Chapter 45: Breaking news and training

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"Hai?" Kryn suddenly asked amidst the silent lunch everyone was having.

"Huh? What is it, Kryn?" Hai inquired while unbothered by Hong Li-Wei's, Stella's and Bing Qing's gaze on him.

"Aunt. Sit?" She asked while pointing at Chang Hua who was standing while leaning on the wall.

When Chang Hua heard Kryn's words, she choked on her food and grabbed a glass of water which Jia swiftly offered her.

Hai smiled and patted Kryn's head.

"She is too energic for her to stay still. So, she probably wants to do something which will tire her out so she can sit with us." Hai calmly said while picking a fried chicken's wings and gave it to Chilly.

Turning to the side, Hai saw Hong Li-Wei looking at him with a face colored in disbelief; Stella looked at him for a brief moment with lust(?) and Bing Qing's face flushed.

Elena only gave a wry smile as she was used to her young master's shamelessness. While Jia looked at her milady and displayed a smirk.

Chang Hua's cheeks and ears reddened and she pretended to not have anything to do with it while she glared at Hai.

"Hum. Aunt. Healthy." Kryn said before going back to eat.

When Hai heard her words, he gave a wry smile thinking about how being pure sometimes is a blessing.

Chang Hua got even more embarrassed after hearing Kryn's genuine concern and glared harder at Hai.

Hai kept eating while unbothered by everyone's gaze and then, he turned on the holo-TV of the dinner room.

A small slit opened on the roof from where light came in and projected a realistic hologram inside a square.

"Now onto our next news." The man on the screen said before the scene switched to somewhere else.

The place which was now showing on the screen was something like a savanna, but one with very different animals.

There was a lion with lightning sparking on its mane.

An elephant with glowing tusks.

A snake made of smoke and many more distinct animals.

'Beasts.' Hai thought inwardly, but didn't think much about it.

However…

*BOOOM*

Hai turned back to the screen and then he saw something… unusual.

*BOOOM*

At distance from that savanna, but still inside its area, there was a small city with no walls surrounding it, meaning that it was the slums of some metropole.

However, this wasn't what caught Hai's attention.

*BOOOM*

There were explosions going on in the city.

The drone which was showing the transmission live flew a bit higher and then approached the city.

After getting closer, the camera on the drone zoomed towards the city and now, everyone could see the city's state.

People running while screaming, some others dead or buried alive in the debris of the buildings; children screaming for their parents; others crying for their loved ones' death.

It was chaos.

Hai looked at it and he got more apprehensive not because of all this death and destruction, but because that this should be somewhere in the African Association.

Then, this scene should be one of the war. However, who is the stupid person who would show a war live in open channel?

This war is something which involves two Akashic Beasts, no one should be stupid enough to try such a thing.

"WHERE IS HE!?!?" A loud scream was heard from the hologram.

Hai looked back at the screen and saw that now it was possible to see several light gray armored soldiers running through the city and causing mayhem.

And at one of the better buildings in this city, at the rooftop of a tall building, there was a man being held only by his left leg by another one.

Hai looked at the man who was almost killing someone by dropping him off the building and immediately recognized him.

"Ye Chen…" Bing Qing muttered while her body shook slightly while remembering all those years of not being able to control her body.

"Aunt. Okay?" Kryn suddenly asked when she noticed Bing Qing's slight pale face.

Bing Qing snapped out of her daze and looked at Kryn.

Seeing her innocent expression while she had a glint of concern in her eyes immediately calmed her down.

She looked at bit above Kryn and saw Hai showing a calm smile at her.

Releasing a low sigh, Bing Qing looked back at Kryn.

"I'm okay, thank you, Kryn." She managed to smile at the end.

"Huh. Good." Kryn also seemed more relieved after hearing that she was okay.

Hai said nothing while watching this interaction and gave another fried chicken's wing to Chilly.

"WHERE. IS. HE!?!?!?" Ye Chen bellowed drawing everyone's attention back to the screen.

The man who he was holding was too scared and kept sweating profusely while shouting that he didn't know who Ye Chen was talking about.

Then, Ye Chen pulled the man back and did a whipping motion before hurling the man towards somewhere in the city.

*SWOOSH*

The man flew at high-speed and not even 5 seconds later, he hit a house's wall and turned into a bloody pulp while the rest of his body was buried under the house's debris which started to fall on his dead body.

"Hai?" Kryn asked when she noticed that her vision had gone dark again.

"Don't worry~" Hai said playfully, but his eyes had a certain seriousness in them.

'What happened to him?' He asked himself.

Hai knew that Ye Chen wasn't going to be the same person after their last clash, but this is something which he didn't expect.

As this is being shown into an open channel, there is no way that they are the only one seeing this scene. So, this leaves the question: Is his protagonist's halo enough to avoid everyone's hate?

Because Hai is sure that even the world's will would have trouble brainwashing so many people at the same time to not think bad of Ye Chen.

"He is crazy." Stella commented while looking at the screen.

"Damn psycho." Hong Li-Wei as someone who came from the slums understand just how difficult it is to get out of there, and now, she is seeing a "silk pants" simply destroying a slum and throwing a tantrum. How could she not be angry?

"So, that is the infamous Ye Chen." Chang Hua commented while stealing a peek at Hai and seeing him briefly nodding she turned back to the screen.

When she saw Ye Chen, all she could think was: 'How unsightly.'

She knew that her nephew had to act like a brainless brat and oppose someone because of some higher power, however, she didn't understand for what reason.

Now seeing Ye Chen, Chang Hua finally understood.

If it's someone like him, then Hai would really need to be brainless to lose to him. Because anyone with two braincells could win against Ye Chen.

Elena said nothing and only looked at the screen with a frosty gaze.

