Allen began walking towards the gathering of Heavenly Thunder Sect disciples, including the newly recruited ones.
'Masteer~! Are you going to join them?!' Spirit exclaimed, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.
'Didn't you hear the nonsense that I spouted earlier? Allen answered a question to her question.
'Yes, you said all this was a blah, blah act.'
'Then why would I want to join them?'
'Then why are you going, master?'
Allen gave Spirit a sideways glance; she was flying with her small stature beside his face.
'You'll know when we reach there; anyway, you said you wanted a name, correct?'
Allen swiftly diverted the topic.
The moment Spirit heard this, she jumped with excitement and started circling Allen's head while speaking with a newfound vigour and intense enthusiasm.
'Wow!'
'Yes, master, I want it! Are you going to give it to me now?'
Her mood was in full swing with loads of happiness.
'Is there any name you like, or your choice? Anything like that?'
She nodded her head more vigorously after listening to this.
'Um, um, I like this, this, this...'
She repeated many names, even some that were very popular on Earth.
'Come on, trim down your list so I can make a decision before we reach the destination.'
She then looked towards the area where the disciples of the Heavenly Thunder Sect were present—their destination and it was now just something like 30 metres away.
She panicked and racked her brain to narrow down the names she liked the most.
'Well, your time is almost up.'
'No, no, wait master, I like the name Mia.'
'What the—why would you like that name?' He looked at Spirit with an odd gaze.
'Isn't that very famous?'
'Oh yeah! Well, that's certainly right, but there's no way I'm letting you keep that name; your name choice is quite hopeless.'
'But why, master?'
'Call it a boy's and your master's intuition. Okay, now you wait and see, and let me do my work.'
Spirit nodded dejectedly as they reached the destination.
Allen gazed at the disciples of the Heavenly Thunder Sect; the pressure emanating from them was incredibly intense, and he could feel his body, which was in many cultivation stages below them, shivering.
'This is going to be much more difficult than I initially thought.'
Allen had concocted a plan, a plan to take over this sinking sect, and now he was going to execute the first act of that plan.
Becoming famous.
This was his first act under his plan.
He wanted to achieve three objectives with this act.
His first objective was for every disciple in this Martial Hall to be aware of his presence, and what better way to do that than to announce it yourself?
"Senior brother Yonas, can I shake your hands?" Allen shouted; he looked very feeble as if even the wind would sway him anytime soon.
Everyone fell silent upon hearing the not-so-timid shout.
They turned their gaze upon the shout of a ten-year-old, feeble-looking boy.
Everything was normal about this boy—nothing out of the ordinary, and he even gave the appearance of being a bumpkin and weak. The way he stood looked as if he had some problems in his ass, but not everyone was minding this; what had caught their attention was what the boy said.
He wanted to shake hands with the senior brother, Yonas.
Anyone would have applauded him for his bravery and courage in asking this while looking like that.
He was shivering too; from the looks of it, it was due to everyone's presence.
Yonas too observed the boy in front of him; his opinion was the same as everyone else's: the boy in front of him was pathetic from every angle, not to mention his shivering body. He could sense it; his cultivation allowed him to do that.
The boy in front of him wore the robes of outer court disciples of the Aquaflame Sect. Long black hair. With a not-so-sharp but average face and an average build for a boy who looked to be 10, he did not have the presence one would anticipate from a cultivator.
However, there was a nagging feeling inside him that didn't allow him to mock this boy in front of him because, unlike others, he was watching the boy's eyes, and the look in his eyes was the same as his own. His eyes were also like this: greedy. Greed for everything,
'Interesting.' He mused to himself as he looked at the boy.
So, after noticing him and not seeing any opposition till now from either any elder or any disciple, he asked, "Why?"
He looked here and there, noting that everyone's gaze was on him, and his timidity increased a bit, and he said, albeit more timidly, "I-I want to j-join the Heavenly Thunder Sect." He spoke fast and continued, "But." He straightened his back a bit, locked eyes with Yonas, and added further, "I want to shake hands with the strongest disciple of the Heavenly Thunder Sect present here."
A request.
A strange one at that.
"Is that all?" Yonas's gaze intensified.
The boy, Allen, shuddered even more and nodded.
"No." Yonas rejected it immediately; if this were another scenario, no one would have even bothered to listen to this boy's request, but currently, they were recruiting disciples from another sect, so they would have to show some level of respect to it, but this was an absurd request.
The boy looked dejected and spoke, "Does that mean you are not the strongest disciple here from the Heavenly Thunder Sect?"
