“Victory to the challenger...” The announcer was stunned. Nothing had hit the challenger head-on. But, all in all, it was a flawless, one-sided victory. This was a feat higher-tier practitioners would have to struggle to reach.

The crowd was stunned into silence.

“Thank you for this experience, it was smooth.” Kyrion bowed to his fallen opponents before he stomped. Reverting the stadium floor into its original concrete.

Kyrion looked towards the box he knew his mother was in and decided that he would need to find a way to escape. How can he get his students and vanish before his mother finds him?

Kyrion placed his weights in his domain and cleansed his body with water mana. Moments later, he was leaving the changing room. Using mana to hide his presence as he tried to get away.

Sadly he was encircled by a group of people waiting for him.

“Mr.Kyrion, are you ok?” Bastion ran up and hugged Kyrion’s leg, which surprised quite a few people.

However, it wasn’t the fact that Kyrion was being hugged that caught them off guard. No, it was the fact that in a group containing practitioners and expert tier spirit masters, the first person to notice Kyrion was there was an unawakened child.

Cordelia eyed the child with curiosity before looking at Kyrion, who was clearly coming up with a plan.

Before anyone else could respond, Kyrion’s mischievous eyes softened, and a wide innocent smile covered his face.

“Mommy!” Kyrion slowly shuffled his way towards his mother as Bastion wasn’t letting go, and it wasn’t much of an inconvenience.

Cordelia seemed surprised for a second as she recalled the last time Kyrion had said, mommy. He had gotten caught.

“Kyrion Ahanu Mosely, what are you planning?”

“What? I’m not planning anything.” Kyrion’s voice cracked as sweat boiled on his forehead. Kyrion didn’t know why he was unable to lie to his mother. Usually, he was good at this sort of thing.

“Kyrion?”

“I wasn’t going to grab the kids and sprint back to the academy if that’s what you’re asking. I-I still need to meet with my old friends after all. Can’t leave without saying hello after all.” Kyrion scratched the back of his head.

Kyrion looked for said friends and only managed to see Ceres, which confirmed his suspicion of the two groups.

“So you’ll be fine while I wait to speak to your girlfriends.”

“Two words. Friends that are girls. I don’t like it when people say the words like they’re supposed to mean something else.” Kyrion said bluntly.

“My my, a heartbreaker if I’d ever seen one.”

“So you’re trying to build a harem?” Eden looked aghast.

Kyrion closed his eyes. “No… That’s my friend Cecil’s goal. He just asked me to help out when I could.”

“Master Kyrion does not care much for matters of the heart. Despite his height certain subjects still go over his head.”

“Hey. I’d take offense to that but I’ve heard it before. I’ve fulfilled the mission’s I’ve been given aside from the bear’s pelt. The creature was tainted. Ta ta for now.” Kyrion picked up Eden and began to sneak off. While Ceres and his mother discussed things he believed were best left alone.

“Uncle Kyrion? Where are you going.”

“Uncle?” Kyrion raised an eyebrow.

“Kyrion where are you going?” Illanda corrected.

“Away from this conversation. I have a few shops that I haven’t visited and… I should also visit the bank and pick up some more funds. I need the gold.” Kyrion stated.

“So are you building a harem or are people just flocking to your position like vultures?”

“Huh. Mostly the latter though I wouldn’t call them vultures.” Kyrion looked down at his youngest supposed sister.

“Call them what you want. Do you have a gift for me?” Illanda held out her hand.

“Geez, when did you get so spoiled?” Kyrion summoned a fox with silver fur and a purple pattern that resembled a closed eye on her forehead. After that, a blue swan appeared in the air flapping its winds as it landed gracefully.

“Your giving me more animals?”

“Where did they come from?” Eden looked down from Kyrion’s arm and observed the creatures that came out of nowhere.

“Oi Kyrion what’s going… oh hello there madams.” Issac combed his plumage with a feather.

Jala walked over and slapped the sparking bird. “None of that.”

Bastion let go of Kyrion’s leg to approach the large bird.

“These are two of my spirits. Thanks to them I’m capable of using magic.”

“I already have a spirit Kyrion, been awakened and everything.”

Kyrion began to walk and talk, leading his group away from the conversation, when a figure in golden armor appeared right in front of him.

“Kyrion, you will fight me in the stadium when we get back.” The figure vanished as fast as it appeared.

“That person must really hate you. Did you do something to anger them?” Eden observed.

“I did nothing wrong. What happened to them was their own fault and they’ve been trying to get their own twisted sense of vengeance.” Kyrion said bluntly.

