Chapter 82. Roar!

“Roar!”

Clang clang clang!

“FORMATION, FORMATION, IT’S INJURED! SURROUND AND KILL IT DON’T LET IT GET AWAY!

The sounds of beasts and armored soldiers could be heard attacking one another directly below the four trainees hovering in the air.

They opened their eyes when they heard loud shouting coming from the ground. They were roughly 20 meters in the air the moment they stopped to a hover. Directly below them was an enormous tiger-like creature 10 meters long. It was three times bigger than any known tiger in existence, it was even bigger than most elephants.

Boss casually appeared beside the four as he looked down at the creature and spoke up. “That there is what’s happening in the Tillowisk Empire currently. Animals you once knew will become massively large as the energy from the dispersal seeps into their body.”

“H-how big are they going to get?” Seth stuttered to ask. It was him and his friends who were planning on going to the Tillowisk Empire to get the meat from these kinds of creatures.

“Mmm, bigger.” Boss vaguely replied. He continued to say. “Don’t be surprised to find ones twice that size in a few years as the energy around the world becomes more abundant.”

The surprise in everyone’s eyes was apparent as they looked down below. Hundreds of men dressed in metal suit of armor all barely up to the kneecap of the tiger was surrounding it and attacking at all angles with various types of weaponry in their hands.

“I’m only showing you four this right now since three of you guys will be going in that direction. Luckily for Shelly, Arthur and I we’ll be in the comfort of an institution protected by Teachers ahaha.” Boss laughed at the extremely panicked faces of Seth, Micahel and Julie.

“They’re just big for now, they’re not that strong yet.” Boss answered as the hundred men charged at the injured tiger-like creature below. “Believe it or not every single one of those men are normal human beings. It’ll take at least a hundred of them to deal with that thing right now. Oh look!” Boss pointed at the creature below “see it is dead.”

“Yeah!!!” The men cheers roared into the skies, vibrating the ground beneath as they rushed up and started cutting up the large body of the tiger.

“Wh-what are they doing?” Julie stuttered to ask.

“Hm? Can’t you see? They’re cutting it up. They’re going to eat it. Even though most of the energy will be lost in the cooking process, it’s still beneficial for one if they want to find their inner energy.” Boss answered.

“Anyways, this is just a teaser for what’s to come, luckily for us we still have time until the world’s evolution. Once the world completes its evolution, the animal kings will start to show themselves, oh man those things will make everyone you’ve ever seen look like immature babies. Ahahaha” Boss laughed as the four of them descended straight down. Boss casually stretched his arm out and plucked an enormous chunk of the tiger before teleporting back to the festival grounds.

At the festival grounds, a floating chunk of meat as large as an average king-sized bed floated up in the air. Boss slowly squeezed his hands together as the enormous meat began to compress, becoming smaller and smaller until only five tiny condensed energy marbles remained.

“Th-those are!” Seth exclaimed as he looked at what was in Boss’ palm.

“Complete the last training with Arthur and each of you will get one.” Boss replied. “However, if even one of you fail, you all won’t get any.”

“What are they?” Michael asked as he curiously looked at the marbles in Boss’ hands. As he observed the round marbles in Boss’ hands he could not believe that just a second ago a chunk of the tiger turned into these little things.

“These are condensed energy marbles, energy pills, or whatever I want to call it. They’re purified condensed energy extracted and solidified into a physical shape from that flesh of the creature for your consumption. One of these can improve your chances of finding your inner energy even if your affinity to the world’s energy is mediocre.” Boss answered.

The trainees looked at Boss in confusion.

“What do you mean our affinity to the world’s energy?” Seth asked.

Boss sat down and calmly answered. “Affinity to the world’s energy is exactly that, how well tuned in are you to the world, how fast you can absorb the energy of it and become a tiered person. Take for example, Gran’s family, everyone there is either an Orthodox power user like Gran or an Exotic like Roselyn. Did you not find it weird that Boulder at the age of 12 is already a Tier 1 whereas you, Seth is still struggling?”

“Are-are you telling me that I’m just borne unlucky?” Seth asked.

“No, you’re just less talented than he is.” Boss bluntly replied. He continued to say “However, this past month of training you’ve noticed that your ability to manipulate energy has become better right? That is due to your constant exposure to energy, every day you had to fight one of those three in their tests. Whether it is landing one blow on Cobble, catching Pebble, or being thrown around by Gran each day of exposure is slowly adapting your body to being able to sense energy.”

“How come most students who go to school are not able to become Tier 1 then? Aren’t they constantly exposed to energy from their teacher?” Julie asked.

Boss looked at Julie and asked. “Are you using your abilities right now?”

Julie shook her head.

