I felt the air stir around him, as did the trio watching him. My eyebrows shot up, and I involuntarily took a step back. This phenomenon was all too familiar.
“So, Teacher Newton, what’s going on now?” Aurora asked curiously, as the air continued to whirl around Hao Wei.
A burst of azure light appeared occasionally, and the temperature around him fluctuated wildly.
“Something like this occurs when someone first qualifies to manipulate every aspect of a certain category of laws.” I watched on in interest.
My eyes were closed when this happened to me, so this was the first time I saw a qualification in the flesh. The whirring air started to slow down, and Hao Wei opened his eyes. It had barely been an hour since I offered him some pointers, but wasn’t this too fast? I watched his eyes, glinting with exhilaration and a new-found understanding of the world around him. I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry at his expression, but one thing was for sure: congratulations were in order.
In some ways, he had utterly left me in the dust. My ability to manipulate laws were mostly based on my talent: the willingness of the world to obey my will. On the other hand, Hao Wei gained the right to alter these laws through a complete mastery over them. It was clear who was better.
I smiled and walked up to him, grasping his hands in congratulations. The wallflower trio followed my lead, with Mr. Meng just shaking his hands normally, while Aurora and Miles bopped one side of his head affectionately.
Now, he had to face the truly annoying part. I had brought a few books with me when I came for this job, and one of them was our version of the Highway Code. I didn’t really expect him to need it two days into the job, however. He didn’t have my talent that bordered on being a cheat, but he definitely had one in comprehension and understanding.
He just needed to feel. And feel he did.
It didn’t take me too long to retrieve the book, and I passed the door stopper over to him. I felt my face widen into a huge grin as he took the door stopper from me. “Now, all you have to do is to memorize everything here, before you’ll qualify. Seriously, barely one week after I got promoted…” my voice trailed off, with a tinge of mixed emotion in them.
Promotion as a practitioner was contingent on how many types of laws one could manipulate. He just needed to be able to manipulate Spiritual Laws now before he became the same rank as me. It didn’t matter that I had touched on Spatial Laws; with his talent in comprehension, he was sure to catch up to me.
“Aster,” he asked. “Is there any summary for this book? I’m not too keen on finishing another War and Peace…” his voice trailed off.
He obviously knew that the book was important, but here he was trying to slack off. I had just commended him for being so diligent too.
I sighed and gave him the stink eye. “Fine, fine. I’ll give you the essentials first.”
Taking the book back, I flipped through to a few pages that I remembered to be especially important and started reading out loud. It was also important that everyone else understood a practitioner’s limitations too, which I hadn’t gone in-depth into.
My eyes locked down on a few select paragraphs as I began an impromptu summarization of the parts I regarded as crucial.
“I think this part’s the most important, so I’ll just tell you my interpretation of it. Whatever adverse effects we directly inflict unto other living beings using our powers will affect us as well. The degree of rebound is proportionate to their level of sentience. In essence: the closer your target’s intelligence is to a human, the more complete the rebound is.”
I paused and looked around. “As an example, if I were to extinguish another person’s life directly, I’d die with him too. If my target was an insect, a hair might fall out or something. Of course, some insects may possess more intelligence than others, so do be careful.”
Hao Wei nodded, as did everyone else.
I flipped a few pages, and said, “If I wanted to wipe someone’s soul out of existence for example, I would suffer the same fate too. One kaput, and no more samsara for me. As such, you must quickly learn to use these laws to indirectly injure others, since we’re participating in this bodyguard shindig.”
I pointed a finger at an open window and willed a mass of air to fly through it, a harsh screech echoing in its wake.
“The key word here’s directly. If you caused a mass of air to smash down on someone, you’re safe. It’s like… you don’t get the death penalty for ‘accidentally’ causing a death from high-rise litter. In fact, it’s treated like an accident. Whatever justice this feedback system works on, it’s utterly flawed.”
