian Ciemnosc’s mind bounce. Ripples seemingly appeared everywhere around him, making this entire ‘place’ wave like water and blur until her words’ echo dissipated.

Heian Ciemnosc was shocked, but he wasn’t afraid. There was… something familiar about all this. The black around him reminded him a lot of what he always sees when he goes into his inner self, and the way it was all empty seemed just right somehow. But the presence behind that old voice. It attracted his attention the most. It made Heian Ciemnosc entirely stop in his tracks and remain quietly standing, far from the figure.

Rustle. The person lying on the ground, or floor, began rising. The mantle covering her body was the floor itself, and it seemed as if, all of a sudden, this place had been a wonderful place of life and whatever else.was in harmony. But now, it had become empty of that life, of anything that could’ve been.

The figure stopped rising, seemingly already standing on her feet. As some seconds passed by and Heian Ciemnosc continued to keep his silence, the figure’s head moved to seemingly gaze towards him. The figure seemed to make a single step forwards, but the next instant, she appeared right before Heian Ciemnosc. Before Heian Ciemnosc’s eyes could widen, his ears heard her voice, and his eyes saw her right hand lifted towards him. Her fingers were gracefully spread and separated, and it was smooth skin.

“It’s finally time for us to meet,” the aged female voice spoke again. This time, it directly came from before himself. Heian Ciemnosc looked at where the figure’s head should be. She was shorter than he was, but while her voice seemed not as powerful as before, he felt his surroundings ripple and thunder with each of her spoken words.

“What do you mean?” Heian Ciemnosc stuck his chest out and asked. He looked at the figure with darkest, serene eyes that seemingly silenced the figure for a moment.

With her arm still raised, the cloaked figure changed its trajectory from Heian Ciemnosc’s face to her face, grabbed the corner of the hoodie, and pulled it slightly backwards, only revealing her aged mouth, chin, and some of her feeble skin. After doing so, she looked slightly up to seemingly meet his eyes, and Heian Ciemnosc felt as if he was observed by glowing eyes, not from energy but purely from the color and nature of the eyes.

“I’m the ‘special guest’ of the Wrath Nihility Academy,” the aged voice spoke again. Heian Ciemnosc’s mind ran through crucial information that everyone would know when talking about the wonders of the Wrath Nihility Academy.

There are stories of this special guest of the Academy, residing within it for millions of years. It is said she is a being that transcends all common sense. And despite not being any Special Body and being a Human, she had a lifespan that stunned even Titans, the Race with the second lengthiest lifespans in the world. Yet, even as she showed an extreme talent for alchemy, she was ignored by any organization above the Third Step.

Any First and Second Step organization was more than glad to receive her, even proclaiming they would war the entire world just to have her form part of them. This was just when the Great Sage was still existing, of course. As she joined the Wrath Nihility Academy many millions of years ago. But after discovering the world’s truths, she didn’t want to join anything under the Fourth Step.

There are smaller stories of how she traveled the world. The Great Sage was many things, but his Dynasty had interlinked the whole world without a problem, having Sub Spaces that traveled through Universal Lands, and anyone with enough money could use them. Now, such things were long gone, and only via having existences open up short Sub Spaces is one allowed to travel between Universal Lands. Nobody could meddle with nature’s distinction of Universal Lands. It was no joke…

Yet, she sold pills for a million years, traveling from one Universal Land to another, going through all troubles, from lacking the simplest ingredients to fighting over flora, just to sell a pill to a wealthy organization or cultivator in dire need. Heian Ciemnosc read through some of it, as there were thousands of unique tales about this special guest. It wasn’t that the Academy didn’t want her as well, but they simply let her do as she wished until she came to their door.

The Great Sage didn’t want her but would only accept her as a concubine so she could serve his children if she wanted. Naturally, the proud and ambitious woman who didn’t even want to go anything lower than the Fourth Step didn’t become the Great Sage’s concubine. And since it was someone so old with such low-cultivation, the Great Sage couldn’t care any less.

When she finally came to the Academy, she was accepted and no longer seen wandering the world. It was a surprise that she disappeared, but it was understandable only the Wrath Nihility Academy would take her. Time passed very slowly, but in just a few thousand years, the Wrath Nihility Academy’s alchemy knew a new chapter. Any Teacher of the Academy could read the new manuals specifically only for those of high-medium and medium status.

Without a doubt, the Wrath Nihility Academy began producing insanely good quality pills and many new little pills that made a truthful impact on the growth of the Academy’s students, which had already been at its best since its foundation. More time passed, and that special guest suddenly reappeared, but this time, covered in long robes so her beauty would be hidden. Her appearance was still recorded worldwide, but she was never again seen entirely.

