Chapter 5

The activation magic, as taught by Xue Musheng, consisted of three steps.

Meditation.

Control.

Activation.

As a Sith, the first part was as easy as it could be, he doubted there was any human in this world as good as he in this regard, it was simply about concentration and focus, after all.

Control was about controlling the stars inside the star cluster, for such, one needed to spend spiritual force to try and do so.

And finally, activation was when you can control every star inside the star cluster to form a star path, for the lightning element, finishing the star path would allow him to cast the Lightning Strike, the primary skill for lightning element mages.

According to their instructor, by managing to see the star cluster and the stars inside it while meditating, one could consider having finished the meditation step.

In this regard, Kallig was only able to meditate for two hours every week when his focus was the stardust at the beginning. Now that two months have passed and summer became autumn, he could sustain his meditation for two hours a day.

Although he wished to control the stars already, that wasn't something he could do right now without borrowing strength from the Force... but that would be a mistake on his part, if anything managed to strip away his connection with the Force, he would have to rely on the magic of this world to survive. For that reason, he needed to try everything like everyone else on his path to power.

===

Soon another month passed and the winter arrived.

Underneath a willow tree around the school grounds, Kallig wearing only his pants seemed to dance as he practiced a series of strikes, jumps, and dashes, for anyone that could see him, this scene would be mesmerizing, to the point of making them forget anything else.

They wouldn't be able to help themselves, the power behind each movement and punch was far beyond that of a human, after all, and it carried the noblest forms of energies in the universe, the Force.

With a spinning jump, Kallig finished his exercise with a kick that shook the willow tree despite not even touching it.

The Alchaka was a very personal ritual, there was no single way to practice it, you had to find the way that best suited you when trying it out. Its purpose was to attune the body with the Force, increasing your physical capabilities by spending your energy to the limit. It was also useful for casting away the cold, it was thanks to skills like that that the Jedi were so much more capable at inhabiting harsher environments.

When Kallig learned it on ruins lying across a giant ice range on the deep core planet of Tython, unfortunately, most of the force skills that he could find were written in the ancient Kwa language, he was lucky to have found something which could be translated.

Having finished his set of exercises for the day, he stretched slightly, flaunting his body which seemed to have been carved out by a sculptor, and wore his t-shirt.

After going back to the dorm and taking a quick bath, he arrived at the classroom just a little bit past 8 in the morning.

"Mo Fan, you're late again! You need to improve your attitude towards school!"

The first class today was Magical Beasts, which was taught by the next class homeroom teacher, Zhang Jianguo. He was a petty man, to say the least, he would criticize Mo Fan at any given opportunity just because of his jealousy, he couldn't accept that there was someone more talented than his lightning element student, Zhao Ting.

Kallig ignored the man and went for his seat, leaving him fuming with anger.

Are you kidding? Trying to scold a Sith? And an Inquisitor at that? Heck, he wouldn't be able to get in his nerves even if he tortured him.

"Brother Mo Fan, good morning." Zhang Hou was the first to greet him as he sat down, and the only one as well, the other people were afraid of talking to him, his constant practice of what they believed to be 'martial arts' in public, plus his body at the peak of its capabilities and his talent made him quite intimidating.

Some would even say that they feel an aura of hostility when approaching him.

"Good morning, Brother Zhang Hou, I trust you took my advice?"

Zhang Hou was surprised that Kallig already brought that subject to the table although they had just greeted each other. Still, there was a smile on his face.

"Brother Mo Fan, you truly are a genius! I did as you said and my meditation and control got much better! I can already control 3 stars!"

Kallig nodded with a small smile. The first step into becoming a powerful individual is grooming a group of trusted individuals that would follow you with unquestionable loyalty under any circumstances.

Since Mo Fan and Zhang Hou were already friends, to begin with, and he was so talented, he figured that he might as well do what he can to improve Zhang Hou. In the last few months, he had been spending some time increasing Zhang Hou's knowledge to a level closer to his as well as guiding him into doing things correctly.

In order to play this game correctly, he wouldn't be able to rely on the Force, unless really necessary, considering this, he had a need for followers to compliment his shortcomings, the first of them was offensive power.

During this time he already noticed that he had pretty much double the spiritual energy of his fellow classmates, and that meant double the amount of spells that he could cast. However, at the current rate, he would probably be burned out by the time he cast magic a second time.

Considering this, Zhou Min, daughter of one of their teachers, was the second-best choice to groom into a loyal minion.

"Humph! Do you think you are more important than the teacher? Shut up and stop bothering us that want to study!" Zhou Kunsan was feeling as down as ever, after seeing Mo Fan's dual element and talent, he felt like his wind element was useless. Not only that, no matter the homework or questions, Mo Fan seemed capable to give textbook answers to them. Because of this, he could only bother Mo Fan whenever he was doing something that could be considered as interrupting the class.