I scratched my head. It was a pretty bad example, but I think he got the idea. The others had a gleam of understanding in their eyes too, except for Mr. Meng, who already knew. He should, anyway; I would have found it weird if he didn’t.
“I’ll tell you more when you gain enlightenment on Spiritual Laws, but they work in the same way. Right now, if you really, really want to off a human, you just need to reverse their blood flow or crush their heart… anything along those lines. Of course, you’ll follow suit too, so it’s a last resort.” I looked at him and shrugged.
There were better ways to go about killing others if push came to shove. There was a reason that Igor talked about training one’s imagination and creativity—not that I got that far in it.
“As for the rest…” I trailed off menacingly.
In response, he forced out a smile, and retreated with the book in his arms. He was a bookworm anyway, so I wouldn’t put it past him to lug around that book for the next few days. As a matter of fact, that odd gleam in his eyes was getting a bit creepy, and I started to wonder if he was just putting on an act earlier. I shooed him away and watched him amble off with the book.
I shot a glance at Miles and Mr. Meng, and they understood my intentions. This little charade had turned into an impromptu, one-sided discussion of a practitioner’s limitations, and it would be unfair if we didn’t touch on the rest as well. Furthermore, I had some issues that I wanted to bring up with everyone else.
Miles shrugged, as though he had no issues going first.
“Hold on a second,” Mr. Meng interjected. “Where’s Crow gone to?”
Everyone looked around again, and belatedly realized that he had been absent for the past hour or so. He had this weird ability of disappearing and everyone else not noticing: if the past few days were to be an indicator. Either that, or everyone here sucked at remembering people, which I highly doubt.
“The last time I saw him,” said Aurora, “was when he was walking out, whistling and twirling a knife.”
“Probably polishing it again, I guess.” Miles grinned. “I’ll go… get him in.”
He left the room, his footsteps echoing down the hall ominously for some reason, even though this hut wasn’t a haunted house. Maybe he just did it for fun or something.
With decidedly quieter footsteps, Hao Wei entered the room, book-free this time. He picked up on the silent atmosphere and sat down beside me without a word. We exchanged a glance and remained silent.
I wasn’t that sure if he got the hint, though maybe he got more of a ‘shut up and sit down’ vibe? At any rate, the silence continued as I contemplated on the essence of a haunted house and echoing footsteps. There wasn’t anything else to consider, given this atmosphere.
The sound of the door shutting was swiftly followed by yet another set of echoing footsteps, and the thoughtful mindset I had for the past five minutes or so vanished into thin air. I felt a tinge of regret as my hastily drawn up plans for a best-selling haunted house turned into smoke.
Mr. Meng clapped his hands twice, drawing everyone’s eyes to him. “Well then, let’s start. We previously discussed what our abilities entailed, but this time we’ll be talking about our limitations especially Miles here, who probably has more limitations than most.”
He looked at Miles, who twiddled his thumbs in response. There was an awkwar
d silence as Miles continued to not respond, trying to look all innocent.
“Say something, would you?” Mr. Meng had an aggrieved look on his face. “I’m not blaming you or anything!”
Miles continued to twiddle his thumbs and started examining the floor he was sitting on. I saw a vein pop out from Mr. Meng’s head, and I hastily said, “How about you start first, Mr. Meng?”
Upon hearing my words, Miles stuck his nose in the air, with a little snort that sounded sad for some reason. For an old man, who was older than any two of us present here, he seemed far more like a child than anyone else!
Mr. Meng shook his head and started speaking. “What we cultivators usually use to battle are known as spirit spells, but they are only usable in Foundation Establishment and above. As a direct result of the Third Collapse, no cultivators can wield them anymore. The Alliance has been experimenting to create new ones, but there’s been no luck so far.”
