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After three hours of long queuing, two applicants exhaled in relief when they finally managed to successfully applied.
They could not help but to shook their heads when they saw these 3 rows of long queues. If not for Shen Murong acting as the security guard, some would have already skipped the line at the front out of impatience. If that happens, riots would definitely ensue.
"Hey, did you hear that? They only have 5 more slots!" one of them spoke out.
"What? That's too little! How will their selection process will be then?" replied the other, surprised.
"I heard its some kind of a duel between shortlisted applicants." said the man as he cupped his chin.
"Damn! This is even harder than my job interviews! If it is going to be a duel, there is now way I would be able to win!" the other cursed out between his teeth, feeling depressed.
"Calm down! The final verdict would be decided by the Lord himself, Duan Li! Regardless if someone won or lost, each have their equal chances before him!"
The two of them continued to discuss their strategies IF they got shortlisted. After all, the total number of applicants has reach well over a thousand already!
It would be a miracle if they got the chances and be shortlisted.
...
Soon, the recruitment ended for the day as Shen Lu, Wang Xiolun and Xiahou Yu closed down their booths and prepared to leave towards their respective classes for the day.
"You guys have classes today?" asked Duan Li as he approached them.
"I have classes both in the morning and the afternoon." Wang Xiolun replied as he nodded. His tone and body language was now more polite towards Duan Li.
"Me too! Today is gonna be full time for me! I hate the classes for today, the teachers are way too strict!" Shen Lu remarked with a sigh.
Xiahou Yu thought for awhile with her index finger on her chin and then answered, "I only have classes in the morning and free by the afternoon! Although, I have plans after that. I might be coming home early though."
Hearing these, Duan Li nodded.
"I see, what about you?" Duan Li said to Shen Murong.
"I don't have any classes today, but I have to return to my clan and report. But don't worry, I won't say anything that I'm not supposed to divulge out. Wouldn't want to cause trouble for myself anyway." Shen Murong replied.
After some small talks between them, each went their separate ways with different emotions each.
"Looks like Shen Lu's class must be quite stressful. As expected of a Strategist." Duan Li commented as he looked at their disappearing figure from the distance.
Now, only he was left alone in the residence court.
At this moment, Duan Li's party could be considered to be all-rounded for a group battle. They have three Warriors with him included, one Spellcaster and one Strategist. The only class they were lacking right now was an Alchemist.
Before a group battle, the role of Strategists would be to deploy tactics and manuever nodes for their course of actions during a battle. They must ensure that all things are considered as best as they could.
Meanwhile, during the battle, the roles of Warriors are far more straightforward. Each could be designated as either the vanguard or the rear-guard.
As for Spellcasters, they are more flexible between attacking, defensive and supportive roles. However, these are predetermined before the battle by the Strategist. The reason being was that, although they were flexible, they tended to exhaust their spiritual Qi sooner than the others!
Thus, their enemy targets are far more specific than the Warriors. For defensive roles, they were more needed to protect the backs of both vanguards and rear-guards, with inclination towards the former. As for supportive roles, they were to cast healing and recovery magic, as well as buffs for allies and debuffs for the enemies.
In other words, the key elements for a successful battle would be to make good use of these Spellcasters!
However, the roles of an Alchemist were also equally important.
This was because, although they would usually have the weakest battle prowess out of all the classes, their pills and elixirs could add more advantages and reverse the tides in an unlucky situations during a battle!
With their means, they could help allies significantly both before and during the battle in many different ways, either buffs or recovery. Furthermore, after the battle, they would be the person most needed on the battlefield to distribute recuperative pills and elixirs for the next incoming battle.
Thus, an Alchemist was actually the lifeline of a party!
"Hmm.. even though I am quite capable in producing pills and elixirs myself, mine is quite unorthodox. Having an orthodox Alchemist whom produces pills and elixirs based on the situations would be far more beneficial in a group battle." thought Duan Li as he flipped the applicants paper one by one.
In his opinion, what he needed the most right now would be Spellcasters, Alchemist and Warriors according to their priority level. For Strategist, he decided that Shen Lu was enough for now.
