"Grrr..." The man understood Rui's ploy. "You paused the story at the most intense and suspenseful moment, knowing that I would have no choice but to accept this deal. Hmph!"

Rui shrugged with a smirk.

"Alright then, young man, I accept you as a pupil," The man snorted. "Now continue immediately."

Rui smiled. "After that, I had a tough choice to make. Either submit to the Martial Union and essentially forsake my agency until I became a Martial Senior because of their grasp over my family, or use all my wealth to buy a decade of Senior-level protection from them. Guess which one I chose?"

"Hm, a prudent decision," The man remarked thoughtfully. "You wouldn't be the youngest Martial Senior if not for that. Martial Squires must fight for their own drives to reach the Martial Heart. But how did you escape Chairman Deacon?"

"I dedicated a portion of my wealth to misdirecting him with a lot of Guildmaster Bradt's resources to convince the man I really was in a place that I was not," Rui replied. "He thinks I'm hiding and scurrying around in the Kandrian Empire. Thankfully, he hasn't discovered the truth."

"He eventually will, of course," The Master remarked. "In fact, it's quite surprising that he hasn't, yet. The Kandrian Martial Union must be going out of its way to do more than you have paid for, for him to have not discovered the truth. But it is a matter of time."

Unfortunately, Rui knew that this was true. Chairman Deacon was far too sharp to be fooled for too much longer. It was actually quite fortunate that he had been fooled as long as he had been.

"But that's fine," Rui remarked as his eyes grew sharper. "I have grown stronger. I have mastered the art of killing. Now I hope to master the mental techniques that I possess such a strong affinity for. I have already commissioned the Beggar's Sect for absolutely any and all intelligence that is even slightly relevant to killing him and have been completing commissions and operations for them in exchange."

"Another prudent decision." The man nodded. "The Beggar's Sect is the only intelligence powerhouse that sells intelligence for commission. The information they give you will be absolutely accurate and entirely whole. This is quite rare and something only the Beggar's Sect can universally maintain as their standard."

Rui nodded. "And so, here I am."

"Hold on now," The man insisted. "You still haven't talked about what you did in the five to six years while you were running away. You also didn't reveal how you broke through to the Senior Realm."

Rui stared at Master Zeamer before shaking his head. "...I don't intend to reveal that at this point. You have already accepted me as a student, I've told you the main reason that I have been training to grow stronger. That's good enough for now."

One of the reasons that he didn't mind sharing the truth about Chairman Deacon was because he didn't fear the man nearly as much as he did more than five years ago. In the time that had passed since he left the Shionel Confederation, he had grown truly strong and formidable.

His general Martial Art ability. His ability to kill. He was not an enemy that any force would want to make an enemy out of. If not for his family, there really was not much that Chairman Deacon could do against him in his current state.

Rui could always obscure himself and wait for the right moment to strike. Chairman Deacon would have to spend his days waiting for Rui to strike, unable to reach and hurt him in any way, living in fear for the moment Rui was struck.

It was unfortunate, but his family was his weakness that allowed Chairman Deacon to be the hunter and Rui the hunted instead of the other way around all this time.

However, the same could not be said for Master Uma and the Virodhabhasa Faith. She was still far beyond him despite all the gains that he had made. Unless Master Reina or Master Zeamer happened to be around if she attacked him, he would not make it out of that situation alive.

He still didn't trust Master Zeamer entirely. The man was a whimsical sexist man who sought entertainment from the misery of others. He was different from Master Uma whom Rui had come to develop some affection for and trust in.

And he hadn't even told her the truth.

"Tsk tsk, not very revealing are you?" The man tutted. "Shame, well, it is true that I did accept you as my pupil. I have to grudgingly admit that you are an interesting lad."

"Glad to hear that. Now let's get started immediately. I don't have time to waste." Rui remarked.

"Hold your horses kiddo," The man snorted. "Let's return to my abode first. I'll have you meet my other pupil first. The two of you have a lot in common, you know?"

"I did hear that you had accepted a pupil eight years ago," Rui frowned.

"Hm, it's the same one. He returned to the Great Forest of Hypnonarak two years ago and has been with me since then," The man remarked.

"I see..."

The man began sky-walking straight upward to the skies, earning a frown from Rui, who followed suit.

'What about the cloud hornets? I suppose they are insects to him, but where is he even going?'

Rui wasn't sure, but he followed the man nonetheless. He was curious about where they were going.

As they kept rising, the cloud hornets didn't emerge for some reason, despite the fact that he was heading towards a huge dense cloud that looked like it housed an abysmal amount of cloud hornets.

Rui could even sense them when they reached the cloud, but the man apparently didn't care and simply circled around as he traveled to the top of it. This belongs to : ©.

STEP

"Welcome to my abode," The man gestured as he physically landed on the cloud. "I call it Cloudia. Creative, aren't I?"

Rui's eyes widened as he beheld an entire palace built on top of the huge cloud.