I came out of the bath draping a towel and browsed the news channels. Now that's like a start to a completely different genre of life but let's not get any wrong idea. I just don't like to wipe myself dry.
I am the 'let the evaporation do it's job guy'.
But as I saw the date shown on the channel, my mind faltered by a lot. It just shut down unable to process the information in front of me. It took a few seconds to regain myself.
Now if this is a prank, I will rip that person to pineapples.
'Something's wrong, why is the news tab showing the date as 10, it should be 8 today.'
I checked the Alliance digital calendar and it was the 10th.
'I was fusing with my spirit soul for two days?'
I thought through and reached to the conclusion that absorbing my Spirit Soul took a while. Like there was anything else other else that. Pathetic idiot.
I stood there for a few seconds and then took out a clean set of clothes and put them on. I realised that I JUST out of the bath and the towel had slid down in my shock. My window was still open. My room's window.
"But to be so shocked with just a date change. My mental health must be in a really bad condition due to the message from that God."
I sat on the bed and calmed my mind. I need my mind. As much as I could. If the God has sent a message, it must mean that something has happened to Net Geek.
The only thing that I could do was to train my mind and embrace whatever is going to come. Although even I don't know what I would do if it's the bad message.
I thought while looking at the dusty room. It was a small room with a bed, a tv and a faucet. That's it.
My other stuff?
In my storage ring.
Haaah. Moving on, I was in the Spirit Pagoda for two days. Thankfully it's the holidays and I don't need to attend school or it would have been a problem.
'That's why I feel tired huh'
"Wait a second. I smelled a lot when I bathe."
"..."
"That means I came from the Spirit Pagoda like that."
"... So that's why the staff went to check the room by himself. He must have wanted to avoid me. And I took the bus and came this whole way like that. What had happened to my sense of smell? Shocked to non existence?"
Let's change the topic. My fragile self can't take any more damage that it already has.
'I need to go to Ocean City tomorrow. The preparations should have been finalized.
At least thanks to my genius that I brought a room to live alone. If I had went to the school like this, I would have become a laughing stock for the next few weeks. Once again.
*Five months later*
{The recent Poison murderings has reached a sky high.14 cities have been attacked in the past year. All the clues and the way of murdering points to the mysterious gang as said by the Alliance officers of three different Alliances, our Skysea Alliance, and the neighbouring the Earthrock Alliance and Silvasa Alliance.}
{This gang mainly target small cities who don't have experts above Soul King level. This murderers are cruel. Their total killings has surpassed 30,000 already. The alliances had already raised their claims on the efforts from Sun Moon federation to arrest this gang.}
In the Eastsea Academy Cafeteria, the students were eating their food while watching the news.
This news was broadcasted on the Alliance network during lunch hours. All the students had different reactions to this report. Some were angry, some were sad, some were furious but most of them were scared.
Between them a kid was silently eating his meal.This kid was different. His food contained pure vegetarian food wherein all the others have meat in at least one of their dishes. Even the free ones.
The kid was focused on eating his meal like he cared for no one but the twitching of his mouth betrayed him. He was trying real hard to keep himself from smiling.
I listened to the news reporter. The reporter was lying. It was 17 cities and less than 25,000 kills. All those who had been killed were not innocent at that. They were criminals who killed , raped and even made young girls work in the brothels while breaking the legs of young boys to make them work as beggars.
They were people who deserved deaths. Yet the Alliance were presenting them as innocents and the killings a doing of an Evil Soul Masters faction.
Like I kill the evil guys because they have black money, not because I am an Evil Soul Master.
'But the Alliance has made the security really tight. Looks like I don't have any choice but to stop my plans. It was all thanks to human greed that my plans worked till now but even that greed is being overshadowed by the fear. The recent news made even the greediest one wary of others, more so from people like me who promise easy money.'
This much should be enough, right? I have been looting and killing people in different places in the three Alliances in the past five months and the gains are good.t Although this has both ups and downs to it.
The upside being lots of money.
The downside being zero progress in cultivation and three whole Alliances ready for my head.
Five months of cultivation for the prospect of gaining a quota of Shrek Academy. It was worth it. That's what I chose five months ago as well.
Five months of time dedicated to planning, executing and escaping had earned me a lot of federal/ Alliance coins/credit.
4 billions to be exact. This much should be enough to buy a seat at Shrek's.
Every three years, Shrek Academy would recruit new students, signaling a grand occasion for soul masters.
Each Alliance was given a limited numbers of quota for the Shrek's admission test.
The Skysea Alliance had a little more than one hundred quota for Shrek's entrance exam each time, and it was only after racking his brains and making many compromises that President Yu Zhen( the Principal of Eastsea Academy) and Wu Zhangkong something had been able to acquire four of them.
Merely qualifying for the entrance exam of Shrek Academy was a point of pride for many young soul masters. The continent even had a saying: Each and every soul master that qualified to take Shrek's entrance exam and failed would still be scouted by advanced academies.
This saying was grounded in truth. People who qualified to take this exam were the cream of the crop.
Despite being the elite of the elite, only a fraction of the examinees were admitted to Shrek Academy's outer court.
Shrek Academy only accepted two hundred outer court disciples every three years. Among the two hundred, fifty were set aside for those who failed to pass the inner court exam.
