16 The Reward
The beast shuddered once more, then fell to the ground, motionless. It didn’t get up again.
At last, it was stone dead.
Ashur had just won the battle against the beast.
“Whew,” Ashur sighed in relief as he collapsed at a tree stump in exhaustion. “That was a close call.”
He panted heavily as he caught his breath. The beast was just about to kill him. If his Lightning Technique had not succeeded at the last moment, he would not be alive right now.
Taking a quick moment to thank the Gods for his good fortune, he vowed never to let his guard down like that again.
One moment of carelessness could potentially have cost him his life.
Suddenly, he glanced up and noticed that the beast’s body was gone!
The beast was humongous in size, how could its body have disappeared just like that?
Pushing apart the shrubs and bushes, he went over to take a closer look, but the beast’s body really seemed to have vanished in thin air.
Just then, he noticed a small red pill lying on the ground.
It seemed like the dead body of the beast had condensed into this small red pill. The mysterious pill looked like it could potentially contain medicinal properties.
He turned the pill over in his hands. He had never seen a pill like this before, and didn’t know what properties it held. Erring on the side of caution, he decided against immediately ingesting it.
“I’ll go back and ask Astraea,” he said to himself. “She will know what it is.”
All the same, Ashur was grateful that he had unexpectedly managed to reap some kind of reward after his first battle, even though he didn’t know what use it was.
It had been a tough fight, and he was just glad that he had something to show for it.
With this treasure in hand, he left the woods and returned back to the servant quarters in the village.
The servant quarters was a rather large building where servants ate their meals and engaged in recreational activities. This was where servants spent most of their time when they weren’t doing chores or training.
Because of the treatment he got from Astraea and Leander, Ashur was not popular among the other servants.
“So, it’s Mr Know It All has finally returned at last,” Jun, one of the servants, coldly remarked.
“What new skill or technique do you think he learned today?” Khy, another servant, said sarcastically.
This group of servants had been serving in Lacotta for over 10 years, and bitterly resented Ashur’s arrival in Lacotta.
Sharing the same sentiment, the third servant in the group, Lance, rolled his eyes and groaned. “We’ve been here for years and years. Then this new guy comes along and suddenly he gets all the attention from Astraea and Leander?”
They were all incredibly jealous of Ashur.
He seemed just like an ordinary servant, what on earth did their Masters see in him? After all, they had waited for months before the Masters even took a second glance at them, and years before they started training them in the fundamentals of the Etherian Cultivation Style.
Within days, their Masters were all falling over themselves to train him. The other servants didn’t think that it was fair.
“There must be something ‘special’ about him. If not, the Masters wouldn’t even waste their time training him.” Khy muttered.
“What could possibly be ‘special’ about that little piece of shit?” Jun said unpleasantly. “He is just favoured by the Masters because he sucks up to them. How despicable!”
After a while, the group of servants finally acknowledged Ashur’s presence in the servant’s quarters.
“Young Master, welcome to our humble abode.” The fellow servants bowed mockingly to him in greeting.
“I’m not a Master yet…I’m just a servant like you,” Ashur said uncomfortably. He didn’t know why they were picking on him. He hadn’t offended them, had he?
Suddenly spotting the red pill in his hands, Lance asked him, “Oh hey, what do you have there?”
“I don’t know, it’s some sort of...pill?” Ashur replied uncertainly. He wasn’t sure what it was either.
Seeing the small red pill he held in his hands, the group of servants gasped.
“Wait...is that the Triple Cultivation Pill?” Khy asked.
The Triple Cultivation Pill was a pill that could instantly triple their cultivation skills. Obviously, this group of jealous servants wanted to steal the pill from Ashur and use it for themselves.
“Yes, it looks like it.” Jun confirmed. Turning to Ashur, he demanded, “Hand it over.”
Ashur didn’t like the way he was being talked to, and said defiantly, “I shan’t. This is mine, why should I give it to you?”
Just then, Jun whispered to the others, “I have a plan.”
Huddling together, they quickly discussed how they should attack him.
“If we want him to hand over the pill, it looks like we have to fight him. If he’s so powerful, we better fight him three on one,” suggested Jun. “That way, it will be a sure win for us.”
“Fighting him three on one? Isn’t that rather unfair?” Khy said softly. He was slightly uncomfortable at this plan, and it felt a bit like they were bullying him.
Jun laughed scornfully and said, “Do you want to play fair or do you want to win? I want to get my hands on that precious Triple Cultivation Pill no matter what. By then, the smart aleck won’t be anything special anymore.”
The other two servants nodded in agreement. Ashur was just one person. Even if he was favored by the Masters, he couldn’t possibly win when outmatched by the three of them.
When the Triple Cultivation Pill was in their hands, then their Cultivation Level would improve remarkably.
They would finally achieve the same status as Ashur, or potentially one even higher, and he wouldn’t be favored by the Masters anymore.
Spreading out, the three servants started to advance on to him.
