I came out of the bath draping a towel and browsed the news channels. Now that's like a start to a completely different genre of life but let's not get any wrong idea. I just don't like to wipe myself dry.
I am the 'it will dry' person.
I watched the news and then I saw the date they were talking about.
*Blink*
Now if this is a prank, I will rip that person to pineapples.
If not...
'Something's wrong, why is the news showing the date as 10, it should be 8 today?'
I checked the Alliance digital calendar and it was the 10th.
'I was fusing with my spirit soul for two days?'
No, that's impossible. The spirit souls dissipate after 24 hours. Or I am getting things wrong.
How did I spend two days there? What about next time then?
It was just a hundred year old spirit soul. wouldn't I go into coma if I absorbed a hundred thousand year old spirit soul then?
I thought through and reached to the conclusion that absorbing my Spirit Soul took a while. Like there was anything else other than that.
I stood there for a few seconds and then took out a clean set of clothes and put them on. I realised that I am JUST out of the bath and the towel had slid down in my shock. My window was still open and I saw someone pass by the corridor.
"Let me close the window first."
I sat on the bed and calmed my thoughts. I need my mind. As much as I could. If the God has sent a message, it must mean that something has happened to Net Geek.
Or he could be messing with me?
I don't know.
The only thing that I could do is to train my mind and embrace whatever is going to come. Although even I don't know what I would do if it's the bad message.
Should I delete my memories?
...
'I need to go to Ocean City soon. The preparations should have been finalized.
*Five months later*
{The recent murderings has reached a sky high.14 cities have been attacked in the past year. All the clues points to the mysterious gang. The Federation has failed yet again..... Alliance officers of three different Alliances, our Skysea Alliance, and the neighbouring the Earthrock Alliance and Silvasa Alliance.}
{This gang mainly target small cities who don't have experts above Soul King level. This murderers are cruel. Their total killings has surpassed 30,000 already. The alliances had already raised their claims on the efforts from Sun Moon federation to arrest this gang.}
In the Eastsea Academy Cafeteria, the students were eating their food while watching the news.
This news was broadcasted on the Alliance network during lunch hours. All the students had different reactions to this report. Some were angry, some were sad at the deaths, some were furious but most of them were scared.
Between them a kid was silently eating his meal. This kid was different, he was eating icecream during lunch. He was the only one doing that.
The kid was focused on eating his meal like he cared for no one but the twitching of his mouth betrayed him. I was trying real hard to keep myself from smiling.
I listened to the news reporter. The reporter was lying. It was 17 cities and less than 25,000 kills. All those who had been killed were not innocent at that. They were criminals who did bad stuff and had amassed illegal wealth and that's what I take.
They were people who deserved deaths. Yet the Alliance were presenting them as innocents and the killings a doing of some radical government opposing cult.
Like I kill the evil guys because they have black money, not because I am an Evil Soul Master.
Any nonsense they say and people believe it. How's that fair?
'But the Alliance has made the security really tight. I don't have any choice but to stop my plans or the others might get caught. It was all thanks to human greed that my plans worked till now but even that greed is being overshadowed by the fear. The recent news made even the greediest one wary of others, more so from people like me who promise easy money.'
This much should be enough, right? I have been looting and killing people in different places in the three Alliances in the past five months and the gains are good. Although this has both ups and downs to it.
The upside being lots of money.
The downside being zero progress in cultivation and three whole Alliances ready for my head.
Along with people not liking me and some even chiding me.
Five months of cultivation for the prospect of gaining a quota of Shrek Academy. I don't know if it was worth it anymore.
Five months of time dedicated to planning, executing and escaping had earned me a lot of federal credits and this much should be enough to buy a seat at Shrek's.
Every three years, Shrek Academy would recruit new students. Different institutions were given a limited numbers of quota for the Shrek's admission test and these institutions decide who gets to take the test.
The Skysea Alliance had a little more than one hundred quota for Shrek's entrance exam each time, and it was only after racking his brains and making many compromises that President Yu Zhen( the Principal of Eastsea Academy) and Wu Zhangkong had been able to acquire four of them.
I just want one.
Shrek Academy only accepted two hundred outer court disciples every three years. Among the two hundred, fifty were set aside for those who failed to pass the inner court exam.
Only fifty people were allowed to take the inner court exam at a time. Passing the exam was obviously the desired outcome, but failing to do so still allowed entrance to the outer court, as well as the chance to enter the inner court in the future.
'And Skysea Alliance is out of the picture as the quota had been pre-selected already.'
'Thankfully I was able to successfully negotiate with the Earthrock Alliance President last week. I need to pay 550 million in total for a single quota. Truly costly but I will make it worth.'
