The Demons Mage - Chapter 21
“Say, Xing, is this kid really worth it?”
Elder Xing looked up. “Bai Qi? Mu, are you doubting me again?”
Elder Mu smiled, his crooked grin accenting the wrinkles on his face. “I can’t help but doubt you, with the resources you’re pushing behind him.”
He pointed to the list he held in his hand. “Three-mark spirit chickens eggs and meat, crimson boars meat, yin infused bread, not to mention duskwood berries for every meal. Any one of these items could be sold to feed a small family for a month or two. All to be used up in a days meal for him, the cost is staggering.”
“Nonsense. I have more than enough wealth to spare,” replied Elder Xing. “Da Lao is also paying part of the costs, using his men to hunt and find some of the ingredients.”
“As I asked, is he worth it though? Surely these resources could be better spent nurturing one of the elites we have in the inner tower.”
“Mu, do you recall the training I proposed a few years ago?”
Elder Mu put down the parchment he was reading. “The training involving sorting elemental beads? Surely you didn’t place him through that. If I recall correctly, only a single Grade 4 mage managed to increase their grade.
Elder Mu laughed out loud as he put down the parchment. “Surely you jest, it took that Mage over a year to get the results you expected. It is just as quick to put the Mage through some trials that push them in order to get the same results, in less time and with less resources.”
“Do you by any chance remember how long it took for the Mage to sort his first marble,” Elder Xing inquired?
“About a week in a controlled environment.”
“It has been what, 15 minutes since I left him in the void?”
“About 20 minutes or so, why?”
“He has already sorted his first bead.”
Elder Mu looked at Elder Xing in shock. He put down the parchment, and waved his hand, causing a screen to appear in front of him. Bai Qi’s image section of the void came into view, with Bai Qi sitting cross legged, focusing on a bead in his hand, the bead emitting a soft red glow.
Elder Xing smiled, as he watched on from his screen. “I didn’t give him the training out of the air, there were a few circumstances that lead to it.”
“Such as,” Elder Mu asked?
“His origin is unknown. Da Lao wrote that he found him in a small town when investigating a disruption, and he didn’t have his memory. Bai Qi himself admitted that he doesn’t have his full memory, and admitted to being a rogue cultivator. Da Lao came to the conclusion that he was an abandoned disciple, and the talent he displayed, a dual elemental grade 4 mage at such a young age, it’s likely he was trained and abandoned by an unknown Archmage. He made it very clear that regardless of how Bai Qi performs, it’s imperative we draw him into our bubble of power and nurture him.”
Elder Mu gestured with his hand, and a letter materialized in front of him. “I never did get around to reading the letter.” As he skimmed through the letter, he pointed to the middle of the letter. “He can form two elemental orbs? That places him as a Grade 4 already.”
“More around Grade 3, as though he can form the orbs, he has not been able to actually do anything with his power. Anyway, as I was saying, besides Da Lao, I tested his dantian.”
“A testing stone? What grade?”
“Grade 6 testing stone. A bit on the expensive side, but useful.”
“And?” Elder Mu sat forward in anticipation.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“He was 19, that’s all the stones showed.”
“But his elemental affinities?”
“The reading was dark, the dantian was sealed.”
“But he can still use elemental powers?”
“Yes,” replied Elder Xing. He stroked his beard, and nodded. “From what little historical sources we have on this topic, and that he’s using two elements, it’s likely he’s a base elemental Paragon that hasn’t come into contact with the other elements.”
Elder Mu looked at the screen in front of him with wonder. “Does he know,” he asked? “How powerful he is?”
“Could be,” Elder Xing corrected. “If he manages to survive the elemental trials, and manages to come into contact with all five base elements, it’s a slim chance he’ll be a paragon.”
Elder Mu looked at Da Lao’s letter once again. “His origin. Is there any way to trace it?”
“Da Lao has already launched a kingdom wide investigation with his network of spies, but I highly doubt he’ll find any information. Bai Qi said that he was orphaned, after all, but Da Lao’s looking into any cases of youth disappearing in the last 5-15 years in the case that his mentor may have manipulated his memories. Bai Qi may have even come from one of the surrounding empires, meaning that this search would just be a waste of time.”
