The Roamer

Chapter 9: Elites

“This… how did someone like you power up so much in such a short span of time?” asked the announcer, with confusion ringing loud and clear in his voice. He then proceeded to sense the spirit of Aeollus, and was greatly shocked.

When he had fought against the old geezer of an opponent before, the announcer had sensed that Aeollus had developed his first layer when his aura began to overflow the arena, and considered it a good thing since his fights would probably rake in more money.

Now, he was even stronger than yesterday, maybe four fold stronger? He didn’t know how a mere slave could not only have the resources to reach one of the layers, but also become so strong in such a short time once he achieved the layer.

Little did he know that Aeollus was using mantra symbols, which would surely shock him. In reality, mantra symbols had been dropped long ago, and almost nobody used them because of the fact that they were extremely risky. Even with a layer or two, one would feel a stinging pain just from making one, and infusing them into their spirit and body would be even more painful.

For that reason, the announcer did not consider mantra symbols a valid conclusion as to how Aeollus had gotten this strong, as he surely would not have survived mantra symbols that had enough power to make him this strong. Yet, even though he thought that he was right, Aeollus was indeed using mantra.

“I’ll just take my leave and step into my cell…” muttered Aeollus, who was clearly displeased from the looks of the audience and announcer. He realized that he did not like fighting in front of an audience, and that he could probably perform better in a fight with nobody looking.

‘I’ll have to shake off that feeling, as I’ll surely be doing even more battles with a whole audience watching’ Aeollus thought to himself, being displeased with his mentality for becoming uncomfortable from such a thing.

‘I’ll just have to become even more domineering and arrogant with this slave, to show that I’m not going to back down, along with the fact that the slave prison won’t falter in front of him!’ thought the announcer to himself, while preparing to frighten Aeollus terribly from his power.

The announcer suddenly unleashed all his aura, and the whole arena was covered in it. In fact, the aura that was radiating was so strong that most of the audience was vomiting and running, not wanting to stay here for a second longer!

‘This… is he trying to intimidate me?’ Aeollus thought to himself, and a scornful look appeared on his face. He knew that the announcer was stronger than him, but now that he realized that he was also on the first layer, which was the same as him, most of his fear disappeared into nothingness.

Aeollus than realized something else, that the announcer did not have Mantra anywhere in his body when he sensed his soul! ‘He’s either so much more powerful than me that I can’t see or sense his mantra, or he doesn’t have mantra at all. Judging from his aura, he clearly isn’t that much stronger than me, so it must be the latter!’ Aeollus thought in himself, while showing a shocked look.

‘If the announcer reached the first layer and got this strong without mantra, then what did he do to achieve such a level?!’ Aeollus thought to himself, while wondering about the secrets of the announcer.

In reality, he knew mantra was rarely cultivated in this world because the book had told him, but he suspected that there were still many people who did cultivate it, while judging the announcer as one of the people who did. Now that he knew the announcer became so strong without using mantra, he wanted to find out the secret of the announcer and use it for himself!

The announcer whipped him with a gust of wind strong enough to tear down a house, and sent him flying into the cell. This time, he completely smashed through the cell, and the whole thing broke down into rubble.

‘He really is becoming wary of me, so much that he is willing to how all his power to intimidate me!’ Aeollus thought to himself with a pleased expression. This was clearly hinting towards him, sooner or later, overpowering the announcer!

Meanwhile, the announcers face had turned dark since the cell was broken. He had expected to embed Aeollus into the wall, but his body was so sturdy that it didn’t stop at being embedded in the wall, but broke down the whole thing! Above all that, he even stood up from the strike almost immediately, as if it was just a big push that he used on him!

“This… you can not be allowed to live much longer!” roared the announcer, clearly displeased with how this slave was turning out. At this rate of growth, the slave would become a monster in the future if he didn’t put an end to him now!

In reality, Aeollus was more than enough to get into the top ten of the slaves, maybe even taking first place! This child was truly preposterous, as the number one slave in this prison had cultivated for forty years just to become the strongest, moreover in a prison!

Yet, this child came in here and stayed for a few months, and even went as far as developing his first layer, which most wouldn’t do until they were around twenty! He was years ahead of schedule to develop a layer, and he had also somehow powered up the layer to such an extent!

Aeollus realized the meaning of the words that the announcer had spouted, and realized that if he didn’t escape the prison now, he most likely wouldn’t even be able to keep his life if the announcer constantly wanted his life gone!

He immediately transitioned from his peaceful state to a passive, calm state even deeper than before. Before he had formed the first layer, his blood would always be pumping right before he began a fight, and it would pump him up. Now that he looked back on it, doing something like that destroyed his calm headedness during the battle, leading him to making rash decisions.

He began to use the soul infusion technique even stronger than before the battle began, and began to put his body into a liquid like state to begin the flowing water technique, so that he could take the least amount of damage possible.

He ran into the announcer, throwing his body outwards. As expected, the announcer sent out some sort of attack at him, and planned on decimating him. He thoroughly avoided it, and ended up on the other side, with the announcer standing where he was before.

