27 Chapter 27. Stupid luck

At the grand elder's island, Leo was quietly sitting under the cherry blossom tree as his focus was in his mind space as he was practicing his arts. During this week he had once again improved a step on his mastery on the Nether God's Nihility Fist making his way into beginner stage. This had caused him much anxiety and confusion as he pondered over the rank of the art, all of his black arts were now entering the middle state and alongside that, all of his white ranked arts were now improved to black rank arts. His killing intent had also taken a considerable leap as Leo had also been continually training his control over it but it did not yet level up. A week had quickly passed in the blink of an eye, Alfred had taken them trio around the clan to see the place, of course, he had done this secretly as he did not intend to let the identity of these kids be known yet. However, this was quite beneficial as Leo and Aurora were now more well-versed in the geography of the area.

Bored to death of mastering arts in his brain, Leo decided to take a roam around the nether mansion as he blankly looked around. With his head down and eyes closed in deep thinking, Leo thought, 'argh! I'm so bored right now! Hmm... What can I do?'

Suddenly, a stupid idea hit him as he suddenly began walking at a more normal pace as he walked with slightly more energy, 'ok! This is incredibly stupid but I'm just going to walk forward until I bump into something and the first thing I see, I'll think and come up with something that I can do with it,' Leo thought in his mind as he stupidly decided.

Step! Step! Step! Leo took a series of rights and lefts whenever he felt like it...

'Ok! Now I walk straight!' Leo confidently thought as he took a large step forward. Thonk!

A large red spot appeared on Leo's forehead as he bumping into what seemed like a large object. Rubbing his head in pain, Leo began slowly opening his eyes and as he looked around he saw that he had subconsciously ended up in the unsealing hallway and stumbled on to the second door. Immediately, he then opened his eyes and observed the door and his concentration fell on the note on the door that contained the requirements.

Requirements:

Killing aura control: Able to hide it from children, toddlers, and infants(met)

Arts learned(5/14)

Bloodline inherited(not met)

Custom fusion art created(not met)

Custom art created(0/3)

Emission realm cultivation(not met)

His eyes quickly spanned through the letter on the note as he began to ponder over it.

"Hmmm. From all of these options, the main things that I need to learn right now is how to create a custom art," pondered Leo as he sat down in thought and just a few seconds later, a light bulb lit up like a sun in his mind as Leo jumped and stood up, his body filled suddenly with excitement and motivation. He immediately went out of his mind space and walked out to the edge of the pond.

'This is a gamble but all the anime and fantasy novel that I read before have things related to this, I must give this a try,' he thought as Leo took a stick and poked it into the water.

'Feel the water...' he peacefully thought as he brought his mind into a clear and empty state as he focused his concentration on the rippled cause by the stick. Leo then slowly reached out and laid out his hands, hovering over the ripples on the water that were caused by the stick. He then injected a small amount of energy into the water, splash! A small explosion of water splashed all over Leo as he became drenched in water. 'My goodness that worked!' This greatly shocked Leo as this was just a hunch and a stupid plan that he thought of from all the anime that he had watched back on earth. Back then, he had heard about Avatar from a friend and decided to watch it. And the avatar's ability to manipulate with elements gave him the inspiration to try and manipulate the elements. But it had worked! This meant that the chance of him possibly creating a custom art would be possible and not far away, of course, he had to learn a lot as all this was just a simple unprocessed energy wave that shot at the water's waves.

"Let's get this going! Maybe I can try and manipulate other elements as well," Leo said to himself as he stood proudly.

And just like that, a whole evening was spent on manipulating the elements. Eventually, Leo stopped and returned to eat dinner. When he arrived home, Aurora and Alfred were setting up the dinner table. Leo immediately went and took a shower and join them all just in time for dinner.

"Grandfather, tomorrow is the day of the ceremony. How are we going to do it? How do affinities work?" asked Leo curiously.

"I knew you would ask. Well, for tomorrow, I have added both of you to the list so there should no be any problems for that. I am the grand elder of the clan so I will have to be sitting with the clan members and will not be able to be with you two. You guys should be wary though, the ceremony is for Sapphire city so other clans will be taking part in this, make sure you stay out of trouble, although the Decan clan rules Sapphire city, the other clans are not much weaker than us," spoke Alfred as he wisely explained.

