Mr. Flanigan slowly released a large breath out of his nose as he let go, letting Kezner down. His golden eyes penetrated straight into Kezner as he tried to figure him out, Kezner gave him an uncomfortable feeling in his gut, one that brought back all of the negative memories in his life, memories that had rarely ever seen the light of day. Mr. Flanigan hated this feeling, so he always kept his guard up around him. Kezner could barely hold on in this staring contest, but wasn’t going to relent, so he used Inversion, inverting the colors of his eyes.

Mr. Bancroft felt the tension surrounding Mr. Flanigan and Kezner, he decided to step in while keeping what they saw in mind, “Alright you two, forget the question, I don’t even care about what happened on this planet.”

Mr. Flanigan knew the underlying meaning behind Mr. Bancroft’s statement, so he decided to pull back first, but decided to give Kezner a piece of advice as he turned his head to the side, “Keep using that and you’ll die without a burial.”

The two frowned in confusion, they didn’t know how he came to that conclusion but decided to ignore it for now, while Kezner had a feeling he understood it on a subconscious scale.

“I think that’s enough punishment for today, but starting tomorrow, you’ll meet up with one of us in either the homeroom or the gym for a few hours after school and we’ll teach you what we can before you’re sent off to boot camp, get it?” Mr. Bancroft announced.

“But I have to look after the shop since my master is gone, and I have to be at my home before 8 o’clock, so I honestly can’t.” Kezner explained reluctantly. He honestly didn’t want to be privately mentored by these maniacs, but what choice did he have? He was just stabbed by one of them and tossed around earlier by another, the school and government didn’t dare to help him if they learned their statuses. Kezner could only cry injustice in his heart.

“Oh right, the old guy left us a message through his lackey for you this morning about what to do now that he’s gone. His lackey even warned us that if we opened it, we would be hunted down to the ends of the universe, so it must be some pretty serious task” Mr. Bancroft’s eyes lit up as he remembered his other task, while taking out an envelope out of his coat pocket.

Handing it to Kezner, Kezner was still somewhat apprehensive when interacting with this odd trio, so he made an effort to grab the envelope from the edge, trying to distance his hand from Mr. Bancroft’s. Mr. Bancroft didn’t take offense to Kezner’s somewhat timid approach, and only revealed a slight smug smile. He had made himself dominant in Kezner’s subconscious.

Holding the envelope, Kezner was surprised at the weight of it, it seemed like there was a dense object in there. He gently undid the envelope, making sure he didn’t accidentally rip it, he wanted to keep it in pristine condition in case he had to reread it. This second letter read;

“Hey kiddo, I know that the other letter from yesterday was pretty abrupt, but I wrote it in the heat of the moment, so I didn’t really explain much. Now that I thought over what I want to say, I want to clear a few things up.

I want to start off by warning you about your ability again. I know a thing or two about your ability, but not much, just don’t ask how. From what I can see, your body is very slowly deteriorating, but it’s started picking up some speed. Unless you learn the ins-and-outs of your ability and how to control it, it will slowly eat you from the inside. This isn’t a laughing matter, you could die in a few months if this keeps up. Although you’re not feeling any major symptoms now, when you do see them, they’re gonna hit like a truck. I need you to understand that you have about a month before you’re bed ridden and unable to cultivate, once that happens, you’ll be guaranteed a slow painful death. That ability of yours has the properties of decay, and there seems to be a severe backlash for using it. Therefore, you must advance in your cultivation as fast as possible and you must get a profound understanding of your ability, if you fail to do so, you’ll die, I can’t stress this enough.

I also want to give you another warning, while I’m at it. The invasion of the Delaka is faster than I or anyone else had expected, it appears they’re using the major wormhole routes to pierce through our defenses at the edge of the galaxy. From the looks of it, they’re trying to attack and consolidate themselves on the edge of the Norma Arm, close to the major wormhole. In other words, the Dominion’s back is going to get hit hard, so you should brace for impact. Expect to be thrown in the frontlines as an infantryman, most likely as cannon fodder, good luck with that.

As for the shop, it’s yours, you can open it up for business, or it can be for personal use, just don’t destroy the place. I left some materials you could work with, and the bills are obviously being paid. You don’t have to worry about the place after the war starts, I wasn’t joking when I said that it was insured by the Galactic Bank, those bastards have been overcharging the insurance payments on purpose for a while now, but it’s gonna be difficult to get the money under my name after that whole scandal with the governor.

From what I understand, that damn governor tried to track me down to pull me to her side, and was stupid enough to use the intelligence network of the star cluster. When you get to the store today, expect there to be news reporters, just remember this one thing; deny, deny, deny. You didn’t know anything, you don’t know anything, and you won’t know anything.

I’m guessing the three bastards at least warned you that much. Speaking of which, I left them here to train you in my absence. Honestly, I wanted to do it myself, but I had plans to leave even before this whole war debacle started. Though it’s quite saddening, I believe at some point we’ll be able to make it out alive, that is if you survive.

Finally, I left you one more piece of my inheritance. What you could make of it, is up to you.

Well, this is goodbye, goodbye for now at least.”

“Good luck my ass!” Kezner could only mentally curse as he finished reading the letter. Kezner didn’t really mean what he thought, he was just frustrated, anyone would be if they were told that they would be almost guaranteed to die in a few months. Kezner had to plug up two holes, his ability and his cultivation. He had to be able to put a leash on his ability, and he had to gain enough strength to rise through the ranks of the military to get out of the frontlines. After the arrival of Mr. Cayne, Mr. Flanigan, and Mr. Bancroft, Kezner had no doubt that his master was someone of high standing, and was a very knowledgeable person with deep connections to the government, so if his master said that his ability was slowly killing him, he wouldn’t doubt it.

