The Cocky Rock

I was very surprised when master showed me her mystical arts, as she called them. She told me her race was called Illusional Ten Tailed Fox. Each tail represents how much of an illusion artist they are. She also said humans were rather self preserved around her race because of this. I grew more eager to do that so I pestered her until she showed me one of them, the low quality illusions.

"This is called transformation illusion. Basically you just transform anything at a hundred feet around you," she started. "To do this, you need to have good control of your Yuan and have excellent mind fortitude coupled with knowing how exactly this illusions work and have good imagination.

"Us monsters are blessed by the heavens that we have good physiques and we absorb Yuan energy even when we are asleep. But we do not have the intellect to make martial arts like other intelligent races but we do have racial attacks and we can teach other mosters the attacks if we feel like it. Since I am sure your race does not have any inborn racial attacks as your master I am obliged to teach you this. Now, get to practising. We will start with the simple stuff like changing a rock into a leaf. If you do that in one month I will reward you," she said.

I was fired up. With the will of metal, I went to the small rock she pointed to and started doing as she said. By half of the day, I was sweating buckets, my body was out of Yuan and I did not even know how while the rock was still a rock. I simply walked away from it and went to a corner to start meditating so that I can reinforce my foundation while I left the transformation problem to tomorrow's me.

Well, tomorrow's me was not happy about yesterday's me laziness. I stared at the rock with displeasure. I had tried to change it into a leaf once again but I was running out of Yuan even faster and I was becoming madder even faster! When midday came, my fur was wet with sweat and the rock was reflecting sunlight onto my face as if gloating so I picked it up with the fury of a boat and threw it at a tree. It smashed at its bark, leaving it in a sorry start then I descended into it with a small stone and started smashing the crap out of it until my fingers became numb. When I looked at the rock, it was still in one piece but the stone had cracks all over it. I grew indignant and ran to where my master was.

"Master, the rock you gave me has an attitude, can you give me another rock?" I asked her. She looked at me with a confused frown which turned into a mocking smirk; oh how I hated that smirk on her face.

"My disciple has been defeated by a rock! That is the most humiliating thing I have ever experienced. If you cannot perform the transformation by the end of two weeks I am going to drop you from my tutalage," she said with a scary look on her face.

"I do not know what that last words mean but I am going to try even harder," I assured her and ran off back to practise. When I ran off, Mr Snake appeared next to master.

"You could do that in one month, why did you lower his bar?" he asked.

"Because I can feel how talented he is. We monsters cultivate slowly because we take in Yuan directly from the world. Other species like humans, dragons, titans and Cyclops may have their racial advantage but they will use our hearts to breakthrough to a new realm. Heavens felt pity on us so they rewarded us with double the rewards. We grow stronger than most of them in every realm and our lifespans become thrice theirs in the same cultivation realm. I can feel my disciple is no-one like us. I can feel he is very talented, otherwise where else can you find a Tenth level Servant Moster in the whole world who is four years old?"

"But even talents need to be given time to shine. You are clearly just forcing him to show his earlier," Mr Snake said.

"Exactly because the earlier he gets more powerful the much harder it is for humans and dragons to debud him later," she answered, great hatred in her eyes. "I will make sure he becomes the sword that strikes straight at their hearts."

"You have decided then that he will be the inheritor of the old sage trapped under?" Mr Snake asked.

"He has yet to prove himself that he is that reliable. But if he does impress me I will bring him to bring the old sage," she answered.

I was still fighting a losing battle with the rock and even though I was losing, I made sure not to show it my tears so I went up a tree and cried hard. One week passed and I was becoming anxious and the way I was losing became even more troublesome. The rock was too stubborn to change and my master was too scary for me to approach and hit her with a cute pose so that she can extend my time.

On the ninth day, I was mentally drained so I climbed a tree to relax. I found some tree up there so I enjoyed an afternoon snack then dozed off. That's when I saw him, the monkey in my dream. He has not visited me for quite some time so I thought he stopped haunting. He looked at me with his usual expressionless face then a rock appeared next to him. He turned to it, did some weird hand sign then pointed at the rock and it changed into a leaf.

"Wait, even a ghost can succeed but I can't! Why is heaven unfair!" I cried out but the monkey did not show any gloating or mocking, but that made it even worse. I have the impression that this was an easy matter for it! Another rock then appeared next to it and it proceeded to do the same thing once again. "Okay, fine, don't rub it in my face, I'm gonna do it." With displeasure written all over my face, I turned to a rock that was beside me then did the hand signs he did.

Well, I messed up quite a bit at first but I was slowly starting to get used to it. Then, at my twentieth try, the rock changed into broken leaf, but still a leaf. I was so overjoyed that I ran laps till I felt a headache. That meant I am pooped while in here so I waved the monkey goodbye and woke up. It was already nighttime but I did not feel any kind of sleepiness. I went to the rock as I slicked the fur on my head backwards with my course palm.

"You thought you won, huh? Well, I am here to make you a leaf and also to hear you beg for mercy if you don't want to be a leaf. Now, what do you say?" I said to the rock but no sound came out of it. "No words, huh? Good, this will be much easier," I said then did my hand signs then pointed at it. The rock turned into a fresh green leaf. I was so overjoyed that I picked it up and ran to Master's place. I did not bother knocking all the way to her den.

"Master, I succeeded. I turned the rock into a leaf," I told her. Master opened one eye then another and finally sat up. She was focused on me while I was shaking in my fur. I had forgotten she got cranky when woken up in her nap. Her eyes turned red and I knew I was done for. With a single movement of her finger, I was thrown out of the tree without ceremony. My landing bruised my butt but my ego was even more bruised.

"One day, master," I swore with tears on my face. Apparently she heard me for she started throwing things in her den with pin point accuracy onto my head till I was unconscious.

The next day, as usual she did not have memories of her scary actions so I forgave her but I could not see the hidden smile on her face. I showed her my transformation and she clapped for me, giddily. I was so happy with her reaction so I got cocky and like they say, cockiness killed the monkey. She told me to practice this transformation illusion all day everyday until I could do it with just a single thought. I swear I could see her scary smile quite hidden in between snickers.

I reclined to my fate and started doing it. I started practising the illusion even in my sleep. The ghost monkey did a good job as a teacher as I made progress much faster than I possibly could have. I knew because I overheard Mr Snake praising my geniusness to master and she saying she had good taste in choosing a disciple. That made me work more harder and ghost monkey was even more inclined to help. By one month, I could make a stick look like a severed paw with thought which I used to scare master so much she beat me up for it for she thought my paw had been severed off. But still, she did give me a reward and it was a long, narrow and sharp pointed stick.

"It's a spear, your natal weapon," master said to clear my confusion but it just brought even more.