Chapter 15: Energy Tower

In the morning, once again, Fang walked out of the room and found his roommate awake, with his eyes bright red and face tired. “Blue, did you have trouble sleeping last night?

Blue glared at Fang, it was his fault that he couldn’t sleep at all.

Born with a curious nature, Blue couldn’t help but ponder through multiple theories why the staged drama yesterday failed. However, one by one, they didn’t make sense, and couldn’t explain what happened. And by the time he knew it, it was morning already – he had stayed up the whole night.

He didn’t grab a drink this morning, as performing the same trick twice would be useless. Instead, he had a new idea.

Acting up on this, Blue asked, “Wait, Fang, can I follow where you go to train?”

This training camp was designed uniquely; there were no forced courses, and everyone was free to study whatever they wanted, either to find mentors for advice, take certain subjects, or go to the arena and compare pointers with the other members of the school, as long as no rules were broken.

Somewhat puzzled, Fang questioned, “Why?”

“This well, to say the truth, I’m pretty shy and not that great with communication, but I don’t have any friends here…” Blue started to shuffle a bit, grabbing his clothes, “in this training camp, you’re my only friend Fang, so can I follow you around today?”

Fang felt shocked. He was now increasingly sure that his roommate had experienced some irreversible trauma in his past. Blue called him a friend – if he refused, Blue was sure to be very sad.

Also, I should take this opportunity to talk some sense into him.

Nodding, Fang replied, “Okay, no problem.”

With an ecstatic voice, Blue shouted, “Thanks Fang, I promise I won’t be any trouble!”

“No need for thanks, we’re friends after all.” Fang held out his hand, wanting to give a reassuring pat on the shoulder, but Blue avoided it. Awkwardly, Fang said, “Some classes must have already started, let’s get going!”

Fang wasn’t offended, he knew that his roommate had his guard up against everyone, and it would just take some time.

“Oh, but one thing, Blue.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Don’t rub your clothes, it makes you look like a girl!”

“…”

Fang visited a number of courses, and listened to the various teachers describe different methods and techniques for gathering and using energy. Although the methods weren’t comparable to what he had learned, the fighting techniques were quite interesting, and he took down some notes. He glanced at Blue.

With dead eyes and without his book open, Blue looked as if he had no interest in what was being taught, even yawning occasionally.

“Blue, as your friend, I can’t help but worrying that your attitude towards learning has a small problem; this training camp is full of precious opportunities, and every second should be treasured. Plus, the teacher’s words are interesting, shouldn’t you concentrate a bit more?”

Blue had already learned this back when he was 12 years old, so to listen to the same dull words again was a taxing ordeal. He smiled back at Fang. “Ah, I didn’t sleep that well last night, so I’m really tired, sorry.”

Feeling pity, Fang said, “I’ll hand over these notes at the end of the day for you.”

Depressed, Blue sunk into his chair. Yesterday it was an old guy preaching on and on, and today, it was another old guy preaching on and on. No one dared to lecture me other than my grandfather! But today, he had to play his role out, so he painfully held out.

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Finally, the classes ended for the day, and after having dinner at the cafeteria, Blue couldn’t wait.

“Fang, let’s go to the energy tower!”

An energy tower was a building constructed to help with the development of energy – from various expensive magical materials, it absorbed the energy from the environment into an area of high density. However, these magical materials easily wore out, so it was quite a luxury to build one and keep it up.

The benefits could be considered to be huge though. Just by seeing the differences between the youths from the small cities and the large cities, it would be a fact that hard work couldn’t always win against money.

In Victoria City, even if both martial arts families contributed their entire wealth together, it wouldn’t be enough to construct an energy tower. But at this training camp, such a building was available for all members to meditate in for an hour. However, each element had a specific time span where that energy would be specifically concentrated; this was mostly in the morning and afternoons, with some rare elements having that time best at night.

Fang had tried earlier to get in, but the tower was packed, and he didn’t want to waste time waiting for room to free up. Since Blue brought up the idea again though, Fang stood up. “Yeah, let’s go.”

They came in front of the tower as a few people left, but it seemed that it was still busy. After a couple more people came out of the tower, the overseeing administrator waved towards Fang and Blue, ushering them in.

Although this tower was already staggering high at a height of 50 meters, the building that Blue usually trained at was much taller, constructed with rarer materials found in places where dangerous beasts lurked. Plus, there was no time limit when he trained, so he didn’t feel like it was worth his time to train in here.

Naturally, he had different intention being in this tower.

“Fang, can I be in the same room as you?”

Speechless, Fang stared at Blue. “No, we won’t be in the same room!”

“But near you, I feel more at ease, Fang,” Blue said, watching Fang with upturned, delicate eyes. “In a different environment like this, I feel very helpless, anxious, nervous, and this practice is really important, I beg you, I promise I won’t bother you.”

“Okay, okay, but not in the same room, move to a separate room nearby!” Fang replied, embarrassed. He couldn’t help but say yes, after all, this was only the first day.

Before walking into his room, Fang added, “Next time, don’t plead like that Blue, we’re two grown men and it feels really disturbing!”

Blue couldn’t help but feel a headache coming; when I talked to the men of the same age, they’d grow so excited that they couldn’t sleep for days, but now, I’m being asked to shut up?

Damn you Fang, I want you kneeling on the ground!

--- --- ---

The two people entered two adjacent rooms, and Fang began to practice the endless method, absorbing as much energy as possible in the short hour.

Next to his room, Blue sat chuckling to himself, an evil smile on his face.

Brilliant colors lit up the room as energy flowed out from Blue’s body, at least two meters thick with an increasing pressure in the air.

Advanced level!

Fang would have never guessed, his roommate had already reached the advanced rank!

As for the element it was – the colors were all mixed together, partly blue resembling water, translucent like the wind, and other colors wavering throughout.

Just by judging from the colors, Blue’s energy element, was actually composed of seven different elements!