Looking at all new friends surrounding him, Asura Ryuu felt a long-gone nostalgia resurfacing in his heart. He didn't know what awaits after this but the more unknowns there are, the more interesting his life will be. His dark eyes pierced by crimson motes of light gradually turned more focused as excitement could be felt around him, which in turn infected everyone present in the room whether consciously or subconsciously.
Lan Yao sat on her mattress with legs crossed and slightly shook her head, causing tangled hairs to straighten out and resemble a natural waterfall-like manifestation. Old man Xun Feng remained standing and after taking a good look at each of his new disciples, he nodded in satisfaction and formally announced the start of the first lesson as well as a brand new period in life for these children.
Xun Feng: "Once again, welcome to the class zero - the one and only class of handpicked little monsters. I'm sure you're all aware and understand the weight of this title as well as how important it is to keep quiet about what transpired a while ago, aren't you?"
As it usually goes, silence was the only answer teachers get when asking rhetoric or pointless questions. Old man's eyes boasting of many, many different experiences fell on Asura Ryuu for a slight bit before he immediately looked away and closed them right after. His fingers traced a stray hair or two on his beard as he pretended to be an old scholarly sage pondering on a heavily philosophic question.
Xun Feng: "Well, enough of that. Let me show you why this room contains the most advanced technology our academy boasts of."
As he was saying that, Xun Feng's hand holding a staff rose and then lightly touched the ground, which resulted in a bright violet flash of light after which came desolate darkness.
All of the children felt more alert being surrounded by the darkness except for two individuals, just as the old man had expected. He smiled and slowly took a step forward only to appear in front of Asura Ryuu the next instant, as if any distance was meaningless.
Asura Ryuu thought: 'Is that teleportation? No, there's a little bit of residual energy left so it can't be. Interesting...'
While his thoughts were somewhere else, Xun Feng crouched in front of the sitting boy and lightly patted him on the head, ruffling his ashen hair. Looking at this little boy's hair with a strange variant of white, old man felt as if seeing an old sage who turned into a child. Quickly realizing how funny his thoughts were, Xun Feng coughed once to clear his throat and asked with a voice not containing an ounce of previous stiffness and imposingness;
Xun Feng: "Kid, what was your name again?"
Asura Ryuu: "Asura is my surname, Ryuu is my name. From the place where the two of us came from, Ryuu means dragon."
Xun Feng: "Eh, as I thought. Your name is quite unique just like you. Truly fitting. How interesting..."
Xun Feng: *cough* "Anyway, would you like to take this old man as a teacher, if you don't already have a teacher?"
Asura Ryuu secretly noticed old man's clenched hands and chuckled in his mind.
Asura Ryuu: 'Who would have thought even this old man can get nervous - right, sister?'
Asura Tenka's voice appeared in his mind a moment after: "Yeah, Lan Yao seemed much calmer when she asked me the same just now."
Asura Ryuu: 'Shall we then?'
Asura Tenka: "Um. Let's officially start our new journey."
By the time the two conversed with their Divine Sense, Asura Ryuu did a series of events. After old man asked him whether he wanted to become his disciple, Asura Ryuu took a quick glance at him and then moved his crossed legs, straightening them out as well as his entire body, and then performed a ninety-degree bow;
Asura Ryuu: "Disciple Asura Ryuu greets his teacher!"
When old man first saw the child moving, he felt the inner tension become even more pronounced as he thought his plans would go to waste and such a good catch would wriggle out of his grasp, but when he saw that the kid in front of him started bowing, the first feeling that overcame his entire being was relief and immediately after came joy. The eyes that seemed disinterested with everything in the world now suddenly regained their radiance from the past, as if there was a new goal in their sight.
Xun Feng: "Good. Rise, child. Let me take a good look at you."
Asura Ryuu's military-like stature and firmness gave a great degree of surprise to old man. His childish face with rosy cheeks and white skin pronounced his unique eyes even more. The shoulder-long ashen white hair contributed as a finishing touch to what he was. To the him of this world, the brand new person with lots of experience at his disposal. A pair of long black eyelashes showed off to the world, as if proud of the being they resided on.
Even though Asura Ryuu was twice smaller than Xun Feng, for some reason the feeling he gave others was the exact opposite.
Xun Feng stroked his beard and nodded, widely grinning in the process.
