Chapter 4 – Proofread by FireFistasce

#Author Notes: Please leave reviews of what you think – I'd rather have constructive feedback with written text than five stars or 0,5 stars without. If there is anything you might wonder, don't hesitate to send me a pm or comment below.

Mornings in the Stoneridge woodlands were often very chaotic. Elemental beasts fought with each other as much as they fought with cultivators and only in the caves of extremely powerful elemental beasts, who no one was willing to enrage, was peace and quiet. One such cave was where the tiger who Michael regarded as his father had passed away.

The young man sat in the cave by the corpse of the old tiger in silence. He had long ago stopped crying and was now waiting for something that would never happen. He looked at the old tiger, who lay there without moving, and reminisced about his childhood with him. Those were some really good times. If only he could turn back time...

After a while, he stood up and walked over, dragging the corpse out of the cave. He went in again, and began to dig a pit in the cave. The least he could do was to give the one who had raised him a proper funeral. He dragged the tiger inside and gently laid him inside the pit. The lingering aura would keep other beasts away for several years. By the time other elemental beasts would dare to intrude, there would be no trace of the old tiger left. His body would be forever buried under the ground until it decays.

Michael left the cave after covering the pit again. He had lived far too easy-going all these years. As the old tiger said, if he wanted to change the world, he needed to guide the people and also have the power to match that status of a leader. The power he pursued was not the power of killing nor absolute strength. He needed to grow the bonds of friendship and love and cause waves large enough to overturn the land, a clean slate to build a new foundation on. One step at the time, he had to change the view and perspectives of others.

And the first person he would change was none other than the second ranked disciple of the sect, the disciple regarded as the most barbaric and blood-craving, sadistic bastard in the sect. Countless of female women had fallen in his grasp and his reputation was just as bad as Michael, whose reputation of being a “useless” cultivator even though his strength was unmatched. Rector had lost the battle in the arena of the yearly disciple competition and so from now on had become Michael’s slave.

The sect headquarters were split into three four areas. The outer area, the inner area, the core area, and the heart area– each representing who lived where. The first three were self-explanatory and the fourth was where the patriarch and elders resided.

Michael walked through the headquarters until he arrived at the core area. There were thirty-six abodes all very well-made here, several hundred years old and inhabited by countless of core disciples over the years. Since the style of the sect was old-fashioned, the abodes had been built in the form of cottages with the sturdy iron-bark wood that could be found across the Stoneridge woodlands in abundant amounts. Each of the cottages contained an aura diagram that drew life energy from the surroundings in small amounts. It helped the core disciples become more attuned to their aura and was a privilege only core and upward had.

Because of the aura diagram, the core disciples would often remain in their abodes unless they took a quest from the sect’s official quest board. That was why he had come here. Not for his own abode, but for the abode of Rector.

“Rector.” Michael shouted, amplifying his voice with aura. The door soon opened, and the face which so many in the clan feared appeared. Rector’s black hair was messy and his eyes were gloomy. As he saw the familiar figure after opening the door, they turned even darker.

“You disappeared after the competition. Or I would have gone to pay my respects.” Rector said and bowed. It was a common occurrence as well as law for slaves to pay their respects to their masters and follow them everywhere from there on.

“Stop.” Michael said, a smug smile on his face. “I don’t want you to be my slave. Or rather, I want to be your friend.”

“You want to befriend your slave?” Rector said coolly.

“If you just stopped walking the killing path this could have gone much easier.” Michael replied without batting an eye toward the black-haired man’s attitude.

“So you mean if I stop killing now I can go free?”

“Why? Are you ready to give it up?”

“No,” Rector told him straight up. “My path is the true path. I will never give it up.”

Michael shook his head. “Then I can’t let you go,” he said.

“Right, I didn’t thi–”

“But–” he cut him off. “I can give you another way out.”

“And that would be?” Rector asked lazily.

“Follow me on a quest,” Michael said. “If I can change your way of thinking by the time the quest is over, it will be to my benefit. If I can’t, then that’s it. I’ll officially release you.”

“A quest?” the black-haired man asked in confirmation.

Michael nodded.

“You mean to say... I will only have to help you with a quest, and then you'll release me?”

“As you said. One quest only.” Michael said.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Well, If you abandon the killing path directly–”

Rector interrupted Michael with a deep sigh. “When do we set off?”

“Today,” Michael replied while sighing. “Let's meet in an hour in the heart. There are some things we'll have to sort out with the patriarch and elders first.”

“Is the quest that big?” Rector lowered his brows.

“If I tell you now, it won't be a surprise, will it?”

“Bastard....” the black-haired man cursed. “Do you mind giving me some peace until then? I have some things I need to sort out and some stress to relieve.”

“If you use force, I will never relea–”

“Shut up, I got enough charm to bed one or two without force. Now get the hell out of my abode!”

Michael nodded and turned around to walk away. Just before he left, he gave the black-haired man a gentle reminder. “By the way, the next time you interrupt me like that, I’ll seal your aura.”

As Rector heard what he said, he felt a chill in his heart. It was indeed possible to seal someone’s aura, but that technique was long-lost and hadn’t been used in the martial world for hundreds of years.

“Hmpf. Don’t think you’re some big shot just because you defeated me. Not even those peak experts that stand on top of the martial world can seal someone’s aura.” Rector snorted and slammed the door shut so hard that the abode shook and the fibers of the door almost tore apart.

“Well, I can’t have it against you for not believing me.” Michael mused to himself as he made way to the market. He bought fruits and nuts and vegetables in heaps with his reputation points from doing a couple of quests that demanded no killing as well as the points for winning the yearly disciple competition six years in a row before heading back to the little groove. He stockpiled the food in a cave (not the one where the big tiger died) and called out the animals. He told them in the beast tongue that he was going away for a while and that this was food that they could eat in the meantime.

After doing all the necessary preparation, the young man took a stroll in the Stoneridge mountains. He deliberately let his aura flow out. Feeling his holy and pure life force, no elemental beast tried to attack him. There was a few disciples who struggled to escape after enraging an elemental beast. As he was their senior, he held back the beast so that they could escape. He apologized to the beast and gave it a bit of food before leaving for the sect.

Michael knocked Rector’s door for the second time today. It was already afternoon and the sun scorched his skin. He was used being bare in front of the sun since he was a child living in the Stoneridge woodlands with the old tiger, so with clothes it wasn’t worth mentioning.

As the familiar gloomy face appeared after the door opened, Michael revealed a large smile, showing his dazzling row of white teeth. “Ready?”