Club Hunting
Heian Ciemnosc stood in a private room of the spatial station, with the shuttle to the Middle Kingdom ready and waiting for him. Within the room, Heian Ciemnosc was accompanied by 2 beautiful women. Alyona and Hong Mei stood before him, playing with him as his pitchest-blackest hair, already growing and cleaning his forehead and temples for no reason at all, the devils. Once his clothes were neat and tidy, at 110%, Heian Ciemnosc looked at his wonderful wives and rubbed the bridge of his nose with each before speaking, holding their shoulders.
“I won’t be able to see you for 2 years or more…” Heian Ciemnosc looked at them with his darkest eyes. Alyona and Hong Mei lightly smiled as they watched this boy become an adult. Indeed, Heian Ciemnosc grew taller than just a few months ago by another couple of centimeters. It was crazy. However, his height wasn’t the only thing to wing some cm. Either way, his words made both beauties tilt their heads towards each other, and their gazes soften.
“I may be graduating when you return, or be an Assistant Teacher, and about to graduate. When I do, I hope you don’t forget little me an-” Heian Ciemnosc’s voice was gentle as he went on. But before he could complete his corny words, Hong Mei planted her fingers on his pale red lips and pushed them, lightly interrupting him. “Aish, our dumbo boy is really getting dumber. But that’s fine. At least we know we will have to return and bring you back to your feet.”
“Heian Ciemnosc, stop being silly and go study. I could have brought you elsewhere if I wanted to keep you and help you cultivate myself. Or simply follow my own path after delivering you, and we would’ve arrived at the Academy before you woke up. If you say something like that again, I’ll tell Grietta to not listen to your weird commands to spice her marriage with Elyor, understood?!” Alyona chipped in, striking right where it hurt the most.
“Oh, I obey my wives’ command,” Heian Ciemnosc lightly bowed, slid his right foot behind his left, and declared with a ‘subservient’ tone. This made his wifeys internally giggle, and even if they hid it with their heads shaking while making cutesy grimaces, Heian Ciemnosc could oh-so-well understand their hearts. Yet, they started chatting with each other right before him so cruelly.
“Oish, look at our boy, he’s so much…” - “Mn, maybe you should beat him up this time.” - “What? No! I don’t do that. Only you and Tania want to use combat as an excuse to act dominant, intimate, yet non-sexual.” - “You’re the younger sister. Why are you going against my words?” - “You need me. Without me, this Carrier goes nowhere, and your ass won’t be warm at night. Tania is too much of a cricket, and Grietta is preparing to be a mother.” - “... Tsk, fine.”
It wasn’t new to hear about Tania, Grietta, and Alyona wanting to beat Heian Ciemnosc up. After all, they were melee-combatant masters among their generation and even the Fourth Step, according to rumors. Hong Mei wasn’t a melee combatant enjoyer. She was a great master in the Elements, even if she only had an affinity with the Earth element. Nature was this strong.
“Alright, Heian Ciemnosc,” Alyona ended the chatter and set her black-coffee eyes on him, and Heian Ciemnosc looked at her attentively. Alyona nodded and spoke calmly, “We’ll be outside the Universe for a while. My Crimsonbreaking Faction needs to move around. Its prowess isn’t just for entertainment and boasting. And my Soldiers want victories to remember the old times before the new Change. There were at least some good things about it.”
“Mn, good luck.” Heian Ciemnosc had nothing to say about that. He couldn’t participate even if he cultivated for several years more. He was far below them. Hong Mei cupped his right cheek with her left hand and dangerously narrowed her eyes, looking sweet and loving at the same time. Alyona and Hong Mei silently looked at him before hurrying him. “Go on, leave already. Your way is still opening up. You better not disappoint us when we come back.” - “Mn. If you fail under the Existence’s expectations, that’s fine. But if you fail us, you’ll be the worst, dummy.”
“Mn, oh. Take care,” Heian Ciemnosc tilted his head left and right to show his love for them, letting them carry his pale face as their thumbs rubbed his skin. After bussing his forehead onto theirs, Heian Ciemnosc looked at Alyona and Hong Mei’s eyes deeply before turning around and leaving. His back walked several meters before turning around and disappearing their naked eyesight. But Heian Ciemnosc felt their presence on him as they watched him go.
