59 Triple breakthrough

Theo never held back on spending cultivation resources on his disciples. Ever since he got his hands on the first batch of the rejuvenating grass, he made it a staple part of their diet, adding a substantial amount of it to every meal that the six of them consumed. And as soon as he managed to get better stuff, he started to use it as spices in his cooking.

Still.

The difference between various types of herbs, potions, and dissolvable pills and the actual spiritual stones could hardly be described in words. The shocked look all five of Theo's disciples gave him when he shared the spiritual stones with them and with such high quality at that… was likely the best way to describe the difference.

But all of that ceased to matter the second Theo led his disciples out of the inn and… prompted them to start their exercise right away.

That's right.

Theo didn't lead his pupils into the sect ground where they could conduct their near-lethal run through open spaces of relatively friendly space.

No. He stood at the front of the formation before prompting them to follow him as he started to stroll through the streets at a pace that forced them to put in all of their strength just to keep up!

As such, the day Theo decided to ramp up the training regime was also a day when a lot of townsfolk got to enjoy the sight of some weird cultivator leading a pack of five younglings across the streets. Five younglings that held a spirit stone in each of their hands! And as time went by, the image changed from a cultivator leading his disciple for an exercise to a damn sadist forcing his hated disciples to go through a murderous ordeal regardless of the state they were in after several hours of constant running.

In the end, the run that started roughly an hour before midday concluded only when the sun was slowly starting to set. By that time, the only thing that kept Theo's disciples alive was the nearly exhausted spiritual stones in their hands. Whenever the five of them would reach the point when their bodies would just give up, a surge of spiritual energy would rejuvenate their muscles a bit, allowing them to squeeze just a little bit more.

Coupling it with how Theo paid a whole lot of attention to disciplining his pupils whenever one of them dared to stop their chant due to their exhaustion, by the time they arrived back at the doorstep of their inn, Theo no longer had five disciples under him.

He now had five corpses who simply refused to acknowledge their deaths.

"Okay, let's call it quits for the day!" Theo happily announced once his party finally returned.

Hugo and Tiana were the only ones that managed to raise their heads and give their teacher a hateful look before plummeting to the ground and hugging the cold stones of the floor with a passion normally reserved only for one's lover. The remaining trio didn't even have the strength to do as much, falling down to the floor the second they stepped inside the inn.

'I knew that was only to be expected,' Theo thought, taking a deep breath to calm himself down after the healthy stroll before taking a closer, deeper look at his pupils. 'But they are advancing at a crazy rate.'

The young man expected this kind of result. Those expectations were the only reason why he put those five through the hell of several hours of constant exercise and pressure in the first place.

Still, with the progress they made in just a single day, it was only a matter of a week at most for all o them to advance to the second stage. Narid, Kaya, and Tiana already started to show signs of reaching the final hurdle before the breakthrough already.

'With just one more push, they should be able to advance,' Theo thought as he took a deeper look at the three of them before moving his eyes towards the two that lagged behind a bit.

Hugo's case was simple. Being the youngest of them all, his body had yet to fully develop, thus making it easier to mold… but also harder to fill. On the other hand, Luo…

It appeared that the genetics were quite fair, giving him the brains but at the cost of his physical prowess. And while he was training just as hard as everyone else, he started at a level far below them, forcing him to catch up to everyone before he could even stand on even ground with them.

"Teacher…" Tiana muttered, forcing Theo out of his thoughtful state. "No… Master," the girl changed the title she used after a short hesitation. "I think… I think I can feel it…"

Tiana put a complicated expression on her face, as if not sure what words she should use to describe her experience.

"It's like… having an army of ants crawling right under my skin… But ants that are more than willing to do my bidding!" the girl then uttered… Only to focus right back on trying to regain her breath and settle her beating heart.

"Now that… you mentioned… it…" Narid struggled to speak. "I think I can feel it too…"

'Wait, already?' Theo thought, his eyes widening up.