He shook his head, a sorrowful light glinting in his eyes. “I can externalize my qi and use them to control magical items or use it directly as a means of offense, but I’m heavily limited by the amount of spiritual qi present in our surroundings. I have a stock of innate Qi, but since the Collapse, the level of ambient qi has dropped significantly. Naturally, I have a few last resorts with me, but…”
He shrugged nonchalantly, but I could see a hint of profound emotion from his facial expression. Sorrow for the future generation of cultivators; regret for the heritage that was lost. It could be a mixture of the above, or for reasons entirely unknown to me, but in any case, Mr. Meng was affected far more than he let on.
Crow, surprisingly, took the initiative to speak up next. “I’m just a mortal, but as I said earlier, I’m confident in my skill at arms, if not anything else. I’ve every limitation a mortal has: even if I’m somewhat knowledgeable about your world. That’s it.”
He fell silent after saying his bit. From his facial expression, it was evident that he was already aware that this job was one in which he couldn’t contribute much to, and had some reservations about it. Whether or not he’d make it through this job alive was right up in the air, even if the first day went without incident. His confidence probably took a massive hit the day before, when we touched upon our capabilities. It was one thing to learn from hearsay, and an entirely different ball game when it came from someone directly.
For some reason, Crow’s words alone had changed the entire atmosphere, and Miles stopped his silent protest. In a voice more controlled than usual, he started speaking.
“The Conclave, since its creation, has laid out several Laws of Magic. I highly doubt that I’ll cross most of them for this assignment, as most of them were based on feats our predecessors could do. That being said, every wizard of the Conclave is under a geas to self-terminate upon violating any of these laws.”
He paused, taking a little breath, before delving onwards. “The one I’m most likely to risk breaking would be the taking of human life via magic. Usually, this is easily circumvented by using enchanted swords, or guns in the case of the more progressive generation, but we’re in Singapore now.”
“We can only pray that we won’t be facing human adversaries, then,” Hao Wei spoke up. “Anything Aster or I do to harm humans might prove to be our undoing, even by accident.”
“Which is why,” I said, my eyes focused on Hao Wei, “you need to continue trying to figure out how to indirectly terminate or incapacitate others. But you’re not wrong. As it stands, only Mr. Meng here would be able to kill with his powers without hesitation.”
“As such, our protection plan would be based around Mr. Meng then,” Crow concluded. “I’m still not too sure about what you all are truly capable off, but I’ll draw up a rough reaction plan by dinner.”
He got up and left the room.
“Mr. Meng…” I said, trying to convey my thoughts.
He shook his head. “Don’t underestimate him just because he’s a mortal. I paid damn good money to hire him for equally good reasons. He has a tendency to downplay his intelligence, but that just makes his plans far more detailed.”
I wasn’t all that convinced, but I didn’t pursue the matter. There were multiple ways that I could verify this, and I just needed to wait for Crow to explain during dinner, before I threw in some curveballs. I nodded my head, before excusing myself from the room. Hao Wei followed suit, very much like a baby chick chasing its mother.
“Aren’t you worried?” There was the slightest trace of anxiety hiding in Hao Wei’s words.
I continued walking into an unoccupied room, before turning around. I watched his expression for a while, studying it, before making my reply.
“You’ve never failed at anything before, have you?” I asked.
“Failed?” He blinked, taken aback at this non-sequitur. He paused, probably sourcing around in his memories. “What’s your definition of failed?”
“Forget it. If you need to ask, you’ve never truly experienced it before.” I rubbed my right temple.
This guy was truly one of a kind—simply inexplicable. I felt this urge to take a good long look at his history, before posting it online as clickbait or something.
“Look, sometimes, you just want to just throw everything aside. No matter how much hard work you put in, nothing goes the way you want it to.” I shrugged, trying to add more meaning to my words. “An easier method might just show up later in the game. Not to say there isn’t value in persevering though.”
A torn expression appeared on his face. “You’ve always had that kind of outlook in life, haven’t you?” He shook his head. “It’s like you’ve lived a really long life and learnt its secrets or something.”
