Jodye Trill started to dash back in the direction of the camp with light steps, hiding his aura with the serenity earring. The Twilight Sphinx kitten, Eureka, was now resting on his head as it had seen Sylvester do. In spite of Jodye’s big movements, Eureka seemed to be in no danger of falling or even swaying. Impressed by this, Jodye picked up his running speed by pouring astral might into his legs. He was eager to begin training!
Before coming to the Desolate Wilds with his mother, he had spent days begging her to start teaching him how to use serenity force. Merely, Lady Isis had yet to budge, because in her mind Jodye simply wasn’t ready as his rank was a bit low. However, after seeing his explosive physical strength, she was forced to re-evaluate this son of hers. It wasn’t Jodye that wasn’t ready, it was Isis herself! The boy was practically begging her to help him, and this made her feel like a bad mother. Thus, she came up with a trial for him to face for her to begin training him.
She had hoped that through the trial Jodye would become stronger, and thus she could genuinely take him in as a disciple40discipleone who accepts the knowledge of and assists in spreading the doctrines of another, taking them as a master.. With his current level of patience combined with his current level of origin energy, she would probably end up killing him by mistake if she attempted to teach him. Of course, Lady Isis would never actually allow Jodye to wander alone in the forest. He was only five this year! Thus, she had eyes and ears all over. She even ordered her guards not to help Jodye unless he was on the verge of being killed.
It was inevitable for one to face dangers when on the path to strength. Isis Trilleck could still recall that two months prior Jodye had been prepared to not take action at all because he knew he was safe. Had First Lady Isis not allowed Sek Si’s shadow barrier to be detected, even she wouldn’t know of her son’s strength. She didn’t want her son getting used to the idea that there would always be someone around to protect him. Ultimately, he would need to face dangers alone and survive to become stronger.
To continue behaving so stubbornly would damage her child.
Their camp was situated right on the outskirts of the Desolate Wilds, where the beasts weren’t that powerful, and they wouldn’t be disturbed. As Jodye walked into the toward the camp, he greeted all the guards he saw. He was about to pick up his pace when he heard some interesting gossip.
“The bandit gang, the Limited Apostles, have just ransacked another one of out rookie squads.” said a Frozen Night squad-leader, “They killed every single Sage in the squad and only two saint warriors survived to escape.”
“Those damn bastards! They think they can swagger just because their leader is at the peak rookie level?” said another Frozen Night guard. “If our mistress goddess finds out about this they won’t even exist anymore.”
“I heard Frozen Night Mistress is sending out a team of top-rookies to handle the matter.”
“Isn’t the young master of the Freshmen rank? Maybe he should be sent there for the experience.”
“Are you nuts? The mistress goddess would never let the young master do something so dangerous.”
“Didn’t you hear the reports earlier? The young master just doesn’t know what danger is, he needs to be shown.”
“True.”
“Indeed.”
With his mind’s eye active, Jodye was able to perceive the black lines on these guards foreheads when they spoke of him. He felt like he was underestimated!
“What dog ass Limited Apostles? This young master will go clean them up post haste.” Jodye pulled out his serene sound mirror and injected his origin into it. A light panel instantly came to life, and Jodye entered a specific combination. In an instant, he could hear voices over an open radio channel.
“We have the Limited Apostles location pinpointed. There are two Sophmore Rank Sages, three Freshman Rank Sages, and fifteen Force Foundation Rank Saints for a total of 20 rookie-level combatants. Rookie squads A & B will proceed in pincer formation at 1900 hours.”
“1900 hours?” thought Jodye whimsically, “this is standard military time, so that should be in four hours from now? Let’s see just what rookie squads A and B find at that time.”
Without another word, Jodye Trill dashed through the forest again. He entered another code in the light panel, and the map on his serene sound mirror showed him the precise location of himself as well as the target. The Limited Apostles camp was only several hundred meters from his current position.
“These things are terribly useful. I wonder who made them?” If Jodye knew that his mother was the one who invented this technology, how shocked would he be? However, it would be a long time before he discovered this. Thirty minutes later, Jodye was in a tree branch observing a small camp of more than a dozen warriors.
“So are we going to beat them all up?” asked Xavier via telepathy.
“Beat them? No, we will kill them!” a savage gleam flashed across Jodye’s eyes.
“Killing them is a little bad for your image, no?” asked Sylvester indifferently.
