"You should be able to feel your elemental 'Force' all around, concentrate only on that feeling and you should soon enter a mediative state."
Inside the village hall, which team Cursed had temporarily turned into their classroom. Lex , Linda , Adam , Tina , Michael , Jennifer and Mia where all sited on the floor with their legs crossed. Since Lex and Adam broke through, Laura thought that the others where also close as the whole of team had roughly the same amount of power. Except for Mia who was behind the others but working very hard to catch up.
The team was concentrating on feeling the 'Force' in the environment and absorbing it into their bodies. Well.... the others where concentrating, Lex was actually looking at his system as he had recieved a message as soon as he started cultivating.
(< System Alert! >)
(< New curse activated : Dragon Cultivation>)
(< Dragon Cultivation : Due to the users Dragon genes, Cultivation speed is slowed down ×2 >)
'What in the hell !?' Lex could not believe his eyes. Never did he think that his hybrid status would actually be a burden!. The curse [Dragon Cultivation] meant that Lex will be two times slower in accumulating 'Force' into his 'Force' pool. So the amount of 'Force' a normal person recieves after Cultivating for one day, Lex has to Cultivate for two days to get the same result.
Lex imaged that the curse was due to the fact that Dragons do not Cultivate. Instead they kill beasts and humans to get stronger, but Lex couldn't even imagine randomly killing people, so his only option was to hunt beasts. The stronger the beast, the more 'Force' he gets from it.
'I wonder if i can now fight rank three beasts since i broke through.'
{Definitely not, the difference between rank two and rank three is immense, especially for magical beasts. You would not survive} Angela suddenly said before going quiet again. Lex knew that Angela was still angry at him but it turned out that her programming of protecting Lex overrides her feelings, which Lex didn't know she even had.
Lex's thoughts where suddenly interrupted when he heard Michael whispering to Laura.
"Laura, it's time" he said. Laura immediately knew what Michael meant by that but she was shocked none the less. She thought that maybe Lex and Adam where just a fluke, but it turned out not to be, as Michael was ready to follow in their footsteps.
Laura did not even need to ask Michael if he was sure, the feeling of needing to breakthrough was easily felt and it could never be a false alarm. Laura signaled for Mike to follow her outside without breaking the concentration of the others. Lex decided to follow them as the thought of his Cultivation curse removed any desire to Cultivate.
Lex followed Laura and Michael outside to see Mike sitting on the ground in the Cultivation stance with his legs crossed. Laura held small blue stones in her hand as she placed a dozen of them around Michael, with him in the middle. When she was done she noticed Lex spectating them and walked over to him.
"Why aren't you Cultivating with the others? " she questioned.
"I just can't seem to grasp the concept that good, i feel the force in the environment but its hard to absorb it. Don't worry though I'm sure I'll get it soon, I just wanted to watch Mike's breakthrough" Lex explained. Laura just nodded and turned to look at the student in the middle of his breakthrough.
"What where those stones you put around him" Lex asked , genuinely curious.
"They are called barrier stones, they will create a barrier around whatever is in their center." Laura answered, not moving her attention from Michael.
"Ohh, so if I'm correct in this case their purpose is to block the 'Force' that will come out of Michael, which in turn will prevent the village from being flooded with beasts" Lex hypothesized.
"I see what Linda sees in you you are a smart one aren't you" Laura said with a teasing smile.
Suddenly a bright blue light rose from Michael and created a giant pillar that flew towards the heavens. Lex recognized this blue pillar as being similar to the one Adam described to him when they where in the forest.
"Laura did anyone breakthrough before us yesterday?" Lex asked as he and Laura stared at the now fading pillar of light.
"No...why ?"
"Well Adam and I saw something similar yesterday" Lex said.
"Ohh yeah " Laura then explained to Lex the whole incident with Mia. Which left Lex quite surprised. He was right to think there was something interesting about the new girl.
Laura and Lex took the unconscious Michael back to his room then went back to Cultivate in the hall , which Lex hated but had no choice otherwise Laura would try to further teach him how to Cultivate properly which was obviously useless.
Two days later and team Cursed had been in the village for four days, but still no luck with the actual mission. The truth is that the team was actually enjoying the free life in the now peaceful village of Rion. Especially Laura who didn't have to report to the always grumpy Mr Brown every day.
On the night of the fourth day Lex and Linda where in Linda's room. Tina was in the boy's room with Adam.
"So are you finally ready to tell me the truth?" Linda asked in a soft voice.
She was sleeping on her bed using Lex's chest as her pillow, they where both FULLY CLOTHED by the way.
"Are you sure you wanna know ? , I don't want to lose you for this" Lex said while playing with her green hair , which smelled like mint for a reason Lex could not fathom.
"I will never leave you. You can tell me anything" Linda said.
"Have you ever found my eyes to be ...strange" Lex questioned.
"Well yeah they look like a snake, but i like it" Linda replied while snuggling closer to Lex.
"And my teeth ? or nails ?" Lex continued the questions.
Linda got off Lex's chest and sat cross legged on the bed looking straight at her man. "What's with the questions Lex ?. Your teeth feel nice when we kiss and your nails make you look gay, why are you asking me this?"
Lex stared at Linda with his mouth slightly open before it turned to a smile. He really liked how direct she was. Albeit her words hurt sometimes, it was always better to know what someone is thinking than to guess.
"Come here first let me tell you the truth" Lex said as he pulled Linda back onto him.
"Well babe the truth is that....."