“If you don’t want to come out then I will come in!” snorted Zilan.
Before he could take a step though, a young lady of about the same age as him, maybe older stepped out from bushes, flustered. She was quite tall, almost standing eye to eye with Zilan.
Her hair was smoothly knitted into a bun that hung high above her head, starkly highlighting her elegant face. In between two refined eyebrows and slightly high nose, lay embedded a pair of eyes which were exceptionally bright.
Protruding out of the top of her head seven multi-coloured feathers hung high, fluttering in the wind, serving to further bring attention to her beautiful appearance.
Zilan naturally hesitated when he saw such a pretty girl come out of the bushes.
“I’m sorry, I was just passing by and didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Her eyes were on the verge of leaking tears and her hands trembled as she gripped the bottom of her skirt.
“Big brother, you..you’re quite strong.” Said the shy looking girl as she bit her lip.
Zilan blinked twice before moving closer to the dazzlingly pretty young lady.
“What’s your name?” He asked.
“Me? People call me Tausi but my friends call me Tusi.” She replied, lowering her head as Zilan came closer.
“Ok then Tausi, what is that you want?” While saying that the two gigantic claws of mist reappeared as they stretched towards the sky. “You can cut the act, it doesn’t work on me! Speak or…”
The girl called Tausi appeared confused by Zilan’s words but once she saw that he was serious about attacking, her eyes suddenly relaxed and a mocking smile could be seen on her face.
She clapped three times before laughing out loud.
“Interesting, you are the first to be completely unaffected by my [charm]. Tell me, how did you do it, Malaika the Half Breed?”
“Oh! What happened to big brother?” smiled Zilan. “Tell me why you approached me first.”
“Hihihi, like I said, I was just passing by, minding my own business, when imagine my surprise when I saw someone floating in the middle of this here lake. I decided to watch and luckily it paid off, I got to see Big brother~ beat up some bullies. When it was all done, I naturally had to come and see if you were uninjured. I’m a nice girl, after all.”
“Sigh~ Fine, I don’t care why you came just stay away from me.” Saying that, Zilan withdrew the misty Dragon claws and started walking away.
“Ah, wait! Will you be participating in the rookie ranking tournament? I’ll come and watch you, if you are.”
Zilan remained silent however, for some reason he suddenly turned back and left a few words for the curious lady behind him.
“I can tell that your cultivation is higher than mine but you should be afraid of me. Appearances can be deceiving. Also I don’t like the sound of someone older than me calling me Big brother.”
He then left the area without so much as looking back.
“Hmm, telling me things I already know, don’t look down on a woman’s intuition. Hehe, it looks like Fujo didn’t lie to me though.” Tausi smiled thoughtfully as she became lost in her own world.
At this moment who could have possibly foreseen that a simple rebuttal when Fujo was drunk, claiming that Zilan was the best, most mysterious and strongest friend he had, would lead to a series of events that would quite frankly cause headaches to be a common occurrence in the households of some very high ranking people. In the future, Zilan would question if Fujo was really his friend or a hidden enemy out to destroy him.
……………………………
Returning back home, Zilan did not notice any sign of Kifo. He had some things to tell him but that it looked like he was going to have to wait.
“A day that was supposed to be routine and normal suddenly took so many twists and turns.” He sighed, smiling bitterly.
Taking a deep breath, he walked into his room and without changing jumped onto his bed.
Thinking back to the faces of the people he’d killed, Zilan could not help but furrow his brows. He found it difficult to believe that he felt nothing for them. No remorse, no regret, no sadness.
Ever since his transformation, an arrogance had been imbued into his bones. He was a higher being, an elemental Dragon.
This arrogance was especially on display when he faced other Beasts and as of now, he had yet to find a way to effectively suppress it. Maybe the difficulty in doing away with it came with the fact that he secretly enjoyed his elevated status. After all, coming from where he came from to where he was now, who wouldn’t be happy?
But as he thought more on the subject, Zilan really didn’t know what type of person he wanted to become. Yes, he wanted revenge and justice but on the way to attaining those things, what person would he become? Would he be in a position where he’d be comfortable in his own skin or would he despise himself for his actions? Who knows? Maybe that would be the price he had to pay if he wanted to achieve his goals. After all, not many can have their cake and eat it too.
While his thoughts were still on the deaths of his attackers, he suddenly encountered a problem upon deciding the rank of [Infinite Rain] as a skill, since Hihi hadn’t given him any information.
That being said, he didn’t want to rank it using the lowly ways of Beasts and Humans in this world. The Beasts star system was too limited and crude while the Humans, low -> mid -> high -> Top system was too basic with no background.
Therefore the only way left was the ranking Zaum used in the Book of Path.
Many of the skills and techniques in the Book used the same system which was,
[World] – For all techniques and skills developed from worldly enlightenment. [Secret] – For all the techniques and skills developed from comprehension of a secret of the Universe. The gap between this level and [World] was greater than the difference between the Heavens and the Earth. [Universe] – A supreme level of skill and technique that could simply be regarded as an extension or channelling of the Universe itself. Words could not describe the [Universe] level.Naturally each class, [World], [Secret] and [Universe] all had the usual sub-categories of low, mid and high.
For example, if Zilan was to use this system to judge Infinite Rain, then he would have to place it at low – mid [Secret] level. After all, he didn’t know much about the technique, only the first level thus he was just speculating.
As for the strength of the technique itself, Zilan truthfully couldn’t be happier.
That mist like projection of the Rain Dragon’s claws allowed him to summon, like the name suggested, a [Rain Storm] of powerful attacks. Naturally, there were many things that went into it but for the first level, which was all he had access to, the theory was very simple, “get to the level where you can make as much ‘rain’ attacks as possible and from there learn to channel the power of the real watery rain”. It also mentioned that the second level would be exponentially harder to learn and master.
Thankfully there were only four levels in total for Rain storm.
As for Rain Shower and Drizzle, Zilan was looking forward to picking them up.
……………….
A long time passed as he continued to lie on his bed, lost in his thoughts.
“That girl…” laughed Zilan as he shook his head. “I don’t have time for that.”
He then remembered the rookie ranking tournament she mentioned however, he quickly put such an insignificant thing at the back of his mind. If it was mandatory, he’d do it. If not, then he would still do it. How could he miss such a great opportunity to spread his name?!
Important announcement ;
If you would like to read chapters in advance without having to wait days, then please feel free to check out my patreon page. (https://www.patreon.com/emeraldragon)
Finally, I would like to announce the launching of my twitter account. I’ve been using social media for a while for personal use but I’ve always shied away from using it as a platform to communicate with my readers…(don’t really know why) However, that has now changed! I will be using twitter to interact with my followers on a daily basis and not just have the usual, “chapter updates and then silence”. No! Through memes, gifs and well tweets I will strive to not only entertain but actually interact and converse…but as you know, one can’t talk to themselves at least not without having a mental problem so please follow me as we move on with our journey.
Your humble author,
emeraldragon.