Thus, he separated all the applicants into categories based on their classes and star ranks. The rest, he would have to depend on Shen Lu for the shortlisting process.
"That's done! Now I need to finish reading the whole loads of books that my disciple borrowed for me. I guess I could finish reading them all today." he said as he went to the reading room.
...
After five hours, Duan Li had managed to read all hundred books and he could feel his brains to be overheating from absorbing too much of information at once.
"My reading speed had become even faster! However, the feeling of my brain overheating like now is not something I would like to feel every single time after reading.." Duan Li sighed.
Guess there were still limits he couldn't overcome naturally despite the seemingly omnipotent abilities he was bestowed with.
He could extend it if he were to eat pills or elixirs, but unless he was desperate enough, he wouldn't do it. After all, even though he loves reading books, he was not a maniac.
"Let's see.. what should I do next?" Duan Li sat in the room as he cupped at his chin.
He had concocted some improved Battle Pills of his own version and read a whole pile of books. The only thing he needed to do right now was to rest for a bit!
"I miss my room and mother.." Duan Li laid down on the floor as both of his hands supported the back of his head, like a pillow. He stared at the ceiling as numerous thoughts sprouted.
In just a matter of few days after his fateful encounter with the mysterious pearl, his life had definitely changed in a dramatic fashion. This was the kind of life that he had never imagined himself to be in, not even in his wildest dream!
After resting for two hours while daydreaming, it was already past noon and none had came back yet to the residence court.
Because he felt bored, he closed his eyes and drove his consciousness into his lower dantian.
Eh?
It had been a while since he last saw these two. Dilong, the Earth dragon that looked like a little worm, and Zhulong, the Fire dragon that looked nothing more like a chicken.
Both of them were the Earth Origin spirit and the Fire Origin spirit respectively. Right now, these two origin spirits had made their own room inside Duan Li's dantian. Which had caused him to be surprised.
Entering that room, he saw Dilong and Zhulong chatting with each other while drinking something.
"Oh? Its the master! Welcome!" Dilong greeted him, elated as she wiggled towards Duan Li.
"What have you been up to master? We were so bored with nothing to do here!" Zhulong complained as he too approached at Duan Li, like a child seeing its parents.
Seems like these two had been living it up comfortably inside him eh?
"What is this room? How is this here?" Duan Li asked them suspiciously.
"Ahh.. I made this room! Since I am an Earth origin spirit, this is something that is within my means!" Dilong replied proudly.
"Furthermore, I made a tea too! Come and have a drink!" she said as she whipped her pink tail and a cup of tea materialized out of thin air.
"As long as your feet touched the ground, I could at least do this much! Hehe!" she continued with a slight giggle.
"That's... convenient.." Duan Li said slowly as he observed the room, still feeling rattled that all these was created inside his lower dantian right now.
He sipped at the cup of tea.
"Mmm! This tea is delicious!" Duan Li remarked, feeling astonished.
"Well, if the tea were not boiled to the most perfect temperature, it wouldn't be able to taste heavenly like that. Naturally, this was only possible because of my help!" Zhulong interjected with a proud look as it used its right wing to hold the tea cup and sipped slowly with its beak.
It was a strange scene for Duan Li.
"En! Furthermore, we also have a hot bath and this room is heated quite nicely. We could use another companion sometimes. It gets boring with just the two of us here." Dilong added.
Pu!
Duan Li choked on his tea.
You guys are being way too complacent!
"Well, I have a Fenrir cub and a molten Komodosaurus sleeping inside my spatial ring right now. I might not be able to join you two as frequently, but they also needed companions as well." Duan Li said, and this was especially true for the molten Komodosaurus.
The latter had been in a slumbering state ever since Duan Li exited the Eternal maze. Since it had helped him immensely during that final boss encounter, Duan Li felt pitiful for it not having its freedom of roaming around like the cub.
Hearing this, Zhulong became excited.
"Molten Komodosaurus? That's a fire attribute monster! We could get along really fine!" he chuckled.