“See Mr.Hero can do nothing wrong.” Bastion defended.

“So what was the thing you did?” Eden grilled Kyrion.

“You see, I was suffering from food poisoning and towards the end of the fight they kept punching me in the stomach and eventually the poison came out along with some food.”

“Ok so you threw up gross but it happens.”

“They were also holding me steady to keep me from escaping. It only had one place to go.”

“Just spit it out.” Illanda said.

“I threw up all over them. It was mostly their fault and now they hold some kind of grudge.” Kyrion rattled off.

“Yeah that was gross but at least you said you were sorry. You did say you were sorry right?” Bastion’s eyes widened as Kyion couldn’t respond to that.

“I was knocked unconscious by the last blow and was a bit out of it.” Kyrion never considered apologizing for his hiccup, but maybe the golden knight would leave him alone if he did.

Illanda, Bastion, and Eden introduced themselves to the spirits and entertained themselves for a bit as Kyrion looked for a place to sit and relax.

“Kyrion!” Said a somewhat familiar voice, belonging to someone who looked almost unfamiliar.

“Who in…” Kyrion found himself enveloped in the arms of a stranger.

Bastion’s first response was to try and remove the strange person. Sadly his human strength was nothing compared to the inhuman strength of a practitioner.

Eden looked at the white-haired girl and flinched as her eyes seemed to lock onto hers. “Eep!”

“Eep? Oh right, you’re that Nickle girl aren’t you. The one that said something about being Kyrion’s girl friend.” Illanda looked at the young woman.

“Nickle? Name doesn’t ring a bell. Can you let me go now?” Kyrion closed his eyes.

“Nicole! You know full well what she meant.”

“Didn’t I say that? Oh well. Eden, Bastion, I saw a park on my way through the city, let’s go play there and let the big kids be boring.” Illanda led the group away from the confused boy.

Kyrion continued to look at Nicole as though he’d never seen her in his life.

“Kyrion.”

“Please let go.” Kyrion said with a much deeper voice as his hair began to shift in color.

“What’s wrong?”

“Please. Let. Me. Go.” Kyrion gripped his head as though it was in pain.

Nicole did so, and Kyrion fell to his knees for a second. A stream of blood flowed down from within his eyepatch.

“What’s wrong?”

“I may have overtaxed my body during the match. So you’re Nicole? Did you get shorter?”

“No, you just shot up like a beanstalk. Do you have any fat on you? I heard you eat.” Nicole poked Kyrion’s ribs.

“Not really, peak human condition was the state I trained to reach before becoming a practitioner.”

“About that.” An older blood girl with piercing blue eyes looked Kyrion over.

“And… Kiara right?”

“Correct. Why didn’t you fight Noah head on then? Make the fight seem more fair. You do know you embarrassed him with that last maneuver.”

“Peak human in my case is well balanced, strong yet flexible, fast, yet durable. I am the embodiment of balance. Noah is still ahead of me in terms of brute strength. In a head on wrestling match I’d have lost since I lack the mass and size to overpower him directly. He’s also trained in throwing and grappling. So trying to use his force against him would have been fruitless. He restrains a target, locking them in place while the other one would hit me with powerful spells.”

“How could you know that before fighting them?” Kiara squinted.

“Gotta use my head for more than headbutts. The strength in his arms and calluses on his hands are from more than just swinging an ax.” Kyrion smirked.

“Hmmm… So you deduced a way to take out your opponents before fighting them. Excuse me if I don’t believe you.”

“A healer needs to know alot about anatomy. I’ve had to heal a lot of different injuries.” Kyrion explained.

“I see. I’ll leave you to your reunion. Gonna go to check on Noah and the others.” Kiara promptly left.

“Why does she seem mad?” Kyrion asked.

“Because of you, our training time will increase again.” Said a short red-haired girl.

“Asela. You haven’t changed at all!” Kyrion observed the short girl and attempted a wide hug.

Asela seemed to dislike that statement but didn’t say anything. Instead, opting to step out of the way.

“Ok…” Kyrion put his arms back down.

“Kyrion. Been a while, why are you here?” Wura looked into the abyss that was Kyrion’s green eye.

“I came to visit but things went wrong in the usual fashion. Managed to pick up two orphans, not sure how many there are in this county for me to just walk in and pick up a kid with no parents.”

“Kyrion…Most people don’t just find orphans and adopt them.”

“I didn’t say I was adopting. My goal is to get them tested and have them go to an academy. My job is done there.” Kyrion crossed his arms.