“Whatever, I’ll just act like I thought it was okay after my mom did it. After all, I’ve seen her kill more than once,” with concerns to his image of being a child, Jodye was no longer committed to it. How could he become an expert if he was wasting time acting like a kid? Now was the time for action!
“Fine, just don’t use up all your energy on the small fries. Take down the big fish first,” cautioned Sylvester, “Those agents tailing you will likely report your activity soon. You probably have minimal time before they get here! To the victor goes the spoils, but once they arrive it won’t be so easy to say your the sole victor!”
“Right!” Jodye Trill launched himself into the air from the tree branch. At the peak of his arc, he started spiraling into several flips before diving straight down to the northern part of the camp.
Thud.
Jodye landed strategically next to a weapon’s rack. His hand immediately gripped the shaft of a deadly looking glaive, with a six-foot pole, and three-foot blade. The weapon wasn’t heavy at all as Jodye’s current strength was equal to 24.5 BP, he was stronger than most Rookie-level combatants.
“So this is a combat gear? All I have to do is pour in my origin strength, and it will augment my power?” Jodye Trill had some knowledge of combat gear, but this was his first time holding on. All the old war heroes from the novels Lulu used to read used a glaive to slay dozens of enemies in one mighty swing! This seemed like the perfect weapon to Jodye. He marveled at its light weight, as he pondered, “I wonder what grade of combat gear this weapon is?”
“Pour your strength into it, and we will find out,” responded the nonchalant sky wolf puppy in his head.
“Right,” Jodye’s eyes brightened almost imperceptively as a silver aura burst from his body. At that moment, the serenity earrings he was wearing shined and hid his aura completely. Only the primary force phenomenon formed in the sky right behind Jodye as five small white light spheres condensed in the void, looking like five stars in a silver sky. As Jodye poured his strength into the combat glaive, seven more light orbs condensed in the void for a total of 12.
As the strength from this spheres poured into his body, a layer of origin energy covered his body in a thin film. This was a natural force momentum barrier that was a result of the heavenly resonance. His current defense was equal to 24 bp.
“Holy s***! This thing is an A-grade combat gear?” Jodye’s eyes were wide with shock. What a big windfall! A-grade combat gear could boost the strength of energy by up to 45%! This particular weapon raised his bp by 40%.
“Who is there? Yah…ARGH!!” yelled one of the warriors after sensing energy fluctuations. However, before that warrior could turn around to search the area on the other side of his tent, he saw the menacing gleam of a blade rapidly descending.
Riiiiiip~.
Jodye used his origin energy to chop down ruthlessly before this guard could yell again. The blade split this warrior in half as blood and entrails colored the scene crimson. His Eureka jumped down from his head and ran over to the mutilated corpse and let out a “mew” that seemed to resonate with Jodye’s soul.
The corpse was instantly encased in a pink block of solid serenity ice.
“Mew,” Eureka looked at Jodye expectantly, leaving him baffled. However, he was able to understand Eureka’s intent through their connection, she wanted him to store this corpse away so she could eat it later!
“Do origin god beasts grow stronger by consuming flesh?” asked Jodye Trill to the two god beasts in his mental space.
“How astute of you,” lately Sylvester realized that Jodye wasn’t actually stupid, he just had a hard time investing his interest. This was likely because he knew he was still a child and felt limited in his behavior, “This is indeed the case. Unlike you hero who mainly cultivates by using heavenly energy and essence, we origin beasts are able to refine lifeblood essence by consuming physical powers. Flesh and blood can easily promote our strength, whereas we merely have to patiently wait for our origin energy to accumulate and fortify.”
Jodye suddenly hated that he was a human instead of a beast. How cool would it be to grow stronger through a little cannibalism?
“We can’t eat our own species, you weirdo,” Xavier berated Jodye’s inner thoughts, “we can only refine the lifeblood powers of species with a different source than our own.”
“Ah, so it’s like this,” Jodye’s space ring flashed, and the frozen corpse disappeared. Due to his experience as an operative and assassin, such scenes didn’t disturb his state of heart in the slightest, and he had few scruples, “One down, 19 to go. Hmm?”
Jodye noticed a ring with a shining opal stone similar to his space ring on the ground next to the frozen blood, and he picked it up, “Interspatial ring? Lucky.”
“What was that? Is someone fighting?”
“Enemy attack! Round up, round up!”