“... Are you ready?” At the shuttle, Elena waited for him, wearing a black plated skirt and a blouse with black and beige stripes. Heian Ciemnosc held her left cheek for 2 seconds, looking at her growing mature face, dizzy by her, before responding with a nod. “Oh.”
“Let’s go, then.” Elena patted his backhand twice and turned around, entering the shuttle. Heian Ciemnosc followed behind. Their mounts were safe and sound in their Covert Space bags as they went into the shuttle, full of people with faces that said: ‘we saw nothing’ but kept looking at him like a strange specimen. Ignoring the apparent glances of people wanting his autograph, to become his best friend, kidnap and make him theirs, and so on, Heian Ciemnosc sat beside Elena. A few minutes afterwards, the shuttle started mobilizing to return to the Blackotia Kingdom.
… After returning to the Blackotia Kingdom, Heian Ciemnosc and Elena toured a little around Gustav City. After making a few purchases and selling the pills Heian Ciemnosc had barely concocted, they made their way towards the Wrath Nihility Academy. This wasn’t a negligible amount of gold coins, but they were far too little for Heian Ciemnosc’s proximate studies, research, and experimentation.
When returning to the Academy’s territory, Heian Ciemnosc visited his Aunt and Uncle first before joining Elena in reuniting with their adoptive father. After dual cultivating with her to help her in the next breakthrough, Heian Ciemnosc left and went out with Clarke and Frank, bringing him around the students’ clubs. There weren’t that many. Every club had a purpose that was different from others. Although some may have similar systems, goals, and procedures, they were just different. And some were ‘vassal’ clubs from the top-notch clubs.
Only the Saberbone Diabolical Club didn’t have such vassal clubs among the top-notch clubs, and their numbers were very few. However, the Saberbones were notoriously the strongest among any other combat-focused club. In the Academy, people were already expelling interrogation marks from their ears whenever they saw Heian Ciemnosc until he proved how much weight his shoulders could lift while bearing its jacket and emblem. Now, he also had a calm and collected dog as his emblem as one of the club leaders.
As Heian Ciemnosc walked through the streets or watched through the window as Frank or Clarke drove, he noticed the many differences between before the Academy went to war and after. His Spirit Sense was so enormous that he didn’t need to see. But scanning with his Spirit Sense couldn’t compare to seeing it with his darkest eyes. Without even bothering with nature reading, everything seemed just so much more peaceful this way.
The first club Heian Ciemnosc went to were the alchemy Craftsmaking-based ones. After learning from his Master and the Soul-exalting Old World parchment so much, Heian Ciemnosc comprehended the importance of one’s Soul potential, which would later on be the Soul itself after it is formed, is what aids cultivators the most during creation.
Even when conceiving a baby. With effort and ending exhausted as a trade, one can help their offspring remain from inheriting any adverse, possible state or condition. However, the same cannot be said for gaining their parents’ most powerful or efficient capabilities or that of their ancestry. This could only be left to nature to deal with and could never be touched. Although it could also depend on the individual themselves.
In any case, the Soul was the core of everything. Just like Heian Ciemnosc’s inner being has pure darkness, each step in creation has the Soul. However, among them all, the Soul itself, raw and pristine… is what is needed in alchemy the most. Soul energy is what helps array formations the most. Expertise and energy are what make forging the best, and one’s capability to utilize one’s Soul and Spirit Sense in caretaking Fauna and gardening flora are optimal.
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Since he wanted to know more about Soul no matter the cost of his studies and time spent, alchemy had to be the first one. Even after gaining enough recognition and having topped anyone else in his level and realm, he would continue to learn and practice here, while other Craftsmaking professions wouldn’t have this kind of attention. Although, in some ways, he would still keep practicing on others, just not as much as with alchemy.
Arriving at the alchemy clubs, Heian Ciemnosc first went to the top-notch club, registered to become an examinee, and went to look for the other alchemy clubs. Just like with the Saberbone Diabolical Club, even if the Headmaster wrote a recommendation letter, Heian Ciemnosc would have to go through the same steps as any other Sub Student, Student, and Leading Student. No big dick, big shot, or big deal fellow can make it through any backdoor.
