Flames of war

"You sure know how to make everyone wait", Nemo laughed and said with a smile, he was a pure and innocent guy, he spoke whatever came to his mind.

Dawn smiled warily and nodded toward him, he wasn't a talkative person, everyone looked at their little exchange and didn't say anything.

Captain Nios looked toward Dawn and noticed the scratches on his armour left behind by the clouded leopard, focusing slightly on him, he noticed the aura radiating from dawn had changed," he had a breakthrough," Nios muttered with a low voice, he was feeling shocked inside.

Cultivation was nothing to laugh about, every step was filled with difficulty, In short, people weren't supposed to break through this fast, the cadets had just started cultivation one day before.

Nios looked in the direction of Dawn, and said in a serious voice "Cultivation shouldn't be taken carelessly."

The other four cadets also looked toward him, and wondered why the captain who was speaking such words to Dawn must be joking, they thought.

When they focussed on him their jaws dropped collectively on the ground, "How could he be at body refining rank 2 already," Ajanta spoke, his voice laced with jealousy.

Dawn could feel that the situation wasn't favourable for him, he tried to come up with a suitable excuse, his thoughts raced at lightning speed he quickly found a solution to this problem," I was just lucky on my trip to the mountains, I was able to find a python blood flower in a secluded location."

Dawn spoke in a plain voice signalling that it was a private matter, and didn't want to elaborate further.

The eyes of four people lit up with understanding, and they all nodded If it was the phyton blood flower then they could understand.

After all, the phyton blood flower was something that could help peak body refining cultivators in breaking through to the next realm, the channel construction realm. They all thought it was stupid to waste such precious precious treasure on minor breakthroughs.

Nios the more experienced commander however thought things differently than the inexperienced youth who had just begun their path.

Nios had spent quite some time at the northern base and he knew that python blood flower was rare other than that it was usually guarded by channel construction realm beast which was nothing for him as a stage 3 expert but Dawn wouldn't be able to escape from such a beast alive.

Although he found Dawn's answer suspicious he didn't pursue it anymore he had other things to do.

Nios raised his hand and gestured everyone to focus on him, Seeing that he had everyone's attention he spoke with a dignified face," The war is coming, the troops of GrandLake empire are gathering at the border of finger 4," his words resounded in their ear for a long time, the implications of those words weren't hard to fathom.

Everyone reacted differently to his words, Nemo had an ugly smile on his face, last week he was enjoying dinner with his family, and now he had to participate in war.

Lucy Goodheart, had an expressionless face as if she didn't care about the war, as if she wasn't the one whose life was going to be in danger.

Ajanta had a cruel grin on his face, he was raised in blood and violence from a young age, and his sister Ellora was making contingency plans in her head in case the siblings got in trouble which their strength couldn't resolve.

Dawn didn't think much about it, after all, people die every day, Someday he too would die if he failed to achieve eternal life. What difference does it make to dying today, tomorrow, or thousands of years later, he was sure after millions of years no one would remember him, it doesn't matter how great his life was.

Nios looked at the young cadets with an approving gaze in his eyes, he was satisfied by their reaction, after all, they were sent to the frozen Graveyard of all places on the planet.

Let's go, he spoke and started moving toward the camp, everyone else followed him from behind. After reaching the camp Captain Nios directly headed toward the commander's office.

Watching the captain leave in such a hurry, the cadets also dispersed, wanting to prepare for the war in advance, now that they were aware of the news, although the captain had warned them not to spread the news or else they would be punished severely.

Dawn too decided to head to his room, he was tired from today's adventure.

Captain Nios walked towards Commander Dennis' office with a long stride, after reaching the office he knocked on the door, came in, and heard the voice of the commander from the inside.

Inside a spacious room lay a rectangular table with ten chairs for the captain of the ten units headed by Commander Dennis, he took his seat beside the captain of unit 4, Lin, who nodded toward Nios.

"Nios show us the video ", the commander ordered him, although Dennis had already seen the video he wanted everyone else to watch.

Nios played the video with the help of his AI chip that he had recorded earlier, The eyes of all the captains instantly focused on the video scrutinising it carefully.

After some time Dennis questioned them "Everyone what are your thoughts", he asked and waited for their answer.

"

The number of people is too much, they want to conquer our base camp in one Swift motion", the commander of unit 4 Lin voiced out his opinion.

The commander snorted as if they could be present here,  at that moment a captain voiced out his suspicion "Why are they moving with such fanfare, aren't they worried about alerting us."

The captains discussed different issues and the meeting continued for over an hour, the commander ordered to fortify the base and recall everyone was on patrol outside.

Dawn had nothing to do with the meeting; he was enjoying the juice of purple thunder fruit, which a robot had delivered earlier to his room.

He was thinking about the earlier situation when everyone's eyes were on him, he didn't like to be in the spotlight, he wanted to avoid the attention of the people.

Dawn was going to break through at lightning speed because of his cheat ability, he had to begin training how to restrain his aura. Just as he began thinking about training he heard a prompt in his head.

Ding skill detected "Concealment" Would you like to learn this skill? Warning You can only learn 5 skills at a time.

Dawn was surprised by the sudden prompt, he never thought his talent was capable of even that, after thinking for a moment he learned the skill.

Ding skill learned "Concealment" level 1 skill slot available for use 4/5.

He opened his status window only to find a skill section with concealment(growth type) mentioned there.

He focused on the Concealment skill and a description of the skill appeared in front of him.

Concealment - you can hide something about you from the observation of others, effectiveness is proportional to the level of skill, currently only able to hide one aspect about you.

He was glad that made the right decision, the skill suited him perfectly and he became stronger without worrying about the limelight.

Dawn continued thinking, currently had two ways to prepare himself for the upcoming one was to head out to the base and hunt and the other was to hit the gym for physical training. The former was impossible because the base was closed for entry and exit.

The only option left was to cultivate like every other body-refining cultivator by pushing their body to the limit in the gym.

The body-refining realm was torturous, pushing your body to the limit every day was extremely hard.

With these thoughts, he headed to the gym, and he reached there in no time, he didn't even have to ask the AI chip for directions, after all the gym was the second most popular place on the base after the cafeteria.

A constant stream of people was going in and coming out of the gym, he entered the gym silently looking at the people training in all sorts of ways. 

He looked at the gym reception, but there was no one other than the sign written in bold letters " Use AI chips to access the information".

According to the chip, the gym was divided into 3 sections training, analytics progress report and sparring.

Dawn headed toward the analytics and progress report section to gain info about his fellow soldiers.

As soon as he entered the hall he heard from the AI chip that the hall was trying to send him information about the rank 2 body refining expert he ordered the chip to accept the transmission.

In a minute, the data appeared in front of him

Strength-1.2

Agility -1.2

Perception -1.2

Defence -1.2

Vitality-1.2

Mana-20

Everything was normal as expected but when his eyes landed on magic he frowned. According to the data, a cultivator at rank 2 had 1.2 mana in their mana pool but he had 20 countless times higher than them.

The difference was huge, he couldn't believe he had such an advantage over other people, and he didn't know whether to laugh or cry about the situation.