Life Of Muta - Chapter 9

The restaurant right now was currently vacant of customers. The staff members were standing around the door awaiting their first proper client, while the group consisting of two weirdos and a father and son were sitting down around a newly found roundtable, discussing some issues.

“Uncle Russell, a moment ago, you said that the Dragoon restaurant is the only dining place in the Heavenly section that could serve simple-looking food. Why is that?” Muta questioned out to Russell, which made the neatly dressed man feel contented. It was the first time anyone called him uncle since out of all his sworn brothers, only Gavin currently has a son and thus the sound of the younger generation calling him an elder, felt rather pleasant. This was also the same experience that Grant felt when Muta addressed him as uncle too.

“Well my nephew, Muta, the reason why the restaurant is able to have such high prestige even when our food is nothing fanciful actually dates back to twenty odd years ago when your father, Grant and I served the royal family. We were all once soldiers that worked directly under the King Chroma.”

“In the past, your father was deemed as the Wind Speaker, for he was the leader of the elite royal recon team. Wherever he went, he moved with the wind. Without a trace, he would be able to reach any destination. Uncle Grant over here was the vice-leader of the elite royal guards. Back then, he was given the name Cleansing Wildfire. Him being a dual-wielder of two opposite elements made him perfect for both defensive and offensive scenarios. Lastly, I, your uncle Russell, was the leader of the elite royal guards, my war name was Hellbringer. It was described that my methods of killing my enemy were only seen in the netherworld for I fought and killed those who opposed the empire with the cruellest and gruesome ways that are available.” The last part when Russell had described himself, he gave off a rather peculiar aura, the feeling of enjoying the death of his enemies.

“I have the fire and wind aura, and thus, I have this queer personality of enjoying the sight of what I destroy. It is the same case for Grant. He sometimes cannot control his emotions too well for he is made up of two opposing elements and thus isn’t able to restrain himself.” Russell explained to Muta patiently as the young boy was listening intently to his elders.

“Uncle Russell, does this apply to everyone? Do all the people in Cellamis gradually get dictated by their auras and thus have a primary emotion they portray?” Muta was not sure about this point as his father never really wanted to go into detail about the aura traits and just wanted him to focus on training his body and mind for the future.

“Well, not really. The reason for the emotion dictation by the Aura is mainly a result of how far you are in terms of levels in your element. I am pretty sure your father has not told you about the separation of the different grades of elements since you are not very sure how these powers work in the first place. Thus, your uncle here will do the explaining for you.” Gavin sat on the sidelines and watched the scene unfold. I knew this day would come when Russell would not hesitate to explain to my son about the nature of the auras. This guy over here has spent countless years researching on the stages of aura development and its power over people’s emotion. I’d be speechless if he did not go into detail about his fanatics, Gavin thought.

“The first thing you should know is the different stages of development for your aura. We know that there are five types of aura, rage, ecstasy, vigilance, grief and terror. The first four gives the user the elements fire, wind, earth and water respectively, while terror is more of an unknown mix of darkness and fire. We are not very certain about the terror aura as normal people who harbour it, usually are part of the Mutant Society. This group of people tend to work with the demons who want to destroy our peaceful land of Cellamis and thus us, the royal guards of king Chroma, were constantly given the task of searching out such evil individuals.”

“Now back to the stages of development. There are currently six stages we are sure of. In sequence, they are the beginner level, intermediate level, expert level, grandmaster level, ascension level and finally god level. Each of these stages has 3 tiers and they were the foundation stage, mid-tier stage and lastly sky-tier stage. Each of these tiers gets harder and harder to progress as you go higher, thus it takes talent for individuals to even get through the expert level. The average soldier in the Centriole army is only at the mid-tier stage of the intermediate level so you can tell it is actually very challenging to be a high tier Elementalist.”

Muta felt rather enlightened as this was the first time he got an in-depth explanation of how people’s elements worked. Who knew there were so many stages? Much less the amount of effort it takes to progress onwards. “Then how about you, uncle Russell, uncle Grant and my father, what rank are you all currently at?”

Uncle Grant gave off a heavy chuckle which then he proudly replied, “Your strong uncle over here is now at the sky-tier stage of the grandmaster level for his fire element and at the mid-tier stage of the grandmaster level for his water element. Aren’t I amazing?”

“Yes, Uncle Grant! That is certainly very amazing!” Muta replied with honest amazement. Who knew that my Uncle Grant could be this powerful!

“Well your uncle Russell is actually not bad too Muta, he is actually at the sky-tier stage of the grandmaster level for both his fire and wind elements,” Gavin spoke out for Russell as Muta once again wowed in wonderment.

“How about you, father? What stage are you at for your two elements?” Muta realised that his father had not given him an answer on his own progression.

“Well my water element is at the sky-tier stage of the grandmaster level and my wind element is only at the foundation stage” Gavin replied nonchalantly.

“Foundation stage of what?”

“It is at the foundation stage of the ascension level.”

“THE ASCENSION LEVEL?!” The trio had shouted out so loud that the chandelier above started swaying slightly. They were in disbelief that the man currently sitting over here in the Dragoon restaurant is actually one of the few people in the whole of Cellamis who has entered the realm of ascension.

“Brother you are not joking with me, right? You know that the number of people that are in the ascension realm can be counted with your own two hands?” Russell rushed over to Gavin and tightly grabbed his shoulders. Russell imbued a little bit of his wind element into Gavin and soon he realised his powers were being suppressed by a far stronger force in Gavin’s body. He was shocked that his sworn brother was able to progress this far in the past seven years. (Author’s note: It takes a very long time for people in a higher realm to progress upwards.) “You had actually managed to break into the ascension realm in such a short amount of time!”

“Yes yes Russell, I manage to get to the foundation stage just two months ago. Muta you remember the night your father here went to the mountainside for 2 days? Well, there was a thunderstorm a day after I left and it was actually due to me.” Gavin scratched his head as he recalled the story to Muta.

“It was caused by you? But, how?” Muta was questioning his father’s words as he had a lot that he did not understand. How did father actually manage to break into a realm that is so high?

“Well, we would have to start off with how these storms are caused. First off, these storms are called heavenly tribulations. They can only be triggered when you try to advance from one tier to another. This only starts when an individual advances from the expert level to the grandmaster level. Before that, there would not be a tribulation. When you enter the first heavenly tribulation, you would receive five lightning strikes in your meridians. If you survive these five lightning strikes, you would have successfully entered the realm of the grandmaster, if not you die or would have to live as a cripple for the rest of your life.”

“After that, every subsequent heavenly tribulation adds on another five lightning strikes. Ten to advance from foundation to mid-tier stage of grandmaster, fifteen to advance from mid-tier to sky-tier stage of grandmaster and finally what I had to go through was the twenty lightning strikes to advance from grandmaster to ascension level.” Gavin spoke with utmost seriousness.

There was deep-rooted passion embedded within the man’s eyes. Muta could see that his father had to undergo a lot of tough-ship to get to where he is now. Father must’ve worked doubly hard to move up an extra level back when we were in Centriole, Muta thought. He always viewed his father as one of those normal wood loggers from the village of Centriole, but never realised that his father was once a sky-tier grandmaster that lived right under his nose.