After lunch, we were split into groups. The weapon users all followed Alaric and Master Nguyen to fight some more. Normally I would've joined them, but remembering how powerful I'd been without a staff I was rethinking my decision to pursue training it. While I am training body refining, I'm a mindscape cultivator. My strengths lay in being able to manipulate Elemental Energy far more easily than dantian or heartforce cultivators. With that in mind, I decided to stay behind and look for Elder Carlos. When I told Alaric and Master Nguyen my plans, they didn't argue with me so I was free to seek him out.
It took me a while, but I finally found him with Cynthia Demitrov and the Principal. They were in a kind of staff lounge in the basement, except instead of a TV and mini-fridge there were weapons hanging on all the walls, as well as a private sparing arena. As I walked in, Cynthia was complaining about some some marriage proposal, and how polygamy being perfectly acceptable. Apparently, she'd been jilted by a former lover? Elder Carlos looked bored with the whole situation, while the Principal's face was turning an interesting shade of purple.
Seeing me, Principal Hubert almost exploded. "Hughes, why aren't you in class?!?!" He glared at me angrily.
Confused, and unable to understand why he was so upset with me, I decided to ignore him and approached Elder Carlos. "Elder," I said, bowing respectfully to him, "I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time."
Elder Carlos looked mortified as I bowed to him, jumping to his feet he bowed to me, "Young Master, you must not call me elder anymore. I'm nothing but a servant, while you're now an embodiment of the storm."
Watching from the side, Cynthia and Principal Hubert gasped in shock. They were obviously surprised by Carlos calling himself a servant.
"Senior Carlos then," I said emphatically, the idea of not showing respect to such an obviously powerful cultivator is just stupid, "and my name is Sam. If my parents heard me being called Young Master they'd laugh their asses off."
"Yes, Sam." He said, smiling again, "When we're on Earth that will work, however in Storm's Refuge you are now the Young Master. You'll have to get used to it." Then, he lead the way to a private classroom where we could talk.
As we were walking away, I heard Cynthia ask Principal Hubert, "Wait, Sam.. Was that my nephew?" Happy to avoid whatever was going on between those two, I quickly closed the door behind me and stepped into the room.
"What were you looking for me for?" Elder Carlos asked with a smile on his face.
"I had a couple reasons actually, but I was wondering what you're doing here I thought it was nearly impossible to leave 2nd Chance." I said.
"You're the first person to pass the Trial of the Storm in over a thousand years, we're not going to leave you in an unprotected and unsafe area by yourself before you can even protect yourself properly. I arrived here the day you received the brand."
"But why?" I asked, "Why do I need a bodyguard. Sure, you know that I passed the trial, and my family does, but no one else does. I'm just a teenager going to a prestigious school."
"I guess no one's explained this to you yet, but the brand on your soul is a kind of beacon. If you die on Earth, your soul will be pulled into 2nd Chance and you'll be resurrected. All of the 1st rate powers started doing this a while back in order to limit the casualties during each wave. However, the beacon is also a danger to you. Corrupted beings can sense it, and will search you out. For the most part, only low level beings will be interested in you as the strength of the beacon is dependent on your cultivation. We'll let you deal with an low level corrupted beings, but if a powerful corrupted being finds you... Well, I'm here to deal with it."
Learning that I had been forever marked on a kind of Interstellar hit-list without even knowing about it kind of threw me for a bit. It took me a while, but after taking a deep breath I smoothed the frown on my face and said, "I guess what's done is done. Wish I'd known about that before I accepted though."
"Would it have changed your mind?" He asked, seriously.
Without a second thought I said, "No, while it's annoying, the reasons I joined in the first place haven't changed."
"Good, now you had another reason for looking for me?" He asked.
"I was hoping that you knew about Spirit Calling." I said, hoping he knew about it.
"Of course I know about it, it's actually my specialty." He said.
"Perfect!" I exclaimed happily, "I was wondering if you could tell me whether or not what I'm thinking about doing is possible." He nodded for me in the affirmative so I went on, "My Mom will get home tonight and she'll pass the family training method onto me." Seeing his look of confusion I explained. "She's a Demitrov."
"Ah, the runaway princess. Yes, I heard about that, so what's your question?"
