Elder Huan POV

“What do you mean you just lefthim?” He asked, trying to maintain his composure, but it was hard. He couldn’t believe how stupid and how shameless these disciples were. He had half a mind to rip their badges from their chests and kick them to the wind.

Abandoning your comrade, not to mention a sect’s honored guest, was an affront to the entire sect. From what he had gathered, the monster had been injured, which only made it worse. They left Julius while they ran back to the sect like a bunch of cowards.

“But Elder Huan, there was nothing we could do. The monster was a powerful Tier 5 beast; its aura alone was enough to overwhelm us. It was a logical decision and one that might have saved our lives,” one of the inner disciples tried to explain.

Elder Huan snapped his gaze to this young man and slammed his aura into all of them. “It’s not about you escaping or running away. It was the fact that you left him and essentially used him as bait without trying to help him or even tell him to escape. Do you understand how that makes the sect look? Do you know what that says about everyone who is a part of the sect?”

“We did try to tell him to escape. We shouted at him to retreat,” another disciple argued.

Elder Huan swung out and slapped the man in the face. He felt something crack under his hand, but he didn’t care. He was seething, and falsehoods only made him angrier.

He gripped the slapped disciple by the chin. “Don’t lie to me. I have already gotten a full account from Disciples Albertus and Mavis. They told me what happened and what you did.”

He was further angered by the fear he smelled from the disciple. He was practically pissing in his boots. A disgrace and one he was tempted to remove from the sect permanently. Unfortunately, it wasn’t up to him. It was up to the Disciplinary Hall, which these disciples would be going to next.

He had barely sent the disciples out of his office when he felt a presence suddenly appear behind him. He didn’t turn around, he already had a feeling who it was.

“Where is he?” Vice Sect Leader Cassandra’s voice asked softly, but there was no mistaking the dangerous edge to it.

Elder Huan felt himself flinching under the weight of her aura. She was pissed and rightfully so. This was partly the reason he had been so angry with those inner disciples. Abandoning your comrade was one thing, but that person was someone whom Cassandra had taken a personal interest in.

He had learned many things over the past several weeks Julius had stayed at the sect. For one, Cassandra often visited the boy, a secret known to a scant few. Furthermore, Grand Elder Koenn apparently approved of the boy. That was even more telling since the man barely approved of his own family.

“I have the location of where he was last seen,” he said, and handed her a token that had all of the information he had gathered. He knew she was coming and had prepared it in advance.

“They'd better be punished appropriately by the time I get back. If not, then I will personally handle it,” she told him. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

“I will let the Disciplinary Hall know of that,” he said with a bowed head.

She grunted, and before he sensed any mana from her, she was gone from his senses. It was only then that he slumped into his chair. She was a scary woman. He could only hope that the boy was still alive. He didn’t want to imagine what would happen to those disciples or the sect itself if he weren’t.

***

Julius POV

He wiped the crumbs from his mouth as he kicked his feet into the gentle waves of the lake. He had been enjoying a nice picnic on the shore, but now that was all forgotten as he stared at Velmora with a complicated expression.

Speaking of Velmora, her body was almost entirely clear of wounds. There were a few pale lines, showing where she had been injured, but they were barely noticeable. Her horns had also healed a little bit. They were still jagged and damaged, but he could see their majestic appearance returning to life. They were shimmering with a layer of blue mana, dazzling in the sunlight.

However, that wasn’t what caught his attention. It was that her body was shrinking before his very eyes.

“You can change your size at will?” He asked in amazement.

The previously fifty-foot serpent, now ten feet long, nodded at him. “Yes, it’s a very useful ability that many of my kind learn to use. Being too large can prevent you from traveling to a lot of places.”

“So why didn’t you change before? Is it harder to heal when you are smaller or something?”

“No, it's actually easier, requiring less mana. But I can’t change forms if I am too injured, the size of the injuries wouldn’t change, and I would have most definitely died from the stress. But thanks to you, I am healed enough to handle such a transformation. By the way, your healing skill is quite amazing. I’m surprised something fire affinity related was able to heal me so efficiently,” she noted with a strange look.

He grinned. “Well, I’m glad you are better. It’s not like I didn’t get anything out of it either.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

He wasn’t just saying that either. She was so grateful for his help that she showed him one of her secret techniques for handling two drastically different energies. Of course, it wasn’t meant for humans, but luckily, Julius had plenty of experience with that.

“It’s the least I can do. Now try it again, but this time around, make sure you disperse the energy evenly. You are still collecting it as a single source. If you do that, it gives your aura too much strength to overpower your life mana,” she directed him, and she used her own domain to take control of his mana, showing him what she meant.

He listened to her advice and tried the technique once more. He gathered both life mana and ruinous aura, making sure he kept the aura separated, but maintaining the balance. To his surprise, it worked. He hadn’t thought about it this way, but by spreading out his ruinous aura in this manner, he still kept the negative aspects of it, but also could manage it more easily.

