“Safe travels,” Elder Jeb said. “I hope your search will be successful.”
“It will,” Elijah replied. “It’s up to you and the others to protect the village. I’m confident that Kento and his clan members won’t give you any trouble, but there’s no way we can be absolutely sure.
Dawn arrived and left. Now, thirty minutes later, Elijah was ready to leave with Justin, twenty human warriors and ten goblin warriors. Less than five warriors were left to work with Elder Jeb and the remaining goblins to protect the village form external and internal threats.
“Don’t worry about the village.” Elder Jeb responded with a confident smile. “Focus on finding some good things and making it back safely. Compare to what you might experience in the forest, my time in the village will seem boring in comparison.”
“Then I guess I should apologize for leaving you with the boring job,” Elijah said with a smile on his face. “Next, time I’ll let you head out and I’ll stay back.”
“No, no, no,” Elder Jeb quickly responded. “This old man is fine staying at home. Besides, I need to spend a lot of time practicing the Twilight Foundation cultivation technique. I have a long way to go before I can begin tempering my Dantian. Being able to make progress in my cultivation again is truly a wonderful thing. Although practicing the cultivation technique is a bit tedious, that feeling isn’t strong enough to dampen my excitement.”
“Tedious?” Elijah said with a hint of confusion in his voice.
“Yes, I have to put my body in various different positions, have my mind completely focused on the position, my breathing, and the mantra for the technique.” Elder Jeb looked around to see if anyone was listening before he continued speaking with a lower volume. “Truthfully, I’d rather spend my time swinging my sword than do those boring movements. Don’t you think its tedious as well? It definitely can’t compare to the thrill of real combat or even sparring.”
“Well, I don’t think I would call it tedious,” Elijah said.
“I would probably use the word euphoric,” Elijah thought to himself. “Maybe pleasurable. The best thing in the world. Absolutely fucking amazing.”
“Hehe, I understand,” Elder Jeb said before giving Elijah a wink. “We definitely shouldn’t say too many negative things about cultivation. If the others become discouraged or lazy because of our words than that would be a calamity of our own making.”
Elijah and Elder Jeb talked for a little while longer before it was time to go. The groups first stop would be a clearing south of the village. There they would meet up with Elder Jamal and the others that left earlier to find out what they discovered during their scouting. After that, they would begin the treasure hunt.
…
“The Chief left,” Bart said to his father Kento. They were in a private room in one of the buildings that the clan members recently built.
“Oh,” Kento replied with a neutral expression. He sat in a meditative position with his eyes closed.
Bart frowned when he saw the lack of reaction on his father’s face. “He took more than a few warriors with him.”
“I saw,” Kento calmly replied.
“So, we should attack right?” Bart asked as a bit of annoyance started to seep into his voice.
“Huh.” Kento let out a deep sigh before he opened his eyes and responded to his son. “No, we will not be attacking.”
“Why not?!” Bart annoyance had quickly turned into anger. “Why are we not attacking our enemies while they’re defenseless? I demand you give me an answer.”
Kento frowned at his son’s reaction, but still decided to answer him. “First, who said that these villagers were our enemies.”
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“Anyone who is not a part of our clan is an enemy.” Bart lowered his volume and seemed to have calm down, but anyone listening to him would be able to hear the cold murderous intent in his voice.
Immediately Kento began to shake his head in disapproval. “I’m disappointed in you. You were taught to put the clan first, but you weren’t taught to view everyone outside of our clan as enemies. We can’t go around randomly attacking people like wild dogs. Right now, what we need to do is-”
“Let me guess,” Bart interrupted with a sneer on his face. “We need to be patient. Carefully observe them. Twiddle our thumbs and do nothing else. Sit and wait with our fingers up our ass!” With each sentence the annoyance Bart felt rapidly returned until he exploded in anger. “These are the same idiotic words you said before. Do you not remember what happened last time? How many people have to die before you draw your sword and fight?”
