Stark Changes

Eudes Clarke, the robed speaker, had left the hall for almost half a minute now, and yet Thirteen still hadn't reacted. His mind continued to process the information he had just learned.

'So… we can evolve? Just like animals become monsters and spirit beasts, we become… Ascendants? What would that even be like? And our world, it's alive? It has a will?'

Every word uttered by the man had been incredibly impactful. 'And there are other worlds like ours. Thousands of them. Is that where the Outsiders came from? The ones mentioned by Instructor Piers?'

After some of the children in the hall began to break the silence, discussing with their friends, Head Instructor Nicholas spoke up. "All right. I doubt any of you have the clarity of mind left to learn the more mundane aspects of the cultivation world at the moment, so why don't you all retire for now. Practical training will continue as normal, so don't be late."

'By the scowl, I'll take it Nicholas doesn't much like Mr. Clarke.' Thirteen thought as he stood with his friends.

While his group made their way to the door, Four spoke up.

"I'm going to head to the dojo until practical training, want to join?"

"Dojo? After all of that you want to just go back to sparring? We just found out that the world is alive! And that we might evolve into something truly beyond human!" Nine said with spirit.

"What's wrong with being human?" Ten asked rhetorically, "Besides, it's not like we should do anything differently now that we know that. What else would you do?"

"Well…" Nine faltered as he tried to think of what to do with the information.

Stretching his back, Thirteen chimed in "I could use some exercise anyway. I really wish practical training was between the two lecture classes".

Thirteen had come to realize that he truly enjoyed fighting. It felt like he was testing himself on the fruits of his labor, comparing his results with others. It was also strangely relaxing for him.

When he fought, everything was clear and simple. He felt the stress of this place vanish for a moment, not because he had shut himself off from it like when he meditated, but because it didn't matter in the moment of combat. He was free to focus on nothing more than the movements of his foe.

'Perhaps that too is a type of meditation' he pondered as he compared the feelings the two activities brought as he and his friends made their way the dojo.

When the day came to an end there were no more surprises. Practical training didn't introduce any new, cosmic truths or revolutionary changes, they simply trained. Instructor Diores did however inform the students that in the weeks and months to come new subjects would be introduced, and not just to this class.

Over time, they began to learn the simplest battlefield formations and strategies. They learnt how to protect others, how to move unseen, and the most efficient way to disable or kill a foe.

The training became harsher by the day as the standards grew, leading to some among the children crumpling with the pressure. Those children were not simply exiled and forgotten like those in the first year, but wherever they were taken, they were never to return to the Clarke Institute.

In this environment, the children had their potential squeezed out of them day after day, as months and even years began to pass.

——

Three years later.

Within one of the guest mansions of the Clarke estate, twenty men could be found patrolling the hallways and rooms, most in pairs of two or three. They each seemed incredibly focused and wary of their surroundings.

It was dark, but the mansion was lit by candle and hearth. Within the shadows between candles, up high at the ceiling of a common hallway, a human figure lay glued to the roof, waiting. In that same shaded area, another figure lay in wait behind a slightly ajar door leading to a guest bedroom.

Soft thuds could be heard in the distance as a patrolling guard approached. The man was in his late forties and appeared rather unkempt. His body language was incredibly nervous, as he swung the lantern in his hand around at every imagined noise.

The two shadows were incredibly still as they waited for the man to pass.

One step at a time, the man's boots thudded on the nice wooden floor, along with the occasional creek. As expected, he didn't notice the shadow above him, nor did he hear the one in the adjacent room. However as he passed, the nervous man felt chills run down his spine.

'Something's not right.' He stopped in his tracks. Slowly turning his head, the man looked at the slightly ajar door he had just walked by. 'It's open…' he realized as he desperately tried to keep his eyes from going wide, the lantern in his hand shaking.

'Damn.' The shadow on the ceiling dropped behind the man, landing with the grace of a cat as they reached out, not for the man, but for his lantern.

In an instant, the nervous man felt goosebumps surface all over his back and arms as he spun around. Before he had even finished turning to see the shadow who had just placed a hand on his lantern, the light it emitted vanished with a snuff, and a shallow thud and squelch echoed.

The shadow behind the door had rushed out in the instant the guard turned, without making a noise, he wrapped his left hand around the guards mouth, pulled his head back, and lodged a dagger hilt-deep into the back of the man's head.

Without stopping for an instant, the two shadows grasped the guards body from both ends and rotated him such that the fatal wound faced upwards and did not bleed on the ground. In one smooth action, they pulled the body into the guest bedroom and slowly closed the door.

…

The hallway remained peaceful for a second, before another two guards turned the corner and paced down its length, unaware of the events that had transpired just seconds before.

