Sovereign of the Karmic System

Chapter 374 Paying Attention 101

"Is that all? That is such a stupid motive! Why don’t they simply start taking care of their own children then?" Asked Emelnie with anger to the old man Golden Cauldron. She couldn’t believe that such powerful and rich merchants would go to that extent to hinder their development for such a petty reason.

In her planet, due to the limitations of cultivation, the cultivators were only able to live up to a few hundred years. However, what made these two kinds of cultivators different was not their lifespan, but the fact that one of them had a limitation, and the other didn’t. If the merchants of Cato wanted, they would have been able to cultivate for tens of thousands of years, and always be able to make progress. With time, that had inevitably blocked the idea of spending some time with their children from being conceived altogether.

Emelnie and Edmund, on the other hand, due to their shorter lifespan, had placed their priorities in a different order, leading them to spend more time with Alesia and her brother instead of focusing on their job and cultivation. Unfortunately, what for them was natural, was not the same for the cultivators of Cato.

-----

True Hiel city, Daniel’s pocket dimension.

Daniel’s pocket dimension had changed completely. In order to grow in size, a pocket dimension had to be upgraded with the power of the cultivator to which it belonged. For that reason, while the number of inhabitants of the city kept growing, the territory remained the same.

This increase in number had required an expansion that, unable to happen in width, had happened in height.

The city inside the pocket dimension had turned into a metropolis, with a skyline that threatened to defy its limitations, and lights that challenged the millions of moving light spheres installed on the ceiling in order to simulate a starry sky.

In the square that Daniel had created at the entrance of the main building of the academy, was Nilo. He was standing in front of a group of at least thirty young cultivators dressed in elegant and refined clothes. Each of them with an expression that symbolized their aloof attitude, and the feelings of superiority they felt towards the others. Some of them knew each other, as shown by the enmity or friendliness they reserved for one another.

While the sound of chatter within the group of cultivators was constant, Nilo remained quiet.

"Are we waiting for something? That guy has been quiet for almost fifteen minutes now." Said a young man with exasperation.

A second young man, who appeared to be on friendly terms with the first one who spoke, turned to look back at him, and said, "He is probably waiting for a teacher or something. Ignore him."

The fifteen minutes slowly turned into thirty, and thirty turned into an hour.

"That’s it. I’m taking a walk. Tell me when the teacher arrives, and I’ll teleport back here." said a young woman to one of her friends, before turning towards the massive city that stood behind them, and started walking. However, the moment she stepped out of the boundaries of the small square, she found herself looking back at the group she had left behind. "What the hell?! What is this?" she asked with confusion.

"What is going on?" asked another cultivator who immediately started walking in a different direction, and that after going through the edge of the square, found himself back in it. "Is this a joke?" he asked to Nilo.

Finally, a young cultivator in refined purple robes turned to look at Nilo, and asked, "Hey, are we going to have to wait here all day?"

"You are not the one who is waiting." Responded Nilo with a feeble tone.

"What do you mean?" asked the purple-robed cultivator back.

Once again, Nilo turned to look at this young cultivator, and responded by saying, "You will understand.. Sooner or later." He then once again became quiet.

One more hour passed while the complaints became louder, and more frequent.

Finally, after two full hours of waiting, the enraged young cultivators reached their breaking point. A state of mind where they couldn’t bare to talk to anyone, and were simply thinking of ripping the calm expression off of the face of the only representative of the academy whom they had met so far.

It took them two full hours to become quiet, and as soon as they did, Nilo composed himself, and after clearing his voice, said, "Welcome to Hiel academy. I am Nilo, a Senior student, and I will show you around. Most importantly, the rules.. First ru-"

"HOLD ON!" shouted one of the cultivators with anger, and interrupting Nilo’s speech. "Aren’t we waiting for someone!?" he then asked.

Nilo did not answer, and instead, went back into being quiet.

It was at that moment that this group of cultivators realized. Nilo was not waiting for someone to arrive to welcome this group of cultivators in. He was waiting for them to shut up, so that he could start. This shocked this group of cultivators greatly. They had been waiting for two hours for something that would have taken a minute, if only he had asked them to shut up sooner.

What these cultivators did not understand, was that this was done for a valid reason. While they did not need to respect someone who they had just met, they were required to follow a basic line of education in order to attend the academy. The first thing that the academy would teach these cultivators, was to be more observant, and less chatty.

Many of the things these cultivators had said in the past two hours could have been taken as an offense for the people who lived in this pocket dimension, and if these words had been spoken about, and in front of an individual they couldn’t afford to offend, they probably would have already been dead.

