Chapter 12 – 2nd Stage Disciple

Several days had passed, Redius and Kiol had met several times. He had explained to Kiol that he had met a master who saved him and taught him everything he knows. But didn’t tell him specifics on the situation.

Currently Redius was inside his room in the magician’s guild, Ji was perched in the middle of the bed asleep. Ever since arriving, Ji ate most of the pills that Redius had made, his master had told him that’s how monsters evolve. By absorbing energy. And Ji having slept for so long, was in fact accumulating energy to advance. And so Redius left several barriers around the room to protect and not disturb him. By estimation, Ji should wake up some time soon.

Redius himself was actually at his peak, he too was about to advance into 2nd stage disciple. Even with all the testing and things he did, he never once let go of his training. Every night he would spend all of his time in cognia, training both his aura and magic power. It had been a while since they were at it’s peak, and just recently Redius felt that the breach was coming.

The breach to the next advancement.

He steadied himself as he sat and slowly went into cognia. A whirlpool of elements swarmed around him as it was being gathered into his elemental centre and crystals. More and more gathered and finally, the colour of the centre and crystals were darker than they were. He opened his eyes, he could feel his power surging.

He looked out the window, it was already the next day, close to night. He had been breaching the advancement for a whole day. If people knew that it took a whole day at disciple level, they’d be calling him a monster. Or an idiot.

Redius washed up, he could feel he had grown taller. As he dressed himself, he felt refreshed.

“Ji Ji!” A voice called just as he was about to leave. He turned as Ji jumped towards his shoulder and nudged himself against him.

“Hey Ji.” Redius said as he held him in his arms and stroked him caringly.

“jijiji!” it replied with an excited voice. After having not seen Redius for a couple days, it was happy to see him.

Redius notice that the Ji was no different than before, only his fur was a little whiter in colour. Redius shrugged as he played around with Ji for a while and then left together with him.

In a restaurant, Redius entered with Ji in it’s usual spot, his shoulder.

“How can I help you sir?” A waiter approached Redius at the door.

“I want a room.”

“Right away sir.” The waiter gestured towards the staircase as Redius followed him up. While entering the room, they passed by a couple of other young people.

One of which, a girl followed Redius with her eyes. More accurately, followed Ji. Her eyes sparkled as she quickly turned towards one of the others and whispered.

Redius caught her sight with his sense field as he walked, but he didn’t pay particular attention to them. They were mostly 1st and 2nd stage disciple knights. None of whom posed a threat to Redius.

Having entered the room, Redius gave a tip to the waiter and ordered food. He waited patiently, and when the food arrived, began eating with Ji.

“Sir, you can’t go inside.” A voice cried at the other side of the door. Redius’ eyes furrowed as he heard the scuffle outside his door. He didn’t like being disturbed.

“I’m from the Ip family. Do you want this restaurant burnt to the ground?!” Another voice yelled.

“Bu..But…” A desperate plea, but to no avail as the door to Redius’ room was burst open.

Four people walked in dressed in light green gowns with the Ip insignia on them. Three guys, two girls. Redius did not recognize any of them, not that he knew a lot of people from the Ip family anyway.

“Hey, you!” One of the boys called out to him. Redius merely looked up and stared at him with an expressionless face. Ji however, looked up then immediately back to devouring the food.

The girl with them looked at Ji with eyes sparkling. Obviously she wanted it. She shook one of the boys hand harder as she saw how cute Ji was.

“That creature. I’m taking it.” The boy whose hand was shook said. Redius merely smiled slyly.

“Hey I’m talking to you!” He yelled as he saw Redius not paying him any attention. They were from the Ip family, no one could ignore them. That was their thought.

Still Redius paid them no attention. Angry, the boy stepped forward and was about to grab Redius, when Ji snapped his head back and growled at the boy. The force sent him flying across the room.

Who were they kidding? Even Redius currently didn’t know how strong Ji was, and he could probably take on a 2nd stage initiate, maybe not win but it’ll be difficult for the latter to kill him. The others looked in shock as they tried to understand what just happened.

Ji on the other hand went back to eating. To be fair, if Redius had kept his magician’s cloak on, they would not have dared to disrespect him. But such is fate.

“You… you… How dare you? Do you know we’re from the Ip family?” The other boy shouted at Redius. To which he simply shook his head, pitiful he thought. Bringing out a family name, such pity.

At last the boy who was flung across the room returned, clothes in tatters. He looked at Redius angrily, his aura built up.

Without a word he flew across the room aura focused on his hand, his fist raised at Redius’ face.

“AHHHHH” A scream broke out. The boy’s arm penetrated with an ice lance, blood dripping as he screamed in agony.