He could tell they were reaching a breakthrough… but according to his observations, they were still a bit off. And yet, according to his own words from several hours before, they were now showing the symptoms of advancing?

'Well, I don't know where this discrepancy comes from, but if there is one thing I know, it is to strike the iron while it's hot!'

"I understand," Theo said, moving away from the doors where he stood and approaching Tiana. He leaned down and picked the girl by her arms and then brought her body up, before dragging her across the floor towards the nearest stool. He then took some time to carefully sat the girl down before turning around and moving towards Narid.

"Teacher…" another voice filled the room. This time, however, rather than being a mix of extreme exhaustion and excitement, it bore some hints of fear.

"Yes, Kaya?" Theo asked, stopping above Narid and directing his eyes toward the other girl.

"My skin…" the girl muttered. She appeared to forget about her exhaustion and brought her hands up… Only to land them down on her arms as she started to scratch her skin. "It burns…!"

'Wait, what?' Theo's face tensed up. 'Nothing like this should be happening! Not unless…'

Theo's eyes turned wide.

He then jumped over Narid, ignoring his disciple completely, and rushed towards his pouch with herbs.

"Are you looking for this?" A new voice entered the scene. But it was a voice Theo was quite familiar with.

"Yeah!" Theo replied, tearing the bag out of Paichi's hand before rushing back towards the struggling girl.

"Teacher…!" Kaya's eyes filled with tears as her fingers left deep bruises on her own shoulders. "I-I'm scared!"

Theo wasted no time. He shoved his hand into the bag, rummaging through the insides in search of one of the few spiritual stones he had left.

'There it is,' he thought once his fingers found the familiar shape.

"Help me prompt her up!" Theo shouted, paying no mind to the respect he owed Paichi as his junior.

"Sure thing," the gentle giant saw no feud in Theo for skipping over the formalities. He had eyes and could see that the situation… was pretty pressing.

Kaya's bruises were already starting to turn bloody.

"Teacher!" Kaya shouted, the look in her eyes changing as she desperately looked around, no longer capable of seeing the teacher standing right above her.

"Up we go!" Paichi muttered as he brought the girl's upper body up and made her half-sit on the floor.

"Kaya, listen to me very carefully," Theo whispered while leaning over the girl and pressing three of the spiritual stones he hoped to save for himself into the girl's hand. "It will hurt like hell, but if you absorb the energy from those, you can calm your cultivation down."

'A freaking genius,' Theo cursed in his thoughts. 'Couldn't you telegraph your fucking talent a bit sooner? What's with this unnecessary drama?!'

"Don't worry, little one," Theo whispered, making sure to keep his voice as calm as possible. "I will be right by your side. It will hurt… but you won't be in danger, not for a single moment."

The situation was simple. Kaya's innate talent was waking up.

Dormant for the entirety of her life, the innate sea of spiritual energy that the girl was born with, prompted by heavy exercise and intense training, was now turning active. An insane power that came from within, as opposed to a power that would exclusively come from the outside.

And now that it was waking up, it exerted a powerful pressure on the girl's blood while she has yet to properly turn it into a container for her own mana.

Thankfully, Kaya was just a single step away from breaking through. Just a single surge of outside energy to enter the second stage and turn her innate power from danger into an insane boon. A boost that could easily elevate her to the third stage of cultivation, omitting all the damn annoying process of filling her blood with mana and making it spill over to her insides…

All because her insides were the source of her mana, to begin with!

"T-teacher…" Kaya whispered weekly… but still grasped at the stones Theo offered. She then reached out with her other hand, somehow finding the hand that Theo offered and grasping at it hard. "I…" the girl hesitated for a second only to grit her teeth to cope with the pain.

"You can trust him." A deep, soothing voice of Paichi sounded right by the girl's side.

After helping to put her up, Paichi knelled down by the side and observed how the situation developed with a complex expression on his face. There was a sense of anxiety, conflict, and… urgency, all mixing in his eyes.

"I trust you," the girl said, tightening her grip on Theo's hand. "And this pain… I can bear with it!"