"A Fenrir's cub? It has been a long time since I've seen one! Hey Zhulong, let's open up a portal and connect the spatial ring here so they could enter!" Dilong said, equally excited.
"Sure!" replied Zhulong.
Bzzztttt!!
They both then channeled their powers together, as a small black dot appeared on the corner of the room, appearing to become bigger and bigger.
"By the way master, we felt two peculiar strong forces that we could not make out at all! They hid beneath several layers of dimension inside you. Thus, even we could not locate them. What are they exactly?" Dilong asked at Duan Li as she continued to channel at her powers.
"Yeah! I tried to peer through some inner dimensions myself to search for them, but if I get too close, they would repel me away! I only wanted to make friends with them!" Zhulong added as their powers started to make the hole more bigger.
Hearing this, Duan Li contemplated for a while.
"They must be talking about the two mysterious pearls, Gold and Crimson.." thought Duan Li.
"Don't worry about it, they are not dangerous, just that they do not like to be disturbed." he replied.
After all, in all honesty, even he too did not know the origin of those two mysterious pearls inside his body. What he did know so far was that, they helped him to change his fate and obtain unique abilities that made him what he is right now.
Since they did not cause any problems to him, they should be safe.
Woonggg!!
The hole finally tore open.
The size was quite big and soon the Molten Komodosaurus stepped out from the hole.
"Huh? What is this place?" the Komodosaurus said as he stepped out from the portal.
But then, it freezed upon coming into eye contact with Zhulong, as if the latter was its forefather. The Komodosaurus finds himself to be reverring the other party almost immediately.
"Aarrff!! Arrff!!" Daelius, the Fenrir's cub walked out from that portal excitedly.
Wooongg!!
Another portal tore open.
It was Duan Li's sword, Duergar.
"Hmph! No wonder I felt different powers coagulating together, it seems like we have a party here eh? Let me join in as well!" the sword harrumphed as it used its spectral hands and dunk in at a cup of tea with his mouth that suddenly formed on its hilt.
They began to chat together merrily, and soon, the spacious room had become packed with these creatures socializing with each other.
Being the host, Duan Li felt really weird about all these, but he still enjoyed it nevertheless.
Pinggg!!
Suddenly, an alarming feeling crept up inside him.
"Eh? This is a connection from Cucko!" said Duan Li as he creased his brows together.
He decided to name the transformed chicken as Cucko and let it roam free at the garden.
"This.. an intruder in my residence court?"
...
huehuehue kept u guys waiting eh? I forgot to put the chapter on timer today lol.
Enjoy and thanks for reading! ;)
####PATREON####
Visit my patreon to support this novel at www.patreon.com/ramzeyramzo
-PAYMENTS ARE MONTHLY-
Tier 1 (Fans of UIU) = $2.00
-Entitled to basic contents.
Tier 2 (Loyal Reader) = $5.00
-Entitled to early release.
Tier 3 (Noble Reader) = $10.00
-Entitled to early & double release.
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-Entitled to advance chapters.
Tier 5 (Quasi Aurthor) = $50.00
-Submit one chapter worth story plot with your name on it.
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####################
"Sorry guys, I had to leave now. Trouble just knocked at my doorstep." said Duan Li as he sighed.
Just when he was enjoying himself, someone just got to arrive and cause trouble for him!
Retracting his consciousness from his lower dantian, he was now back inside his own room.
"The direction of this disturbance.. is at the garden?" Duan Li said after he got the telepathic signal from Cucko again.
Whoosh!
He swiftly left the room and arrive at the garden within three breaths.
The garden was silent as usual, but even he could felt that this silence was off from the usual bright atmosphere. It felt stiffling and makes one uneasy to stay for too long.
Sighing, Duan Li called out towards the people that were hiding in his garden.
"Come out. I know you guys are here."
Whooshh!
Two men covering half of their face with black cloth leaped out from their hiding spot. Eventhough both of their faces were covered, their upper facial appearance were identical with each other - same short hairstyle, wide forehead, sharp brows, deep eyes and narrow upper nose. In other words, these two intruders were twins.