To Fan Lin, this was my last semester in Eastsea Academy. I had already talked with the Principal and it was easy. No one has any impression of me except my teachers who had seen me transform into a clearly different person. Heck, at one time, I was even given a temporary ID because my disfigured face didn't match my normal face.
I will miss them.
Now onto the main things. I need to cultivate and raise my strength to clarify for the quota given to me. If my strength didn't match upto the other participants of the Shrek's recruitment exams, I am definitely going to be marked by Shrek.
After that... there would be no after that. I would go rampant.
My Martial soul and spirit soul are a big problem. Need to upgrade my Spirit Soul(it's close) and increase my physical capabilities to pass the first few exams that requires physical abilities.
And how much time do I have?
Shrek will accept new students the next year, around 12 months, give or take.
It's a lot of time. Once I increased my spirit soul to the hundred year old mark, I am pretty sure that my cultivation speed would increase and I could finally cultivate like I usually do.
.....
A week later.
Earthrock Alliance
Moon Rock City
Shining Moon Academy.
This was Fan Lin's new school starting from then. He would spend the rest of his intermediate school year here. This was also the Academy where the Earthrock Alliance President will give the quota for Shrek's admission for him.
Fan Lin arrived on a taxi and the Principal of the Academy himself was waiting for him. He greeted the Principal and went with him to complete any other formalities that he may have left. There were none.
On his way, he saw the condition of the school and wondered about the difference between this and Eastsea academy.
The school was dilipidated. The walls were old. The trees were not groomed properly and the path was a little empty. There weren't that many students or teachers, it wasn't that big.
"Do I care about it?"
He went to the classroom and introduced himself. After sometime, the classes started and soon it was break time. He thought students would pester him or ask him questions but no one did and he was a bit grateful for that.
What he didn't know was that the Principal has repeatedly told the teachers and the students to not annoy or disturb him because he thought Fan Lin was a rich young master or Alliance President's relative. Both were things he and his small academy could not afford to offend and should not offend.
The Principal had no idea on why Fan Lin was here but since he was here, he would rather not make enemies with him.
After classes Fan Lin went to the Principal to ask for permission to leave the school regularly stating the reason that he needs to practice at the spirit ascension platform while showing him his ticket list and the days he would be absent.
He had booked those tickets via the Eastsea branch and it wasn't easy to get that many spots.
It was the first time that the Academy Principal had seen so many tickets for the Spirit Ascension platform and he just nodded blankly. There were more than a hundred tickets, tickets that were verified by the Spirit Pagoda and could he even deny Fan Lin?
*11 months later*
Spirit Ascension platform
Fan Lin could be seen running in a lush forest, and behind him were hordes of people with madness in their eyes. Various attacks were thrown in his directions, but all were blocked due to the green crystalline shards that resembled the Crystal bears skills.
Just to get the context.
For the past 11 months. Fan Lin was hunting spirit masters in the spirit ascension platform.
It took him a bit of time but he was able to get the staff of the Pagoda to be in cahoots with him and their partnership seem to be a deadly combination for the rest that had entered in time.
Many spirit masters were slaughtered by him. He even went to different regions to kill more people as a region could barely support a 1000 people a month and there were 18 regions. Basically he killed a lot. At one point, he was even questioning whether he was in the Spirit Ascension Plane to kill people and just kill people.
He got the answer. He was not.
Petrosapien or Diamondhead's ability was out of this world, in ways more than one.
And in the past half a year, the spirit masters had enough of his tyranny. It was costly to get the quota and the limited amount of it was also a problem. And then less than a few minutes of you entering the platform, you were suddenly killed without any reason. How was that not infuriating!
Henceforth, Fan Lin's haters formed groups and started hunting him. In return his hunting difficulty was decreased as they were coming to him on their own accord.
After their few encounters the spirit masters learned that trying to corner him with just a few people was impossible so they went and gathered others who had already been his prey for more than a few times. The experienced ones!
Then they made plans, added range damage dealers and control masters and with strategic planning, they had been slowly but surely gaining the inch on Fan Lin as the victory and defeat started to become one sided. At least until a while.
As for taking their revenge in the outside world, some of them tried to ask(bribe) the staff of the spirit ascension platform. The staff just showed them his reservation list and they immediately gave up.
The only thing that they could do was spawn kill him inside the Spirit Ascension platform which they were brutally failing with each new encounter they had. To their horror, they were not the only growing, he was as well.
Fan Lin looked at them, his yellow eyes shone with a ghastly smirk as a bright smile formed of his face.
His smile caused the nerves of his pursuers to rise like snake and worms on their faces.
They had been winning pretty often nowadays but once in a while, Fan Lin avalanched them to death and each time he did that, he smiled.
Meaning today was that day...
...
Experience the power of Cliffhanger!