Old man

Draco opened his eyes on the other side of the waterfall, brushing his wet hair backward to get a better look at the surroundings. A look of surprise flashed through his expression, seeing nothing else other than whiteness all around.

There seemed to be no end to it, and Draco even doubted whether by taking another step forward he wouldn't fall into this whiteness. While he was looking around, a figure suddenly materialized in the middle of this space.

'He must be the creator of [Thunder's Wrath].' Draco noted. It was an old, really old man. His long pale hair extended towards his waists, and wrinkles spread across his face as if telling of his adventures. What attracted Draco the most were his azure eyes, which seemed to pierce right through his soul.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir." Draco bowed respectfully, understanding that the man before him was of strength unimaginable to him. Even in his past life, he had never felt this kind of pressure. It was better to be cautious and not offend this monster.

"The pleasure is mine... Draco."

"How do you know my name?" Draco furrowed his eyebrows.

"I know a lot of things, but there are also a lot of things that I don't know." The man answered nonchalantly, stroking his beard with one hand. "Come on, don't be so tense. Take a seat."

At the flick of his fingers, two wooden chairs materialized in the white space, making Draco's mind even more chaotic. Sighing quietly, Draco still took a seat and asked a question. "This may be a bit rude coming from me, but who are you... and why are you hiding in this place? Are you just waiting for people who pass your trial to pass the inheritance?"

"Hmmm..." The old man also took a seat in the chair, a little smile appearing on his face. "Draco, I am not actually alive, so I can't leave this place."

"You aren't alive?"

"That's right. This is just a little part of my consciousness that I sealed in this mysterious place to pass on my inheritance." The old man answered, his voice ancient as it echoed in Draco's ears multiple times. "I would like to tell you more about this, but time is unfortunately short."

"I see," Draco answered, deep in his thoughts. Sealing a part of his consciousness; that seemed just ridiculous. Once again, Draco understood how insignificant his being was, even after coming to the past. However, it was going to change now.

"Don't worry. Since you passed the waterfall trial, I am naturally going to pass my martial technique onto you." The old man stood up from the chair, clearly struggling while doing so. "However, I want you to know that even though this technique is extremely powerful, it still has its flaws. That's also why I decided to pass this technique only to the one who passed the trial and understood that everything has its shortcomings, even your own self."

Draco nodded solemnly, agreeing with such thinking.

"Don't rely on it too much." The old man placed his two fingers against Draco's forehead as his eyes started shining in white color. "You seem like a good kid, but you... will have to face a lot of hardships in the future."

Draco didn't really hear the last part, feeling stinging pain overwhelm his entire body. It felt like his soul itself was getting ripped apart, and then getting glued back together. Sweat formed on his forehead as his body trembled.

This hellish feeling continued for what seemed to be an eternity until Draco eventually opened his eyes, already back at the waterfall. The pain disappeared altogether, yet there seemed to be some change within his brain. Some information he couldn't recognize.

"Grandmaster Bronte," Draco said to himself, finally realizing the name of the one who created this monstrous technique. And by monstrous, he really meant it. While he was suffering that agonizing pain, he saw Grandmaster Bronte perform the entire [Thunder's Wrath] in his mind. The last attack was especially frightening.

"I can't believe it's now in my hands." Draco summoned his sword, a smile plastering across his face. Instantly, a thin layer of lightning encircled the sword, violently bashing in all directions. The grass beneath him turned dark.

[Thunder Slash]

Draco swung his sword in a horizontal direction, releasing the lightning of his sword forth and creating a slash that crashed into the nearest tree. Despite being quite big, the tree fell against the ground almost immediately as the cave trembled.

The place where the tree collided with the lightning turned completely black.

"Incredible," Draco noted, though using this drained quite a lot of mana. It was the first technique of [Thunder's Wrath], and the one you could use immediately without practicing. However, even this much already showed why this martial technique was so feared by many.

"It almost works like some spell from magicians," Draco mumbled, closing his eyes for a few moments to see what was happening within his body. Despite looking for any changes for a few moments, he found nothing at all.

Draco smiled. That's just how it had to be.

Magic and martial techniques operated on entirely novel concepts, with the latter being much stronger and easier to learn. While learning magic, one had to fuse his own mana with the surrounding one, and that was incredibly hard.

However, martial techniques were different. By inheriting them from others, one would simply need to train that technique, eventually gaining more and more knowledge about it, in return growing stronger.

However, that wasn't all. If the martial technique included elemental powers, like in Draco's case, then an elemental seed would appear in Draco's soul. It would grow along with his mastery of the martial technique, thus letting him control lightning on his own while using the technique.

It was a confusing concept, even for Draco.

He heard that creating martial techniques took centuries, but he didn't even want to think about that right now.

It was good enough for him that he could use [Thunder's Wrath].

Everything else didn't matter.

"Thank you." Draco glanced back at the waterfall, bowing slightly. He then collected all of his things, stretched his muscles, rinsed his bleeding palm in the water once again, and left.

Even though no one could inherit the [Thunder's Wrath] anymore, he still decided to take the key with him and close the door. Who knows? Maybe, in the future, he would need this place.

Looking over the entire Eastern city from this spot, Draco's eyes flashed with coldness. Now that he was done with the most important matters, Draco decided on the next step of his plan.

Getting rich.

A new sword, healing potions, and equipment.

He needed a lot of things.

Dialing a number on his phone, Draco placed it against his ear.

"Hello, Adam. I need you to steal something."