"How did you find us out?" asked one of them. He did not expect for this person to easily snuff them out from hiding just like that.
"I didn't, its my chicken that had discovered you two." Duan Li replied honestly.
Pu!
The two men choked as they got caught off guard with Duan Li's word. They did not expect him to answer like that!
"Y-You! To say that a chicken caught us infiltrating, do you mean to look down on us?!" this person shouted out, enraged.
Hearing this, Duan Li realized that the 'truth' he had just spoken to them would indeed sounded like an insult.
But what could he do about it? He was really being honest here!
"It really is because of my chicken that had discovered you, I can prove-" replied Duan Li as he tried to explain before he was interjected by the furious intruder.
"Enough!" the man shouted out.
"Our goal is to find a capable Lord to lead us and make use of our skills. When you found us out, I was impressed, because this meant that you had skills of your own."
"However! To think that you would insult us immediately after. This is something that we could not accept! We challenge you to a duel!" the man said as his emotions fumed with each sentence he spoke out.
"A duel? Seems like these two are students of the academy too." Duan Li remarked inwardly.
If it were outsiders, then he definitely would do his best to escape immediately. If these two could bypass the barrier surrounding the academy, then that speaks volume of their actual capabilities and Duan Li would be an idiot to stay longer.
But now that he knew they were just students of the academy like himself, he reckoned he would be able to take care of them easily.
This was because, even though both had reined in their aura, some of it still leaked out. If he was not mistaken, these two should be at the Foundation establishment realm, which he would be able to dispatch with ease.
However, out of caution, he used the identify ability on them.
[Harmless student, middle stage of Foundation establishment realm.]
Pu!
Duan Li had to suppress himself from laughing out loud. This description of them was too dismissing! If they were to know of this, they would be fuming in indignance right now.
"Prepare yourself!" the angry man shouted out for the last time before both of their figures suddenly vanished.
Whooshh!
Eh? This art of concealment they used was far better than before.
Not bad!
Although Duan Li couldn't locate them, the spiritual Qi fluctuations in the air still told him that they were around, and this time, they used skill arts to hide themselves.
However, what kind of person was Duan Li? If he were to not make use of his abilities that he had gained so far, then he really was a big idiot. Clasping his hands behind his back, he activated an ability.
'Tetra Unsealing: Soul Sense!'
Woongg!
Right now, his vision layout was changed entirely. It was as if he could view all 360 degrees within the range of 500 meters with absolute clarity.
Although Duan Li wasn't someone unfamiliar with the usage of Soul Sense, he had to admit that this version of Soul Sense was far more superior than the original version.
In particular, was the filter function!
All non-essential clutters were now being filtered out, and like a sonar, he radiated out a little bit of his spiritual Qi into the surrounding, to uncover the two hidden twins inside this garden.
This was an ability he had just improvised on the spot by looking at the fundamentals of Sonar Qi, which was a technique used specifically by the practitioners of the art of medicine, the same technique he used to diagnose the internal conditions of Wang Xiolun before!
"Found you two!" Duan Li chuckled out as he swiftly kicked two pebbles in front of his feet towards the location of the two twins casually.
Pa! Pa!
The twins blocked the incoming pebbles with their bare hands, causing their concealment art to be cancelled out almost immediately.
"You! I have to admit that you have some capabilities!" the rowdy one spoke out, surprised that Duan Li had managed to easily locate them once more.
What they just used was a clan secret art, and no one outside of their clan knows of this! Furthermorw, even if one managed to identify its flaw, they would still not be able to locate them easily like this!
"Are you going to say that you found us out because of your chicken again?" he spoke out with gritted teeth.
If the other party still dared to mock them, he would risk it all and beat up this haughty guy in front of them!
Duan Li chuckled a little and shook his head.
"Nope. This time, it was because of my ability." Duan Li replied casually.
"Good! Since that's the case, it meant that our concealment art had lost its purpose. Following which, its time for some close quarters combat!" he spoke out somewhat excitedly as he began to form a stance.