Xun Feng: "Good. Very Good. You boy are a natural-born lady killer, just like your master, hahaha-"
*cough*
From their left side came a warning cough as Lan Yao glanced at Xun Feng with cold eyes: "Shameless, aren't you, teacher?"
Xun Feng scratched his beard with blissful ignorance as if he didn't pay any mind to what Lan Yao said.
Lan Yao wasn't mad or annoyed at his behavior because she knew this teacher of hers was an old no-good geezer. She approached Asura Ryuu and ruffled his hair while her gentle voice full of kindness and warmth resounded once again;
Lan Yao: "Hello, Junior Martial Brother. My name is Lan Yao, Lan meaning Blue and Yao meaning demon. Although my name sounds scary, I believe you already know that this sister is kind, right?"
Xun Feng: "Tch. Who's shameless now? Your name, Yao, is very fitting, a demon with a face of an angel. Dear disciple, be careful around this woman, she's a witch!"
Lan Yao merely turned her head and warmly smiled toward the old man which resulted in another 'Tch!', as if paying him back for earlier.
Asura Tenka stood next to Asura Ryuu as both of them chuckled a little and greeted azure-eyed woman respectfully with a smile, Asura Tenka referring to her as 'Teacher' while Asura Ryuu introduced himself again to this beautiful Senior Martial Sister.
Xun Feng dropped his guard and all acts of aloofness around these three and then the darkness around them as well as other children disappeared, revealing the splendor and magnificence of the world they appeared in. To put it bluntly, the scenery around them was straight out of a fantasy story, full of rather strange vegetation, natural formations, animals and environment.
The sky had a huge lime-green moon shining down, giving everything in this world a faint green radiance. That radiance was the first encounter with Spirit Energy that Asura Ryuu had in this world. It would be an understatement to say this feeling didn't give him a nostalgic feeling once again, as he felt his pores opening and the surrounding energy tightly clinging to him. The feeling was refreshing and comfortable, as if embraced by the very nature itself.
Noticing this, old man only nodded in satisfaction, bloating his ego even more for acquiring such a gifted child as a disciple. He still firmly believed that the star he saw in his visions was precisely this kid, even when confronted with the fact of twenty four people with True Dragon Spirit Emblems.
To the people of this world, Spirit Avatar was something they couldn't understand nor grasp, hence why everyone thought these children awoke a variant of Spirit Emblems. However, what nobody knew was how different the two were.
Spirit Emblem, as its name implies, is a tattoo-like mark appearing somewhere on the body that contains the Spirit Energy connected to the existence signified by that Emblem. If emblem turned out to be a star, then its owner's Spirit Energy would have similar attributes to it, if not the same. Often times higher grade Spirit Emblems came with some unique abilities or traits, some could even transform the bearer's blood and enhance it further.
However, what nobody knew yet was how scary the idea of Spirit Avatar was. Not even those who posses it, let alone residents of this world that saw it for the first time.
Asura Ryuu knew fairly well how strange this existence was when it didn't even appear in The Realm of Gods. The information about it was beyond scarce because those who encountered something like that throughout the history disappeared at some point, whether alive or dead was unknown.
Although The Realm of Gods housed several thousand gods when Asura Ryuu was there, and even though they were almost immortal, that wasn't really the case. Whether true immortality was possible or not nobody knew but Gods for sure chased after it. They were only immortal as long as there were Divine Spirits in their realm but if isolated from that mysterious energy, one would find out that even gods could die.
While Asura Ryuu's thoughts turned over a thousand times, merely a minute passed in reality. After that short minute, he opened his previously closed eyes as his body got used to the feeling of Spirit Energy. He felt it everywhere around himself, above, below, within, outside, wherever he imagined there would be Spirit Energy, just like how matter was everywhere.
Xun Feng lightly clapped his hands, attracting the attention of daydreaming children and explained the current situation;
Xun Feng: "Alright little fellas, listen. You remember those ten towers you saw while Xiao La- Blue Qilin brought you here, I assume. Each of those towers houses a miniature world inside that isn't comparable to the size of the main world where we live in. That, however, is a topic for later. What you need to know is that this miniature world is called Blooming Life Realm. In this world, greenery and nature is everywhere, as you can see. What's unique to this miniature plane is that it is a shared world."
Xun Feng stopped talking and looked at the children who attentively listened to his narration, as if expecting something.