“You didn’t happen to save their lives as well did you?” Wura raised an eyebrow.

“Well I did but...”

“Kyrion, you don’t want to be known as someone who sheds responsibilities like clothing do you? I know you want to be a healer but abandoning those in your care wouldn’t be a good thing to have hanging over your head.” Wura chided Kyrion.

Kyrion looked dumbstruck. “I didn’t think about that. I guess I could use some assistance, and assistants need to be trained . So I’m sending them to school so that they can get an education and potentially assist me in my work.”

“Right.” Wura closed her eyes.

“That sounds better.” Kyrion closed his eyes and nodded to himself.

“With your cover story done what are you going to do to make up with Noah?”

“Not fight him again. Nope. Gonna keep this win. I told him to go all out in the beginning. Had he transformed chances are I could have lost before I really got started.” Kyrion explained.

“Ah so he didn’t listen. He shouldn’t be too mad then. Though he will want a rematch.”

“Yeah, no. Like I said, no rematch. Not even in the big tournament coming up. I’ll be avoiding that one like the plague if I can.” Kyrion looked to Asela, who had been calming herself down. By talking to a kid whose manner reminded him of Charles.

“Kyrion. Nicole made you some cookies. She worked really hard on them so please eat every last one.” Asela patted Nicole on her back and walked away at a brisk pace.

“Y-you m-m-made m-m-me c-c….” Kyrion employed all his self-control to control his glutenous urges.

“Yes I made you some cookies. They were going to be a surprise but now’s a better time if there ever was one. There’s a nice hole in the wall that I can take you to. They have amazing food in large portions. I’m sure you’ll love it.”

“Wura, be sure to tell Noah I said hi. Oh right, tell him to come meet me. I have a work order, can you hand this off to Noah, I’d have given it to Kiara but I don’t know when he’d get it.”

“I can…”

“Good, I’ll be back in a minute. I’m sure my disciples will love to come.”

“But Kyrion, I was thinking that you know it could just be the two of us.” Nicole grabbed Kyrion’s robe.

“Nope. It would be irresponsible for me to eat in luxury while my students starve. Or are you saying I should leave them unsupervised with no way to find me for an extended period of time.” Kyrion looked aghast as he slipped free.

Nicole grit her teeth. “Sure. Mind if I come with you?”

“If you can keep up.” Kyrion’s form disappeared as he reappeared fifty feet ahead, thirty feet in the air as he leaped in the direction he saw them headed.

Jala and Issac looked at each other and then vanished into motes of mana that trailed after Kyrion.

“Great… Why does he have to be difficult?” Nicole grimaced as she gave chase.

“He’s always been that way. You’re the one who thought it would be a smooth transition. Asela, Iets go tell Mrs.Mosley where Kyrion ran off to.” Wura grabbed Asela’s hand and led the way.

Chester scowled but didn’t say anything as he watched and silently followed.

“Kyrion used his friend as a distraction didn’t he?” Asela squinted her eyes.

“Not too surprising.” Wura answered.

It took a few minutes to arrive at a tea shop that Cordelia had picked out. The two were sitting at a table talking.

Codrelia held a hand over her face clearly trying to hide mirth as she spoke to the stoic purple haired girl.

“Oh hello there Asela, looks like your brother’s been terrorizing other students at his academy. That rude gilded brat had been sending challenge after challenge. He hadn’t showed up to a single one. He even convinced the school to add a rule called consent to challenges. If you don’t agree to fight, another student can’t force you to do so. As an anti-bullying procedure.”

“So he went out of his way to avoid fighting someone. Wouldn’t someone like that just give up? Kyrion can be stubborn.”

“When an unstoppable spear meets an immovable mountain, what gives first?”

“Nothing happens.”

“Exactly. The mountain would either need to outlast or break the spear or the spear would need to pierce through the mountain. One will eventually either give up or give in. Anyhow, he’s been mostly quiet, and is regarded as the first healer to visit when injured. As he doesn’t charge anyone for his services.”

“I imagine that challenging everybody’s favorite healer is seen as incredulous.”

“One could see it as an attempt at bullying. Sadly their first and only fight ended in a draw and they want to know who’s stronger.”

“Well they lost to Noah. So it’s clear who’s stronger.” Asela informed

“Oh? Well then that puts Caeden in a spot.”

“Who?” Asela asked.

“An old friend. Don’t worry about it.” Cordelia sighed.

Ceres scowled as she tried to recall where she’d heard that name.