Since they were both a sophomore, they had not come to watch the battle royale conducted for the junior's first Combat class. Thus, they naturally hadn't witnessed the brutal battle between Duan Li and Shen Murong that broke the entire field apart!
However, they did keep on hearing that Duan Li's hand to hand combat was formidable. Therefore, they were eager to test if that rumors were true at all!
"Close quarters combat?" Duan Li's face turned a bit blank as he recalled a scene. The last time he did that with Shen Murong, all hell had broken loose. If that were to happen again here, his residence court might really just turn to become a hiding den for bandits!
Even yelling at the heavens would not make them fix his residence court this time around if that happen.
"Wait! I don't want to mess up my residence court! I agree to close quarters combat, but it must be purely raw strength with no skill art used! In addition, If I could hold out twenty moves from you two, then I win!" Duan Li hurriedly said.
The two of them looked at each other at this weird duel rules that Duan Li had proposed, but since they were the challenger, naturally Duan Li had the rights to chose the rules of the duel.
Thus, they nodded, but the rowdy one asked Duan Li, "Are you sure with this rules? This would be two against one. Let me warn you, our hand to hand combat is not something you see everyday. You might regret this decision!"
"Yes I am sure. In fact, I am not looking down on you both. Imagine three martial artists that practiced cultivation were to fight with full strength here, my residence court would be turned into a mess! If that happened, can you two fork out 50 high quality spirit stones for the repairs?" Duan Li replied with another question.
Hearing that number '50 high quality spirit stones' for compensation, both of them immediately broke out in sweats!
It was as if they were facing a truly horrible, devastating monster before them!
Eventhough their clan was extremely reclusive and capable, they were not rich at all. Just the thought of recalling that their allowances per month was just a meager 500 low quality spirit stones had already made them thoroughly depressed. Where would they even be able to fork out 50 high quality spirit stones then?
Even if the empire itself were to come down and loot their whole clan to the ground to look for such an amount, it would be far more easier for them to ascend the heavens than finding one or two high quality spirit stones laying around inside their clan.
They were just that poor!
In the past, being a reknown assassin clan far and wide, many had hired them for their special skillsets, and their treasury could be said to be as deep as the ocean.
But when the revolution came and laws were made, if they were to continue with their assassination business in broad daylight, they would soon find their whole nine ancestors and nine predecessors to be wiped clean from the Tian continent!
Thus, after several decades, their deep treasury eventually ran out and dry like the boundless deserts, until every single one of them had to live frugally. It was truly a tragic fate for their clan.
After all, times have changed and people could not just wantonly murder people left and right anymore.
That was why they needed to find a Lord soon, so that they would have a shelter on top of their head to rely upon and not be subjected to such vicious cycle of poverty anymore.
Furthermore, they were trained to be loyal since they were but a child, and swearing fealty to a Lord would not be a problem for them at all.
In fact, by then, their clan would be second in priority compared to their Lord!
Swallowing their saliva, the rowdy one immediately nodded his head like a chicken pecking at the ground, thoroughly afraid of having to pay up 50 high quality spirit stones.
With such a number, even if he were to sell all of his bodily organs, he would still not be able to clear such a debt.
"W-We agree!" he said quickly.
As Duan Li did not know yet of their tragic background, he found it weird for the other party to instantly agree.
Nonetheless, this works well in his favor.
Lowering himself into a unique stance, all sorts of opening from before was now thoroughly guarded.
At this moment, Duan Li's martial art had already evolved into something that was terrifying as the result of his battle experience with Shen Murong.
Just with this stance alone, the wind had suddenly stopped blowing, insects and small creatures shut their mouth for good, and fishes by the pond submerged themselves deep into the water, afraid to be exposed to such a brutal air above them.
The two twins could sense this dreadful air being permeated by Duan Li as they too became serious. Even if there were no killing intent behind that stance by the other party, this pressure alone that they were subjected to right now feels eerily similar nonetheless.
"Come!" Duan Li spoke out.
...
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