Jia, even though more neutral as she didn't know Ye Chen, couldn't help but look at him with clear disgust.

The reason for everyone's hate or dislike wasn't just because Ye Chen killed the man, but because he started to rampage and kill everyone who crossed paths with him and couldn't answer his vague question.

He even killed children and even babies with their mothers.

The elderly also wasn't spared.

Nobody could even have a positive impression of him anymore.

"Sweet." Hai suddenly said while he picked a grape and tossed it inside his mouth.

Hong Li-Wei turned towards him with a still angry gaze at what was being shown in the screen.

"Could you search about it later? Of course, not too deeply." He asked her to which she quickly nodded.

She knows that this situation has something to do with Hai, so she will give her all to make sure that nothing bad happens just because they didn't have information about it.

Hai suddenly turned off the holo-TV using a remote and got up while carrying Kryn in his arms.

"Well, since we already got lunch spoiled because an angry trash can, how about we do something different now, ladies?" Hai's words quickly garnered everyone's attention.

"What do you suggest us to do, sweet?" Chang Hua asked, but in the next instant, she saw Hai forming a lopsided grin.

Everyone suddenly had a bad premonition when they saw him grinning like that.

"Hai… what are you going to do?" Hong Li-Wei asked while getting up and starting to slowly inch away from him.

Stella and Bing Qing swiftly followed her example, but they were stopped when Hai used his mana to bring them closer to him.

"We are just going to do something simple and basic: training." He said and turned to his aunt.

Chang Hua instantly understood what he meant and started to grin just like him.

Elena and Jia on the side looked at those two and then between themselves before smiling wryly.

"Hai, I'm already a penta-core level diver. I don't think I need any training." Hong Li-Wei said while feeling that something bad would happen if she were to "train" with him.

Hai didn't pay attention to her and followed his aunt to her training's grounds.

"Yes, but you are as good as a potato in a war when it comes to fighting." Hai responded to Hong Li-Wei's previous words.

Hong Li-Wei felt her face twitching, but she couldn't disagree with him as she knows that she is almost useless in a fight.

She knows how to run away, though.

After walking for some time, they eventually arrived at the training's grounds.

Jia pushed the doors open and everyone could see a simple flat rock floor that seemed to be endlessly while the walls seemed like projections of an open space with a clean blue sky.

Hai looked at the inside and then at Jia for a brief moment before entering.

Jia who noticed his gaze felt a drop of sweat sliding down her face.

Chang Hua simply tapped her shoulder a few times before entering.

"That boy is something else. Just give up." Leaving those words behind, she entered and the door started closing.

Jia quickly woke up from her stupor and also entered the room.

After the door closed behind them, Hai did a quick inspection in the room with his mana sense and concluded that it was good enough.

Then, he released Stella, Bing Qing and Hong Li-Wei from his mana grip.

"Well ladies, shall we begin?" He turned around and saw that aside from Elena, Chang Hua and Jia, everyone else was looking around curiously.

Kryn who was in his arms had been silent all this time while simply enjoying his embrace. And Chilly was sleeping on his shoulders while coiling around his neck.

Hai looked at everyone and scanned them before thinking about some training plans.

"Okay. Aunt, please take care of training Stella, Bing Qing and Elena as they already have some experience." He said before putting Kryn down and taking her and Hong Li-Wei a bit away from them.

"Yes~" Chang Hua smiled before dragging her new 'students' and Jia away from him.

Turning towards his students, Hai took out some cushions and gestured for them to sit.

After Hong Li-Wei and Kryn sat down, Hai recollected his thoughts for a bit before starting speaking.

"Okay, my pupils, hear my wisdom." Hai said with a straight face and an even tone.

Kryn looked unblinking at him while Hong Li-Wei felt the urge to roll her eyes.

"Magic is a farse." Hai stated.

"Farse?" Kryn asked while not understanding what he meant and Hong Li-Wei raised an eyebrow at his statement.

Hai nodded.

"Magic, cultivation, martial arts, legacy, numerology, spell casting, superpowers, all of that jazz," he clapped his hands and looked at them both. "Is the same thing."

This time, Hong Li-Wei raised her hand, she just felt that she should.

"What is your question, my student?" Hai asked after seeing Hong Li-Wei raising her hand.

"If all is the same thing, then why are there so many glaring differences?" This was something which always bothered her when she thought about mages and martial artists.

Hai nodded, this is a very common and expected question that everyone has.

"Well, in simpler terms, all this thing which we call mana, qi, aura and so on, all of it, is just energy." He took a sit before them.

"What changes is how we use it." Hai raised his right hand and formed an agglomeration of blue energy there.

Then, he raised his left hand and formed an agglomeration of yellow energy.

"At my right, I have mana. At my left, I have qi. The only thing that changes between them is how one use them. Ultimately, they can do both the same thing, but have just slightly different proprieties due to how I did them." Hai then undid those agglomerations and they dispersed like mist.

Then, he turned to look at them and saw that Kryn had sparkling eyes while Hong Li-Wei seemed to be intrigued by what he just said and showed.

"Now, shall we begin?" Hai asked them.

Hong Li-Wei looked confusedly at him, because she knows that she has no talent when it comes to using mana or those energies.

"I will be teaching you how to walk the road to power." Hai stated and got up.

"Now, prepare yourself. At the end of today, you two will either thank me or curse me. I personally think that it will be the later." He smiled after finishing his words.

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A/N: Hello there, I hope you are having a wonderful day!

So, what do you guys think about this chapter? We will be diving more on the magical and cultivation side of the world by now, but don't worry, it wouldn't be simply infodump.

Comment what you thought about this chapter. If you liked it or not, I want to read your opinions and interact more with you guys.

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