Grand Elder LifeCentipede stopped her “playing” with Will before turning over to the exhausted Elder WindFalcon, “Done yet? I feel that you really should get rid of that habit of running away the moment you think something bad is going to happen.”

The dead tired giant bird looked at the woman in front of it and turned away, “I’m not running… its just a tactical retreat so that I can get the lay of the field before taking action.”

“You mean – you just wanted someone to take the first hits for you so that you can then surprise attack them afterwards? This is why the avian race are sometimes known to be too cowardly.” Grand Elder LifeCentipede shook her head before placing Will back on his soft cushions before turning around. “Let’s go little one, time to go.”

Elder EarthStag, who had been inching towards the wall looked over, “You’re leaving already?”

Grand Elder LifeCentipede spoke behind her, “Well I got what I came here to find out, so time to place this little one into the outer sect’s teaching hall before his parents show back up. Someone has to make a good impression.”

Will couldn’t hold it in any longer, he spoke for the first time ever, “Big Buggy! Who is Elder ExplosiveCat? Why did Mr.Deery freak out?”

His personal moving cushion stopped, “Well look at that! The little one seems to have gotten past his fear of us! But I do have to say, calling me “Big Buggy” seems quite inappropriate. You should call me as your big sister, ok?”

Will figured he didn’t really want to bother fighting about this to a giant bug so…

“Big Sissy! Who is Elder ExplosiveCat?”

Grand Elder LifeCentipede paused for a second before she started walking outside the hut, “Well whatever, you can call me what you want I guess. And your mommy is Elder ExplosiveCat. She is a rather scary feline and even I don’t entirely know what is up with her...er, abilities?”

Will took note of that little hesitation in her voice, “What does mommy do? Does she make big treey things too?”

“Nah, she blows things up with some kind of bizarre spell. Even the upper level of the sect isn’t sure how she does it. Now don’t talk you might bite your tongue.”

‘Huh? What does she mean by that?’

Will was quickly shown the entrance of hell when his slowly moving soft cushions become suffocating balls of death when Grand Elder LifeCentipede suddenly sped up to speeds Will had only traveled once in both lifetimes – Magical Flight.

The few seconds that she told to get to her destination was like entire days to him. By the time Grand Elder LifeCentipede stopped he was on the verge of passing out.

‘I think I just figured out why some dudes like them flat…’

As he took in deep breathes, Will tried to push away his dizziness and scanned the surroundings.

A group of shocked stares greeted him.

------------------------------------

Meanwhile, back at the hut, Elder WindFalcon was finally able to tear the last of the roots binding her with her beak. Elder EarthStag just lied nearby watching her struggle out of her magically created biological chains before speaking, “So, Elder WindFalcon… you err…think you can show me a good place to hid while this whole thing blows over? I’m willing to pay.”

His serious tone indicted that he really did not want to be in the sect when the shota’s parents arrived.

The giant bird turned to him before lifting a wing, “I want that Gravity Stone you picked up a while back.”

“Deal!”

“Alight, get on. We are leaving for a mission outside the sect for the next few months. I already sent a message to the mission branch about finding a disturbance in one of the surrounding areas. Now we just have to pretend that it’s a big thing and accept it via our sect badge and we have a perfect excuse to not be here when things blow up.”

Elder EarthStag stared in awe at her quick response; clearly this wasn’t the first time she has done this. Now that he thinks about it, Elder WindFalcon wasn’t present either when Elder ExplosiveCat went on her rampage before.

“Get me a minute I need to contact my cousin about not being around for a while due to unforeseen circumstances, and then we can bail.”

Elder WindFalcon asked as she watched Elder EarthStag pull out a transmission jade, “Not going to invite him too? I thought you would warn him about this at least.”

Elder EarthStag put away the jade before turning into a young man with antlers on his head, as he climbed on her back he answered, “Nah, he probably already knows about this, he is the one who called the entire sect about this matter after all. Besides I always did have a good laugh when I thought of how an herbivore deer would willingly go into a fire type road of cultivation. Hell, he might get more inspiration from this!”

Elsewhere Elder FlameDeer felt a cold tingle on his spine.

--------------------------------

Standing beside Will was a large blue fox who was speaking to a group of young human children in front of him, “Now everyone, we have a new member joining this class. Say hello to Will!”

The group of children together yelled, “Hello!”

