Chapter 143 - Training
The fight above the clouds ended and Harp and Silex appeared in front of Hao Xuan with some minor injuries.
"Did you get him?" Hao Xuan asked with closed eyes, trying to heal himself.
"No, sorcerers are not that easy to kill. All magicians have a few spells to escape with their lives when the need arises. If we knew beforehand then we could have made some preparations, but not like this. But he does have severe injuries so he should be in hiding for a while, don't worry," Silex explained with a smile. He didn't have his robe on right now so everyone could see his actual appearance.
He seemed to be about 18 years of age, even younger than Hao Xuan. He had red hair and an eye-patch over his left eye. He wasn't that tall or handsome but there was a special, unexplainable charm about him.
"I'm not worried," Hao Xuan shook his head and replied nonchalantly, which made them both take a second look at him.
"Either way, our work here is done. Harp will explain the situation to the elders. We've sealed the castle dungeons so none of the townsfolk accidentally walk into that place. We'll be taking this creature's body as well. Other than that it should be fine for them to come inside," Silex said looking at Felix's corpse.
Hao Xuan simply nodded because he had no qualms about letting them have it since he had already taken the most important thing for himself.
"Goodluck with...everything. If you ever leave this place and want to serve a higher purpose, visit the Demon Hunter academy. Even though we are just outer students, we can still recommend you," Harp patted Hao Xuan's shoulder and exchanged emails with him before flying off with Silex.
Hao Xuan looked at their disappearing figures and sighed. One day soon he will also be able to fly wherever he pleased.
He stored Jacob's body into his Mind palace and gave the Miller family a huge mansion near the middle of the city. Since the previous owners were gone, there was no reason to let it go to waste.
He went back out and told the crowd that it was fine for them to enter and they could take any place from the middle sector they wanted.
He took a small one-bedroom house near the city wall for himself and summoned all the guards there. They said that the city Lord's son had the second-highest authority in the city and for the past few months, he had been running the whole place.
He didn't tell them anything about what was going on and simply ordered them to prevent anyone from entering.
Fortunately, the situation wasn't as bad as Hao Xuan had first thought. Not everyone in the city was killed, only the ones that were slightly well off. There were still a few hundred thousand people hiding in the slums. They weren't allowed to enter other areas by the 'city lord's' order.
But most of these people were living in very poor conditions. Hao Xuan ordered the guards to keep the peace and help the new folks find proper accommodations. He also lifted all the previous orders issued by the city lord in the last few months.
Within a couple of days, the dead city seemed to have sprung back to life. Although there was still about 70% of the area still uninhabited, this was a very good start.
He sighed thinking about the massive loss of life. More than 1.5 million people had died, and there was just a single man behind it all. Only in this world would something like this be considered 'normal' and not cause a nationwide outrage.
He thought there were supposed to be things in place to prevent something like this from happening, yet a single magician wreaked so much havoc.
He also looked up the different types of magicians. Most of the information was confidential and normal people only knew about their existence, nothing else.
Magicians were mainly divided into two types, Sorcerers and Wizards. There were, of course, other smaller types and branches, but these two were the biggest and the most common ones.
Sorcerers were born with 'mana' and only had to learn spells and increase their control as well as the capacity of mana pools.
While wizards were born as ordinary mortals and had to learn spells, gather Mana, etc from scratch.
This was an entirely different concept for Hao Xuan but it wasn't completely alien.
These spells had wondrous effects that more often than not, went against the natural order of things. It was rumored that one of the other Nine Worlds was the origin of Magic and all magicians in general. But there it was mere rumor and hearsay.
But there were still magicians here, albeit not that many, and apparently, there was a school for them as well, but no one knew where it was. It was a tightly kept secret within the magician community.
The next few days passed in relative peace. The front city gate had been rebuilt and all the 'refugees' were given homes and rations.
Soon after the black blood was inserted into Jacob's body, it was surrounded by a cocoon much like Hao Xuan's, but somehow less sinister which left him speechless. How was an evil god's blood less sinister than him?!
Since he finally had time to relax, Hao Xuan starting going over the dozens of books and manuals he had bought from the military portal. They were all about how to use energy properly and gave him some ideas on how to better utilize his Force Qi.
He started training with it, trying to implement it in every attack and control it. He also learned a new technique called "The Six-Armed Heavenly Ape" from Green and Red.
They were both divine beasts and as the concentration of their divine blood increased, more and more memories would awaken as well. They would automatically learn different skills, abilities, and techniques that were embedded in their DNA.
The Six-Armed Heavenly Ape was a fist technique. It allowed the user to strengthen their arms and make them as hard as steel. Each of their palm strikes would have devastating power as it would send Qi directly into the target and damage it from inside out.
At the highest level, it would allow the user to go against heavenly weapons and treasures barehanded. Although this wasn't exactly what Hao Xuan needed, it still didn't hurt to have a few extra abilities on hand.
He also started training his glaive properly with a new manual called "Imperial Glaive Doctrine". This was recommended to him by First and it cost him the most as well. It had an unknown number of parts and only the first one was available.
First said to come talk to him when he had finished training it and he would find out how to get the next part for him as well.
First really did go above and beyond for Hao Xuan, and all without him even asking once. He treated him like his own brother.
For the next few days, Hao Xuan simply trained his different skills and abilities. The rain never stopped once, although it did slow down considerably.. This had been the longest rainfall Mei kingdom had seen in decades.