Swish~
Swish~
“Archers!” a warrior screamed, “we’re under sie…galup”
Puchi. He was silenced by an arrow through the throat before he could continue.
Swish~
Swish~
Puchi. Puchi.
“Enemy fire! Magicians, load up! Archers, respond!” a burly man with pale skin and a bald head suddenly ran out of the most massive tent, his clothes barely on. Seconds later a beautiful woman wearing a loose dress appeared from the tent behind him. Her pearl skin was tinted red with lingering passion.
“Stewart, take the west end, I’ll handle the east,” The sound of arrow fire could be heard from outside the camp, causing the woman to instantly feel panicked.
“Relax Martha, we knew they would counter,” replied the burly man Stewart as he started walking to the west end of the camp, “As long as we have our secret weapon, we can easily escape.”
“It is with my baby brother! We need to find Chucky immediately!” said Martha anxiously.
“WHAT?!” Stewart turned around wholly startled. His previous complacency was out of the window now, “Why the hell would you do something like that?”
“We were…you know.” Martha blushed fiercely, “I only thought that we may be ambushed while the isolation barrier was up…how would I know you didn’t even intend to set one up, wanting your boys to hear me suffer.”
“Ah…this…” Stewart rubbed his nose in embarrassment, but his face became grave as another deathly scream was heard. This was the sound of someone being savaged cut down! Stewart knew it well, “S***! It’s not just archers, they’ve already invaded the camp! No time for defense, find Charles and let’s move now!”
“No need,” came an immature voice from behind Steward. Stewart frowned, and the ring on his hand flashed as a saber slashed out behind him.
Puchi.
A green wave of energy lacerated the air, landing on a warrior who was running toward the west lines, and removing his arm from his body! Blood rain out from his injury as he moaned painfully.
“AhH! Boss…boss Stew…why?” the warrior collapsed in a puddle of his own blood, gasping heavy and wincing from the pain. However, he quickly sealed his injury with true essence to staunch the blood.
“Eddie? The f***…” Stewart was confident he slashed in the direction of the voice.
“He’s right there, you dummy!” Martha screamed, and she immediately chanted a spell as incantation runes begin to form from her words in the void. The primary force phenomenon slowly manifested to form 12 white light spheres, and some ten blurry cyan colors lights were also beginning to develop.
“Not a chance,” shouted little Jodye Trill and he sidestepped the big lummox in front of him and shot towards this sage vixen! He would never let those remaining light spheres to form, because her momentum would then grow too powerful for him to eliminate her in one strike!
“A rookie sage brat? The f***…” Steward was absolutely puzzled, but a moment later he noticed the primary force phenomenon behind Jodye. As a Sophmore rank Sage, he was able to easily see this shocking event! This brat had 12 bp! “How? Wait…no, the Baleful Glaive we got last time! Martha dodge~!”
In Stewart’s mind, Martha would be heavily injured at best, as the kid was currently just as strong as her. However, he had underestimated not only Jodye’s strength but his ruthlessness as well.
“Winter’s Gale, Hurricane Wi…” just as Martha was finishing her spell, a terrifying blade stabbed through her neck. Blood trickled down the shaft as Jodye twisted his wrist and ripped through her neck before spinning the glaive back around to sever her body from the waist.
“MARTHA!!!” Stewart’s eyes went scarlet and full as he couldn’t believe what he just saw. How could a rookie brat with 12 bp brutally kill Martha like that? She was already using her battle force momentum, one would need at least 24 bp to gravely injure her in that state, let alone kill her so quickly?
Of course, how could Steward know that Jodye’s physical strength already surpassed 24 bp?
“Ahhhh!” Stewart lost his mind at that moment, and a yellow aura surrounded his combat saber as he savagely hacked down repeatedly, trying to smash this little brat that wasn’t even half the size of himself or the Baleful Glaive the brat was wielding.
“Right on time,” shouted Jodye Trill. He was delighted that this idiot had lost himself to rage, now he wouldn’t even need to use any astral might to deal with this problem. Jodye perfectly timed a parry, knocking his opponents saber up. He didn’t hesitate to sweep Stewarts legs with the butt his glaive, and Stewart suddenly saw the sky above, before he witnessed the last sight of his life. A blade surrounded by baleful qi came crashing down on his face.