After entering every other ‘vassal’ club related to alchemy, Heian Ciemnosc moved on to the array formation-based clubs. Without any delay, he repeated his actions. When he was just leaving the array formation-based clubs section, word about Heian Ciemnosc going for the all-rounder build spread like death in an all-out war. Universal Conveyances popped everywhere in the streets, restaurants, brothels, hotels, residences, and even other people’s fan clubs.
Heian Ciemnosc was stealing the limelight from any other activity for the day again. The other wishy-washy prodigy students felt a little sad, but they knew it would all be over soon after because Heian Ciemnosc was already too notorious, and such news wouldn’t stay on top of the Academy’s students after growing used to it.
The forging, caretaking, combat, and even pure Power-Neutral Energy, Spirit Sense, Soul, and melee-based clubs were visited one after the other afterwards. Late at night, Heian Ciemnosc returned to the Saberbone Diabolical Club. He had made his stand already and asked for tons of free days to gain some money. He was mostly penniless at the moment, and the merit points to his name were negligible.
The Blackotia Kingdom had become used to the Wrath Nihility Academy’s rule. It was this close to becoming wholly integrated into the Academy. The only deficit was the personnel needed everywhere to protect the cities, Cities, mines, resource collection points, routes, and so on. After the Academy started taking insanely huge numbers into their Academy, the upper echelons commenced preparations for a massive expansion.
However, due to previous incidents, it proceeded slowly. No longer wanting to meet with another surprise attack that should’ve only worked with civilians, the Academy set its defensive perimeter several tens of kilometers underneath the ground level. As the Academy’s individual territory expanded and secondary territories started being built. The process to reach that point was slow, but the students were incredibly fast in working together to construct them.
This way, tens of millions of new students could flock into the Academy’s individual territory, and the old could start taking spots in the new ones. However, there was still a long way to that, and by then, Heian Ciemnosc might have graduated already. With everything going smoothly, the Wrath Nihility Academy would be able to successfully transition from a Second Step organization into a Third Step one.
Nevertheless, the study commenced for Heian Ciemnosc. As Elena went through her breakthrough, which would grant her the capability to wield Neutral Energy, Heian Ciemnosc entered secluded cultivation to learn under his Master while concocting pills and afterwards. Lady Calisneia had been too far away from teaching her disciple for long, at least in the way she’d prefer it. Now that she had the chance to continue his studies, she went all out.
Not allowing any chance for him to mess up, Lady Calisneia made Heian Ciemnosc sweat from the very beginning. His concentration when concocting new pills, brewing new potions, and creating new incense could not be broken. Lady Calisneia would immediately give Heian Ciemnosc the recipe for each, and he would have to perfectly create them all at once. In the meantime, he would learn more about the ever-so-important Soul-exalting Old World parchment and his Master’s teachings from experience.
Heian Ciemnosc could not afford to lose control, but even less could he allow himself to miss such critical knowledge. Knowing this, Lady Calisneia went all out and didn’t forgive him. The situation kept becoming more challenging for Heian Ciemnosc as Lady Calisneia had him concoct, brew, and create incense from several different pills she instructed him hours ago to just a couple recipes earlier while teaching him everything she could without repeating once.
Heian Ciemnosc didn’t need her to repeat her words. Once was more than enough, but he was having a hard time getting used to Second Step pills. But this was just on the alchemy profession of all Craftsmaking. However, before Heian Ciemnosc could continue with array formations, his Master stopped him when she sensed his Dantian and Psychogenic growing crazy like shrilling aberrations, thrilled and bathed in excitement.
Futomp! Heian Ciemnosc’s bum was immediately put on the black, empty floor after flying for 10 seconds, reappearing in his cultivation room. Lady Calisneia teleported before him and looked at her disciple with a stern expression, somewhat solemn.
