Coven (2)
Witches.
After Awakening a practitioner has two paths.
They can either go down the path of a Mage or the path of the Martial Artist. Either way, all Practitioners are the same once they get to the Nascent stage, where one can split their soul and achieve half-immortality,
But don't let that fool you into thinking a Mage or a Martial Artist are the same. A Martial Artist trains and cultivates their bodies but a Mage uses Essence to cultivate their minds and souls. Not only do Mages have high intelligence but they can also practice magic.
Magic is the ability to control and contort essence, with a strong soul and mind a Mage can use spells, make potions/elixirs and even barriers.
Spells can take varying forms, from transformative to tracking spells to offensive and defensive. Many Mages could also go down the lucrative path of an Alchemist and through their control over Essence and their knowledge, they can make healing potions, poisons, and pills to improve cultivation.
And, of course, just like other Practitioners, a Mage is only capable of using one or two types of Essence. As a result, there are many factions amongst the Mages.
There are the Witches, the female Mages, and their Male counterparts the Warlocks. Most groups could be mixed but some factions were split due to gender.
Then groups were segregated by Essence ability, there were covens of Fire Mages, Water Mages, Earth Mages and Air Mages. More specialised Alchemist groups and there were those that specialised in spells.
If that weren't enough several groups were split between ideology as well. Depending on the Realm some Mages were much more chaotic and treated mortals like experimental parts for their cultivation and used their bodies to practice their Magic. These factions that cared little for Mortal life and were only concerned with building their powers were called Red Covens.
Then there were Mages who only used Magic for just causes, they wanted to heal the world and only intended to help people, these factions were called Silver Covens.
Chàng Bo was a rare case, he was both a Mage and a Martial Artist. What people called a Quasi/Dual Practitioner. For most taking both paths was impossible and extremely difficult to train in. While the Mages trained the soul and the mind the Martial Artists only trained the body, pushing it till it exceeded its limit.
Just one path was not only time consuming but energy-draining, two paths would make progress not only slow but even dangerous for a normal Practitioner. Only a few had ever gone down that path in history, most didn't see the point in it. But, Chàng Bo had gone down both paths and not only that, but he'd achieved The Dao stage in only 100 years becoming a complete and invigorated immortal. That's why he'd been known as a Heaven defying Genius.
Yet at this moment, as Chàng Bo walked the streets, he wasn't feeling like a Heaven Defying Genius. He'd been lost for thirty minutes.
Chàng Bo barely knew Mao Lu's Realm. Realm 145 was so different from his Star Realm. Since it was made up of mostly Mortals and Practitioners that meant Covens were secret organisations, they didn't have blatant signs saying "[Insert Name Here] Coven".
It made Chàng Bo feel frustrated.
"Why isn't there some bloody sign so I can find these freaking Witches."
Despite using his clairvoyance spell, Chàng Bo was going in circles. At first, the spell had been blocked by something, but then it started working again everything had been going smoothly, he'd rushed in the direction of the Coven but suddenly his Clairvoyance spell got confused and started throwing him in circles.
Something was deflecting and confusing his spell.
Chàng Bo felt annoyed, this Clairvoyance spell that he'd learnt twenty years ago was a High tiered Celestial spell, Immortal class. Supposedly able to locate anything he desired. At least that was what the Auction House Seller had told him when he bought the scroll for it, yet it was so pathetic.
Chàng Bo was a freaking Dao stage Practitioner. Most of the Practitioners if not all of them in this Realm were likely below the Immortal stage. He should have been able to find them by now and smash them to pieces easily. Why on Earth was his spell failing, it had never done this before.
As Chàng Bo walked in circles for a few more seconds it finally dawned on him. Barrier Magic!
There had to be a Magic Formation that was blocking his Clairvoyance spell. Formations, unlike normal spells, didn't rely on the power of the Mage but instead on objects. Essence Objects or Spiritual plants once placed in the right formation can act as strong Barriers.
Mages who prefer offensive magic normally find Formations to be very annoying since they're very technical and can confuse most spells. At some point, Chàng Bo must have walked straight into this formation.
A normal Practitioner would have been frustrated but Chàng Bo smiled brightly to himself, for him a Barrier wasn't a problem.
In fact, the fact that there was a Formation in the first place told him he was close to a Coven.
Now that he knew the issue Chàng Bo stopped moving and brought all the star essences closer to his body. The air around him began to grow unbearably hot.
More star essences clustered around Chàng Bo until he was the temperature of new-born Star. Whatever Materials had been holding the Formation in place began to crack.
The space around Chàng Bo began to creak and groan and the illusion of a street shattered.
He was in fact not on a street but actually standing on a Mountain far from the city and in front of him stood a single little girl. She had bulbous, large beady eyes and pale skin. She wore a little red dress.
The moment Chàng Bo made eye contact with her she began to shake and bowed low.
"I give my respect and greetings to you Chàng Bo. I am Little Red the head of the Eastern Witches. I apologise for the Formation. I had no idea you were coming, and our Coven had yet to take down our barriers."
Chàng Bo's nose wrinkled with distaste as he looked at Little Red. "This hag is obviously thousands of years old, yet she keeps the form of a little girl, how vulgar," he thought.
He looked at her strangely, "How do you know who I am?"
He hadn't introduced himself, yet she knew to bow to him, and she had said his name.
"Of course, I would know the Fate Companion of the Gatekeeper of my Realm. Not to mention you are a Prince from the Star Realm, a legendary Genius, and the son of Chàng Xing. I would be a fool not to know you, My Lord."
"Fate Companion?" Chàng Bo felt confused, their companionship shouldn't have happened since Mao Lu had been training in the 1st Realm and he had been captured and locked away by Argenti.
"How do you know about our Fate Companionship; did you see the ceremony?" Chàng Bo asked.
Little Red gave him a strange look. "Your Fate Companionship was announced all across the 400 realms, and after then the Gatekeepers announced that you both had a private ceremony, there were no invitations."
"Ahhh I see." The Gatekeepers had lied. They had told the Realms that they had had a private ceremony rather than admit what they had really done. They probably did this for two reasons. First, they had already made an announcement and they didn't want to go back on it. Second, many practitioners had seen his Fate Companionship with a Gatekeeper as a symbol of better unity between the Gatekeepers and Practitioners. If they had admitted that they'd forcibly captured Chàng Bo and even attempted to murder him than many Practitioners would have been outraged.
While Practitioners can't hope to rival a Gatekeeper, they can be a nuisance for them. They probably didn't want any more anti-Gatekeeper groups rising up.
Even though the Fate Companionship didn't actually happen, everyone else in the Realms believed they were an established couple.
Thinking about this made Chàng Bo's heart twinge.
He missed Mao Lu.
His nose wrinkled with annoyance, his hatred for Argenti grew, he couldn't wait until he was strong enough to smash her face in.
"Thanks for the information" Chàng Bo smiled darkly at Little Red, "Now tell me where I can find Frank Wang."