Chapter24-National team

Mr. Adams director of the most prestigious magic university in America, stood in front of the twenty five students before him with a happy smile on his face. Itachi had returned a few weeks ago, and it wasn't too hard to make the national team. While some protested since he wasn't technically born in America, their opinions were quickly overruled especially after hearing his achievements solving the lake demon crisis.

Who wouldn't want a student on their team who could defeat a monarch ranked beast solo? Many of the overseers for the American were quite panicked when they heard from the students he had left almost right after defeating monarch beast.

While he had said he would be back soon over a week had passed and many of them began to get nervous at this. Some wondered if he had went back to his homeland since his sister had disappeared as well.

Luckily however, he soon came back to the university carrying his little sister Kayda. He was asked where he had went, but he simply said he went on a field trip not answering anything which greatly annoyed some of his curious classmates.

He didn't really do much these few weeks in fact, he skipped classes most of the time. he cultivated shadow and chaos up to the peak of mid tier and they would probably break through soon. His other elements however, were getting harder to raise with it greatly slowing down after breaking through the 3rd level of high tier. As fast as his cultivation was, he would probably need some sort of stimulant if he did not want to wait another year to breakthrough to super tier in any element.

Looking over the students he only recognized a few of them. Ryan Casey, Gabriella, Catherine Adams, Olivia Grace Lucas, and Liam Williams along with a few others. The rest must have been from different schools across America. A big portion was probably from the the Sacramento college which was the most famous on the west coast.

They were responsible for defending a large portion of the west coast from sea monsters. Going back to the present the principal looked at the gathered students around him.

"It's nice to meet all of you. Some I taught personally, others I do not know.

As you already know, half of you will remain here to defend our countries badges while the other half will go around the world attacking other countries defending teams."

Itachi watched on as he divided up the teams on who would be doing what. Typically the stronger students would be going out since collecting more badges was more important than defending your own.

Thankfully, he called Itachi's name to be on the attack team since staying home would be rather boring to an adventurous person such as Itachi. Surprisingly he wasn't given the spot of team captain, but Itachi wasn't complaining.

It was actually given to a talented mage from Sacramento who was a chaos, poison, and earth mage which was a very solid combination. Chaos and poison were both quite rare and poison had many different uses.

The most simple way was as a cloud of gas shooting towards the opponent, but that is the easiest to counter. As they get higher in their poison cultivation, they can manipulate it very well sending darts and animals made of poison flying to their opponents from all sorts of angles.

It could also be used as sort of a domain to spread it around the user preventing others from getting close without breathing in the poison. Users would research many different types of poison and they could usually control how deadly it is with some of the best users having poison so toxic just touching an opponent would be enough for instant death.

It used to be labeled as a evil magic in the past, but people were slightly more open nowadays since shadow was not labeled an evil element anymore either.

He had many achievements on the west coast killing many monsters so it was not too surprising he had been nominated as team captain. All three of his elements were high tier making him a shocking prodigy next to Itachi who they believed to just have three elements which were wind lightning and space.

Looking to the left he also got both Catherine and Gabriella in his group as well as Ryan Casey, and Olivia Grace along with a few unfamiliar students.

Walking over was Mat who seemed like quite an easy going guy "Now I don't know most of you, but I'm excited to be competing along side you"

Everyone introduced their selves with a couple new faces being cleared up. One with black hair guy introduced himself as grant who seemed a bit shy.

He told everyone his main element was shadow and he also had water and light which would be good for defense.

A girl named Chelsea with auburn hair introduced herself as the team healer along with having the summon and psychic element.

Another good composition as to be expected from the national team. She could hang back with a summon to defend herself as well as launching spiritual attacks towards enemies. She could also communicate telepathically which was useful to communicate with the team members.

Next were two brown haired twins who introduced themselves as Ethan and Aiden with both saying simply fire element when asked what their abilities were. The didn't seem to talkative.

Lucas, the friendly guy who Itachi had talked to a couple times was also there and he had plant, water, and lightning.

The last was Itachi as the others who didn't know him looked on curiously. "My main element would be space" he said simply which made the others quite happy.

Chelsea the girl with healing element looked at him happily "If anyone gets injured you could pull them back, and space magic can also be very destructive. That's really good" she said excitedly as the others couldn't help but agre a bit"

Gabriella from the side couldn't help but but in "His space is destructive? You should see his lightning. He literally smited a monarch lake demon just a few weeks ago" she said proudly as if she was the one accomplishing the task.

Mat looked at him a bit surprised "wow you must have a pretty powerful spirit seed to kill a monarch with high tier magic" he said looking at him curiously

"Yeah something like that" Itachi responded vaguely since if they knew he had a heaven grade seed they would be completely shocked.