'Runaway princess? I'm definitely going to get that out of Mom while she's here.' I thought, but shaking my head I focused on the matter at hand. "Well, apparently the Demitrov's specialize in defensive techniques like barriers?" I asked him questioningly.
"Yes, the Demitrov's are notoriously difficult to kill, it's the only reason they're still around what with how many enemies Cynthia seems to make."
Ignoring that comment, I went on. "Well, I was wondering if I could use my family's technique to stay alive, buying time to utilize Spirit Calling in battle."
"Hmmm" He said, while holding his chin in thought, "How much do you know about Spirit Calling?" He asked.
"Not much, just the basics. The spirits can be defined in two groups, one group is animals, plants, and souls. When calling on them, you create a contract with a single being and they help you in battle. The other is about the laws of the world, it's more a way of using chants and movements as a way to manipulate the Elemental Energy of the world. From what I've read, high level mindscape users almost always pursue this, but it takes a lot of time in the beginning."
"Right for the first part, wrong for the second." He said, which surprised me because that was line for line from 'Spirit Calling for Dummies' that I'd read for the test.
"In the past, people used to believe that by chanting silly lines like, "Spirit of Water, Rain down destruction on my foes and rend the earth asunder" with enough force they could use a powerful law of water." He snorted with disgust, "Please, that's just stupid. Really, what happened was that some high level spirits like to be complimented, and so some cultivators came up with chants to stroke their ego's."
My mind was blown, that completely destroyed my idea for how I wanted to train myself. Thankfully he went on before I could get too dispirited, "A second kind of Spirit Calling does exist, except instead of chanting and moving your hand's in weird motions you have to focus on your understanding of an elemental law and call forth energy from the environment to aid you. It's more like interfacing with energy and getting it to do something for you. Honestly, it's not really Spirit Calling, but it falls under that school of thought for beginner level cultivators because the results and techniques are similar."
After thinking for a moment he nodded and activated a formation. The room to disappeared, and I found myself on top of a small mountain with a lake in front of me. "This is the most basic move of law type Spirit Calling." He said, and then took a deep breath before beginning. His hands came up and together, bowing his head over them he stood still for a while energy gathering around him. About 5 seconds later he said he lifted his head and slowly thrust his hand forwards shouting, "Gale!"
*Woosh* A massive gust of wind burst from his hand, tunneling several hundred feet into the lake before it dissipated.
I stood there in awe, just the most simple calling did more damage than a missile! Not only that, but he only needed 5 seconds to be able to pull it off. 5 seconds is nothing if I have a powerful enough barrier.
"Now, that was just the simplest law technique of Air, and it took me nearly twenty years to be able to use it."
Instantly, I deflated. I didn't have that long to train just the simplest technique, at least not right now I didn't. Seeing my deflated, expression he continued on with a smile.
"Now, watch." He said, then he thrust his hand in the same motion while calling out, "Achmed!" A gust of wind even more powerful shot from his hand and tore deeper into the lake. "That was a true Spirit Calling. Until you reach the highest levels of power and understanding, utilizing laws is incredibly difficult and time consuming. However, the most powerful of attacks make use of laws.
Therefore someone came up with the idea of contracting with made of laws. They come in many forms, animals, plants, souls, elementals, etc... but they all have one thing in common, after contracting with you they follow you until you die. It's expensive and somewhat dangerous, but it actually helps you in understanding laws faster, while simultaneously giving you incredible abilities."
"Why doesn't everyone focus on Spirit Calling?" I asked
"Because it's almost impossible anyone to contract with a spirit before they reach the peak of power. However, there's a special Mind Refining Technique at Storm's Refuge that allows you to contract with a spirit far earlier than normal. Before you, no one has been interested in majoring in Spirit Calling, most of them focus on Enchanting and Formations. I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do with it if you choose the path." He said, smiling
"Why not choose both?" I asked
"You can, but you only have a limited amount of time. Your mom will explain this to you tonight, but just understand that training in mindscape abilities takes hundreds, if not thousands of years. That's why you're focusing on body refining right now, you'll get more immediate results and increase your survivability . In the end, mindscape cultivators are incredibly powerful, but if you don't survive long enough to reach the end of training it's all for nothing."