"Foolish humans." Said Hades as he watched their surprised faces.
This morning, Hades went to school with the human, Ling'er. What was school? Apparently it was somewhere human children go to learn things they never use, so he read.
He had spent much of the night learning to read. But it was simple for him, one couldn't become a peak Abyssal without some modicum of intelligence, and it took more than strength alone to manipulate the wind like he did back then; it took knowledge of wind patterns and aerodynamics, a new word he learned.
He read many of the books lying around Chen Yan's room, who was a college student student, according to the material he found. He read about human education and cultivation mostly, as that consisted of most of the knowledge in the books, the compilation of thin tablets, as well as geography, to learn the lay of the land, economics, to learn how human society worked, and human anatomy, to learn to kill them better, just in case. A lot of it was rather difficult though.
Though he read material on cultivation, he was unable to comprehend it. He figured it had something to do with the level of it as well as his species being incompatible.
He thus decided to follow Ling'er to school, he knew it was fine because he read the rule book lying around.
His first challenge was the fiery ball of eye murder in the sky. The human, Chen Yan, called it the sun. It was very reminiscent of the ball of light that vaporized his homeland.
Luckily, it was limited to his eyes, it seemed he had somewhat adapted to the 'sunlight' during his dormancy. The problem was solved with something called sunglasses, a dark, solid object, yet transparent like water, something else that was new to him. On the other hand, artificial light was not as harmful.
He wanted to go to sleep, but listened to the lesson instead. Using his limited knowledge of the human language, he learned of the 9 realms of cultivation, and that the first realm, refining body, consisted of allowing something called 'worldly essence' to circulate in your body until it was suitable for cultivation, this was the same for all species. For other subjects that he hadn't read about, he had no idea what she were saying.
While listening, he felt something tap the back of his head, he ignored it at first but soon got annoyed, he knew that it was Ling'er getting hit, since she made no action, he intercepted it on his own and scolded her.
The culprits were 3 female human children of the same age as Ling'er. From them and Ling'er, he learned that humans have built a hierarchy based on material wealth, rather than ability. Apparently, 'money' was something these humans would do anything for, and was used to exchange for food and luxuries. They do not hunt at all, but let others hunt for them, then exchange the prey with their money they earned by doing labor for other humans. He found it quite complex.
From Ling'er he learned that humans formed packs within their own communities to increase their status amongst other humans, because they don't tend to like other humans. They hate other humans that were better than them, no matter what it was, and loathed those worse than them, only enjoying forming packs with those that were of equal ability. He found their ways similar to the Abyss he was familiar with. He was glad that hadn't changed.
Then they came out to make trouble. Usually he would simply kill them, or chop off a limb to assert his position, but he was not allowed to hurt humans, but there were ways other than killing to assert oneself.
He learned that humans were cowards in the stories he read in Ling'er's room. Many times, they flee at the slightest show of strength, whether witch, wolf, or random people they don't know, and don't even attempt to resist at times.
He pricked his own tail to make red eyes, to vaguely resemble a serpent, a classic object of fear to humans, along with spiders and cockroaches.
They made pleasant screams, but he did not wish to reveal his hand to these humans, so he used the first trick of survival, deception.
He learned that humans become defenseless when confronted with creatures classified as Cute, Moe, or Kawaii. Though he thinks they all mean the same thing. These animals tend to look impossibly harmless and defenseless, with the intention of invoking instincts to protect the creature.
"Nyaaa~!"(foolish humans, kneel before my facade!)
It was child's play. He successfully fooled them and they were practically his servants. Though he couldn't understand many of their words, only capable of reading as of now, he could feel their foolish affection.
A single word was all it took for suspicion to vanish like smoke, and reverence to appear in their place.
"Nya nya nya~!"(Grovel before me humans, and offer tribute!) he said, gesturing to his mouth grandly.
They easily understood his gesture, and snacks piled before him, without even needing to leave the bag. What inane creatures, to offer their food so easily to one they just met, he believed they would kill each other for the sake of one touch of his paw. These humans, their loyalties were everywhere, and could turn on each other in the drop of a hat, how interesting.
He watched Ling'er take her quiz. He attempted to quiz himself, but it was hard for him as he was now. He instead focused On finding this Worldly Essence. It was amazingly successful and he easily found traces of intangible energies in the air, and drew it in with his soul. As he did this, Ling'er spoke to him.
"Xiaohei, we're going on a field trip to the Divine Hall tomorrow! We are going to look at, and maybe pick out, a cultivation method!" She looked excited. He was too, as he was very interested in the mystical abilities of the cultivator.
Perhaps fate might find him something, a destiny that will lead him to the dominion of this world.