Aeollus noticed something extremely precious in that small amount of time, and that was the change that had come to his flowing water technique. When he passed the announcer in that confrontation, he had noticed many weak spots on him, as if they were always there. They glowed a vibrant red color, which he realized because of the confrontation.

One of the spots seemed to be the announcers lung. ‘Perhaps he has a lung issue going on?’ Aeollus thought to himself, clearly entertaining himself with such thoughts. Aeollus then rushed into the announcer, and threw his spirit infused fist at the announcers lung.

*BANG*

A sound like an explosion came out, surprising the remaining audience. They didn’t know what that sound was, and were scared by it. Only the announcer knew that it was Aeollus breaking through the sound barrier, which was an impressive feat for someone at his age and layer.

The punch collided with the lungs of the announcer, and blood immediately came out of his mouth. He was vomiting blood insanely, and could not believe the sight that came into his view when he looked down. Blood was pouring heavily out of him, and not only from his mouth. It seemed that the punch had left a hole where it had landed, and all his guts seemed to be hanging out like sausages for sale.

He looked up, and realized another fist was coming towards him. Knowing that he couldn’t pull off any advanced maneuver, he just fell to the ground to dodge it. He dodged the attack, but once he hit the ground, he didn’t even have the power to stand up again.

Aeollus leaned down, and began to prepare his soul for the absorption of the announcers soul. He only realized this after the fight with the old geezer, but a soul from a living person was much stronger than the soul of a dead person, hence him preparing to extract the soul before anything happened.

Suddenly, a hazy mist that was somewhat solid came out of the announcers body, and Aeollus immediately knew that he was attempting a soul attack. He inspected the soul to figure out which layer it was from, but was immediately surprised by the result, he couldn’t realize which level it was on!

If someone couldn’t identify which layer or tier the soul was on, it meant that the opposing soul was stronger than your soul by at least a layer!

‘He must have gone to the center part of his soul and got lucky with a second tier attack!’ Aeollus thought to himself, clearly surprised with such an outcome. He knew that the announcer was a first layer human cultivator just like him, so there was no way he could not identify the spirit of any of his attacks unless he got lucky and ended up with a second tier attack from the center of the soul!

Aeollus quickly rushed at it, and threw a spirit infused fist towards it. He planned on destroying it and absorbing his soul, but the next thing he realized was that he could not contest with this thing at all! The hazy mist immediately broke through, and went deep into his soul!

Aeollus delved deep into his soul to try and counter it, but only managed to do so once it reached the mid-layer. All the techniques and attacks he was using were gone, none remaining. Not even the spirit infusion technique, which was second nature to him, was happening anymore.

‘I… relied on my spirit too much’ he thought to himself, clearly disappointed with himself. In his mind, he was a humongous idiot for just relying on his soul. One day, his soul could just disappear, and all he’ll have left is his body, yet he still mostly relies on his soul. In his mind, this was too pitiful to bear.

The announcer was in a terrible state and probably wouldn’t last until tomorrow unless someone at least at the second layer specialized in medical magic were to help him, but he didn’t have any connections with someone like that.

On the other hand, Aeollus was also in a pitiful state, with the majority of his soul being ripped apart, along with all spirit attacks and techniques being cut off from him, so he had nothing to kill the announcer with besides his bare fists.

As soon as the announcer saw that Aeollus was still standing, he knew that he had lost hope of surviving this battle. He would’ve roared in displeasure at such a result, but knowing that he was the one who instigated this battle brought peace to him, as he had chosen this for himself.

He closed his eyes, preparing to die. He kept them closed for about a minute, yet he felt no pain or anything happening to him. He opened his eyes, and realized a sight worse than even death. The brat was crouching before him, and extracting his soul! Now that he looked deep inside himself, he realized his whole outer layer was gone, along with half of the mid-layer.

At this point, he was barely on the combat level of a first layer, and was about to be demoted into the foundation levels. As expected, a few minutes later, his spherical core rejected his body for being too weak, and disappeared into nothingness. He was now nothing more than a foundation level weakling.

On the other hand, Aeollus was experiencing the biggest evolution in his whole life. Though he wasn’t developing a second layer, and was far from it, just the fact that he could absorb the soul of someone who was stronger than him was more than enough for him to know that he was going to double in power, maybe triple.

However, he then found the announcers first layer, and his face dropped into shock. In the books, they clearly stated that a layer would disappear if someone wasn’t strong enough to maintain them, and he was pretty sure that the announcer was only at the foundation levels, yet the spherical object representing the layer was still there.

“I wonder… can I absorb his layer?!” said Aeollus, clearly surprised but content at the current situation. If he really could, then wouldn’t that be his second layer right there?

Sadly, he couldn’t form it into a second layer, but got something else instead. Once he got the layer, he suddenly learned every cultivation secret, attack, technique, and more that the announcer had!

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ABOUT ME

Name: Abdul Kareem

Age: 13 (Almost 14)

Occupation: Middle school

Goal: Idk, I’m just making a novel for now

Location: Why would I say that?

Relations: I’m not married (duh)

Favorite food: da asian stuf!

Anyway, on a more serious tone, this is my first novel I’ve ever tried writing. Thanks for being with me on this first experience!