“If you’re not using it, how are people going to be exposed to it?” Boss asked again. He turned to Seth and asked. “Tell me, besides demonstrating what they could do, have you ever seen a Teacher use their energy as much as Gran does to you guys on a daily basis?”

Seth instantly shook his head. “Never, our teachers believe that we have to find it for ourselves, and they’re only there to teach us how to find it.”

Boss nodded his head. “It is precisely that reason there, that each new generation of kids are less likely to find their inner energy. No knowledge in the world can help you if you’ve never been exposed to it, right?” He continued to say. “Well I can’t entirely blame them for their way of teaching. From what I’ve read your world once had an abundance of energy, however that energy diminished overtime which resulted what was once a useful way of training to become useless.”

Boss then shows them the five energy pills in his hands. “These helps supplement the energy that you lack. With a few of these plus constant training, it will not be surprising to make you all stronger than your wildest dreams.”

The hopeful looks on the four faces were dashed away completely as Boss continued to say. “Don’t expect me to give you these all the time because that is cheating and Samuel chose the hard route—I mean you’ll have to face hardships and survive countless encounters for me to even give you one.”

“Anyways, your last training is simple. Enter Arthur’s portal, and pace yourself until it is time for meditation tonight.”

The four of them looked at Arthur’s portal, it was still the same, Arthur was just facing off against two tiny green robed kids. One kid will rush at Arthur from one direction and attack, telling Arthur what to do in the process. After the first one was done with their attack pattern, the second one will follow right after, leaving Arthur barely any time to rest and recover.

To the four of them it looked like a simple exercise where they just had to follow orders. Seth was especially excited about it and exclaimed “Don’t lie about it now!” as he ran in without hesitation.

Michael and Julie looked at each other and nodded their heads. They walked inside the portal together.

Shelly calmly looked over at Boss who was smiling at her. The smile on his face felt like that of a swindler as if he has no intention of giving those marbles over to them.

“Go, go~” Boss shooed the girl who was quietly observing him.

Shelly slowly walked into the portal.

“Let’s speed things up now.” Boss smiled as he looked inside.

The two green robed kids that was once fighting Arthur turned into four. Everyone else was also fighting against four immediately upon entering.

“Let’s see…five hours in here, one every ten minutes. Let’s see if you can deal with 34 kids with different attack patterns. Ahaha!” Boss laughed at the portal. Alas, his loud laughter was still in vain as none of them could hear him the moment he entered. “No need to watch this mess, they’ll exit if it’s too much…I’m gonna go nap.”

Five hours later Boss woke up from his nap and scanned the surrounding. “The heck? No one went out. Are they inside?” Boss muttered to himself as he slowly walked over to the portal. He gazed inside only to see all five of the trainees running away from a mob of 170 little green robed kids.

“The heck!? They chose to run out the time by running away!?” Boss instantly barged into the portal resulting in all 170 robed kids to halt in place. “Boss!” They all exclaimed in Arthur’s voice.

“Yo-you-you!” Boss pointed at the five trainees in an exasperated manner. “Why are you running away from them!? Fight them! It’s good training! If you lived from this you would be able to fight against anything!”

Shelly walked up to Boss and looked him in the eye. “Boss, they’re too much.”

“Too much!? TOO MUCH!?”

The five trainees nodded their head to Boss’ outburst.

“But you just needed to dodge each of their attacks one by one!” Boss exclaimed. “How is that too much?”

The five of them gave Boss a weird look. “They didn’t do that.” Michael spoke up in reply. He walked over and looked down at Boss who was confused at his response. “They charged us all at once. All. Of. Them.”

“You charged at all of them!?” Boss exclaimed at the 170 little green robed kids.

“We-we wanted to win!” The little green robed protested. “They were able to dodge us if we attacked them one at a time! After little 15 showed up we gave up on going in one by one, we had to charge!”

“Charge!” The other 169 green robed kids exclaimed.

“You see?” Michael rolled his eyes at Boss. “If you were paying attention you would have noticed that they all started charging us almost three hours ago, we had no choice but to run away.”

Sigh

Boss looked over to the 170 green robed kids and then back at the five trainees. “Alright, 1 more hour. This time I’ll watch.”

Boss waved his hands, causing all 170 little green robed kids to disappear. He then looked over to the five trainees. “One more hour, and your opponents will be these.”

“Oh boy is it us?” Philip Syx appeared beside Boss and asked.

“No.” Boss replied and shooed him away. “It’ll be these guys.” Boss answered as five exact lookalikes appeared before the trainees.

The appearance of these five stunned the trainees completely as they walked over and examined their lookalike.

“Call me cliché, I know, a training against yourself, but I’ve learned that it’s actually the best form of training to know of what you lack the most. I think I’ll have them train with you annually for you to see how much you’ve improved every year. Today will mark your beginning. Show them what you can do.” Boss stated.