Each time she showed up however, not only did she demonstrate an absurdly knowledgeable expertise in alchemy, but she also showed her might, which had unknowingly grown to an impossible level. It was said she became a Goddess during her disappearance! For a worldwide elite cultivator with talent to go from starting cultivating to Godhood in tens of thousands of years wasn’t new in the slightest… but she spent millions of years in the First Step and early realms of the Second Step!

She became extremely influential from then on. Nobody could doubt her incredible potential, but as the Wrath Nihility Academy, nobody dared to demand anything from it. Thus, silence ensued. Yet, she kept on showing her might and knowledge. At times, and under the Academy’s name, she would lecture the public in some Divine Kingdoms or simply travel through Fourth Step base space stations.

After hundreds of thousands of years of showing her hand, refusing all marriage proposals that everyone thought she would accept in the name of the Academy, she once again disappeared for a couple million years. But by then, her grace, knowledge, and stories had spread throughout the entire world. It was an already known fact that someone like her would grow a legend, just as the Great Sage was still trying to do during his reign.

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But now, this seemingly far-away celebrity and bigshot appeared before Heian Ciemnosc himself and… was perhaps planning to do with him as exactly what he was thinking?

“But I’m also…” The female voice spoke, and her right arm was lifted again as a strand of pure energy converged before converting into a hidden… presence!

“!” Heian Ciemnosc became shell-shocked and felt brainless. This was nothing else but the same foreign force that had taught him many things he could have never been capable of discovering on his own in the Blackotia Kingdom ever since… since… he studied Lady Calisenia’s statue!

“!!” Heian Ciemnosc’s eyes grew even more shocked as a realization struck him, and he looked back at the figure’s face. “You are-”

“I am the reason you were brought here, yes.” The female voice spoke. She turned around and started walking back to where she was lying just now and continued. “When you went through my statue back at the Sinvonnia Kingdom, I was just planning to teach you a lesson as I’ve been doing to anyone those decrepit fools tried to send to me. But then I saw you… and you changed my mind, Heian Ciemnosc.”

“...” Heian Ciemnosc became stupefied… and weird. Now, there wasn’t just him and Evans, but also a third person from the Sinvonnia Kingdom who survived… what he did. He didn’t walk with her, allowed her to continue, and listened attentively to everything she said. The supposedly Lady Calisneia’s voice was as aged as before, “I decided to teach you… a little. And the results surprised me. I couldn’t believe someone from there… could have this much potential.”

“But I also ended up ‘seeing’ something else, something that forc-...” The voice stopped as the figure turned around, seemingly reminiscing about whatever she was talking about and realizing whom she was talking to. Then she continued after a short break, “I felt it would be good, for my inheritance and for the Academy, if I brought you here, gave you a chance to prove yourself, and then… take you as my disciple.”

Only the lower face of the aged woman before Heian Ciemnosc was showing. And as she spoke, her hood moved slightly, and her right arm was again lifted. “Crimsonbreaking Faction’s Chairwoman, Alyona. She is a good little girl. A woman whose simple past doesn’t gnaw at her mind. However, she did harbor thoughts and ideas of murdering her own father. In a way, it was both a salvation for her as it was the taking of her own purpose away.”

“Though I can’t say you’ve filled her world… Since you entered her life, she has… somewhat returned to what she truly is, a misfit who inches to make the world born entirely, even if just to repair it afterwards. Her ambitions used to be grand before the 10 year war. She could speak of taking her father’s world bit by bit to amass forces, slowly and without his notice. It wasn’t difficult, especially since she wasn’t the only one trying to do so.”

“The Wrath Nihility Academy?” Heian Ciemnosc blurted out without thinking. There must be more, but this had to be what this woman was referring to. The female voice was silenced, and as she moved her chin a little, she nodded softly afterwards. “The Wrath Nihility Academy had been gathering Fleets within the Blackotia Kingdom itself. This 3* Region isn’t just the only one in the entire world in a Middle Kingdom.”

“The Academy and Crimsonbreaking Faction had struck an agreement half a thousand years prior to the 10 year war. But when the Great Sage’s Dynasty fell, in just an instant…” The voice seemed awestruck to just remember the fact, “That agreement became invalid. The Academy had also become… hooked… By the Heraxles Clan, there was no escaping this struggle, the typical one following after the king dies. But, with our previous dealings, the Crimsonbreaking Faction chose to ally with us and the Heraxles Clan.”

“It was a great chance for Alyona to save herself from the future. A fate she couldn’t run away from. There is no escaping these 87 Existences. There were no Universal Lands. All she could hope for was the same as us, to prevail through the turmoil for the years to come. That’s how…” At this point, the aged female voice trembled slightly, as if she could see before her eyes, and right now, those things happen. “The Academy and the Faction joined hands, using all our resources, Fleets, and vassals to act.”

