"I did not ask if you agreed mister Alex. It has been decided that, given your current strength, it's best you skip the basics and go right to refining your skill. That way, you don't get to be just a brute mage. But don't get too excited, you first need to understand the rules and regulations. There's not circumnavigating your way around that. Also, you actually need to be briefed on the history behind this place..."
Alex was about to tell her that he had spent the night reading up on the books that had been left in his room, but Mina beat him to that;
"And don't think for as second that just because you glossed through a few pages of those books left in your rooms, that you're now privy to the history of this place!"
"I read every single one of them within the last eighteen hours Mina. I did not just 'gloss' through them."
"Still, you don't know the half of it."
She gave him a piece of paper.
"Here, head over to this location. Your next program awaits you there."
"You're not going to take me?" He asked genuinely.
"I am not your personal chaffeur Alex. Some of us actually have work to do around here. Now get to moving! No room for tardiness here."
That was by far the longest, and most earnest conversation Alex had ever had with anyone besides Scarlett since he got demoted to the realm of man. Despite Mina's intense nature, he had somehow found conversing with her refreshing. That was definitely something he had not seen coming- not at all.
About half an hour later, in spite of the fact that he had been given no directions whatsoever, he found his way to the desginated location.
Much like everything in The Guardians' lair, (since no one told him what this place was officially called, he decided to name after the secret place of a dragon), this room was just overboard. To him, it looked like a bowling alley that had been re-modelled to be some kind of training area.
There was an open space in the middle, but all sorts of weird looking training equipments were arranged in private booths.
While he walked around like Christopher Columbus, feeling out his new environment, a surprise attack came out of nowhere with the suddeness of a terrorist strike. Even though his back was turned, he felt the hot incoming wave of a pure blast of energy coming his way. A decent portion of his flesh would have been sliced away by that attack if he had been a regular person.
But his essence was still very much divine.
He sensed the blast of energy quicker than most, and very easily deflected it. There had been absolutely nothing wrong with the attack. The assailant had done well to mask his presence. And from the intensity of the magical surge, it was clear that the strike had been meant to deliver a lethal blow.
Whoever this person was, he was certainly dangerous.
So, Alex instinctively went into battle mode. As he deflected the attack with one hand, his free hand began to harness a burst of pure white cosmic energy. It swelled like a white hot fireball, and cackled like lightning. His god eye picked up a figure skulking in the shadows.
Lightning in hand, Alex was about to blast his assailant back to the stone age, when the person emerged.
Alex did not consider himself to be sexist, in fact he thought himself to be pretty progressive. But, immediately the woman materialized from the shadows, he knew that never in a hundred years would he have thought his assasin was a woman.
That would have proven to be a costly mistake.
The lady that stood before him looked every inch like a dangerous human being. Her tight fitting all black costume that vaguely resembled a cat suit enhanced her already menacing aura. Her jet black hair was tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes were sharp, her nose perfectly symmetrical. And her body- her body was perfection itself. The lady had an exagggerated hourglass figure.
She looked like she missed no meals.
Her breasts were literally bursting out of her black jumpsuit. With every step she tood, her blown out hips stood out brazenly. But her face was the center of it all. She was beautiful, but in a black widow kind of way. She was seductive, but the type that looked like she could either kill him or fuck him.
Mesmerized by the sight of this creature, Alex watched her keenly as she approached him. There was something really familiar about her, but no matter how much her tried, he just could not say what it was.
The lady walked with an almost inhuman ease. She was clearly on heels, and yet, she made no sound as she walked towards him. She stopped a couple of feet away, and eyed him the way a tiger would eye a piece of meat. The two of them checked each other out for a full minute, as if they had forgotten that they had both come dangerously close to killing each other a short while ago.
Finally, the stranger broke the silence;
"You must be Alex. Hi, I'm Zoeey." In a friendly manner, she stretched her hand for a handshake and added; "I'm your new partner..."
Alex took her hand. As he shook her, he remembered why Mina had been so keen to send him off. She probably knew that this crazy killer chick would definitely try to murder him on the spot. And yet, she had made no attempt to warn him at all- not even a single clue! That lady had a really awkward sense of humor.
Meanwhile, his new partner Zooey was smiling at him in a casual manner as if she was not the same person who had only just tried to off him just recently. If Alex was in anyway giving off the vibe that 'he wanted an apology first,' Zooey was clearly not receiving the message. She made no move to aoplogize, and it did not look like she was going to anyway.
"You know, when I saw your file, the first thing that came to my mind was that you must have certainly pissed off someone important for you to have been assigned to me."
"Yeah, apparently so..."
She laughed, but not with her eyes. "You're a funny one aren't you??"
Alex was stalling. All through their conversation, he kept trying to figure out what was so familiar about this lady. For some reason, he just could not shake off the nagging suspicion that he had felt her presence before. The feeling kept growing stronger and stronger, until she brought herself closer to him and said;
"...surely you're not still mad about that are you?"
Funny enough, it was not what she said. In fact, Alex was only half listening, so it definitely had not been her words that was nudging him. No, it was something more subtle- it was the very familiar scent on her body! His overly sensitive nose had picked up a slight whiff of a residue of a very powerful scent.
It did not come from her clothes, neither did it come from her hair. It came from the very blood rushing through every single vessel in her body. It was a smell he knew too well- It was Da Ji's! The nine tailed fox spirit!
Of course it made sense.
It made perfect sense. When he looked at Zooey properly, he saw that it was not not too far fetched to assume that she came from the same bloodline as Da Ji. In some cultures, she would be called a kitsune- a bearer of the nine-tails. This came with all sorts of benefits. By the natural order, this did not automatically translate to the fact that all kitsunes were gods.
Da Ji's case was the exception.
However, a nine tails had the potential to awaken the power of a demigod. Clearly, Zooey had transcended that plane, as was one of those demigods. Mina and her bosses were no fools. This was no coincidence that the two of them had been selected as partners for each other. He had only just arrived, and he was already in someone else's chess match.
"HEY!!!" she snapped her fingers in his face.