If he made a mistake, at least everything didn’t fall apart. Previously, if he made a mistake, his aura was too powerful, and everything collapsed before he could stop it. However, by using her method, he was able to manage with more confidence. Or at least destroy that section of his aura before it could infect the other sources.

The real challenge was that it required a lot of mental focus to keep up with it, even taking into account his improved mind when he advanced to Tier 4. Once again, [Spirit Fortification] came in handy. The skill aided him as he handled this delicate balance between two very different energies.

He even got a level out of it.

[Spirit Fortification lvl 20 -> lvl 21]

He felt her adjust his mana with her domain. He didn’t fight back, knowing that she was just trying to help him. However, he laughed when he realized what she was trying to show him. It wasn’t just simple compartmentalization; she was creating a whole structure that would isolate the various parts of mana for him. This way, he only needed to focus on maintaining the structure and keeping watch over it, rather than manually organizing it himself.

Unfortunately, he was far from copying her, but he suspected she knew that and was simply showing him what he should emulate in the future. The structure itself looked like a honeycomb of concentric hexagons, all slotted against each other. Not only that, but there was a porous feel to them, so if one section got overloaded, he could feed some of the overflow into the surrounding sectors.

It was insanely complicated and something out of his capabilities at the moment, but the fact that he was able to sense this much of what she was doing clearly impressed her.

And while he wasn’t able to completely mimic her, he must have been doing something right, because he got a notification.

Would you like to learn the skill [Harmonic Circulation]?

Julius liked the sound of that skill and was tempted to grab it immediately. But in an act of supreme willpower, he held off. That was one of the downsides of coming to Corvus; he didn’t have someone like Freya or Cain to ask for help in these moments. He could ask Cassandra when he saw her next, though he didn’t know if she had a skill like this or if she would be able to help all that much. At least Cain and Freya knew all of his skills and helped him with that in mind.

Fortunately, he had someone he could ask at the moment. And he didn’t mind asking her, since she was the reason he had been offered it in the first place.

“I just got offered a skill called [Harmonic Circulation]. Do you think I should accept it?”

She had a thoughtful expression on her face. “I’ve never heard of it. But its name would suggest that it would help you with circulating opposing energies. So if you feel like it would help you, I don’t see any reason you wouldn't accept. But you don’t have to decide now. Take some time and make your decision later.”

He nodded in agreement. It was probably for the better. He was going to ask her another question, but he noticed her eyes narrow and mana surged through her body. He didn’t question why and followed suit.

It was only then that he sensed a strange flicker in his spatial senses. Someone or something was teleporting near him. He reacted immediately and formed a large spike of mana over his shoulder while removing his axe from his dimensional storage space.

He didn’t allow it to emerge from the portal before he began his attack. He also didn’t bother to hide his kinetic energy either. Whatever this thing was, his senses were screaming at him that it was dangerous.

He covered the axe with every ounce of power he could muster. The entirety of his soul reinforced the blade and activated his new technique. It was still a work in process, but now that he had some urgency, he felt it come together much more swiftly and snapped into place.

Then, in one fluid motion, he smashed his axe toward the figure appearing out of space. However, he widened his eyes in panic when he recognized the face. He tried to pull back, but he was so committed that it was too late. The axe crashed into Cassandra’s face with the full force of his strength, and an explosion rocked out from the epicenter of the strike.

When the dust cleared, he stood there in complete silence. He didn’t know if he was more embarrassed or annoyed by the fact that she hadn’t even budged an inch.

It was like someone smacked her with a stale muffin. She was more confused than anything else and looked at him, absolutely perplexed by what had just happened. Then she looked down at the axe, and he followed her gaze. To his horror, he saw that the axe was completely mangled. The metal was melted into slag, shards of broken steel lay on the ground, and the remaining part of the blade hung on the shaft by hopes and dreams.

He held up the axe to her face. “Look what you did,” he said to her, as if he hadn’t just smashed this very same axe against her face and that it was her fault for breaking it.

She looked at him in sheer disbelief at his shamelessness, and before he could react, snatched the axe from his hands and snapped the shaft in half.

She then tossed the broken weapon to the ground and sighed. “Well, at least you reacted quickly. I can’t be too upset about that.”

“I was going to fix that,” he said with a sad look at the broken weapon and knelt down to pick up the pieces. He had been through a lot with that axe.

Okay, perhaps not that much, but he had been planning on using it for some time. Now he was without an axe. What was he supposed to do now?

She gave the axe a dismissive roll of her eyes. “I’ll get you a better one. That thing isn’t that good.”

“Don’t speak ill of the dead,” he said, offendedly.

“Stop being so dramatic. I came here because I thought you were dead or being beaten to death. But lo and behold, I find you not only safe but enjoying a picnic?” she said with a look around her at the spread he had made at the shoreline of the lake.

“Not to mention a new friend?” She asked with a pointed look at the ten-foot serpent, who was looking at the two humans with a baffled expression.

Julius placed his hands on his hips and smiled. “What can I say? I aim to impress.”

Cassandra didn’t respond and simply slapped her forehead.