They were currently situated in some kind of simple room, with a sandy ground that the children were all sitting on. The only thing that stood out was that Will was still wearing the nice silky robes that Grand Elder LifeCentipede had dressed him in. Meanwhile, the children were just wearing simple white tunics and blue pants.

Will tried to edge away from the group towards his cushions, but was unable to under the wrapping of a blue tail.

“Will, you have to say hi to them too! Go on. Greet your classmates!”

Will awkwardly put on a smile and waved the free hand he had at the kids, “Hey.”

The blue fox nodded his head, “Alright, we were in the middle of the introduction class today so it’s a really good time to join us! Now before we start, I’ll reintroduce myself. I am called Elder IceFox, and as you can tell from my Daoist title - I specialize in ice type spells and whatnot and follow the ice road of cultivation. Any questions so far?”

Will, who had sat down in the front of the class facing the giant fox, raised a hand.

The fox blinked at the gesture, “Will what are you doing?”

Will tilted his head, clearly he wanted to ask a question so why did raising a hand cause them to be so confused?

‘He did say this was a class right? So don’t they follow the normal rules?’

“Mr.Foxxy, what do you mean by an ice road to cultivation? Are you trying to slip or something?”

The giant fox seemed to realize that Will wanted to ask a question, but he couldn’t just let him call him a ridiculous name like Mr.Foxxy.

“Alright before we get to your question, I must be clear here. Will, my name is Elder IceFox… well it’s my daoist title but that isn’t the point. The point is that I am not this Mr.Foxxy creature you speak of, understand?”

Will nodded, inwardly he thought their names were really easy to make and kinda dumb way of naming.

‘Seriously, what kind of name is just some title with an adjective combined with a noun? Or was it a verb? Regardless, they clearly have no imagination…’

“As for your question, a road of cultivation is something that you all here will embark on. It is your personal path of achieving your dao and reaching immortality!”

The fox showed strong emotions when he spoke of immortality, with a gleam in his icy blue eyes he added to his explanation. “Currently, you all are basically on the first steps of the path to becoming true immortals! Whatever way you choose from now on will pave the way for you to step by step gain more and more power until you truly mastered the dao!”

Will raised his hand again, “Um, can you explain what a dao is? Also why do ice and this dao thing have with a path to immortality?”

‘Are you sure you took your medication this morning? Becoming immortal? Are you high? Seriously I was expecting to fight some kind of demon lord or something, why did I get the brain dead animals as my companions? Besides who the F wants to become immortal? Why do you think those immortals in fantasy tried their hardest to end their existences? Living too long is equivalent to eternal suffering dude…’

“Ah, let me lower it so it fit you children more. Currently what you need to know is that each choice in your cultivation would end up either help or interfere with achieving your dao. Let me give you an example.”

Elder IceFox waved a paw in the air and a mist of cold air started to flow around his body.

“This here is a protection spell, a rather basic one called Ice Resistance. Basically it allows me to withstand lower temperatures then what my normal body can.”

‘FINALLY MAGIC! Like in actual magic! Luckily there are no chants…I shiver in humiliation when I remember some of those lines from magic anime and such.’

“Now let’s say I wanted to focus my efforts in pursuing a path of cultivation related to the unique ice element. Which unlike the basic five elements; is considerably harder to control and utilize. Would it be better for me to learn a fighting technique like the Fire Lion’s Roar or should I learn the breathing technique Ice Fish’s Breathe?”

Will shivered.

Elder IceFox noticed his involuntary movement, “Yes Will? You want to answer?”

“Er… no not really I just have like a few more questions.”

Elder IceFox patiently nodded at the little one in front of him, urging Will to continue.

“Alright, I’m going to start with the easiest one here. You said there are five basic elements? Can you tell me what they are?”

Elder IceFox had a stunned look; he turned around to look for Grand Elder LifeCentipede who had been behind him. Strangely enough she had seemingly disappeared into thin air. He simply sighed and turned back to Will.

“The five basic elements make up this entire world. They are fire, water, wood, metal, and wind. Each of them counters one element while at the same time strengthening others. Fire burns metal, metal engulfs wood, wood crushes wind, wind slices water, and water extinguishes fire. For the strengthening parts, there are numerous ways to increase power of one element with the assistance of another. Increasing the intensity of fire with wind is just one application. So you easily see that… huh?”

Elder IceFox stopped his little presentation; Will was covering his ears and rolling on the sandy ground of the classroom.

“I can’t hear you!!! I can’t hear you! You weird looking talking fox creature! I’m clearly high and I’m just gonna wait until I come down before forgetting anything that happened! LALALALA!”