Kento met his son’s angry fiery gaze with calm cold looks. “Alright, let’s say I agree with you. If we’re going to fight, how exactly do you plan to attack the villagers?”
“The fire wielding goblin is the only tier one expert that they have. Once we’ve killed it, we can easily subdue the rest and have them follow our commands.” Bart spoke with absolute confidence and looked very satisfied with the plan he came up with.
Smack!
Kento used his opened hand to viciously wipe the satisfied expression off his son’s face. Bart was stunned by the unexpected attack. As for Kento, he was full of anger. He was so angry that he began to laugh.
“Hehe, I can’t believe I actual thought that you would say something sensible. When you actually dared to call I, your father, an idiot, I thought you would provide me with some masterful strategy that I wasn’t able to see. But the moment you opened your mouth nothing, but pure bullshit came out.”
“How, how can you call my plan bullshit?” Bart asked. He tried to stand his ground, but it was obvious that he was intimidated by his father towering over him in anger.
Kento snorted. “If it isn’t bullshit then what is it? The moment we take action there will be several goblin warriors that will immediately try to stop us. They may be weaker than us individually, but together they will drain our energy before we even attack the fire goblin. Plus, I’m still injured. Did you forget that? Do you want to push me into a fight to the death?”
“We don’t have to fight the weaker goblins on our own. We can use our people to-”
“Ridiculous! Do you actually think they will be willing to fight? It was only yesterday that all of them received cultivation techniques that will help with their development and the Chief, and that healer helped heal many children. What reason would they have to risk their lives?”
“They should fight for the future of the clan. Although there will be a few deaths we will all come out stronger and we can always force the healer to obey us after we’ve won.”
Shaking his head Kento sat back down and reentered his meditative position. “Well, you can go ahead and tell our people your plan. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled when they hear it. Once everyone’s ready, you can come find me and I’ll naturally fight by your side.” Kento closed his eyes and ignored his son after saying one last sentence. “If you can’t convince our people, then you better not come and disturb my recovery again.”
Bart glared at his father for a few seconds before he turned to leave the room. He could hear the sarcasm and fell the lack of faith his father had in him, but he didn’t care. He was confident he was right, and he would be able to get the rest of the clan to agree with him.
…
“Mom, mom!” A little girl shouted as she ran into a room. The little girl had bronze skin and snow-white hair tied into fluffy pigtails. Her most unique feature were her eyes that were similar to a fox. The pupils were slits, and the iris was a bluish-purple color.
“Mommy, we found an area with a lot of astral energy.”
The little girl stopped in front of a woman with milky skin and snow-white hair. The woman was seated in a meditative position with her eyes closed. A few seconds after the little girl stopped in front of her, the woman opened her eyes and revealed that she had the same fox eyes as the little girl. The only difference was her irises were icy blue.
Once the woman opened her eyes the little girl flinched and took a step. There was no warmth in the woman’s gaze. She stared at the little girl who hung her head in fear for a few seconds before she finally spoke.
“Who said you could leave?”
“I, I only went to look around a bit.” The little girl nervously replied.
“A bit? You’ve been gone for more than a day,” the woman coldly rebuked. “Go to your room and cultivate. You’re not allowed to leave for the next three days.”
The little girl looked crestfallen, but she didn’t argue. She simply left the room by shambling her way through a curtain made of leaves. A second after the little girl left, a fox with brown fur that stood as tall as a man entered the room. The woman stared at the fox with cold eyes and the fox knelt down in submission.
“I asked you to keep that girl company and watch over her. I dint tell you to take her all over the place. If anyone notice her talents, then it will bring a great deal of trouble for all of us. This better not happen a second time. Am I clear?”
The woman emphasized her words by releasing her presence on the already terrified fox. The foxe's body started to shake, and it began to release whines full of terror. After a few seconds passed, the woman reconcealed her presence and allowed the fox to recover.
“Good. Now, tell me about this new area you found.”