Flavius had spent the past few days mostly training on his own. He had made sure that his mother was now fine. She had joined the special police force that Jacob had set up along all the other women who had suffered from the despicable acts in Blacksoil.

Flavius had sworn to himself that the he would rather die than let those things happen ever again.

And to do that, he needed to become strong.

He had reached the 8th level of the Cockroach Realm but he was still lagging behind the rest of the most talented people. He had started very late, one month after anyone else.

Jacob had told him that eventually that gap would become meaningless. Everyone would start to stagnate around the 5th Realm if what Jacob had said was true.

But right now, every Realm was a race for power and being forced to bed for a month had been enough rest for Flavius. He had never had great plans and devices for his own life, but you needed insane strength in this world to make sure you wouldn’t suffer.

If people had been oppressed before by monetary concerns and differences, nothing resembled the chaos that was going on at the moment. And Flavius was more than aware that the only reason St. Peter wasn’t engulfed in chaos was the iron-grip Jacob had on everyone.

His mother had been one of the last to agree to join the police force, but even she had been moved by his master. And every single woman in the police force had to sign what Flavius’s master had called a “Soul Contract”, a special agreement that would apparently kill you in a miserable way if you went back on your word.

So, Jacob had mustered a force capable of dealing with internal problems while making such force incorruptible. That had to be something, right?

Flavius didn’t like the idea of a Soul Contract, but he had to reevaluate Jacob’s ways after seeing just how sloppy the Vermillion Tyrant had been. The matter of Cultivation Techniques being spread willy-nilly had now infuriated more than one person among the common population.

Flavius wondered how they would solve it, indeed. It was going to turn ugly for someone, for sure; it was just a matter of who that someone would be.

Anyway, Flavius went back to his own problems in the domain of cultivation. The Yin-Yang Cultivation Technique was a truly interesting piece of work, Flavius had to admit.

When he started cultivating, he had not realized how his own insights would be fundamental to advance. But Jacob, his master, had told him many times, over and over, to pay attention to the details, to what the Cultivation Technique was telling him.

Cultivation Techniques such as the one he had received were incredibly profound. And even if Flavius didn’t like the idea of having to follow instructions at every node, he had to yet understand what he was working with.

Jacob had told him to start meditating on the balance of things, to ponder what that meant and put it into his own words.

Flavius, to be honest, had not understood one word of what Jacob meant. And not because he was stupid, no—Flavius had always been bright. However, the idea of just sitting around and meditating about a concept was something truly foreign to him.

How could he just sit there and do what? Think?

How could thinking be training?

He grumbled and shifted his attention his attention to the Martial Style he had received. Unsurprisingly, it carried the same name of his Cultivation Technique—the Yin-Yang Martial Style.

And right when he wanted to try and think about the balance stuff, Flavius saw a woman approach him in the huge patch of bare ground that had become St. Peter’s training grounds.

“Juliet?” Flavius eyes sparkled.

She looked at him non-plussed and simply asked: “News from Jacob?”

“Oh, not really. He told me he would be busy doing complex Alchemy in the Alchemical Garden. So…”

Flavius gave her a shrug.

“Well, noted,” Juliet did a U-turn and started leaving.

“Oh, wait!”

Man, what are you doing, Flavius. Come on, she’s sixteen!

“Yes?” she asked.

“Uh, I was wondering if you could show me some moves—sparring I meant, if you could help me because I still have not really found my footing with my Martial Style.”

Juliet looked around, maybe to see if someone else could have taken the job instead of her. But to Flavius’s great joy, she accepted.

“Let’s see what you got,” the girl said, suddenly dropping into a weird fighting stance.

“Uhm, well, I—”

The next second, Flavius was laying down on the ground with a possibly broken nose.

The fact that you like her even more now really makes you a pervert, Flavius, his conscience whispered to him.

“Woah,” Juliet pitched in, “that was bad. Why didn’t you dodge? I threw a very slow punch. Even with a Realm difference, you should have still caught it.”

Flavius started to get up, trying not to cry from the pain on his nose.

I mean she could have tried to punch my stomach, instead of my nose, couldn’t she?

Juliet looked intensely at the blonde young man in front of him and told him: “You suck.”

“Thanks,” he smiled regretfully. “I started late and—”

“No, you suck. I could have punched you to death three days in the apocalypse, with a few levels less than you. I think you even closed your eyes when I punched you. That’s something we should work on. Have you already sparred with Jacob?”

“Yeah, he—”

“And he still kept you as his disciple?” Juliet seemed impress, “you must be really funny or something.”

Flavius scratched his head, shrugged, and replied: “I hope so?”