Heh… Is it very powerful?" Kaelen's face contorted into an unusual expression, but Tang Hao could tell he didn't care one bit.
"Powerful? The Divine Dream Clan (Meng Clan) is one of the top few clans in the central state today. It is outrageously powerful. Not to mention strength, their resting place is extremely elusive, it seems to change all the time. I remember five years ago, the Grand Elder of the Meng Clan, Meng Shengdi, had his thousandth birthday. The clan hosted a big celebration in the name of the elder and invited many powerful faction leaders of the world, my father included. When the party was over, and all the faction leaders left, they noticed they exited where they initially entered, but the entirety of the massive Meng Clan had disappeared, thoroughly shocking the worldly leaders; It is said if the Meng Clan hadn't given them these coordinates, they would've never found the Divine Meng Clan's territory in the first place." Tang Hao's facial expression shifted between dread and admiration as he recounted the folkloric events.
As they listened to the story, everyone's eyes beamed with wonder and amazement.
"Well, that just means we're going to have a great adventure in three years," Kaelen said with a smile, not fazed one bit by it.
"Yep!" The others nodded in agreement.
"You guys… sigh, whatever," Tang Hao dejectedly exhaled and gave up instilling some sense into those delirious teenagers.
"Slap."
"Ahaha, do not worry too much. We will protect you if anything happens," Thorin slapped his shoulder with a heavy tap and spoke.
Tang Hao's body jumped in fright, reahusting his robe, he said- "Protect? Protect who? I'm the third prince of the Dragon Empire; I can protect myself just fine, you brutes," he puffed his chest once more and said shakily.
"Ahahahahah." Everyone laughed.
The evening ended with joy and titter and everyone left and went to prepare their things.
The following day, deep within the sect, inside a purple and white palace, a young girl was arguing with a middle-aged man.
The two shared their purple-colored hair and irises, so one could tell they were related.
"Father, I want to go outside for experience," the maiden said.
"Yao'er, you know that you may encounter those hidden agents from the Meng Clan; their methods are so elusive even I find it difficult to locate them despite having the treasure your mother left me to find her in the future. I won't impede you from going, but here," the middle-aged man handed three black talisman slips with purple-colored engravings and placed them in her hands.
"Use these void wrapping talismans if you encounter a difficult situation; they will bring you immediately within the sect territory," the sect master said softly as he handed them to her.
"Father…" The young maiden's eyes rippled with emotions as she hugged the man.
"I'm sorry your father is not strong enough to allow you to see your mother; I have no doubt that you will surpass me in ten years with your talent, however. In order for that to happen, you must challenge yourself and go through difficult things. Now, is the time I stop hiding you from the world and allow you to soar," gently caressing his daughter's hair, the sect master softly spoke.
"Hm." Su Yao simply nodded as she buried her face on his chest.
The next day, Kaelen, Thorin, and Raizel were walking in a wide and open space. Here was the extracurricular mountain; the place where students came to pick missions to go on adventures. The missions rewarded mostly treasures and were placed there by every member of the sect, whether it be a teacher, elder, new student, or old student, maybe even the sect master himself. It was a highly active and popular place, so there were hundreds, probably thousands of other students walking around at all times.
There were many huge stones with dozens of mission slips pasted against them for students to choose. The slips ranged from yellow to orange, to red, to blood red. The darkness of the color represented the level of difficulty. Yellow was relatively easy to accomplish, then orange was somewhat difficult, red was very difficult, while blood-red slips represented extremely difficult missions. Besides the difficulty levels, there were also the required cultivation levels written on each mission slip. If one took an extremely difficult mission that required a lower cultivation level, the two would balance out; taking a difficult mission with cultivation level requirement way above yours is but a death wish.
"Hey, guys, look," Thorin pointed at a mission slip on a nearby stone.
Kaelen and Raizel turned to look at the stone he was pointing at.
"See those two slips? They are both red, and the required level of cultivation is Peak Innate Spirit, meaning Sun Spirit stage minimum. What do you think?" he asked.
Kaelen's eyes brightened as he quickly approached the two slips on the stone. Just as he was about to pick one of them, a voice interrupted from behind.
"Hey- you, don't touch that, it's mine."
"Hm?" Kaelen indifferently turned to see who would be dumb enough to claim something like a mission slip. Seeing the person, he was actually taken aback.
"It's you!" They both said at the same time.
It was Jin Kun, the arrogant youngest master of the Jin Clan of the imperial capital. It had been a little over a year since they saw each other, and the latter had grown significantly.
"Well, well, well, enemies often cross paths indeed," the arrogant Jin Kun smiled as he chuckled.
"Look who it is, did you finish running away?" Kaelen jokingly said.
Jin Kun glared at him. "Running? Running from who? I was simply avoiding an unnecessary battle- I'm not afraid of any of you."
"Yeah, whatever," Kaelen ignored him and took the two mission slips and read their content. "Find the Four-leaved Flame Lotus, heaven-grade spirit treasure that buds once every thousand years; you can locate it in this area. Warning: the Four-leaved Flame Lotus is always protected by a powerful Intent Materialization realm Four-armed Iron Monkey."
The content of the first mission slip was a short description of the goal and a rough map to show the location of the treasure, as well as a warning of the dangers to face.
"This one is a treasure hunting mission, interesting. Let's look at the other one," Kaelen turned to the other mission slip.
