The walk back to the tower was quite uneventful as Alex took that time to get to know the new members of his still yet to be named organization. And it was quite a surprising and enlightening experience, for example; Minerva or as everyone calls her Cross was neither a cultivator, or a mage, she was what was known as an Elementalist. And quite honestly this was the first time Alex had ever heard of, or even came in contact with an Elementalist.Elementalist were actually humans who"s power come from the very own biology as opposed to he intake if energy from fundamental sources to grow stronger. The world itself, every part of it is made up of elements, it didn"t matter if it was traditional elements of air, earth , fire and water, or chemical elements from the periodic table like Hydrogen, Magnesium etc. Elementalists could control and manipulate this in a variety of ways, thankfully Cross"s ability was simple enough for the dumb people to follow.
She had the ability to control every form of metal in existence, it didn"t matter if it was buried deep within the earth, or hanging far out in the reaches of s.p.a.ce, Cross would be able to control or manipulate it. Of course the idea of controlling metal deep in s.p.a.ce and the earth was just in theory, according to Cross, Elementalist as divided into D, C, B, A, S and X cla.s.s talent. Her control over metal put her firmly within the S cla.s.s with the potential to be an X cla.s.s is she trains her abilities well and her body grows capable of handling more of the strain when using her powers.
There was no progression of realms for them, but there were ranks to show just how powerful they were. You might have an S cla.s.s talent, but if your abilities could only cause a rank 1 damage, then you were rank 1. The stronger you and your ability becomes, the higher rank you climb, until you reach nine which is the pinnacle, anything after that and you would have increased the cla.s.s of your talent. Which was very rare, but could happen.
Sarah Lorne was actually a Knight, instead of using Qi or Mana, she"s using a different and more obscure energy called battle energy, which was actually what is created when Mana is used to strengthen your body, rather cultivating a Mana heart for the casting of spells.
She wasn"t that forthcoming about what level and realm she was in as a Knight, but she seemed like an easy person to get along with. Ibrahim Abdulsalam was a mage, a rare illusion mage with a rather weird love for scorpions.
Apparently he"s raised over ten dozen scorpions of 16 different breed, each more poisonous than the others and completely under his control, so while his illusions are active, his scorpions are at work, silently sending his opposite to a painful grave. Apart from being a former slave, Ibrahim, affectionately called Rahim was a trained a.s.sa.s.sin, so honestly he was not your conventional mage.
And then finally Hideki, the biggest shock of all. He claims he"s a samurai, but the kind of energy he uses is something Alex was more familiar with that everyone else. He called it Reiki, or simple translated as spiritual energy, giving him the ability to not just physically attack an opponent, but also spiritually, going so far as to actually sever said person"s soul from their body. His cultivation so far has been haphazard and completely off key, the j.a.panese island and royal family were one of the first when the predecessors of the emperor came into the world in an attempt to conquer it. And since that time, the methods to train spirit energy, has been lost to them, but Alex knew he could help him, so he and Hideki would probably be spending a lot of time together in the future.
Alex need to know how to share the tower, after all there were seven floors to it, and just in case there would be more students joint the organization apart from the 20 he planned for, Alex had to make sure the people who end up together would be able to complement themselves. But it was probably honestly to begin worrying about things like that, there wasn"t enough of them, and the seventh floor alone had 15 rooms, each big enough to comfortably house 3 to 5 people. And the subsequent floors had 10 rooms each, in all honesty it was too much for them with how small their numbers were, so they had enough s.p.a.ce to themselves to do what they wanted.
Alex reckoned he would probably turn the first floor into a store of some sort, with ten rooms there was a lot of leeway to figure out what sort of products could be used to fill them up and be placed on sale. Alex had no intention to just focus on the growing of the Indian Nightshade. Apart from the Alchemical plants, he wanted to sell Alchemical materials, blacksmithing and Array and Warding materials, heck he was even going to start a restaurant if he had to and make sure this tower was self sufficient and prosperous. Sure there would be a few compet.i.tion and he might be biting off more than he could chew, but this was so that in the end if one thing fail, they would be able to fall back on the other.
So for now it would be better if they all just lived on the seventh floor, the fourth to seventh floor should be enough as residence for whatever members are allowed to join the organization. The third could be kept aside for guests, while the second and first along with the sub-bas.e.m.e.nts would be used as resources to help push the cultivation of the students forwards. The most pressing matter right now, was to raise some money to undertake some major projects, and once that"s underway, Alex intends to study intensely for at least a month or two, learning all he can about arrays and inscriptions so that he could fix the tower up and probably make it more presentable. And for that, Alex had to utilize the forest materials in his front.
Orcon forest was very dangerous, but his body always grew resistant to a particular element or skill depending on the spirits he had on him and Xeron"s poison attribute has probably made it possible for Alex to turn the entire Orcon forest into his playground. But that was a matter for tomorrow, today however he had dinner with his two future wives, and wild this might be a weird thing for a fifteen year old to think of say, it was none the less the truth. Louis"s extra reports can wait till tomorrow, right now he had to go get ready.
< =="">>>>>>
EARTH ALLIANCE DEFENSE ACADEMY
CENTRAL ADMINISTRATIVE BLOCK
INFIRMARY
"I can"t stress enough your level of stupidity and complete ignorance in the face of greed. But then again I don"t think I have to bother too much to tell you just how much of a screw up you are. Black Ash has always been an important foundation for the academy, something that you know is only ever effective when it"s host is still alive, yet you attempted to kill said host and even attempted to absorb the power into yourself. The fact that you"re alive right now is nothing short of a miracle, but it"s not without cost.
Black Ash isn"t just fire and ash, they"re thousands of tiny fire cancer cells, they spread fast and are hard to neutralize much less extract. You have a ton of them lying dormant in your body from the combined efforts of some very capable doctors, but should they get activated again, if they don"t kill you, then I"m sure the pain will drive you insane. It would be better to ask their host to remove them, but I don"t want to put that much power in his hands.
Black Ash is important to the academy and our plans, the fact this is a power that belongs to Zhang Xiao Feng of the Wudang sect is all the more better.
Getting him under our control would give us the foothold we need to fully launch the full scale plan and take what we want on this planet. We need to keep a close watch on him for now, preferably create opportunities to have him become Endeared with the academy, foster his loyalty to the cause.
As soon as you"re done here, talk to the teachers, have them push him but make sure they all try to develop a good relationship with the young lad. Also it would be smart to prepare a reward for him and his sister, after all it was from their effort so many of the new students were able to survive the Airship hijack by the communion and the subsequent trek through a very dangerous forest.
This should be the first step in establishing a relationship with him, and then we can work on bait, the hook, the line, and the sinker. Find out everything you can about him, such information would be handy, now rest a bit and get to work! As a staff of this Academy, you"re a f.u.c.king disappointment! I hope you won"t disappoint me again Roland."