Chapter 101: Dog days

Ever since the big break through Cao Guang spent it in his dorm room trying to control the stars. Cao Guang simply felt useless after two weeks of trying to connect the 343 stars of his Fire Galaxy.

He had spent time in the three step tower again to speed things up a little, to no avail. His mental strength was the only thing making it easier for him.

Fortunately there were other benefits to breaking through to the advanced level. His Galaxy was able to regain his spiritual energy far faster than his Nebula.

He had tried his strength on an unfortunate school of fish on the coast. He had been thinking of ways to stop being a land duck and branch out. His strongest fire and Summoning element were unusable in the sea.

Only Lightning and Space were his saving grace when it came to sea battles.

He could spam his Fire basic spells for an hour and they would be refilled in an hour. Besides they also held far more energy in them giving him a better sense of protection.

"It's impossible to learn every Advanced spell for all elements like this, I have to spent a month away every single time and soon I'm going to have two more elements"

Yet the days of meditation were starting to get to him. He needed to buy a magic accelerator or upgrade the Little Tora pendant. He was already running out of options.

It was a problem faced by all Advanced mages. If they can't use Advanced spells they can't fight with Commanders or acquire the required resources.

In order to make the process go faster they needed to buy tools like a Magic Accelerator to speed up the process of connecting the stars. But every advanced level resource costed more than a Galaxy Vein.

It would take them a long time to make that much money by killing only Warriors. As a peak Intermediate mage, it took Cao Guang six months to save one fifty million.

Yes, he could make money faster as an Advanced mage and there were no pressing needs to use the Soul Essences to upgrade his stars in the short term. But he still needed a month to make maybe 250 million for the magic accelerator.

But he still needed to buy defensive equipment and awaken again right?

The whole thing gave him a headache.

Cao Guang finally decided to go to a place that could help him grow his strength exponentially and then he could worry about buying everything else. He was kind of glad that he bought a Winged magic equipment. He could have some survival ability with it.

He wanted to go to Xinjiang in the north west of the country. He would spend the next days fighting some Beijiang Desolate Beasts to speed things up. He booked the tickets for next week as he spent the rest of week relaxing.

He had spent every moment of almost every day trying to improve his cultivation in one way or another and now he was being taxed to the limit. He needed to relax and do exactly nothing.

His problem when doing nothing was that he started thinking. He was going to take part in the world college tournament. His cultivation was far above the peers he was going to face in the tournament right now.

But there was still a year and half left to the start of the tournament. The factions behind these students get increasingly crasier as the day of the tournament drew closer. Soul seeds, magic accelerator and defensive equipment were going to switch hands like soap.

He also needed to influence where the team was going to go for the training tour. He currently had no say in it as he opted not to be the Captain or vice captain.

But he knew the people in military who had the best chance of being those individuals. He decided to call Song Xia so that two of the places he wanted to be on the list would be.

"This is rare, a call from you when there's nothing going on?"

" It's about something that might happen"

" Go on, what plan have you cooked up to get yourself killed"

His team was still feeling guilty about following his plan into the previous disaster. They felt like they enabled a mad man in his attempts to self destruction.

"It's nothing like that, you know I never planned to get injured in Bohai either, it just sort of happened. I didn't think our fear and hesitation would draw overly eager Viscera Hunter there faster".

"But you did plan to steal under the noses of a ten thousand strong horde and we enabled you. Now get to the point, we have decided to let me sit in all of your plans, only if I agree will we be moving on to executing them."

Alas he had lost all credibility as a capable tactician with his team. These were truly dog days.

"It's not a plan per se, I just want you to suggest a couple of places to the advisors of the next national team when they select you as the captain for the team".

A captain needed more than just strength after Cao Guang the undoubted next candidate of the military was Song Xia. He just needed her help to push things the way he wanted when the time came.

"And which places do you want me to suggest"

After listening to Song Xia's doubtful tone, Cao Guang decided to discreetly subvert the training tour later and gave his second best explanations.

"Japan and Switzerland"

" And why these countries? You wouldn't happen to know any particular pieces of information that I should be aware of"

" Nope on the contrary my reasons are known to you for sure.

Firstly I want the team to experience the maritime battle field in either Tokyo or Osaka. Their ability and experience when it comes to sea battles are top notch in the nearby areas. When it comes to the tournament there will be plenty of seafaring countries and some suitable battlefields.

I looked into the competition, they have a few different types of water based battlefields that they tend to use. So I think we should maximize our exposure to coastal countries. "

" And as for Switzerland?"

"Well I was reading upon the Alps mountain range, their structure and features when I heard about the Faerun Falls near the Alps institute.

I know the Alps institute is an intermediate College and therefore will not be participating in the world college tournament. But we can challenge the national hall that they will have on our way as well.

The feature of Faerun Falls is that the sound of the water fall is like a perpetual sound magic. It interferes with casting of spells just like Sound and Psychic magic used by mages. Training under the waterfall has shown to improve the mental strength of mages.

The use of this Water Fall is two fold. We can improve the team's Mental Strength and their resistance to harassment type spells. Our performance is bound to improve with these two factors to help us. I am sure the advisors are bound to agree as well. "

" Indeed they would help our cultivation quite a bit. The maritime battlefield is possibly easy, Japan is nearby and we usually make trips there during the tour anyway. Moreover the maritime battlefield is an open place, we can visit as long we follow certain rules.

The Alps institute is a different story, they are a privately run institute they don't have any obligations to help any country and they more or less independent from Switzerland as well. We will have to make some exchange of resources with them so the decision ultimately will come down to what the advisors are willing to do.

You might have a better chance of convincing them if you show off more of your strength and make them believe we have a serious chance of winning."

" Does that mean you will endorse the ideas to them?"

" Not entirely, knowing you, you would just say what I want to hear and manipulate me to get what you want. I need to make sure what you are really after and that there is no underlying danger in the places you want to go"

Cao Guang sighed as Song Xia's words fell on his ears. His friends had become protective of him, making his heart feel warm while his brain screamed like crazy.

" There is underlying intention Song Xia, even when I have made dangerous plans I have always told you guys what they meant. It's the same now, I just want us to visit the maritime battlefield and Faerun Falls"

He had a way of convincing people about the fact he was honest and that was by being honest with them, just not completely. He did want to visit the maritime battlefield and the Faerun Falls.