“Call it a gift, I guess. I think it grew on me when I was thirteen or so.” I smirked. “At any rate, I’ll bring out the bombshells later at dinner.”
“Just what kind of traumatic incident did you experience to have such a mindset?” Hao Wei shook his head in a teasing manner.
I kept a straight face on, and replied, “It’s so traumatic, that I literally forgot.”
“Might you be jesting?”
I shrugged and left the room in search of a napping spot.
Chapter 15
A reddened, wizened face glared at me, and I glared back. The old man met my glare for a few seconds, before turning away to grab another glass of soda. It was impressive how he looked every part an inebriated man, especially when he had been just downing the dark fizzy drink for the last ten minutes.
He had pretty much broken every single image I had of wizards. Subtle? Wise? The only part I hadn’t seen was a bad temper, but this geezer was closer to my temperament that I would like to admit. Come to think of it, the image I had of wizards wasn’t the only one that had been broken. The assassin looked closer to a stalker that I caught previously than anything else, and as for the cultivator… the lesser said the better.
With a nice and merry clatter, Mr. Meng brought out the dishes for today’s dinner, popping them on the table with a satisfyingly loud and reliable thump.
“It’s a bit too early to be drinking, Miles. And more importantly, you shouldn’t be doing that in front of the youngsters. You’ll lead them astray.” He looked pointedly at me, and at the duo of Hao Wei and Aurora who had just sauntered into the dining room. “Wait, I didn’t recall packing any alcoholic beverages.”
“It’s just Coke.”
Unfortunately, Miles didn’t really look all that convincing when he said that. Despite me knowing he was telling the truth, I still would have looked down on anyone who believed what he just said. No one would blame Mr. Meng for pouring out a glass himself. One satisfying gulp later, he was left all too bewildered.
He caught my eye and left the topic untouched. Some things were better off uncovered. And besides… we had more important things to discuss; Crow had just walked in, with a little reusable grocery bag in hand.
“Dinner first. talk later,” Mr. Meng cut his words short, hurrying Cro
w to an open chair instead.
The dishes were soon partitioned according to what each of us individually liked, which had gotten obvious after the past few mealtimes. This time round, dinner had flashed by without much fanfare, probably because everyone wanted to see the plans that Crow drew up. The empty plates were removed as swiftly as they were brought out, and soon, that little carry bag was placed on the table.
Out came a laptop, unlike the neat files that we had gotten from Mr. Meng when we first arrived. A hint of fatigue lingered on Crow’s face as he booted up the device and opened a PowerPoint Presentation. He left his seat, moving to the side of the table while armed with a stick.
“Is it normal for assassins to use PowerPoint?”
“Shut up.”
I wasn’t sure who asked, but the response was a good one. Slide after slide flashed past me, and there was one thing I concluded: Crow here at least knew how to plan. He had slides named ‘Enemy Course of Action’, marked out with arrows and differentiated with alphabets at the back, and another batch of slides named ‘Own Course of Action’ A, B and so on. It was enough to give anyone a headache, and sure enough, my temples started throbbing a few slides in.
Miles’ eyes had glazed over, and Hao Wei was fighting a valiant battle to stay alert. Only Mr. Meng looked anything close to attentive. He was also the only one who was taking down… although, I was pretty sure that Crow would have given him the whole presentation, or even the laptop, if he asked for it. As for Aurora, she had snuck out halfway through — she was under no obligation to listen to the plan.
The torture session soon ended, and I saw life return to Miles’ eyes, while Hao Wei’s battle to stay awake ended in a stalemate. Crow, for some reason, had absolutely no reaction towards the nonchalance of those two buggers, but it wasn’t like I could claim to be any better.
“Before we continue,” I said, drawing everyone’s attention to me. “I would like to add that I spotted an ectoplasmic scout during my shift last night. It managed to get a good bird's eye view of the premises,” my gaze shifted to Crow, “how would that affect your plan?”
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