The others seeing that he was hurt, all got out their weapons in anger. Light blue aura covered all of them, disciple class. A sword, a scimitar and a whip. As they spread themselves to attack Redius, Ji turned around and growled once more. Only this time it wasn’t with power.

“It’s okay. I’ll handle it.” Redius said as he stroked Ji. To which he nudged his hand as if to say okay and returned to the table and sat down and watched.

The others who were weary of Ji were glad to see him back down. They could now focus on Redius. They charged at him at the same time.

Two aura slashes came at Redius and one whip bound his leg. Classic, restricting enemy’s movement. It would’ve worked if the opponent was weak, but this was Redius. Even with the girl’s aura covering her feet to stand strong, Redius pulled his leg and the girl went with it. She was surprised that he was so strong.

As Redius dodged the aura slashes, he was already casting spells. First of all the whip was already frozen, if the girl had let go of it seconds later, her hand would have suffered the same consequences.

4 ice lances flew at the two boys which the deflected and dodged. But as soon as they regained their feet, more flew at them. It was continuous. As the boys were busy deflecting and dodging, Redius approached the girl who got into a combative stance. An Ip family fist technique.

She moved first and an aura tiger emitted from her arm towards Redius, but their speed was no much. Redius seemed to disappear and reappear beside her.

“Game’s over.” Redius said. As the girl wondered what he meant, the boys yelled in pain. She quickly looked at them to see four lances penetrating their four limbs.

‘Was…was he… playing with us?...’ she thought as Redius grabbed her arm.

“No…no… please… let go… no!!” She yelled as ice began to spread from Redius to her. Her whole arm was covered in ice now.

Redius suddenly let go and jumped a few metres backwards, and a split second later an aura slash the spot where he had been in. Only this time, it was much more powerful than the two boys, it slashed the room in half.

A middle aged man jumped in from the window, with similarly clothing, the Ip family. He looked around at the devastated scene, all four of them with ice sticking out here and there.

He face turned dark as he looked at Redius furiously.

“Who are you?!” He said with fury in his voice.

“Me to know. You to find out.” Redius replied with a smirk on his face. He knew who this man was. The assist. Head of the Ip family. One of three initiate class knights in the entire family. He was a 1st stage initiate. Redius was itching to fight him, he was curious to know how powerful he himself was.

“Very well…” the man’s face darkened even more, to have someone challenge the Ip family was unacceptable. He flew at Redius at an incredible speed.

‘Fast!’ Redius thought as he barely dodged the oncoming attacks with aura infused on his feet. Redius immediately understood that he was overestimating himself. He was more powerful than him, yes. But that was only when he could use his aura, and all his elements openly. But he didn’t want to let that secret out just yet. So a part from his

overwhelming amount of magic power, his speed and power was decreased.

As Redius managed to dodge, he still had a few scratches here and there on his body that landed. But he was not doing nothing, the temperature in the room decreased drastically as the man noticed the whole room encased in ice. Suddenly, even the ice he breathed out got frozen in a second.

‘Damit!’ he thought. ‘This is the best place for him, a closed space for him to control the temperature.’ He needed to get out. But would Redius let him? The answer is no.

More than thirty ice lances formed in thin air, at an alarming speed which surprised the man. How could he form such lances in that speed? Impossible! But before he could think of an answer, they were already flying at him.

Even with his aura covering him and him trying his hardest to deflect them, the lances kept forming and forming. Till at last a pained cry called out and he was left pinned to the wall, his limbs pierced by four lances.

“…you… you’ll pay for this…” he said looking at Redius who was walking closer and closer to him. He looked over at the four 18 year olds, all frozen from the drastic temperature in the room. He regretted not bringing them and running. Who knew he’d be so powerful.

Redius didn’t come out unharmed, but it was very minor. Even though he couldn’t use anything else openly, his aura was infused in his feet for speed. Even though his speed was slightly slower, it was only slightly, the man beat him in technique, but Redius had more raw power.

As Redius looked him in the eye, he smiled. Then gathered magic power in his palm and palm hit him in the stomach, right where the elemental centre was, shattering it.

The man’s eye was shocked, when he saw Redius’ hand hitting his centre. He knew Redius was going to shatter it but didn’t believe it until it did. Shattering the centre meant that he could no longer be a knight. No longer channel aura. He was left speechless.

“Goodbye Riji Ip.” Redius said as he looked at him. Riji was the name of the assistant head of the Ip family, second highest in power.

“Tell them… I’ve come to right the wrong.” He said as he left the scene of five bodies each with icicles in them.