“So it’s called the Baleful Glaive, huh? I like it… Oh wait, looky here,” Jodye Trill unceremoniously picked up this man’s interspatial ring as Eureka ran over from freezing Martha’s body, doing the same to Stewart. Jodye was uninterested as he pondered on the two’s previous conversation, “If only I were able to find that Chucky, or whatever. Then I would also be able to see this so-called ‘secret weapon’ and what makes it so unique and secure.”
Jodye then casually stored the two frozen corpses in his space ring. Sylvester had long since told him that only items with life shouldn’t be put in a space ring, as they wouldn’t be able to survive the environment. However, anything else was fine, “Well, the Frozen Night Rookie Squads got here way quicker than I thought. Time to vamoose.”
Jodye Trill activated his serenity earrings, and his aura was still within his body. Although it was still there, it was moving so slow that it would be tough to detect, “Sek Si.”
“Yes, young master?” Sek Si appeared directly next to Jodye, which he was still not accustomed too. Her sensual voice was something he couldn’t handle so well up close.
“Can you take us back to camp with your shadow avatar?” asked Jodye inquisitively.
“Hmm…” Sek Si appeared to be in thought, “I can get us close but not in the camp. Barriers.”
“Good enough, let’s go!”
.
.
.
.
Jodye Trill casually appeared in the camp after walking through the barrier and asked for his mother’s whereabouts. Upon discovering she was still out, he just went directly into the tent his mother and himself shared. Inside the tent was not a small space. It looked like a luxury log cabin in the mountains, it was decked out and sexy!
‘Now, this is magic. How does an entire luxury lodge fit into a small tent?’ Jodye marveled
Jodye went straight to his room and sat in the lotus position, in the center of a white gold platform with a significant magical array formation. This was the Ascended Heaven formation! Jodye was super excited that he was able to keep this platform. He wanted to still many things from his grandfather’s place in the underground world, but that incident had ruined all of his plans. Luckily, his mother had stolen this platform from the room before they left, installing it in her own personal quarters which were also Jodye’s private quarters. Jodye wondered what his Grandpa Geb’s reaction would be once the staff of the Magic Fish Lounge charged him for the damages.
Jodye cast his spiritual sense into his space ring to check his recent harvests. His space ring was large enough to fit an entire city within, and currently, there were piles of items scattered around. Jodye spent 15 minutes organizing everything by making shelves of spiritual force before taking inventory. The first shelf had dozens of serenity crystals, including the high-grade serenity crystal Eureka had given him. The second shelf had nine C-grade origin stones, the origin gem, 500 gold crystal notes, and 6 amethyst notes.
“This is wealth, hahaha,” Jodye had stolen this money from the interspatial ring of Stewart.
On the third shelf was Jodye’s new combat gear, the Baleful Glaive, along with the Bright Star: Battle Book and some other books he had either taken from the library at home or stolen from one of the three people he had killed today.
“Hm? What’s this?” As Jodye was going through the interspatial ring that came from the first guy he attacked, he was stunned speechless. This ring actually had 500 more gold crystal notes and 10 amethyst crystal notes. This brought his totals to 1,000 and 16 respectively. Apart from that, there was also a small collection of combat gear. There were 3 matching sets and a couple of weapons. There were expensive dresses and light armors, a bow set, and what looked like a scepter. The scepter, in particular, seemed to be surrounded by a powerful force.
This was without anyone touching it at all!
“This must be…so that first guy I met…was Chucky?!” Jodye was shocked to discover this.
“Your luck is indeed not bad,” responded Sylvester in his cold voice that always made Jodye feel like Sylvester wanted to kill someone.
“Yeah, but that Baleful Glaive sure is hard to use,” when Jodye was wielding this weapon earlier, his origin energy was rapidly consumed with each movement. If he didn’t have powerful muscles as support, he would not have been able to use it at all.
“This is because you are…”
“Weak, I know, I get it!” Jodye was so tired of being insulted by this mutt. Merely, after thinking the word ‘mutt’ he heard a vicious growl in his head, causing him to smile wryly as he started to meditate and settle his mind.
After meditating and adjusting his breathing for about 30 minutes, Jodye took out an origin stone and used his spiritual sense to galvanize the array formation. He was finally ready to race to the next rank of the Scholar Realm. Although Jodye didn’t really care what people thought about himself, he must not let down his father’s expectations, nor could he allow his actions to cause insult or injury to his mother. He would prove he wasn’t trash who couldn’t cultivate appropriately in spite of having potential! What was challenging about it? He only had a month left to show his talent!