“Oh, you can fight now.” Boss added

The moment he said that the five copies all started their assault on the originals.

“This’ll be interesting.” Philip Syx walked over to Boss and sat down beside him. “You’re going to beat the trainees up or let them win?”

“We’ll beat them up.” Boss smiled in reply as he watched the tragedy that befell the trainees start to occur.

Immediately Julie’s copies froze her completely in place, she couldn’t even move as the trainee rushed at her and battered her with a barrage of attacks.

A seraphim with eight wings emerged behind Arthur’s copy causing Arthur to stare at it in fright, it was the exact same one he had seen in his nightmares. He couldn’t believe he was seeing it before his eyes. The seraphim slowly walked over to Arthur who fell onto his butt.

Shelly calmly stared at the copy of herself. Both of them did not budge as they gauged each other. Eventually, the copy ran up to her with the first attack.

Bam bam bam!

Both little girls traded blows and dodged whatever they could, the agility they displayed was beyond that of a normal 10 year old.

If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone else was focused on their own fight to look over, they would be shocked and awed by the sight.

“What do you think, Syx?” Boss asked the robe figure beside him.

“They’re so weak.” Syx answered honestly. “Only Shelly seems like she’ll be able to keep up with the dispersal.”

Boss leaned back and casually observed the five trainees train against their counterpart. “I think the other four has potential.”

Syx looked over at Boss and then back to the battle. “Everyone has potential, but Shelly is the only one I can picture surviving. That is…without us around.”

“Then it’s good that we won’t go anywhere, right?” Boss laid down and looked up at the clouds in the skies.

Philip Syx did the same and looked up watching the clouds. “It feels pretty good to be early for once.”

“Yeah…” Boss smiled and gently closed his eyes. He recalled all the planets he’s visited in his lifetime. “It’s good to take a break every few hundred years in hopes to see miracles like this.”

Syx looked over at the completely relaxed Boss and spoke up. “You know, you’re a bit too relaxed right now, is an evolving planet really a miracle?”

“Shut up, you’re just something I created, why’re you questioning me?” Boss retorted.

“Cause I was made this way.” Philip Syx replied. “Don’t forget, we’re not the only peak existence in this universe there’s still others who are roaming around looking for planets like these… if these inhabitants have prophecies about apostles, it could be us or another existence.”

“Peak? Not even close.” Boss replied. He continued to say, “It’s fine, she should be watching over me, I doubt she would let me die.”

“But, if you do die, she’ll be the next King, everyone will be at her command.

“As if they aren’t at her command already. She can have that title if she wants, I’d rather be a drifter anyways.”

“Ahaha.” Syx laughed in response.

The hour between copies and originals ended as expected. A one-sided beatdown as Boss continued to ramp up the powers of the copies. He wanted to show each of them what they could do with and without their powers. Seth and Michael were destroyed by pure martial arts technique. Showing them what absolute monsters they could become.

Arthur and Julie were given a glimpse of how powerful their powers could be at just the lowest Tier.

Boss knew Shelly didn’t want to reveal anything about herself, so he allowed for the fight between her and the copy to be purely physical and technical. The two white haired 10 ½ year old girls fought against each other purely with their hands and legs.

To Boss’ amusement Shelly’s ability to remember everything she’s seen even worked in terms of fighting as early on she quickly grasped the movements of her copy and replicated it. The copy and the original swapped places as Shelly quickly adapted to all the martial moves presented to her within the hour. Alas, a copy with near unlimited energy will always triumph over an original who, while talented is still only mortal.

“Not bad.” Boss remarked as he gazed at the trainees who was covered in bruises. “This was my final training for you kids.” Boss said in a childish voice. “Once we’re in Asmar you’re free to relax and do whatever you want. Let’s go back now.”

The five trainees smiled and weakly nodded their heads before collapsing completely on the ground. They were too exhausted to even say a single word as Boss’ training pushed each of them to their limits.

Boss sighed and teleported them all back to the Inn. He pulled out the five energy pills and placed one in each of their mouth. the energy within the pill exploded and embraced their entire body in veil of light as it became one with their body.

Immediately, the bruises on their body can be seen fading with the naked eye as their face once completely exhausted became vibrant with vitality.

Another two hours passed by before everyone woke up at the same time. To their surprise they felt completely refreshed and energized as they turned to look at each other. A gasp could be heard coming from Julie amazed at how flawless everyone’s skins looked, even the scar on Seth’s face made him look more handsome.

“Woah…what happened to us?” Seth asked.

“Boss gave us the energy pills.” Shelly answered. She then turned her head towards the clock on the wall.

Michael looked at the time and exclaimed “Crap! We’re going to be late!”

“Quickly!” Julie exclaimed as they all rushed out of the door.