46 The Chosen Child - Part 2

At the same time, in the room where children were sleeping;

The old man felt a disturbance of some kind coming from the crystal and opened his eyes.

Xun Feng, the old Prophet, thought to himself: "Are they finally returning?"

The crystal sucked in all the energy hidden within the runic lines and lit up with silvery light. Just a second after the illusory silver light faded, the bodies lying on the ground began twitching.

The first to get up was Xun Bao.

He touched his chest and felt a surreal feeling of power hidden within his heart. He didn't need to know how to submerge his Spirit Power inside his body to feel it. Merely concentrating his mind allowed him to grasp the faint yet scary feeling that spread through his body with every heartbeat.

Xun Feng's eyes shone when he noticed a strange aura around Xun Bao. He immediately flicked his staff as violet light cascaded on the entire room and saturated it in a slightly magical purple color. The staff vibrated for a moment and stabilized when Xun Feng pressed it against the floor. Out of the violet light, a strangely shaped stone manifested. It was a figure that resembled a hero, with a massive sword strapped diagonally against its back. The sword's length was slightly larger than the figure's own height, hence why it made for a strange scene.

Xun Feng: "This is the Spirit Energy testing device. The statue represents the founder of this academy - Crimson Emperor. Come little boy, let me see what you have."

As Xun Bao lazily dragged himself to the statue, the old prophet's Spirit Sense pierced into his body and found a terrifying aura emanating from this little guy's heart.

"Is he the one?", Xun Feng thought.

Xun Bao felt slightly pressured by the eyes of all those elders staring at himself. At the same time as he was inching closer to the statue, the other children started standing up one after the other. The eyes of Spirits and Demon Beasts especially shone with excitement.

Haven't they listened to the stories about ancient Spirits and Demon Beasts that became the Beast and Spirit Kings? Didn't they just see the awakening of one such fellow a moment ago? How would they not be excited to be the friends with a future King of Beasts and Spirits? How many times did they dream of being one themselves, but now that they saw a genuine candidate for their revered heroes, they were satisfied with being his sworn brothers and sisters.

The humans were slightly more reserved because they didn't have the overlord hierarchy - submitting to the strongest existence. They believed that everyone had an equal chance to become an overlord, hence why their feelings were mixed even though they are still children. It's in their genes to not submit to anyone, after all. That's precisely how humans could survive all these years in the world full of danger.

Even though they didn't consider Asura Ryuu as their Lord like Spirits and Demon Beasts, these children were awed by him and his Soul Spirit, thus they respected him as someone strong. They naturally wanted to be his friends, and that's exactly why Asura Ryuu suggested for all of them to become sworn brothers and sisters. Since he didn't know how this world works, Asura Ryuu didn't want to become hated by everyone at the very beginning - after all, living in solitude is not an interesting thing to do.

Xun Bao stood in front of the stone statue and slowly raised his hand to place it into the carved opening that would test his Spirit Energy. However, he felt strange while doing that. It was as if he knew the statue won't react because he didn't feel Spirit Energy within himself either. How would the statue find it then?

His hand fell into the opening and just as expected - there was no reaction.

Old man's pupils shrank at the sight.

Xun Feng: "H-how is this possible? N-n-nothing? He doesn't have any Spirit Energy?!"

The old prophet immediately appeared next to Xun Bao and grasped his hand hurriedly, feeling the insides of his arm. There truly was no speck of Spirit Energy, even within his bones and muscles. It was a very well-known thing that everyone has at least a speck of Spirit Energy inside of them that they absorbed through nature. Having no Spirit Energy at all made no sense.

The old man's eyes shone with complex thoughts as he told Xun Bao to stand at the side and wait. The other elders were also surprised that such a thing happened, hence all of them paid attention to Xun Bao. Feeling so many eyes focused on himself, Xun Bao's cheeks turned red. There was only one among all the elders that had a different gaze and that was the principal, yet Xun Bao didn't notice that because of the psychological pressure from other elders' gazes.

Xun Feng called another child, and the previous process replayed once again.

Xun Feng: "Another one? What's going on here?!"

All children underwent the same thing as their peers, and the stone reflected nothing. The old man vanished with the statue and returned shortly after with a grim face. He just went out to test other children out of the group of three thousand, yet the statue showed a normal response to them. It wasn't a problem with the device - then what is the problem? This question bothered the old prophet.

He glanced at the children and sighed.

It was at this moment that one of the children spoke: "Elder, I didn't experience what you explained as the Spirit Emblem Forging, maybe it's because of that."

This is what the white dragon told the children to say in order to avoid suspicion.

The old prophet immediately became interested and slammed his staff against the ground which shook the room. A violet resplendent light shrouded the room and cut off the echoes coming from the outside. The room became soundproof immediately. Other elders exchanged confused looks and became interested as well.

The kid with the innocent face and black hair spoke again: "Elder said we will find our star and connect with it, letting it form a shape that will let us borrow its power and that's how Spirit Emblem forms, but that didn't happen with me."

"Me too!"

"Yes! Me as well."

The children agreed one by one, which reinforced the frail belief the old prophet and elders had in this kid. He thought that this kid was spouting nonsense, but hearing other children agree, he became suspicious.

The old prophet's eyes scanned children one by one and found out that none of them really had any signs of Spirit Energy at a glance. Then how can a chosen child be among them? Having no Spirit Energy is even less than being a first-level talent that is considered the worst one can awaken with... How is he supposed to tackle this problem?

The old man felt his head hurt at the thought and asked: "All of you experienced the same, right?", to which the children nodded almost instantly. His eyes flew through the crowd once again and noticed two children with a slightly different bearing than others - Asura Ryuu and Asura Tenka. His eyes squinted as if thinking of something and remembered the faces of these two.

To his luck, he didn't stare at Asura Ryuu's eyes for too long or his mind would begin trembling. It was just his intuition that told him these two differed slightly from others. There's something special about them.