Zach was still in his room; waiting for Arastros to come and explain him what this so called genius squad was. 'I don't know how many of them there are but I should encounter a familiar face in this squad, I refuse to believe that Zoe won't be in it.'
He still didn't know what his soul mastery skill could precisely do, he needed to kill a being to observe its soul maybe he could discover something.
He wondered where he could find being to kill them and gather more EXP to increase his level and so increasing his cultivation level, he would eventually gather some in the war he would participate.
Now that he thought about it, Zach could not join the war like he was right now, someone could recognize him and he would lost the surprise effect when revenge's time would come. He thought about this issue and a minute later he got an idea.
He called Arastros and Arastros wasn't very happy for being treated like a servant, after all he was the great captain of the royal guards. "As you know the king agreed to let me join the war, however I need a mask, there is some people in Kartelion who could recognize me and I don't want that."
Arastros nodded and went to the palace's warehouse to go get a mask for Zach. He found a mask very fast but not knowing what Zach wanted he decided to take more than one. Gathering all those mask took him quite a long time, after all it was a very big warehouse.
He went back to Zach room and showed him the 5 masks he found, a first totally white, a second half blue and half red, a third which represented a yellow wolf head, the fourth was a gray one which didn't covered the cheeks with two black scythes that went from each eye to the top of his forehead and the last was a pitch black mask who covered the wole face with white eyes.
Zach looked at all the masks, he tried them one by one, he eventually eliminated the white, yellow and bicolour one. Only the one with scythe and the pitch black one lasted, he hesitated a second and finally picked the one with the scythes, he put the mask in his shadow.
Arastros then explained to Zach what he would do in the genius squad and when he will join them for his first mission with them. "You will join the squad in a week for a beast extermination mission in the forest at the south of the capital."
Zach nodded and Arastros could finally leave Zach's room. Zach could now go everywhere in the palace so he chose to take a stroll to see it. He ended in the palace's garden, it was magnificent, full of rare and exotic plants, some were even giving fruits, Zach took one and tasted it, it was sweet and juicy, he never ate one as good as this one.
Suddenly he heard a voice from behind him. "Ha ha, kid we let you in the palace and you already start picking our delicious fruits." Zach turned to see who was speaking and he saw the king who was extremely casual.
"Why are you so casual, isn't it inappropriate for a king ?" Zach asked with a light chuckle. The king approached Zach and put his hand on his shoulder. "For a boy who rendered the greatest service ever to our country, I think it's not a problem." The king ansewered in a plain tone.
"Why have you come to me ?" Zach said in a tone as casual as the king used. "You guessed that I had a purpose to come see you, ha ha. You are right, I'm here to warn you, in the genius squad there isn't any human and most of them are full of themselves and most of them are conservative when it comes to humans."
Zach squinted his eyes and started thinking. 'Here come troubles, I am just here to improve and destroy Arnold's family, I hope that they will change their mind or at least don't mind me.'
With this last sentence the king walked away and returned in the palace throne room. In front of him in the throne room was the same old elf who was there for the council, the king looked at him and said in a respectful tone.
"Father, do you have lead to what is written in the books ?" The old elf looked at the king and nodded. "I have, a ritual is needed, I don't know exactly what is it but some conditions are necessary." It was written in old elfic language so they needed time to understand all its content.
"That's a beginning at least." The king said in a low voice, he was about to say something else when someone knocked on the door and entered, it was Viggo. "My king, can I ask you what happened to the boy who brought back the book ?"
Viggo knew that it was Zach who gave them the book and he didn't want him to get in a tough position. The King smiled and replied. "Don't worry Viggo, he's fine, he joined the genius squad, and he even said that he would help us in the war against Kartelion."
The King and Viggo weren't worried that Zach would be a spy as just giving them the book had even more worth than giving away any information on the upcoming war. The king could even see the burning rage that Zach had in his eyes when he talked about Kartelion.
Viggo was a bit taken aback by the king's decision, he knew that the boy was a genius and he hoped that he could take Zach under him but he already had been put somewhere else. Now he could only establish good relationship with him, he believed that Zach would become a great cultivator one day.
Zach in his room called Arastros another time, this time he asked for everything need to a nutritious bath, 15 minutes later he came with everything that was needed. Zach did the same he had in Yosa inn's room, he then entered the bath.
He tried to absorb the energy in the bath however this time not like in Yosa the clash between the two enrgies was even fiercer and the pain he was enduring was this time even more signifiant.
Zach was totally confused, in Yosa it was far easier, the energy from the bath was attacking his energy so Zach had a very hard time making his energy devour the one from the bath.
Suddenly he had a thought. 'Is it because in this bath there is no void based plant, if it's because of that it would be tough to improve my physical cultivation.'
He stayed in the bath for 6 hours, in this time he greatly suffered and eventually his body only devoured a few of the energy in the bath. Zach opened his status and looked at how much he improved, he was very disappointed, this bath only added a point in stamina, strength and speed.
When he saw that Zach wasn't happy, doing things like this to improve his physical cultivation would be too costly for the results he would get. He would not be able to improve efficiently his body until another opportunity arise.
When he looked at it Zach however found that he was greedy, he still hadn't tested his body and didn't knew how powerful it was and he already wanted another more powerful, in fact it could already be powerful enough to not be annoyed in the genius squad.
In any case he would see if it was enough in a week, when he would go with them to exterminate monster so time will answer his question.
In this week, Zach wandered in the palace and heard things from here and there, he learned that with him they were 22 in the genius squad.
He learned of the leader name and cultivation, she was named Bea, an extremely rare two tailed lion beastwoman. She was at the low rank 3 and had already participated in quite a few mission despite being only 25, it was quite young for this world and at her age her achievements were quite great.
The two tailed lion beastmen had great strength and speed than the casual lion beastman, in addition to those physical advantage they also had a great gift for manipulating water. It was also rumored that she had another affinity aside from the water which was quite rare for a two tailed lion but nothing unheard of.
He also learned that apparently almost all the one who were in the genius squad never fought against anything and only cultivated or trained their weapon's mastery.
Zach found this fact laughable, it meant that of this so called genius squad few of them encountered a situation where their lives were in danger, it promised a good show.