Walk in the Park

In the artisan facility of the Imperial Academy, a young man was creating a weapon of mass destruction in secret.

"I don't get why we have to do this at 3AM in the morning" Deion yawned loudly.

"It's because no one is here right now you idiot" Bruce focused all his attention onto the mold of the weapon he was forging.

"Put the materials inside the processor" He ordered Deion.

"Aye aye captain"

Deion lifted the rare materials and pushed everything in the processor. These materials were rare ores that they had purchased earlier in the week. Once these ores are broken down and refined by Bruce's meticulous control over the processor, he can use them to make his weapon.

"Voila, it's finally completed"

Bruce held up the weapon and inspected its quality. According to his calculation, he had just created a divine king ranked weapon. What's left was to add runes onto the weapon to increase its offensive prowess.

"Jesus, how many runes are you going to add onto that weapon" Deion saw Bruce pulled out tens of profound paper and laid them beside the weapon.

"All of them" Bruce replied.

Bruce triggered the runes and all of them imbued onto the weapon make it look even more dignified.

"That should be it"

Bruce stared at the weapon to appreciate its beauty and complexity. Deion meanwhile almost fell asleep, so he rushed Bruce to put the weapon away.

"I know, I know, I'll put it away now. But doesn't my frying pan look pretty?"

After losing countless of frying pans over the years, Bruce had finally decided to create the ultimate frying pan that doesn't break. He spent a significant amount of his resources to procure the rare ores to create this abomination of a weapon.

"I can't wait to see the faces of those innocent lambs when I pull this out" Bruce smiled evilly as he imagined the scenario.

"You know that you're just deepen their trauma, right?" Deion had seen some students instinctively flinched whenever they see a frying pan.

"Ahem, it is my job to strengthen the academy's foundation by harden the student's mental health!" Bruce proclaimed his righteousness mission.

"How is knocking them out with a frying pan on the most important exam hardening their mental health" Deion poked holes into his friend's outrageous lie.

"So that they are always on guard against any object!"

"Touche"

"Let's head out now"

As the two boys headed out late at night, they noticed something was wrong.

"Bruce, we're being followed" Deion said quietly.

"8 people, strongest is at high stage Soul Manifestation" Bruce calculated the enemy strength with his soul sea.

"Assassins?" Deion was about to pull out his spear, but Bruce stopped him.

"Impossible for assassins to be that that level and infiltrate the academy."

"It's most likely students" Bruce held Deion back as he wanted to do something.

Currently, Bruce and Deion are disguised to have early-stage Soul Manifestation to conceal their real strengths. It appeared that some people wanted them dead by sending such an entourage.

"What do you want to do?" Deion asked.

"I want to find out who sent these guys before we do anything"

The two kept walking toward a secluded park in the Imperial Academy to lure out the attackers.

When the two arrived at an empty field, the attackers jumped in front of them. Everyone in the group was masked with the leader in the center.

"What do you guys want?" Bruce asked.

"Sorry boys but we'll have to beat you to half death today"

The man sounded like he was in his early 20's. The Imperial Academy only allows its students to stay in the academy until they reach the age of 25. Then, they can choose to leave the academy or work for the academy.

The Imperial Academy has this rule to motivate its students to reach Divine King as fast as possible. At the Divine King level, you'd need 10 times the number of resources compared to Soul Manifestation.

Outside of the academy, obtaining medium grade energy crystals is extremely difficult. One would need roughly 100,000 medium grade energy crystals to break through to Divine King stage.

For the subsequent stages of Divine King, one would need 10,000,000 medium grade energy crystals. Such requirement would bankrupt most wealthy families in the continent.

In the Imperial Academy, you are granted sufficient resources to rank up to the next stage for free if you maintain your standing and status as a student. Those who reach Divine King before graduating would obtain a fortune to help them break through to the next stage.

Seeing that the group was near the age of graduation, Bruce figured that they were desperate to break some rules to gain resources for Divine King breakthrough. Unfortunately, you need talent and resources to breakthrough.