The cultivation world was a dangerous place, and powerful cultivators acted on a whim. The more time a cultivator spent talking, the less he would learn about his surroundings. To these young cultivators, it had taken two full hours to finally quiet down, and even then, they had not done it because they wanted to, but because they were too annoyed to speak.

While still in the middle of their shocked state, Nilo said a few words that made a few of them snap. These words were, "Welcome to Hiel academy. I am Nilo, and I will show you around.."

"Screw this! I didn’t even want to come here. Even if I am going to be expelled before being even accepted, I will at least kick this guy’s ass." Said a lean young man as he walked in Nilo’s direction with a menacing expression. Surrounding the knuckles of his hands, was a glove reinforced with metallic spikes.

A young woman dressed in a pink and white dress, clearly unhappy with being forced to attend this academy, followed the lean cultivator while saying, "I won’t have to attend if I get expelled." As she finished speaking, a dozen of nearly invisible electrified needles came out of her palms, and from in between her lips.

This happened often. Whenever Nilo or any of the other senior students were tasked with welcoming the new students in, a few of the more unruly would ultimately end up challenging them. After all, they were the richest, their parents were the most powerful, their guards could protect them from any harm. What was the student of an unknown academy, when compared to them?

"Rin," said Nilo with a low tone, right before a red-headed woman appeared next to him. "Can you take care of the two of them.. after they wake up?"

"Of course." Said the red-headed woman before stepping away.

"When they wake up? Listen here, count yourself lucky if you get to land a punch!" Said the lean young man before disappearing, and reappearing to Nilo’s right. A whistle could be heard as his punch brushed against the air at an impressive speed in its advance towards Nilo’s jaw. At the same time, three invisible needles were thrown at Nilo’s neck, heart, and right lung.

The ingenuity of these two was almost laughable to Nilo, who simply moved the upper part of his body back, and allowed the punch to move past his head, followed by the arm of the lean young man, which he grabbed, and pulled further to the left. The improvised meat shield took all three needles directly on his back.

Before the young man could even scream with pain, however, he felt the lights go out on him as a punch hit his stomach squarely, and due to his lack of balance, sent him flying towards the young girl.

In a sudden moment of panic, the girl kept her eyes on the incoming body of the lean young man, and stopped paying attention to any other direction. Especially her back, where Nilo had suddenly appeared just in time to gently hit the back of the girl’s knee, and disappear right after.

The balance of the young girl was completely gone, and it was too late for her to gain it back before the lean young man hit her lowered upper body, and caused her to fall back, and get knocked out by the small patch of ground which had suddenly turned into solid metal just in time to welcome the back of her head.

The fight lasted less than five seconds, and while five seconds were not much in terms of a battle, they were more than plenty to teach the rest of the group that there was a difference between them and the members of the academy, and that this difference was not in cultivation level.

As the red-headed girl named Rin grabbed the two unconscious cultivators by the ankle, and dragged them to the edge of the square, Nilo walked back in his original position, and said, "Welcome to Hiel academy, I am Nilo, and I.."

This time, there were no complaints.

-----

The following day, inside of the biggest office within the tallest building of one of Cato’s main cities.

"Sir, we have an update on our little side project." Said a fat man in golden robes that sat in a chair that was clearly not built for his impressive size.

The person who he was talking to, was the middle-aged man who, during the meeting of the leading merchants of Cato, had taken upon himself the burden to take the academy from the hands of the Golden Karma company.

"Already? We have only managed to get our first kid in." asked the middle-aged man with interest.

"Yes. The group was welcomed by one of the students, and a fight broke out." Said the fat man.

"Don’t tell me our kid got himself kicked out already.." said the middle-aged man with annoyance. For a full week they had tried to infiltrate one of the sons of their conglomerate in order to gain information regarding this academy which they would then use as weapons, and only now had they been able to have one of their kids accepted.

"No, it was two other kids, but that is not the point. Our kid said that the student that welcomed them in was at the same level of cultivation, but his power wasn’t. He said that he took two of them in a matter of seconds, and that it wouldn’t have been different if they attacked all at the same time.." explained the fat man before his employer could, once again, misunderstand.

"Do you think it might have something to do with the power of the Outcast?" Asked the middle aged man, surprise about the news he had just heard.

"I am not sure. From the rumors we have heard, it might have something to do with luck, time, and immortality, but even if it did, isn’t he too far away for his powers to affect them?" Responded the fat man while stroking his clean shaved round chin.

The middle-aged man became pensive for a good minute, until finally he broke the silence by muttering, "Unless he left them something."