Chapter 21 The People’s Champion

 

“Our chosen! You are making good progress! But the great enemies are moving as well.” A bright voice suddenly spoke to him. “One of their champions is close to you. If you can devour them, you can receive a unique power”

 

Champions? Devour?

 

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“A dream” Jace stares at the darkness, it was so dark he could not see anything. He woke up in the middle of the night. He tries to look around the room, mana lantern should be nearby. He reaches around to no avail for a while, before deciding to light up the room with shock.

 

He could see himself and the bed, but nothing else. He was still surrounded by darkness. Something was wrong here.

 

Jace reaches out and tries to touch the darkness. Something wet and slimy surrounds him. The finger that touched the black liquid is burned.

 

“Burns? On this body? This is not magic. Monster!? Was I eaten? How?” Jace covered his entire body with mana to protect himself, but it had the opposite effect. As soon as he used mana, the black goo started to react, quivering, shaking, and seemingly moving closer to him.

 

Jace tries to contact his friends with the mana net, but the black goo seems to trap mana inside itself. The only way is to break out of this himself. The first step to solving a problem is to identify the problem. Jace thought back to the monster encyclopedia that every young child in this world must learn in kindergarten.

 

Gelatinous, acidic, mostly passive, sensitive to mana. He could only think of one monster that fits this description. Slime, is one of the weakest monsters that exists. However, its current color is a problem. Slimes are either green or blue by nature. The color signifies the location of its birth. Blue for liquid birth and green for forest or grassy plain birth. As slime consumes more food and mana, its color starts to change. The second evolution is red, at this stage, slime is as dangerous as the Red Rabbits. The third evolution is purple, now it is a monster that could destroy a small village. The last stage of slime ever recorded is black. This slime is considered a natural disaster. It is capable of eating entire cities whole, rolling over walls and armies like a flood.

 

If this thing is a black slime, the fact that he is alive means that it is still in hibernation. It is still in the middle of evolving. Its expanding body must have covered the infirmary while he was sleeping.

 

“Well, the good news is that I potentially have a few weeks to get out of here, if it is still hibernating. But how to get out?” Jace sat up on the bed and looked around himself. Aside from his bed and himself, there is nothing else in this darkness. The fact that he is still alive is probably because of his physique.

 

Jace inspects the bed under him, wondering why the bed has not melted yet. He could feel a familiar mana inside the bed frame. Protection magic. The face of a certain elf appears in his mind. She must have already felt that something was wrong if she cast protection magic on his bed. She might have already realized that he was eaten.

 

“Thank you, Tear” Jace touched the bed frame and used his mana to break it apart. The metal bed frame pieces rotate around him like a protective field.

 

He could not use the shards to destroy the goo, it would only melt. Perhaps he could create enough wind to blow up the goo dome from the inside.

 

Metal shards around him begin to rotate and spin at extremely high speed. Intense wind is slowly pushing back the black goo. Finally, a very thin section of the goo appears, light can be seen on the other side.

 

The mana he has collected during the fight is almost used up, and he cannot collect mana in the air because of his physique. Jace made one last push in the hope that he could create a hole big enough for him to jump out. The muscle in his entire body screams in pain, without mana, his body is pulling on the stamina in his muscles instead. Mana overload that could severely harm other people would kill him. Jace, his entire body burning from pain, let go of the metal shards. The shards exploded out in all directions. He fell to his knees from exhaustion. Before he lost consciousness, he saw teleportation lights.

 

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Once again, he woke up in an unfamiliar place. Wooden ceiling that smells of old magic.

 

“Fuck..........am I going to get ambush by assassin this time?” Jace has been through a lot today.

 

“You are awake. You did well to open a hole in that thing’s stomach. The witch was able to locate you when mana connections could be made from the hole.” Duke Feng walked into the room. Jace recognized this to be the visitor dorm built by Greeneyes inside the school forest.

 

“Duke, why are you here, sir?” Jace sat up on his bed in a panic. His body no longer hurts, a really good healer must have treated him personally.

 

“No need for formality. I wanted to visit my brother’s son. I didn't know that you would survive.” The Duke sat down next to the bed. His face shows sorrow. Jace realized he was not talking about what just happened. “Back then and even now, I am always too late to save you. But you always seem to survive on your own.”