He then turned to Aurora and cautiously warned "Aurora, you must be particularly careful. Not many people know about you in the clan and even less know about you outside the clan. Many of the other clans' descendants are spoiled and undisciplined, I'm afraid they might want you. The young masters of the clan are extremely spoilt so I have decided to announce at that day that you guys are my grandchildren but still, I need you all to be vigilant and remain cautious, the war between the Ruby and Lapis kingdom has been causing unrest everywhere and the relationships between the clans are getting tense."

Hearing this Aurora suddenly tensed up as her body suddenly for a second but she quickly recovered as she nodded.

"Aurora… Are you ok?" asked Alfred as he showed concern as he sensed that he had seemed to strike a certain nerve in Aurora's body.

"I'm… ok. I just need some time alone. Please excuse me," said Aurora as she quickly left the dinner table and went out of the house.

Silence...

Ever since they started living here, Aurora had never shown this much emotion. She was always a quiet and lovely child, she was particularly hardworking and spent a lot of her time with Lex and Leo. Receiving such a reaction from her had confused Alfred, "Leo, what happened? Why did she just leave?"

Leo sighed as he shook his head and began to explain their experiences, "It all started off back in the village, the village had to give their payments to a nearby sect. But their sect master's son was quite an unrestrained teen and Aurora's father had initially decided against her going but Aurora recklessly snuck in and still left. And when we got there, she was unfortunately targetted by their young master but she rejected him and as a result, the villagers that came with us were all killed just because of it. She still feels incredibly guilty and still seems to have not gotten over it yet."

Of course, Leo had to keep his strength hidden so he kept the part about the destruction of the sect out.

"I see. That must have been tough for you kids, having to run away," Alfred spoke understandingly as he nodded.

"I'll go and find her. I'm done eating anyway, just feed Lex for us," said Leo as he got out of his chair and started walking outside to find Aurora.

"Ok, go ahead. I'll continue feeding Lex," said Alfred as he sent Leo off with a wave.

Aurora had walked a considerable distance from the house. She was lying on a beautiful grass field that was currently shaded dark blue by the light of the moon, which was fifty meters or so from the island. Her sad downcast purple eyes looked up at the countless ever-sparkling stars as her thoughts rushed through her head. And while she was lost in the beauty of the many stars, Leo's voice sounded next to her, "I thought I'd find you here."

Aurora turned and looked at and smiled at him before calmly replying, " I can never hide from you can I?"

"Nope," sniggered Leo as he sat down, " May I join you?"

"Sure," Aurora spoke as she turned her head up to the sky again as she laid flat on the soft grass.

"You are still not over it huh?" Leo sighed as he sadly spoke.

"Yes… I wish I didn't go. They wouldn't have died if I didn't-"

But before she could finish her sulking, Leo suddenly turned to her and grabbed her shoulders tightly, he looked deeply into her eyes as if he was looking straight into her soul and consoled, "You're not thinking straight again, Aurie. If you had never gone with us, then nothing would've changed if you truly think about it. You along with everyone would've died in the village from the soldiers and the others would've died when we came back. This world gave you another chance to live by making you follow us into the sect. If you hadn't done that, then you would've died. Don't kill yourself over it. If the villagers were to give you their final wishes, I think that they would've wanted you to survive and get stronger. Plus, I'll always be there for you, you are not alone. You are literally my only friend right now."

Hearing this, tears appeared in Aurora's eyes and they began dripping off her chin, an extremely satisfied smile appeared on Aurora's face as she lunged forwards and gave Leo a warm embracing hug as she cried, "Thank you! Please don't ever leave me! You are the only person I know in this world now!"

"I won't, if we're ever to forget you then I am not a human, there's a quote from a book called the bible that I read before, it says ' If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.' I would be a worthless thug who is the lowest of the lows to ever ignore you. Come on, let's go back. You have a long day tomorrow, you need to prepare to wow everyone in the city with your talent," Leo consoled as he stood up and offered Aurora a helping hand to lift her up.

"Wait let's just spend some time looking at the star," Aurora spoke out as she laid back down.

"Fine," Leo replied nonchalantly as he also joined Aurora and they began dilligently stargazing with their naked eyes.

Eventually, they spent about an hour and by the time they came home, they found Alfred sleeping next to Lex on the couch. Seeing that there was no problem, the duo decided to go to their own separate bed to sleep. Tomorrow was the day of the ceremony and they needed to be prepared, physically, and mentally.