The other children had already backed away from the weirdo as Elder IceFox froze for a second before pointing a claw at Will, freezing him in place.

“I know I’m going to regret this question, but… Will what is wrong?”

Will stared at the fox with teary eyes, “Your basic elements! How can you even mess that up?! It doesn’t even make sense! There are four basic elements! Four! How did you add one and then forget the basic elements of earth? Hell, one of your Elders’ name is EarthStag!”

“I don’t understand, Will, what is the problem? Elder EarthStag just practices one of the unique elements like my ice –“

“NO! Ice is not a unique element! And neither is earth! There are only four unique elements in total! And two of them barely show up like ever! Light and darkness are the only well known unique elements in the world dude! While space and time are the rarely seen unique elements!”

Breathing hard, Will continued his presentation for legit magical logic, “Every other element is either just a combination of the basic four elements or an enhanced version of one of them! Or if you get even more complex, you can then combine already combined elements to make an even stronger element!”

His body was shaking with adrenaline at this point, but Will couldn’t just let them wreck his memories of TRUE fantasy.

Scared, Elder IceFox tried to calm Will down, “Okay, okay Will. It was my mistake. There are only four basic elements. Alright? Take deep breathes now. Nice and slow.”

After a couple of deep breathes later Will was calm enough to go back to logic slinging mode again.

This time Will stood in front of the class with a blackboard made of ice behind him, next to him was Elder IceFox who had given up teaching for the day.

Drawing with an ice pen filled with some kind of red ink, Will started to explain the real elements and how they interacted.

“These four are the basic elements; fire, water, earth, and wind.” He drew four little symbols for each of them in the center of the board. They were positioned in a way that they made a diamond shape while still maintaining a small space between each other.

“Now the actual unique elements are over here; time, space, light, and darkness.” Will drew a symbol in each corner of the board.

“When someone starts to begin the path of becoming a awesome magician or mage – “

Someone coughed, Elder IceFox glared at the person before waving his tail for Will to continue.

“Anyways, the basic elements that everyone starts off are these four elements.” Will emphasized this, tapping the four symbols in the middle of the board with his ice pen. He drew lines connecting the four symbols to make a circle with his red ink pen.

“That is the first level for everyone. After that they can choose to work and develop one particular element or work on the next level of magic. I call this the second level.”

Will started drawing lines from each basic element and drew a new symbol at the end of each, and then he drew lines from two different elements and joined them together before drawing another symbol at the end.

“This is where the basic elements are able to be manipulated in different ways to create new elements. But at the same time depending on how one does this; they can create the same elements another has made using a mix of different combination and pure ingenuity.”

Will looked at the rest of the children who were either trying to understand what he meant – and failing horribly, or giving out stares filled with sympathy at him.

‘Somehow I feel more insulted that they are looking at me like I’m mental. Clearly I’m not mental, duh. Who talks to themselves mentally would have any kind of mental issue?’

Ignoring the people Will went back to his explanation, “The next level is either an increase in ability to manipulate an element or creating a new element using a mix of the basic ones. For example, here.” Will tapped one of the new symbols that connect to the symbol of three wavy lines in the center of the board, “This is the element of ice that Elder IceFox uses. It is considered a second level of magic since he has taken the manipulation of water to a new level and changed it to be able to manipulate the solid form of water as well – ice.”

Elder IceFox started to look with interest as he combed through what Will is saying, “However Will, I only focused on the ice element my entire cultivation path. I’ve never learned any water type techniques before.”

Will gave Elder IceFox a weird look, “So you just one day suddenly could use ice? There wasn’t any kind of prerequisites?”

Elder IceFox seemed quite interested in this topic as he seriously thought about the first few years when he cultivated. “That should be correct; I only had to understand how ice is created after visiting the windy valley outside of the sect. In that place, everything that the wind blew past turned into shards of frozen ice that flew in a storm of ice shards. Honestly back then I though I was going to die.”

Will gave him a blank look before patting his back with a look of sympathy.

“Eh? What are you doing?” Elder IceFox seemed a bit creeped out by Will’s action.

Will looked at the board, specifically at the wind and water symbols that were connected together to make another ‘ice’ element. At the same time he also focused on the one symbol that is linked the wind symbol, it was a bunch of scribbles that stood for ‘storm’.

Will wondered if there was a way to change your daoist name…

Because Elder IceFox was a total moron who chose the wrong element.