"Watch your mouth, kid, if you want-" A disciple from the Heavenly Thunder Sect shouted angrily but was stopped by the action of Yonas.
Yonas directed a terrifying amount of pressure on Allen and spoke, "If you can withstand the pressure and walk towards me and reach me, I'll fulfil your wish; however, if you cannot, you will die for disrespecting my sect and me."
He was two cultivation realms above the boy in front of him, but he spared no ropes for him to walk.
Allen was suddenly covered in intense pressure, and his knee bent and he collapsed to the ground.
'Urghh!' He groaned in his mind, but not a single sound escaped his lips.
His body contorted in pain, and his face had a very ugly expression.
'Urghh! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!'
He was swearing his mind continuously, not because of the pain he felt but for something else.
'Urghh! Fuck! Why the hell are they not behaving as people in cultivation novels behave?'
He was gritting his teeth hard and trying to push his slumped head up.
Every vein in the neck was visible and looked as if it would burst open any second.
'Don't they usually get provoked, and where are the trash talkers that were always present in cultivation novels?'
'The fuck!'
'It's all a scam!'
Suddenly, the pressure on his body started to decrease, and all the colour that his face had lost began returning. Then he heard a familiar voice.
'Master?'
'Master, get up!'
And hearing this voice, he jolted up with all the force of his body and prepared himself to run for his life.
"..."
"?"
"Where?"
He heard a familiar voice again, but this time he could discern the emotions behind it.
'Master!'
Sniff!
It was Spirit's voice, but she was...
"?"
"Why are you crying?" He saw Spirit, who had tears budding in her eyes and beads of tears falling too.
She then, without saying anything, came forward, hugged Allen's face with her small body, and started crying and speaking.
'Mas-uwa-ter! I tho-ught!'
'I-uwa thought you-uwa would-uwa di-uwa-e...'
Not able to understand a word of what she said, he helped her calm down.
***
'So what you are saying is that I lost my consciousness and even peed myself, and that...'
'Yes master.'
He was currently standing inside his room in the outer court disciple living section. His room was, or rather, this room was his house in the sect; every disciple was given a house, and this ragged room, which had just a bedroom with a pot to store drinking water, had nothing in it.
According to Spirit, the moment Yanos applied pressure on him, his whole body slumped to the ground, and soon after he fell unconscious. However, he had made his intention clear that he would join the Heavenly Thunder Sect if he could shake hands with Yanos. However, he was unable to do that and fainted. He would have died if Yanos wanted to, but seeing him this pitiful, he took mercy on him.
Yet he did leave him a gift, and Allen pivoted, trying to look back at his ass; he could feel intense pain from his backside. Yanos had kicked him a few times hard, and that was his gift, and the big plans that he had created now had vanished just like how all the thin hair vanished from his ass. The Heavenly Thunder Sect didn't accept him as a disciple, and the Aquaflame Sect didn't reject him.
He was then brought back to his hut and given some medical treatment by a medical practitioner of the outer court.
He again laid on his wooden bed from the front. Laying back on his back was not possible for him.
'Hey Spirit, how long have I been unconscious?'
She was now back to her charming form and replied, '1 hour, 3 minutes, and 12 seconds.'
'The hell, how are you so accurate? Do you have a clock?'
'Yes, Master, and that too according to this world.'
'Don't they have time zones or something?'
'The clock here works differently; should I explain?' Her eyes twinkled as she asked.
'Nah, why would I want to know something like this—how much time is left for my mission?'
The twinkle in her eyes died down, but as soon as she heard what he said next, her eyes shone brighter than ever. 'Um, 20 hours, 28 minutes, and 34 seconds left, master, are you going to do it now? The perfect and bravest mission?'
'And what's the time right now?' Allen ignored the sudden spike of enthusiasm in her voice and inquired.
She flew in front of Allen, and with excitement drooling on her face, she spoke, 'It's 7:30 in the evening and quite early; let's go, master.'
'What? Are you crazy? Why would I want to go this early for such a mission? That's just suicide.'
The excitement washed away from her as she continued listening to what Allen said.
'I'm feeling sleepy at the moment; wake me up at 3 o'clock in the morning; I don't want this plan to fail.'
Saying that he drifted to sleep, leaving a puppy-eyed Spirit.
'Master didn't even remember my naming ceremony?! Hmph!' She opened and closed her fist a few times while pouting her face with conviction in her eyes. 'I'll remember this, Master!'
***
Allen slowly opened his eyes; everything appeared fuzzy at first, but after some time, his vision cleared up, and he saw his system screen in front of him and heard a message in his head.
*Extraordinary First Mission Completed*