"Protect the Yun Clan's genius alchemist in his search for precious treasures for three months. Location; inside the outer and inner circle of the Lower Western Wilderness."
"Oh… a protection mission. The two objectives can be achieved at the same time since it's relatively in the same place: the inner circle of the great forest. Once the young—"
"Hey!! I'm talking to you, bumpkin." Kaelen was making a plan for their sortie when a seriously annoying screech called him out.
"What?" He replied in annoyance as he indifferently gazed at the arrogant young master.
"Hey, look—the Jin clan young master is back at it again. Ever since he's been taken by Elder Jiang as a disciple ahead of time, he believes he's above everyone," onlookers began to gather as they sensed something interesting was about to take place.
"Yeah. He's been acting out all over the sect. Last week, he caused a whole scene at Elder Huo's restaurant—forcefully taking a table from a group of students just to impress a girl he took a liking to, I think her name was Bing Yan. Unfortunately, elder Huo was away, or else this arrogant guy would've face hell." someone said.
Soon, there were hundreds of students forming a circle around the large stone structure and the two teenagers.
"Didn't I tell you that was mine!?" Seeing that many had gathered to watch the fun, Jin Kun became emboldened and loudly hurled at Kaelen.
"I heard you the first time," Kaelen placed the two mission slips in his spatial ring and began walking towards another structure. "I'll get a few more missions—maybe five in total. There are nine months before the sect competition. We can go out for five and come back for the last four to cultivate, five mission should give us an aim for the five months outside." he planned in his mind.
"Can you step away, please?" He patiently asked a group of bystanders to make way for him to pass. He had no plans of behaving like a circus monkey for people to enjoy. If that arrogant idiot wanted to cause a scene, he could create it by himself, and leave him out of it.
"Wait, hold on. You're just going to let that guy speak to you like that? He won't let it go; you know?" The one at the front of the group said in a joking manner. Clearly, he was expecting a much bigger scene and wasn't going to let this one attenuate so easily. He turned to his friends behind and winked.
The others, five in total, all spread out to block the passage for Kaelen. One of them chuckled and stepped forward. He looked about eighteen years old and had a mischievous look about him. He said: "Yeah, man, you can't just walk away like this. Go out there and show him who's the boss. Ahaha."
The other four all laughed and began to shout as well.
"Yea!" "Show him how it is."
"Don't let it slide." The last and closest one to Kaelen instigated in a soft, comical voice.
Kaelen watched silently as the group of students tried to aggravate the issue further. He turned half a circle, so he could see Jin Kun, who watched with a sneer on his face and the group that blocked his path. He squinted his eyes towards Jin Kun and saw a flashing light pass in the latter's eyes. He then placed his gaze on the leader of the group and saw a similar beam, as if the two were sending signals to one another.
"I see," noticing what was happening, Kaelen smiled lightly.
Not too far away, Thorin and Raizel were watching the play with great schadenfreude as they knew Kaelen must be extremely annoyed, but they also knew those guys were in for a world of pain.
"Rai, do you think we should intervene?" Thorin asked.
"What? Why? He doesn't need our help. Let's just enjoy the show. Those five dudes all seem unrelated to the matter, but they can't hide the aristocratic arrogance deep within them: they're probably in cahoots with that Jin Clan idiot. From how old they look and the Qi fluctuations they emit, their cultivation is probably in the Gold Spirit Stage and above. Let's see how Kaelen deals with it; we haven't seen him fight in a while, and I want someone else to succumb to his barbaric strength, don't you?" Raizel chewed on a tree branch as he and Thorin had their backs against a large tree and watched from a distance. He had no intention of interfering whatsoever.
"Yeah, actually," Thorin agreed; it would be nice to see others suffer at the hands of Kaelen for once.
The two just laid back and patiently waited with smiles on their faces.
At the center of attention, Kaelen looked towards Thorin and Raizel, who just stood leisurely watching everything unfold, black lines covered his face as he cursed the two in his heart. "These bastards. They won't help me, huh? Fine then."
The smile on his face disappeared, replaced by an unparalleled indifference matched with a deep murderous intent. He turned to face the five young men. The surroundings seemed to become deathly still, as a freezing cold breeze diffused through space, shocking the hearts of everyone.
"Make space, you hienas!" He said in a soft, yet unquestionnable tone.
A crimson tinge mystified his bright amber eyes, as his deadly glare pressured the group of five, who suddenly felt like they were facing a titanic dark red dragon of death.
An unmatched pressure crushed their bodies, almost making them kneel; their knees caved, nearly kissing the ground.
"What the f-. How is he doing this?" One of the five screamed as he felt the gravity around him suddenly increase by a factor of ten, like a gigantic mountain was suddenly thrown on his back.
The onlookers looked at what was happening with terrified faces.
"Huuuu... What's happening, why is it suddenly so cold?" Someone said in horror while embracing himself.
"What a terrifying killing intent; interesting. There was such an promising young talent amongst the new students?" Amongst the bystanders, a tall, twenty years-old looking young man watched. A peculiar light flashed in his eerily crimson pupil while he obeserved the terrifying boy.
At this moment, the extraordinarily handsome Kaelen had a hint of devilishness that shook one to the core, causing many girls in the crowd to instantly become infatuated.
"Gosh… He's sooo..." One girl in particular watched the gorgeous boy with blazing eyes, as her whole face burned red. Before she could finish her sentence, she passed out from overheating.