“Awful lot of trouble to raise a potential paragon, manipulate his memories, only to dump him and wipe his memories.”
“You know how some of the eccentrics are. Mages have gone crazy and did weirder stuff than this. The fact that we have a term ready for abandoned disciples shows that this isn’t an isolated incident. It’s just that this falls in the extreme end of the spectrum, and was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“He’s quite fast at sorting the marbles, isn’t he,” Elder Mu asked? “He’s speeding through the marbles like they’re nothing.”
“About 2 or so every 5 minutes yeah. He already has a solid foundation on resonating with the elements since he reached Grade 4 before he was abandoned. However, I plan on him getting the control and power of a Grade 5 at the very minimum before Da Lao’s trials.”
Elder Mu looked skeptically at Elder Xing. “We’ve always thought you were crazy, but Grade 5 at the minimum?”
Elder Xing flicked a small ball of light at Mu, hitting Mu directly in the forehead. “Hey, who’s calling me crazy again?”
The skin where the light ball was about to hit shifted to a bark like texture, taking on a brown color like scales had suddenly grown there, and the ball was absorbed,
“Ow, ” Elder Mu said, glaring at Elder Xing, as he rubbed his forehead. “I have every right to call you crazy, we have less than 3 months with him before the annual sect competition.”
“So?”
“So,” he paused, ” Raising someone to Grade 4 in a year is exceptional, raising someone to Grade 5 in less than 5 years is extremely rare, maybe 1 case out of a hundred, yet you want to push him up two grades in less than 2 months.”
“It’s more of a single grade Mu, he already hit Grade 4.”
Elder Mu scoffed. “You’re delusional. He has the foundation at most, but no control over his power, and no power to control, as you said yourself.”
Elder XIng grinned. “Wanna make a bet on it?”
“Gladly. Easiest win in my life.”
“Your crafted ironwood set if he makes it to Grade 5.”
Elder Xing whistled. “Going big starting off. That confident huh?”
“That confident.”
“I’ll gladly take you on and show you how delusional you are.” Elder Mu thought about something for a second, and slowly said, “If he makes doesn’t make it to mage Grade 5, and is classified as such by an official test, give me the body of the Silverback Wolf King you obtained last year. That should come close to the value of my ironwood set.”
“I have already used the claws from one of the legs to make a dagger set for my nephew, so I’m afraid that doesn’t quite match up to the value of your item.” Elder Xing pondered for a moment. “I can give you a mid grade defense inscription from Xia Li.”
“Set. No backing up from your words when he fails though.”
“I doubt he’s going to fail however.”
Elder Mu scoffed. “Only time will tell.”
“Moving on from that, we still have to go over the reports from the east.”
Elder Xing waved his hand, and pushed the image of Bai Qi sorting marbles to the side, bringing up a map in front of him. “The beasts are starting to gather again?”
Mu nodded. “There are reports from our scouts that the birth of a beast king will happen sometime in the next year. ”
“Has it been confirmed yet?”
“Not yet. The movement of the individual beasts have started to mimic those of a decade ago however, and going off that, wa tide will happen maybe within the next 30 years or so.”
“What preparations have been made for the tide?”
Xing looked up, and waved his hand, bringing up a screen. He looked at it for a few seconds, and said “None at all so far, since the event isn’t going to be anytime soon. We aso aren’t looking at that much of an event, as the las tide was repelled quite easily. Da Lao has also pledged to send a few squats to help when the tide comes around.”
“Moving on then,” as Elder Xing put the map away, “How are our finances looking this month? And did we manage to resolve the problem with the spell formation near the dorms? ”
The topics slowly shifted away from Bai Qi and into the everyday concerns of the Mage sect, as Bai Qi’s progress was slowly forgotten for the time being.
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Hey guys. Midterms and finals are catching up to me as im slowly losing control of my grades.
At the moment, I put this as like the 18’th thing on my list of things I need to do, and I’m already procrastinating on the first 10 or so. With that being said, I write this from time to time, so here’s the next chapter. :))
Silverbro almost about to hit 1k stones, I see you :))
SkylarWolfe, thanks for sticking by still.
Discord is https://discord.gg/B7xQSKS
If the link doesn’t work, hit me up at Paradoxicality#1088
for visiting.