Only fifty people were allowed to take the inner court exam at a time. Passing the exam was obviously the desired outcome, but failing to do so still allowed entrance to the outer court, as well as the chance to enter the inner court in the future.
'And in my journey to the three Alliances, Skysea Alliance was out of the picture as the quota had been pre-selected already.'
'But thankfully I was able to successfully negotiate with the Earthrock Alliance. They just have 50 quotas and I need to pay 550 million in total for a single quota. Slightly costly but worth it.'
To Fan Lin, this was his last semester in Eastsea Academy. He had already talked with the Principal and it was easy. No one has any impression of him in the Eastsea Academy except the chef who cooked his vegetarian meals.
Now onto the main things. I need to cultivate and raise my strength to clarify for the quota given to me. If my strength didn't match upto the other participants of the Shrek's recruitment exams, I am definitely going to be marked by Shrek.
After that... there would be no after that.
My Martial soul and spirit soul are a big problem. Need to upgrade my Spirit Soul and increase my physical capabilities to pass the first few exams that requires physical abilities.
And how much time do I have?
Shrek will accept new students the next year, around 12 months, give or take.
Lastly my combat experience on how to fight as a spirit master is just limited to the books and videos that I watched. I can just show up and poison the kids. That would be a death sentence. I need proper and legal assault methods.
I also have little to no experience on controlling my second spirit soul.
I have a lot to do and with a lot less time.
A week later.
Earthrock Alliance
Moon Rock City
Shining Moon Academy.
This was Fan Lin's new school starting from then. He would spend the rest of his intermediate school year here. This was also the Academy where the Earthrock Alliance President will give the quota for Shrek's admission for him.
He got admitted to this academy on the recommendation of the Earthrock Alliance President.
The Principal of this Academy himself was waiting for him. He greeted the Principal and went with him to complete any other formalities that he may have left.
The school was a little dilipidated. The walls were old. The trees were not groomed properly and the path was a little empty.
He went to the classroom and introduced himself. After sometime, the class started. He thought students would pester him or ask him questions but no one did.
What he didn't know was that the Principal has repeatedly told the teachers and the students to not annoy or disturb him because he thought Fan Lin was a rich young master or Alliance President's relative. Both were things he and his small academy could not afford to offend.
After classes Fan Lin went to the Principal to ask for permission to leave the school regularly stating the reason that he needs to practice at the spirit ascension platform while showing him his ticket list and the days he would be absent.
It was the first time that the Academy Pricipal had seen so many tickets/ passes for the Spirit Ascension platform. There were more than a hundred tickets, tickets that were verified by the Spirit Pagoda. They were real and it was a first for him. First time he had seen a quota ticket in physical print and in such a close proximity.
The Pricipal granted him the permission with disbelief on his face.
And soon eleven months passed in an eventful manner.
*11 months later*
Spirit Ascension platform
A slightly tanned kid could be seen running in a lush forest. Behind him more than hundred people were chasing him with madness in their eyes. They had enough of him. Various attacks were thrown in his directions, but all seem to stop due to green crystalline shards that resembled the Crystal bears skills.
The tanned kid was running madly, like his life was on the line, and it really was.
Just to get the context.
For the past 11 months. Fan Lin was hunting spirit masters in the spirit ascension platform.
And yes the tanned young man was Fan Lin with third person pov.
During this time, many spirit masters were slaughtered by him. He even went to different regions to kill more people as a region could barely support a 1000 people a month and there were 18 regions. Basically he killed a lot.
Petrosapien or Diamondhead's ability was out of this world, in ways more than one. It was basically water and earth bending at the same time. He made traps spikes and others to kill Spirit masters. He also used it to escape from soul beasts.
But these were just one of the most rudimentary and crude ways of using it and he could do much more, he was able to do much more but he hasn't faced an opponent that could bring the best of him. Hence, the most primitive ways of hammer, traps and shields were being used to deal with the people that were on his trail.
But in the past half a year, the spirit masters had enough of him. It was costly to get the quota and the limited amount of it was also a problem. And then less than a few minutes of you entering the Platform, you were suddenly killed without any reason. That was infuriating!
Henceforth, Fan Lin's haters formed groups and started hunting him. In return his hunting difficulty was increased but the prize was also more as spirit masters were coming to him on their own accord.
And then the chase began with both sides winning and losing in their clashes.
After their few encounters the spirit masters learned that trying to corner him with just a few people was impossible so they went and gathered others who had already been his prey for more than a few times. The experienced ones!
Then they made plans, added range damage dealers and one hitters and with strategic planning, they had been slowly but surely gaining the inch on Fan Lin as the victory and defeat started to become one sided. At least until a while.
As for taking their revenge in the outside world, some of them tried to ask(bribe) the staff of the spirit ascension platform. The staff just showed them his reservation list and they immediately gave up.
The only thing that they could do was spawn kill him inside the Spirit Ascension platform.
Fan Lin looked at them, his eyes had turned yellow and a bright smile formed of his face.
His smile caused the nerves of his pursuers to rise like snake and worms on their faces.
They had been winning pretty often nowadays but once in a while, Fan Lin avalanched them to death.
Today was that day.
...
Experience the power of Cliffhanger!