“We left what is now known as the Universal Land we inhabit, expecting the Blackotia Kingdom to be attacked and anything else with life, and it indeed happened. But we didn’t leave to survive. We did so to destroy others. Within just a year, we had broken apart hundreds of Galaxies, breaking them apart until every single Universe we went to surrendered and offered their resources when they were surprised by our arrival.”

“It wasn’t simple. Midway through the war, we were already countered as many Universes were prepared to receive us at any time, even if we went from one extreme of the world to the other. The cloaking of our Fleets wasn’t better than the best in the world. It could be expected and scanned, even if just slightly. Yet, it was in exactly that way we would be resisted with utmost prowess.”

“While nobody wanted to be exterminated in a war, after some years of our reputation increasing. Our victims could only feel pride to be selected by us, giving their all and causing tremendous damage to our Fleets overall. By the 8th and 9th years of the war, the Faction had only a couple Carriers and a Fleet and a half from the dozens of Fleets they created over hundreds of years with an incredible workforce. While the Academy was a bit better off, our Fleets would be decimated anytime soon.”

“We were so powerful that no organization bothered to demand our limitations. Despite being a Second and Third Step, and without counting our vassals, we had a few billion members each. At the beginning and middle of the war, not towards the end…” The aged female voice seemed to simply want to reminisce, seemingly no longer knowing or caring about Heian Ciemnosc’s presence.

“That’s why I became so glad seeing that side of Alyona when she brought you to me,” the female aged voice directed her words to Heian Ciemnosc again. “After many years of distancing from each other, the Wrath Nihility Academy and the Crimsonbreaking Faction have shown their obvious closeness again. Every spy from the other Universal Lands got word of it. It wasn’t a cover-up in the slightest, hmph.”

“The Soul race, in its entirety, commended our efforts and achievements during the war. The Xue family praised our movements and results because of our ideals. And even the Toreon Clan vowed to fight us to the death when we became an Existential Sixth Step organization.” The aged female voice spoke, her meaning obvious. “But now, Heian Ciemnosc. With Alyona bringing a boy into our hands with such domineeringness… Gears have started moving. It might be as peaceful as it is now, even thousands of years into the future. But remember that the war wasn’t stopped because of wanting but because of need. Even just ⅕ of the world’s population is way too many for such a short war. But that is the result of the world never entering a universal war for so many Archeons. No one was ready… but… it was addictive. And it still lingers to today.”

“...” Heian Ciemnosc had long since fallen silent. Many things she said were first in the world, not just to him, and it was particularly blood-boiling to just hear about them. Let alone comprehend the meaning behind them. He looked at her directly, feeling her eyes gaze back, but he didn’t shy away. “Many of the things you’ve said are nowhere in records of books.”

“And they never will,” the aged female voice responded with a lighter tone. Heian Ciemnosc’s eyebrows trembled slightly and sank right after. “Not with the current king’s hands.”

“Unless the current one falls and another does,” the aged female voice spoke again. Then there was silence, but people within this strange place stared at each other without moving even their eyes. No breathing sound could be heard. Heian Ciemnosc slowly felt inferior before this person, whom he now saw as a deity… a terrifyingly unknown one!

“... Heian Ciemnosc, it has been too much chatter. I did not bring you here to test your readings of recent history,” the aged female voice changed the subject after a slight pause. “You have seen the traces of the addiction to destruction in the Academy occasionally. You now know why, despite being capable of restricting such thoughts, the Academy isn’t interested in letting that notion disappear from its staff members.”

“It’s a matter of time before the ground of every Kingdom is thundering and trembling with itchy feet, hoping to march and set in the space they so much miss. Rebels can only be rebels. And you are the first person I have ever started valuing since the first time I met you.”

“Heian Ciemnosc,” the aged female voice lifted her right hand to Heian Ciemnosc’s left cheekbone. The side of her hand grazed against it and halted there. Her words seemed to comprehend the loneliness he had been in all this long. “Will you take me as your Master?”

Those were simple words. They were simply spoken, and Heian Ciemnosc didn’t even need to think about it. This was a legend in the Sinvonnia Kingdom, and she was beginning to become a legend in the world. She taught him those things, some of which rocked his world, turning his brain upside down, and even until today, could not be comprehended by his little brain. This was also just what Alyona spoke to him about with a smile. Was it fate?

Pu-tong! Heian Ciemnosc’s knees met the ground, or floor. He presented himself before her, this aged Lady Calisneia, and as he spoke, her right hand fell on the top of his head to tussle his hair. “I, Heian Ciemnosc, am glad to finally know Master. This is your disciple.”

“Disciple…” Lady Calisneia dropped her hood. Heian Ciemnosc looked up at her call and saw a rather old woman with absolutely dull and almost dimmed-out golden eyes as a pale silvery sclera surrounded them. She said, her voice softened and her hand letting go of his long hair. “Come back after your first week of classes. After you’ve acclimatized to the Student’s life, I will guide you to breakthrough into the Spirit Birth realm.”

…