"Hmm purposefully acting mysterious, your so annoying" said Olivia

Itachi turned to face the girl who seems to always act bitchy. Looking at her she felt sort of familiar but he couldn't place it. He knew she had the lightning element

Before he could respond Mat the captain once again spoke up. "Our first target is Japan. The overseers of the team are not helping us, so we have to get plane tickets to cross the ocean. It's a long standing tradition for the members of national teams to do everything on their own with little supervision so don't be too surprised" he said

After some more talk they retired for the night. Annoyingly enough Itachi had to share a dorm with the other males since it was supposed to promote team bonding. Which is what the teachers said. The ratio of males to females was uneven so there were 7 males on the away team sharing a room while 5 females shared another.

The room was plenty plenty big with the atmosphere still being quite awkward as they moved towards different bunks. The twins seems to chat quietly since they picked bunks right on top of each other. Itachi nodded to Lucas and Ryan who he knew previously.

Mat and grant said a few words to each other and Itachi assumed they both must have come from the same place. Nothing too eventful happened that night besides a few suggestions of peeking on the girls bathe which Mat trying to act righteous quickly shot down. He could't hide the brief flash of eagerness that ran through his eyes however.

Grant, who was a shadow mage which could hide in shadows, suspiciously had to go to the bathroom after that conversation and he didn't return for a while. He came back later with a happy expression on his face looking like he just won the lottery. One would assume he had done something naughty but hey, maybe he was just really satisfied with how his shit went.

They soon fell asleep waking up the next morning as they met up with the team in front of the dorms. The male group walked down walked down the steps regrouping with the 5 girls.

Itachi was greeted by both Gabriella and Catherine who both walked over to him "Can't wait to visit your homeland although you better not go easy on their defense team" Gabriella sad smirking at the end.

"Yeah you should show us where you grew up" Catherine said as Itachi looked a little nervous. After all, he didn't really grow up there. Most knowledge was from his past life yet this Japan was quite different.

"Haha where I grew up isn't too close Tokyo where we fight the defense team" Said Itachi dodging the bullet as Gabriella and Catherine both looked kinda disappointed.

They all made their way towards the John F Kennedy international airport. Using their statuses as high tier mages along with paying extra they easily got on a last minute flight to Japan which would stop in California before making the dangerous trip across seas.

They were quickly underway as the group even got their own section near the front of the plane. Annoyingly enough Itachi had to sit next to the bitchy Olivia who made it perfectly clear she didn't want to be there. Sighing Itachi was just glad he had the window seat and he put in earplugs as he sat cultivating moving into a meditative state instantly which was quite surprising to those around.

Without a doubt the fastest way to cultivate was to go into a meditative state almost oblivious to the world, but it was quite difficult to get into yet he seems to instantly move into this state. This shows quite a mastery of emotions and mental state.

The flight continued with rarely any attacks. All plane flights over areas not safe zones would contain mages to defend them. Even with this however, plane crashes were a lot more common in this world.

Soon they were flying close to the large mountain range of the Rocky Mountains as the mages protecting the plane went on full alert. They had already picked the safest route through yet with how dangerous this area was it was no surprise they were on such high alert.

Waking up from a cultivation he saw Olivia looking nostalgically out the window. Seeing this, Itachi grew quite suspicious. Deciding to test something he looked over towards the platinum blond girl. "You seem to be quite familiar with this area" he said quite teasingly as her eyes instantly turned into wide O's of surprise before she quickly masked it.

"Hmmph what to you mean? I was just marveling at how tall the mountains were"

Carrying on Itachi looked out the window "you know, I actually came here quite recently. Quite the interesting place I might add" he said watching the girl looked shocked once again.

Does he know? She thought panicked as she gazed towards the smirking Itachi. Impossible, grandfather would never let someone who discovered them escape alive.

Seeing her reaction confirmed his suspicions quite a bit. She had felt familiar before, she was most likely the other shapeshifter dragon in the village he had been told about.

He decided he would mention it later and he put back his earplugs in while Olivia looked at him suspiciously. 'That look he gave me. I need to be careful it's possible he may know about the village' she thought a little panicked as she decided to call her grandfather later.

Soon the plane arrived in Sacramento without too much trouble thankfully. And after a brief stop they soon were crossin the pacific which resulted in a high tier wind mage wind the airline company accompanying them for safety.

Teasing Olivia was quite fun as he kept dropping vague hints. After the pilot mentioned they would have a high tier wind mage guarding the plane he turned to her "That is good and all, but against a true ruler of the sky it would be quite useless " Enjoying her nervous expression at the mention of the ruler of the sky.