"I'm going to give you one last chance to tell us who sent you and you may leave here peacefully"

"Otherwise, you guys will be the ones halfway to death" Before beating down these students, Bruce wanted to give them a way out. If they don't take it, then it's their fault for what about to happen.

"Good joke little brat" The leader refused to say anymore and ordered his underlings to attack Bruce and Deion.

Deion pulled out a spear while Bruce held up his hands in a fighting stance. Over the years, John trained them in various weaponries. Deion favored the spear while Bruce favored hand-to-hand combat.

With his complete mastery over the earth element, Bruce can coat his hands with earth elemental energy and his hands would be as sturdy as a weapon.

He can even amplify his hands offensive power by fusing other elements into them. The downside to increasing his offensive power by fusing the elements is that he would receive damage onto himself.

The gauntlet would be the natural choice as a weapon for Bruce. However, he refused to use a gauntlet artifact that's not at Divine Emperor or above. The reason for this is that he wanted to have a weapon that can withstand the power of his combined 6 elements. Only divine emperor artifact can do so.

"Are you too poor to have a weapon boy?" One of the attackers slashed his sword at Bruce's hand.

"Nice sword you have there. It'd be a shame if it's broken" Bruce grabbed the sword with his bare hand and weakened its foundation with fire. He then swiftly punched the sword in the middle which caused it to break in half.

"No way!" The attacker was in shock as he looked at his broken sword on the ground.

"Good night" Bruce slammed the ground with his feet to reach the attacker in a flash and punched him in the face. The attacker was out for the night.

Meanwhile, Deion made quick work of 3 attackers by using his wind element and increased his speed to the extreme. The 3 attackers didn't even have a chance to use their weapons before Deion slashed their hands in successions. All 3 of them fainted when Deion hit them all in the heads with the spear shaft.

"I'm feeling a bit generous today so I'm going to give you one last chance to tell us who sent you" Bruce walked toward the leader of the group who had his eyes opened wide. He couldn't believe two brats at early stage Soul Manifestation took out his men in a few seconds.

"Wait hold up, let's negotiate" The leader signaled Bruce to stop walking toward him.

"Why would we negotiate when we can wipe you guys out? You guys have no bargaining chips here" Bruce charged up his hands as he got ready to attack.

"It was Prince Waltz. He paid us 10,000 medium energy crystals to beat you guys half death and take pictures" Seeing Bruce's glowing hands inching closer to him, the leader surrendered.

"Interesting. Do you have any proof?" Words and hearsays are meaningless in the Imperial Academy. Reporting Waltz to the disciplinary committee wouldn't do them any good without any hard evidence.

"Yes, I have the payment here" The leader handed over a storage ring that contains 10,000 medium energy crystals to Bruce.

Bruce inspected the storage ring and confirmed that everything was in there.

"Give Waltz this note when you see him" Bruce tossed the storage ring to Deion.

"We'll leave now. Don't stay out here too long, it's a cold night" Bruce and Deion left the field and headed back to their dorms.

"Bruce, Waltz will figure out who we are" Deion got worried because Bruce left the attackers alive and allowed them to go back to Waltz.

"It's fine. It's not like we can silence them anyway."

"The only way to silence them was to kill them and that's against the Imperial Academy rules" Bruce thought of different ways to silence the attackers, but each solution would be too inhumane. He didn't want to cripple the attackers over this matter.

"Since teacher has recommended us to stop hiding ourselves, then we shall do just that"

"You're right, except that no one in this academy knows how powerful our teacher is" Deion shook his head at the situation. Both the teacher and the students remained low key in the academy. What a strange scenario to be in.

"Remaining low key brought us peace in the academy. But I have a feeling that times are changing, and we can no longer afford to hide anymore" Ever since Chef John left, Bruce had an eerie feeling that something terrible will happen very soon. He just couldn't figure out what it would be.