Kaya tensed her fingers around the spiritual stone in her hand… and broke it into pieces with ease.

Theo could feel the power surging from the object into the girl's body and clashing with the raging flames of inferno within her. Yet, rather than canceling each other off… this foreign power somehow had a soothing effect, calming the flames of the girl's own, innate power.

Kaya's face tensed up.

A moment later, she crushed another stone. And then the next.

For the next few, unbearably tense moments, Theo could do nothing but sit and watch how the girl struggled.

And then it all ended.

An exhausted but also exhilarated sigh of relief escaped from Kaya's lips only for the girl's body to limp down, falling forward right into Theo's arms.

"Whoa, there!" Theo uttered a small shout of surprise, swiftly catching the girl before gently putting her down on the ground.

A mere moment later, the girl's breathing stabilized and her mouth started to move.

'Is she… chanting?' Theo thought, stunned by what he saw. Then, the expression on his face mellowed down. 'Even after going through a hell like this… she still follows my instructions…'

A warm feeling spilled over Theo's heart. A strange knot came to be in his soul, binding his soul to the fate of those five, defenseless kids.

He took them in as a part of his deal with the division elder. They were nothing more but tools for Theo to fix his status.

And yet…

And yet, as he looked down at Kaya's calmed expression and steady rising chest… He couldn't help but feel an extreme sense of satisfaction and gratitude.

Or was it fulfillment?

"Theo, a word?" Paichi muttered, the conflicted emotion on his face ultimately reining victorious over all the others Theo noticed struggling in his eyes before.

"Sure…" the young man muttered in response, slowly standing up and taking a step back away from Kaya's body. He then threw a quick look at the rest of his disciples. "Don't worry about her. She's fine now. Focus on your own cultivation instead!"

His words came out a little bit harsher than he wished them to… But it didn't matter. It wasn't like this was the last time he would speak to all of them, so there would be more than enough time to clear the air later.

Theo then turned around and moved towards the doors, giving Paichi the chance to talk to him in private, just like he wanted.

"Theo…" Paichi opened his mouth. Yet, save for Theo's name, he failed to say anything else.

"Did something happen?" Theo asked, pulling his eyebrows together as he found Paichi's behavior… strange. 'I didn't see him acting awkward like that before.'

"Theo," Paichi shook his head and suddenly brought his hands up, resting them on Theo's shoulders and locking him in place. "I know who you are."

Theo's face froze.

'Wait, what? What the hell does he mean? Is this some roundabout way of confessing his…'

Paichi gave him no time to organize his thoughts.

"Those damn crusaders are about to break through the defenses at any moment. And once they find you here and learn of who you are…"

A look of extreme conflict returned to Paichi's face right as his fingers dug deep into the flesh of Theo's shoulders.

Paichi then shook his head… and raised his eyes, looking Theo right in the eyes.

"You need to run. Run like hell and don't turn around until you drop down without a single shred of energy left. And then, you need to run some more."

Paichi's calm voice didn't fit the urgent look on his face and the drastic meaning of his words. And this meaning wasn't even hidden.

He couldn't be any more straightforward.

"Paichi, brother, I don't understand what you…"

"You need to run right fucking now!" Paichi raised his voice, no longer paying attention to whether Theo's disciples could hear him or not. "And I really mean…"

BOOM!

A distant explosion coursed through the air, followed by a strong tremor of the ground below everyone's feet. The shine coming from the gaps between the Inn's door and the frame strangely intensified, as if the sun suddenly decided it wanted to make it morning outside for prank's sake.

And then…

And then a powerful wall of blinding emotions struck Theo's mind.

A distant echo of a thousand vails. A whisper of a myriad of screams.

"They are here…?!" Paichi freaked out, falling to his knees after the shaking ground nearly made him slip. He sharply raised his eyes to the doors, right in the direction the strange, mental attack came from.

Then, Paichi's face paled. And as he turned to look at Theo again, he could only muster a single whisper.

"Run, you fool."

End of the volume 1

(Check the author's notes!)