"Shut your dog mouth, Kunsan! You-"

"That's enough. Let the dog bark on his own, you don't need to step down to his level, he is already humiliating himself on his own." Kallig patted Zhang Hou's shoulder, making him sigh and comply.

"But... Brother Mo Fan, you have to be careful, I heard that those two are already plotting against you..." Zhang Hou whispered so that nobody would hear.

"That's okay. Unless they send a magician after me, there's nothing they can do," Kallig reassured him and started paying attention to the class.

"Alright, please open the Magical Beast book. Today, I will continue to talk about the common Magical Beasts. As everyone knows, the Magical Beasts are located outside of the city, which we humans reside, and they are extremely hostile towards humans. They wander all over the place and fight when they encounter each other as well. If a Magician was to tread outside of the city and encounter a One-Eyed Magic Wolf, then what should he do?" Zhang Jianguo already started talking about this subject with great delight.

However, it had been an entire month and he never went on to other magical beasts, it wasn't only Kallig, everyone was tired of hearing about the One-Eyed Magic Wolf.

Besides, there wasn't much one could do if he met a creature like that.

===

Soon the semester came to an end. Kallig's progress was quite faster than his peers.

While Mu Bai and the other very talented students were stuck on their fourth star, Kallig could already control six stars in both his red stardust and his purple stardust.

The stars inside the stardust weren't that easy to control, however, one could increase his attunement with them by constantly trying to take control. Eventually, the star would give up and become much easier to control.

He wasn't sure why it was so easy for him compared to others, even though he was a Sith, he had no delusions that he was perfect in any and all aspects. Perhaps it was the old man's ring that was causing this, or maybe his innate dual-element provided more benefits than he thought? It wouldn't be so far-fetched to think so, he had, after all, double the amount of time of practice of others.

While it took them six months to reach this stage, he pretty much used an entire year in six months...

Of course, he couldn't forget that his talent was far above most of them, that could explain why he managed to bring both his red and purple stardust to that level. It was a pity that his meditation on the Force rarely allowed him to collect more light particles.

He had the feeling that his body reached his limit somehow, and for now, there was no practical way to increase this limit.

After waiting for some time at the bus stop he finally managed to hop onto one.

Today he would finally meet his sister, Ye Xin Xia, personally.

Because she has been living with their aunt, there wasn't an opportunity during the semester to visit her.

According to his memories, Xin Xia's legs were crippled, she had symptoms that were similar to muscular dystrophy in her legs. Using the Force he should be able to even save someone from the doors of death, so it might be possible to heal her as well.

Sighing he decided to think of this after he met her.

Sitting on the back of the bus, he closed his eyes and started practicing control once more.

After a few dozen minutes had passed, he heard something that made him frown. Opening his eyes he noticed that a man was trying to molest a young girl and nobody seemed to have noticed that.

He didn't really care about things like that, however, this kind of action disgusted him to no end. Annoyed with the man who broke his concentration, he raised his hand, and bolts of lightning started coursing through his arms.

As the crowd became shocked, they barely had time to react when he shot his lightning at the man who fell beside the young girl and started shaking with pain. After torturing the man for a few minutes with lightning that was barely enough to kill, but strong enough to cause a lot of pain. He retrieved his hand and calmly said.

"If I see you doing something like that again, you will wake up in a grave."

"S-so-sorry... I won't ever do that again, Mr m-mage, thank you for s-sparing me!"

The crowd stared at the cold young man with wariness, in their eyes he was a hero, but a quite ruthless one, it was best not to bother this kind of man, he does the right thing, but has no qualms about using violence to the highest degrees.

Just as Kallig thought that no one would thank him, the young girl approached with a blush on her cheeks.

"T-thank you, big brother. If you weren't there... I... I..." Tears started welling up in her eyes. Looking towards her, Kallig sighed.

"Little girl, let me give you a piece of advice."

Hearing this, not only she, but the entire crowd started paying attention to their conversation.

"In this world, power is everything, the lives of men are worthless, humanity is no better than shit on the street if they don't have power. Don't trust subjective things like the law or law enforcers to help you or save you. Don't waste your school time, seek power, cultivate power, use power to free yourself from the fate of ever again being molested. Even without magic, if you had trained your body, practiced martial arts, you could have easily defeated that moribund." Extending his hand, he held on to the metal bar used for support on the bus and easily broke it in half with a bare hand.

This scene made the crowd's legs shake. Such a strength at such a young age! No wonder this kid can already cast magic, with that kind of power-seeking mentality, it would be weird if he couldn't, especially considering how much time he put on both his body and magic.

"T-thank you, older brother! I... I'll do my best to become powerful!"

Kallig nodded with a blank face and caressed her hair. Standing up, he left the bus at the next stop.

"Mom, that older brother is so incredible. Can I be like him in the future?" A kid watched Mo Fan walking away as if nothing had happened from inside the bus and asked with some hope in his voice.

The other girls inside the bus were also looking at him with admiration at that moment.

"Becoming a Mage is not something anyone can do, especially a Lightning Element Mage."