Chapter 5 – Orpal’s True Reasons

[Order received; Body Tempering gained by practicing was 34]

The system simply replied with a notification. Kyle was elated. He didn't need to check all notifications anymore. He could simply ask the system and get some answer back.

Kyle proceeded to practice the complete set of the Thousand Transformations Sword Set a few times before heading home. The sun was already setting on the horizon and darkness was arriving. When he arrived at his room, he finally noticed that he had black sweat all over his body and it was very smelly. He didn't know that he could smell this bad. He took off all his clothes and put them in the washing machine. Then he took a shower and meticulously cleaned all his body. There was black sweat all over his body, even on parts that were difficult to reach.

Then he got on his bed and was preparing to start cultivating. But before, he gave a quick check on his status and cultivation.

[Name: Kyle Goldblood]

[Age: 15 years]

[Strength: 5.58]

[Agility: 5.38]

[Vitality: 6.78]

[Stamina: 4.48]

[Qi: 4000]

[Power Index: 5.555]

[Cultivation Technique: Five Elements of Chaos Transformations]

[Cultivation Rank: Mortal]

[Cultivation Base: 110.4/1000]

[Qi Power: 1.104]

[Meditation Technique: None]

[Soul Rank: Mortal]

[Soul Power: 1.8]

[Body Tempering Technique: Sword Body Tempering]

[Body Rank: Mortal]

[Body Tempering: 137/1000]

[Body Power: 2.9772]

"Great, today was a great day. I managed to improve around three points in the power index, and I learned the sword set. I even got rid to the previous tampered trash ability."

"Now let's cultivate and improve further. I'll finally be able to raise my head high."

At the same time, in a room inside the school. There was a teacher waiting impatiently. He was waiting for someone, but it had been over an hour since the person he was waiting for was supposed to show up.

Suddenly Orpal entered the room.

"What took you so long. Today is the day to collect your taxes." The teacher angrily said.

"I know. But I was in the infirmary, I was beaten today during the sparring sessions."

"How could you? Aren't you the strongest in you class?"

"I don't know myself; I swung the sword with my full strength, but it didn't matter, then I took a hit in the neck, and I lost my ability to breath. Soon I woke up in the infirmary.

"You're truly useless, I already gave you the best ability book and you still lost to a student. What about Kyle, he is the only one that still hasn't paid his taxes, and the school is almost finishing, I refused to believe you won't be able to convince him."

Orpal lowered his head. He didn't want to admit that it was Kyle that beat him. Simply because he still thinks that if it wasn't the swords, he would beat Kyle so bad. His anger started to increase again.

"You better convince him or else It won't end well for you. The same way I gave you this ability, I can take it back." The teacher said.

"I know, I'll beat him so badly that he won't have another choice if not paying his taxes."

"Stupid, stop beating him pointlessly, torture him. If you just beat him, he will be taken to the infirmary all over again and you won't even have the chance to convince. Instead, torture, break him, and force him to give his money to you."

"I understand. Tomorrow he will know what pain truly is." Orpal said with a determined expression.

Orphans were given money every month by the government. But not all this money was used, and they would have savings of their own. What Orpal was requested to do was to give all this money to this teacher from all the orphans. There were eight orphans in total in the last year of school. Orpal was only required to deal with his class.

Hank, the teacher, couldn't wait to get his hands on Kyle's money. Kyle never 'paid' his 'taxes' before, so his savings must be big. Hank was waiting anxiously to get his hands on Kyle's money, but his patience was starting to thin out.

Today was the day that the government handed out the money and Hank would extort money from the orphans on this day. Orpal was one his minions that would 'collect' the money from the other orphans.

Hank has been nurturing Orpal for a while now and gave him a good ability book. The idea was to use brute force to coerce other orphans into giving in their money. Orpal has been increasing his strength and bullying others into giving their money to him, for two years now, and all his minions were the other orphans, but these other orphans were given better ability books once they gave their money, while living under the threat of losing their abilities once they stopped paying.

But there was an exception. A crazy student that would simply take a beating instead of listening of being coerced. But Orpal couldn't simply ask for the money, he had to make Kyle a minion of his to control him, and make sure Kyle wouldn't spill the beans of the operation.

But time was running short. Soon they would be forced out by the end of the year. Hank was losing his patience because it didn't matter if he didn't get the money earlier in previous years, but once the students left, all their savings would go with them.

Kyle didn't even know that such an operation was running in his school. Orpal reasoning was simply to ask Kyle to follow him and be his minion, he couldn't spill the beans and say he would give a better ability book to Kyle, or else Kyle would suspect where could Orpal, an orphan, get a better ability book.

But for the last few months they would give Kyle a complete beating occasionally trying to convince him to join Orpal. But for the last week Orpal would come every day. Orpal knew that the pay day was arriving, and Hank was getting each time more impatient and angrier.

At the same time, Thomas was intrigued by something he heard from Kyle. Tampered ability books. This was not supposed to happen. The Basic Body Reinforcement was supposed to yield satisfactory results even with the most talentless students, achieving at least the power index of seven before the end of school. But Kyle low performance was something else. Everyone attributed it to him being a complete talentless person.

Thomas decided he would for once pay attention to what was happening around school. He never felt anything was out of the normal until today. Although he turned a blind eye towards bullying, he was completely against unfair competition. And hearing from Kyle about the ability book made him understand why Kyle took so long to progress at the same time made him angry that someone messed with an orphan that could only rely on the teachers to grow.

Kyle cultivated the whole night, but this time he noticed that the efficiency of his cultivation was a little better.

[Qi consumed: 0.5 -> Cultivation Base Increased: 0.11]

He didn't know why it felt easier to manipulate qi inside of him, but he gladly welcomed it. So after a whole light of cultivation he managed to increase his power a bit further.

[Order received; Total cultivation base increased this session was 129.36]

He had cultivated for almost ten hours this time and it was time for school classes again. He got up and went on with his morning routine. When he was ready to leave for school, he checked his status again.

[Name: Kyle Goldblood]

[Age: 15 years]

[Strength: 6.76]

[Agility: 6.56]

[Vitality: 7.96]

[Stamina: 5.66]

[Qi: 4000]

[Power Index: 6.735]

…

[Cultivation Base: 239.76/1000]

[Qi Power: 2.3976]

…

[Soul Power: 2.1]

…

[Body Power: 3.5688]

… (A/N: I omitted repeated useless lines and I'll probably do more of that in the future)

"Great, another point in power index." Kyle's mind was still focused on the power index because that was the thing he had grown up looking up to. But he noticed that his stats were growing at the same pace. The only difference was the starting values.

Kyle left a little earlier than usual. He went first to the gymnasium to look for Thomas and give back the ability book. They chatted a little bit about the sword set, Kyle had many questions and Thomas was glad Kyle was asking them.

It didn't take long but Kyle understanding was increasing by leaps and bounds. Thomas was simply too high level, and his understanding was much greater than Kyle's, so it wasn't a challenge for him to teach Kyle.

Soon Kyle had to leave. Classes were about to start, and Kyle had to eat before it. So, he soon bid his farewell and left. Thomas was left there with a smile on his face. He was very happy that a point out of the curve, a genius, finally appeared in his class. It would probably be the last one thought, since a genius like Kyle was very hard to come by, so Thomas decided to pour all his energy and help Kyle all along the way. His only regret is that Kyle showed his talent too late in school life. Thomas wished he could spend more time teaching Kyle.