Pshift, pshift, pshift, pshift, pshift, pshift, pshift, pshift, pshift, pshift, pshift, pshift…
Heian Ciemnosc’s dark Power Energy surged around his clothes from within his body. Lady Calisneia employed a thought, and Heian Ciemnosc’s clothes disappeared. As if unshackling the impossible to unshackle, dark Power Energy and pure dark smoke were constantly expelled from his body. Dark Power Energy turned into shapeless limbs with a thickness less than a baby’s arm, circling around him, especially around his shoulders and waist.
The pure dark smoke was shot from his Psychogenic and Dantian regions, alarming Lady Calisneia for the first time. But instantly remembering who her disciple was, she tranquilized. Floating higher up from the ground and distancing herself from Heian Ciemnosc as she felt her crumbled Soul be called upon strangely, nearly causing her pain, Lady Calisneia confidently watched her disciple go through a major point in Heian Ciemnosc’s and any other cultivator’s life.
Heian Ciemnosc’s Dantian and Psychogenic regions had the dark pure smoke they expelled connect somehow. Lady Calisneia lifted her left eyebrow as this happened. Usually, a cultivator joins their Power Energy from both Regions and then uses their Spirit Bosom as a catalyst, slowly integrating nature itself, besides pure energy, into the equation and using the momentum of breaking through to refine the first strand of Neutral Energy.
It usually takes hours to do this. There is no ranking system this time, and even a cultivator like the Academy’s Headmaster would take several hours, while a talentless cultivator might only need a couple hours, and vice versa. However, Lady Calisneia found something strange happened as she read through Heian Ciemnosc’s body. It was like a mother feeling the fetus in their bellies moving but without their belly changing shape.
‘No… not like this… maybe this? Wah, nah… Mm, this one looks fine… I want more options, though… This one s- nope, neither…’ Heian Ciemnosc’s eyebrows twitched and changed shapes and form in dissatisfaction as his Master watched. Slowly, she became baffled, and at once, without a care in the world, and whereas her face would’ve turned red if she had any vitality left, she shouted. “Stop playing and form the connection with nature!!”
“!” Heian Ciemnosc’s bum jumped from his sitting position and blinked his eyes quickly before shutting them tight. Relaxing his butt cheeks, he was picky no more and picked the next random Neutral Energy strand he could before refining it completely. In an instant, without being given a chance to struggle, it turned dark, and when Heian Ciemnosc felt his Links freshen up in coldness yet carrying warmth from within his inner self, warmer than before, his darkest eyes opened to reveal their wholly pitch-blackness.
PSHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFFFT!! Heian Ciemnosc’s short hair raised up together with the air distorting as the pure energy around him was sucked dry in less than a second. Heian Ciemnosc felt his body bloating and coagulating at his Dantian region while his Spirit Sense seemed about to break away from his Psychogenic. His inner being was seemingly impassive, but Heian Ciemnosc felt as if… it was expanding?!
Before he could ask himself any more questions, dark Neutral Energy formed within his Dantian region, and his Psychogenic felt like a balloon slowly and pleasingly letting out all the air. Heian Ciemnosc’s cultivation room was quickly left without any pure energy. Lady Calisneia acted swiftly. With a thought, pure energy from her meditation room rushed in to fill the void. However, just as she was about to close it, it was nearly entirely devoured by Heian Ciemnosc.
PSHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFFFFFTTT~~... Pshift! Pshift! Pshift! Pshift! Pshift! Pshift!
“...” Lady Calisneia held her thought in place and let it be as she saw Heian Ciemnosc’s body devour so much pure energy it left her stunned. Several seconds later, Heian Ciemnosc continued refining pure energy like no amount would ever be enough… his Master suddenly felt pity for anyone who would become his enemy in the future… from now on.
With her disciple’s appetite and battle prowess, it wouldn’t be weird if he massacred entire organizations, even the overly bustling Sects. Those with the highest number of members at the peak of each Step. However, those thoughts somehow made her proud, and she couldn’t help but revive old emotions from the past. She smiled kindly as Heian Ciemnosc’s darkest eyes receded to their usual appearance. Nothing changed between them except for the rapidly shrinking pupils and irises as he saw his Master and her unique smile.
‘So beautiful!’
…