Chapter 67: Guinea Pigs
Early in the morning, Teo was sitting on a bench enjoying the refreshing morning air.
‘Haha, today is the day that my guinea pigs will test out my work!’ He had been waiting there for a while, as if he was waiting for someone to arrive.
He gazed off far into the distance. He was quite a distance away from the road, but since today was special, he decided to be extra careful and woke up quite early to scout out the people who were passing by.
From this distance, his eyes could clearly see anyone who passed by this road, while an ordinary person would only be able to see his silhouette from afar.
These revealing eyes of the heavens that the old man gave him were very convenient.
He suddenly saw a group of people walking towards the arena, a hint of eagerness could be seen in Teo’s eyes. The figure he saw the headmaster Elon, two unknown people, and Zachery and his goons.
Teo looked into his bag and pulled out a book to hide his face and the smile he wore in case Elon could recognize him from the distance.
…
The audience was excited to see these rumored saint tier boots. The royal guards and members of the Emerald Pavilion seen busily milling around in preparation.
With the vast resources of the Emerald Pavilion, they had temporarily transformed the arena into an obstacle course. The test was set up in a way to showcase two things, speed and jumping strength. One part of the area of the arena was flat, while the other part had several elevated platforms with a varied distance between each platform.
Many were surprised by the number of testers that were standing off in a marked area. Only eight were sold at the auction, but a total of twelve testers were involved! This meant that four pairs were somehow secretly held onto by the Emerald Pavilion!
Those who were not able to win a pair during the auction started to complain.
“Branch chief! What is the meaning of this?! Why were these extra four pairs not sold during the auction? We demand an explanation!”
“That’s right! This is not fair to use your position to monopolize these shoes!”
Even among the crowds, their voices could be heard. Their level of cultivation was not weak, and by amplifying their voices with their Qi, they could easily be heard from a distance.
“Honorable guests, these were four pairs were given specific instructions by the eccentric who brought these shoes. We were told to deliver these four pairs to the academy and have students of low cultivation to test them,” branch chief Cody explained
“Bullshit! How do we know you are speaking the truth?!”
Many people could not accept the ‘injustice’ and were riled up. The commoners and students who attended the show began to worry safety as the loud shouting of many different strong warriors began to noisily fill the air.
But suddenly, a loud voice blasted over everyone’s complaint.
“Who is questioning the arrangement?! Who dares to question the Rizon family?!”
The old envoy from the Rizon main family stood up and shouted out. This man, as well as the other envoys, were subordinates to the Imperial family and many people knew they were not people to offend.
After the old man’s question, many of the dissatisfied voices died down. They could only grit their teeth in frustration as they could not compete with such a large family; especially a family that was very close to the Imperial family.
The envoys from the Imperial city, the city lord, Cody, Shard, Elon and the Rizon branch head made their way into the arena to observe these tests up close. Several royal guards, Emerald Pavilion guards, academy guards and red guards surrounded the arena in preparation of the event.
…
The preparations were finally finished and the testers all lined up from weakest to strongest.
Except for the last two pairs of shoes, the testers wore extremely ugly pairs of shoes but didn’t seem to mind. In fact, the lower classed fighters were extremely happy.
The highest classed fighter in the line was a commander within the royal guards.
“It is truly impressive that the Imperial family’s youngest commander is already a class 7 fighter. Mind Awakening Stage at that age, perhaps he can reach the Dao Seeking (Earth) Stage,” The envoy from the Luth family praised.
The cultivation of the four at the end were only class two, and when Windle saw the four his face turned dark.
‘This headmaster truly is too biased. To actually give his grandson and his friends this opportunity instead of those who are deserving’
Windle and Lia were slightly jealous as their face soured. They could still remember the incident from before and truly did not have a good impression of these four.
As for Teo, he was quietly sitting down on the floor. In his hand, he held several thin wooden cards. Each card had an array on one side and a number from one to twelve on the other side.
‘It should start soon.’ Teo thought to himself.
…..
“We will now begin the testing, starting from the strongest!”
Many were anticipating the power of these saint tier shoes and held their breaths
As the commander gradually inserted some of his Qi into the shoes, a loud tearing sound could be heard!
-CRACK-
The shoes instantly tore into several pieces!
Many were surprised, and some were disappointed.
“Were those really saint tier shoes?!” people started asking because of the result of the first test.
In fact, this could not be even called a test!
But those who knew better had expected this result. If these inscription’s effect really increased based on the cultivator’s strength, then the higher the cultivation, the higher the output and the strain on the shoes would be much greater. Such shoddy materials would obviously not be able to handle such a strain, but there were many who had hoped for a miracle.
In Teo’s hand, the array on the wooden card numbered twelve instantly lit up with an extremely bright light before completely shattering. He sighed as he brushed off the pieces and then focus his attention on number 11.
Number eleven, fail. Number ten, fail. Number nine, fail. The wooden cards shattered one by one as their array lit up before breaking apart.