They passed near Hawaii and he found it quite interesting it was still a state. You would think with how many sea monsters there are having a small island defended would be difficult, but they defend it quite well with a few super mages on the island prepared to defend from any attacks.

At one point however the guardian of the plane flew outside since they were being tailed by a commander ranked Fearow. He tried casting a few wind tornados to chase it away but it seems quite persistent as it kept chasing getting even closer. He tried using water attacks to block it but it simply dodged the attacks.

Tired of seeing this annoying show Itachi teleported from his seat to the wing of the plane. He he quickly casted Lonely Death high tier lightning that arc'd from his hands turning the entire sky purple as hit it dead on charring its entire body black as it fell from the sky like a rock.

He teleported back to his seat once again putting in his earplugs he ignored the shocked looks from the passengers as well as most of the team members who didn't really know his true strength.

They flew over the Mariana Trench which again set the crew on edge. The number of missing boats and even planes shockingly around the same as near the Bermuda emperors territory.

Many speculated there were some terrifying beasts hidden in its depths. Itachi couldn't help but be curious so he once again teleported outside the plane flying down with wind wings diving straight down into the depths while the others wondered where he had gone.

Swimming down into the dark murky water, Itachi mainly used telekinesis to propel himself down as he was attacked by a couple different monsters including some Warrior ranked sharks as well as some large squids.

He mainly avoided them not bothering to kill them he sunk down even deeper in its black depths. He sensed a powerful presence deep in the bottom that gave off a cold bloodthirsty aura.

Swimming forward he felt a powerful sensation lock onto him that froze him in his tracks 'Shit! Its definitely an emperor!" Immediately he shot up as he felt a powerful presence many miles away speed towards him with a shocking speed.

Itachi immediately activated demonization along with wing wings as he shot through the water finally breaking the surface flying a few dozen meters in the air. Immediately the entire surface of the ocean seems to ripple as he felt the powerful presence continue chasing getting closer to the surface.

Looking over his shoulder Itachi saw the plane far away so he soon grew a lot larger as he transformed into a large black dragon covered in white flames so hot that they evaporated ocean water from far away.

This was his new idea as he managed to keep demon element activated while he was a dragon. If was quite difficult to keep up however as he would tire very quickly. This had to be his strongest form because the demon element greatly his strength.

Roaring out he awaited the approaching beast. As he finally got an idea of what as coming. An over 500m long barracuda like creature shot 100s of meters into the air as water flew everywhere.

Itachi immediately flew out of the way sending a powerful ball of electricity into the beast who was barely affected as he ceased back into the ocean sending near 100 meter waves everywhere(sorry Japan).

Diving back into the water it once again shot out bringing a tail in a vicious ark that crashed into the dragon shaking Itachi up as he felt the full force of the powerful blow.

He slashed down with his lightning infused claws cutting deep into It sending a cascade of blood spraying across the sea. Unfazed by the deep wound on its gigantic body, it immediately sprayed out a powerful column of water that Itachi deflected shooting out tornados with his powerful wings as lightning violently flashed around them. The giant beast leapt at him once again while Itachi send a powerful stream of blue flames that washed over it giving it severe burns as it roared in pain being subjected to such hot flames when it had lived in the cold its whole life. It scorched a large portion of its body severely injuring it.

It dove back into the depths to escape while Itachi transformed back into a human looking quite tired at holding that for for so long. 'Emperors indeed deserve their rank he thought doin a recap over the fight. Even if he had managed to gain the upper hand in that fight, it was pretty much impossible to kill it. It had already fled deep into the ocean most likely to heal from its wounds.

Also this would be one of the weaker emperors. It didn't have as nearly as much intelligence as most emperors beasts such as the elder dragon he had met before.

He chased after the now faraway plane before teleporting back inside.

"Where do you go" Olivia asked generally curious as she took in his tired look

"Just saw something interesting" he said mysteriously earning a glare from her "Hmmph don't want to tell me just say so" as they ignored each other the rest of the flight.

Soon the plane arrived in Japan where they were greeted by a multilingual member of the Japan national team staff. She was pleasantly surprised Itachi could speak Japanese so anthing she could not translate well, she would leave to Itachi.

As an Island nation, the coasts of Japan were heavily fortified with barriers and fortresses. They had many calamities in the past where a large number of people had lost their lives from sea monster attacks on the coast.

"Sorry for the wait, we were just recently hit by a large tsunami. The sea walls blocked most of it, but it hit at the worst time at high tide and it flooded some low lying areas." The lady said who had introduced herself as Satora. Itachi looked away guiltily at hearing this.

They were loaded onto a comfortable bus as they drove up through the mountainous terrain up to the academy situated on a large hill overlooking the coast. Time to have our first match most team members thought excitedly as they prepared to fight and get their first badge.