After fully processing the contents of the letter, Kezner took out the object left in the envelope. When he first touched it before taking it out, he felt that it was ice cold to the touch with a smooth glass-like texture. As he pulled it out, he saw that the item was a shiny black crystal in the shape of an octahedron the size a few inches large. As if it knew Kezner automatically, the black crystal reacted when the second he let it lay on his palm. Completely taking it out of the envelope he realized that there was a gray chain indirectly connected to it, as wherever he moved the crystal the chain would follow, leading him to believe it was a pendant.

The other three looked over and were quite curious. Even though they weren’t allowed to read the letter, they couldn’t see through what this crystal was. When Mr. Flanigan and Mr. Bancroft tried using their energies to sense if there was anything dormant inside of it, only to feel a pure, untapped presence. Kezner was too weak to be able to know what they were doing, but the other two wore solemn expressions as they looked at each other.

Deciding to wear the black pendant, only due to the fact there was a gray chain, Kezner felt a slight resonance to it, a feeling of attachment and comfort. He couldn’t explain how this feeling welled up inside him, all he could say was that he wasn’t going to be rid of this pendant anytime soon.

As the pitch black, slightly translucent crystal made contact with Kezner’s chest, it revealed a bright black light. It… it didn’t make any sense, this light made one feel a sense of helplessness as they looked at it, as if their own life wasn’t in their control, as if they could only kneel and beg for forgiveness. This crystal wasn’t simple. You couldn’t really explain the brightness of a black light, but it was enough to blind everyone in the gym for a few seconds, forcing all four of them to turn their heads as they squeezed their eyes shut in an involuntary response. Once the light was gone, the three teachers looked back at Kezner while Kezner could only blink in confusion.

Nothing really happened, Kezner didn’t feel anything new, he didn’t undergo any noticeable transformation, leaving him even more perplexed as to what in god’s name this crystal did. The other three were just as curious but didn’t dare interact with it unless they were courting death. Initially, the weak Mr. Cayne wanted to go up to mess around with it, but was stopped by the other two.

It should be stated that Mr. Cayne, though he had a sharp tongue and mind, rarely ever cultivated, only reaching the Ninth Foundational Stage, so he wasn’t able to detect the extreme nature of the crystal like the other two. After noticing Kezner’s confused expression, he wasn’t able to completely control himself, as he had never seen such a thing before. He was a man that once had access to the Dominion’s deepest and most hidden scientific research and findings, there was rarely anything that could be shown to him in the Dominion that could peak his curiosity as much as this.

As he walked towards Kezner and stood in front of him, he hurriedly reached his hand towards the crystal. However, as soon as his hand almost touched it, a black mist emanated from it. For some reason the mist seemed even more malevolent and aggressive than the one that came out of Kezner earlier, it was out for blood.

Mr. Flanigan and Mr. Bancroft were watching from the side, but Mr. Flanigan noticed the mist first as his pupils turned golden almost instantly. His heart dropped as he almost instantly reached Mr. Cayne in a burst of speed, tackling Mr. Cayne to the side. He hastily reached out his index and middle fingers a few centimeters away from the bloodthirsty black mist, releasing a bolt of gold lightning. At this point, he didn’t care about the stupid black crystal, he cared more about stopping that black mist. If anything happened to Mr. Cayne under their supervision, the old guy would give them hell.

When the gold lightning and black mist touched each other, it released enough force to push everyone back to a different wall. Kezner’s back slammed against the wall he was originally thrown against, while the three teachers took separate walls. To push back to powerful geezers with that much force… this crystal wasn’t simple at all.

As everyone coughed and brushed themselves off, they met back up in the center of the gym. The three teachers held frowns on their faces as they stared at the shiny black crystal dangling on Kezner’s chest while Kezner was secretly happy that he finally taught these bastards a lesson, they would have to think twice before laying hands on him again.

“Fine, you can leave now, just remember what we told you, you meet up with one of us after school in either the homeroom or gym, we’ll give you a schedule tomorrow.” Mr. Bancroft concluded as he quickly shooed Kezner away, seemingly eager to get away from this freak of nature.

Kezner was more than happy to escape the palms of these three old maniacs as he grabbed his bookbag and sprinted towards the exit. The three old fogeys looked at his receding back in slight horror. After hearing the loud gym doors shut, two of them looked towards Mr. Flanigan in anticipation. The two of them knew he knew something about this freak and they wanted answers.

Mr. Flanigan sighed in relief as he put his stern mask back on his face while looking to the other two. After shutting his eyes for a few seconds to clear his thoughts, he finally decided to speak, “That kid’s property is death.”

It was if they were hit by the wrath of the heavens as they heard and understood what Mr. Flanigan dared to say. They both knew that he was right in the back of their heads but didn’t think it was possible as Mr. Cayne asked, “Wait, th-that isn’t possible, Universal Laws don’t hold any power to death, so how can he have it?

“I don’t know, but all day I’ve been smelling death off of him, after he passed out, the first breath he had was one of the dead, the black mist coming off of him when he was stabbed had the smell of death, and now when the black mist came off of the crystal it was still the smell of death, only more aggressive. I honestly want to deny it, but if he gets provoked enough to self-detonate, half of this planet is a goner, including us.” Mr. Flanigan explained with an expression that was still stern yet with eyes that were still in deep thought.

Mr. Bancroft only gave a slight smile as he limped with his cane to the exit, and spoke without turning around, “Well, I think it’s time for us to leave for the day, one of us is going to start teaching the boy tomorrow. Armiger, I think you’ll deal with him first tomorrow, tell us how it goes. Melchor you’ll get him for two days, then I’ll get him for the last two. Have a good day, you two.”

After the last sentence, all that was heard wasn’t the light tap of the cane against the floor, but the shutting doors of the gym.