 

“You know my father?” Jace does not know anything about his family, even before his death.

 

“I do. He was, is, my sworn brother. You can call me uncle.” The Duke’s eyes are sincere. “Yabui Qin. Duke of the North. The Champion of the Celestial Empire. Radiant Spear. That was your father.”

 

Jace has never thought about it before, because he was kept as a hostage since he could remember. But he also has a family that must have loved him before he was taken from them. Or perhaps, he never thought about them because he felt resentment towards them for not coming for him, not coming to save him.

 

Tears fell from his eyes before he realized what had happened.

 

“Please tell me about him,” Jace said

 

“A disgustingly pure person. He would rather die than do something dishonorable. Your family follows the ancient religion. The Qin worships nature and protect the balance of the world. They called themselves Taoists.” The Duke shakes his head but a smile hangs on his lips. “One time, the emperor gave us an order to cleanse an entire village because one rebel was born there. Yabui accepted the order, razed the village to the ground, and took all the villagers back to his territory. They were given new land, new houses to live there.”

 

“Isn't that against order?” Jace was surprised

 

“It wasn't, technically. He cleansed the village, even razed it to the ground. The order wasn't to kill every single villager there. Regardless, the emperor was not happy about that.” The Duke laughs happily. “He was a troublemaker, your father. One time, the emperor was so angry that he gave an order to punish the soldier responsible for a failed operation. Because your father loves his people, the emperor punishes his people instead of him. Your father agreed. He sat in the palace courtyard and ordered the palace guards to whip him 300 times. The same number as the amount of soldiers that took part in the operation.”

 

“He willing took a whipping instead of his soldiers?” Jace was stunned. Nobles were not supposed to be like this. They are arrogant, corrupt, and cruel.

 

“He did. His people love him to death. He was like no other nobles I have ever seen.” The Duke smiled like a young boy, but that smile faded little by little. “He made many enemies because he was a pure person, in the noble society being too pure could interrupt many people's profit.”

 

“..........my father must be dead……..what about my mother? Is she dead?” Jace’s voice is shaking.

 

“Yes, her entire family is being held captive inside their family compound. No one is allowed to enter or leave for the last 16 years.” Duke Feng shakes his head, this proud man looks powerless at this moment.

 

“Please tell me about my mother.” his voice has regained stability.

 

“Lady Prea Lunaspiral, Elipse, originally from a commoner family that was granted nobility due to military contribution.” Duke Feng smiles at the memory. “She was a Tomboy, with a pretty face but an awful personality. I told Yabui that she would make a lousy wife, but she proved me wrong.”

 

“I see. They seem to love each other, my parents” Jace looked down and smiled.

 

“They did. What a rare thing to find in this world, true love.” The Duke saw that Jace looked tired from the fight earlier and also from the information. He started to get up to leave. When he opened the door, Tear was standing outside waiting for the conversation to end. “What a rare thing indeed” The Duke looked at Tear and said.

 

“Wait! Why were they murdered? Who did it?” Jace felt a little panicked, he needed this information. If the Duke leaves, he might not have another chance to find out.

 

“Rest for now, I will come to find you again.” The Duke walked out of the room before stopping at the door and turning to look at Jace. “By the way, you have five older sisters. They are all with the Heavenly Demonic Cult.” The Duke said, chuckling before leaving the frozen Jace in the room.

 

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“Good morning everyone! Everyone must be excited about the senior brackets! This one is a bit different from the rest since the level of competition is much higher this time around and the number is much higher as well.” Foxy Three looks more and more tired every day. “For the first round, all participants will be forming a raid. The only objective is to survive and hunt the monster.”

 

The word monster made the audience immediately agitated. Monsters are not simple monsters that can be caught and used for human purposes. Even the weakest monster can become a disaster if given enough time. The crowd became extremely restless.

 

“This is the monster that everyone must hunt in the first round!” Foxy three dance in exaggerated fashion before pointing at the Blue Tower that was hidden behind a layer of fog just moments before. Some black mass is stuck to the side of the Blue Tower like a giant black mold on bread.

 

“Black Slime!”

 

The crowd screams.

 

The sounds of Miss Harlet laughing echo in the school.