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After the eighth failure, Teo observed as the seventh array as it lit up.
….
The disappointed crowd lit up when they finally saw a pair of shoes that did not instantly shatter. It was the pair that was marked as number seven. The cultivator was only a class 5 fighter, but with the saint tier shoes, he could match up with a class 6 fighter’s speed and strength in the arena. Many commoners could only see a blur as he ran through the course, only the experts could tell the difference.
The only problem was that he had yet to familiarize himself with traveling at such speeds, but this result proved that the Emerald Pavilion’s assessment was indeed correct. During the time they assessed it, they only had class 4 fighters to test it so although they could’ve tested it for the eccentric privately, the eccentric for some reason refused.
Many people who saw the result were quite jealous. Especially the factions whose shoes broke during the testing, but as for this tester, he was quite elated.
“It seems that the shoes can only handle the strength of fighters class 5 and below,” the young envoy from the Rizon main family said with a calm face. But in reality, the young envoy was even more eager than before as he was currently a class 5 fighter. More than ever, he wanted to have a pair of those shoes. Although he could not use it once he had advanced to class 6, he would still have an extremely rare saint tier item as a trophy.
After the test with the class 5 warrior’s shoes, the shoes of both class 4 and class 3 fighters were tested and unsurprisingly held up. Although their speed was not enough to compare with warriors in a higher class ranking, they were still much faster than fighters of the same class who wore high tier boots.
Soon came Zachery and his friend’s turn. As they were last to take this test, these four excitedly jumped up to try as they knew these shoes should not break with their cultivation level. They ran around and jumped, showing off to the audience.
They began quite cautiously because if the shoes were to break while they were moving at a very fast speed, it would result in an injury. As time went on, they raced from one end of the obstacle course to the next, showing off their figure. They slowly began to speed up and took the time to fully enjoy the speed that they were experiencing. As they were convinced the shoes would hold up, they began to holler and yell as they ran throughout the track, fully intending to make full use of the course as they knew that after two months, these shoes would be taken away by the main family.
As the testing about to end, the several experts and faction member who were hunting down the mysterious eccentric continued their careful observation of all possible targets within the Colosseum.
With the strength of various groups, these expert carefully watch certain people who were on the list and took note of the change in their expression. Some sort of reaction should’ve been noticed by at least one of these groups, and would result in narrowing down the list of suspects.
‘He must be one of these people!’ They all thought.
When Windle and Lia saw Zachery and the others proudly showing off their speed, they could not bear it anymore.
“If Teo saw this, his stomachache would worsen even more,” Windle said
“Teo is truly lucky to have a stomachache, I would rather have a stomachache than watch these buffoons showoff,” Lia snorted
…..
Within his cave, Teo watched as the arrays of the last four cards numbered 1 to 4 light up.
A smile slowly appeared on his face and as he thought of his plan ‘Haha finally my plan has come to fruition!’
He grasped the four cards that glowed with a bright light within his hand and slowly studied the four cards. Teo laughed darkly as he suddenly clenched his hand!
-SCARP-
The four cards instantly broke!
……
Zachery and the other three were freely running with all their strength through the obstacle course, enjoying the saint tier shoes when suddenly their speed instantly doubled!
With such a sudden increase of speed mid-stride, they lost control of their bodies and instantly crashed at various parts of the obstacle course!
The shoes on their feet instantly broke apart causing all four of them to be injured in various crashes!
While some of them had only minor injuries when falling, Zachery had fallen quite hard.
Everyone was caught off guard as they noticed the sudden change of this testers’ speed and the subsequent crashes!
Elon quickly rushed to see Zachery’s injuries as a medical team quickly rushed to attend to the injured youths.
“Ah! It hurts!” Kristofer screamed in pain until he passed out.
“Ah! My feet! They are burning!” Ash also screamed as he grabbed his legs.
Although their crash had only resulted in some minor scrapes on their arms and shoulders, they were screams were quite intense.
The other testers who saw this quickly removed the shoes that they were wearing!
Erin was on the ground, already passed out from the pain, while Zachery was still screaming and still quite conscious. His feet were also injured like the others and his left arm was fractured due to the heavy crash!
“Grandfather! My feet! My feet feel like they are burning!” he shouted
The screams drew the attention of the many individuals who were hunting for the hidden inscriptionist. The crowd’s atmosphere was dense with fear and worry as they saw the four testers on the ground, screaming in pain.
The doctors quickly examined their feet but could not diagnose the issue. They were puzzled at the sight of four youths’ feet swelling like a balloon for seemingly no reason. The muscles were inflamed, but they could only provide some medicinal herbs to relieve the pain!
Suddenly the remaining pairs of shoes that managed to not break suddenly collapsed into several pieces.
The testing phase of today left many of the several people shocked.
‘These saint tier inscriptions are too unstable!’ most of them thought.
[Edited by thisisnate]