The guest bedroom had just one lit candle within. It sat on a small chamberstick that the taller shadow, the one who had killed the guard, now approached.

When the light fell on his face, it revealed not a grizzled warrior of experience, or a shady assassin with thin eyes, but the young face of a child. The face belonged to a boy with prominent features, exhibiting stark blue eyes, long black hair and sharp brows. It was Thirteen, now clothed in black stealthware. He had grown quite a bit taller than he was three years ago, now taller than all but Four in his generation.

Moving over to the body with the lit candle, his partner's face was illuminated. The smaller shadow who had clung to the roof was in fact Ten, no longer shorter than those of her age, she had long black hair that was currently tied at the back.

"That went horrible" She lamented.

"Nothing to do about it. He was too jumpy." Thirteen whispered in response. Placing his hand just over the wound on the back of the man's head, Thirteen employed the Withering technique. With his advancement to the Proliferation stage of the Grand Life Tome, every one of his techniques was capable of more than they had been prior.

There was a subtle connection between lifeforce and heat that the Grand Life Tome spoke of. It illustrated the theory through a more advanced application of withering. As Thirteen's hand became a vacuum that pulled life force from its closest vicinity, the blood on the guards head could be seen frosting over.

After a short while, the wound had been frozen over completely, no longer bleeding.

"That should do it" He commented.

"We don't have much time left, let's go" Ten said from his side as she stood and creeped toward the door to the hallway.

Currently, they were completing a simulated assassination. Well, real people were dying by their own hands, so 'simulation' might not be the best word for it. These guards, as well as their target, were criminals gathered by the Clarke Estate, forced to play the roles they were given.

The children were ordered to kill as little as possible, and if the criminals survived enough 'simulations', they would be saved from the executioner.

That meant that every one of these 'guards' was well aware that assassins were creeping about, and although limited to the routes and groups dictated by the Instructors, they would be at maximum alert.

This was the fifth time Thirteen had participated in a simulation like this. He had judged that most of the 'criminals' he'd seen were likely soldiers of the Nalduri Dynasty and Toubia Empire judging by their accents and ethnicities.

As the pair moved through the hallways, they no longer spoke. They each had a mental map of the building and knew the patrol routes of the guards. Security was very tight, and there were a few wildcards wandering about without any set path, like the man they had to kill earlier. This left them no choice but to be on constant alert.

After taking a corner and walking to the end of one hallway, where it intersects with another, Thirteen, his eyes slightly glowing, gave a hand sign to stop and hide. They both clung to the edge of the hallway, in the shadows between candlelight.

A soft thudding of footsteps echoed as two guards passed by the perpendicular hallway, from left to the right. The two waited for 13 seconds before moving again, taking a left as they traced the path the two guards had come from.

Like this, they continued to navigate the large building, until finally they saw their goal. A large set of double doors leading to the master bedroom. This entrance was the only one in the hallway, and it was protected by two guards in front, while patrols were so frequent that half a minute would not go by without another group of guards passing by.

Currently, they were just around a corner, peering into that hallway. But there was no time to wait. They had at most 10 to 15 seconds before the next patrol.

Crouching low to the ground, Ten went first, her figure blurred and she appeared ten feet ahead, as if she had moved instantaneously. She did this twice in succession, immediately appearing in between the two guards, while Thirteen, low to the ground, glided forward with incredible speed.

With practiced motions, Ten and Thirteen took control of the guards physically, positioning themselves behind their targets and wrapping their arms around the guard's necks before they could yell. The right arm was tucked in at the throat, with the hand latched onto the bicep of the left arm which pushed the guard's head forward.

Like this, the blood flow to the brain could be impeded. Ten was a bit short compared to her target, but this was something they were all used to, so she opened with a swift kick to the back of the guard's knee to bring him down enough for her to get hold.

While the guards did try to thrash and cause a commotion, the Ten and Thirteen had swiftly pulled them away from the walls and door to prevent them bashing against it. The guards could still kick at the floor, but they were held low and constantly thrown side to side, preventing them from stomping with any force or weight.

After about ten seconds, the guards stopped struggling, and the pair lowered them to the ground very quickly. They wouldn't be unconscious for more than a few seconds, so there was no time to waste.

Thirteen directly kicked open the locked double doors leading to the master bedroom, while Ten's figure blurred next to him.

The moment the doors were kicked open with a loud bang, it was like everything slowed to a crawl. Wood fragments flew in the air as their target, a woman in her thirties with a fierce expression turned to look at the intruders.

Ten had already vanished from next to him, her blurred figure appearing next to the target, a flat palm directed at her head. As Thirteen moved forward, two loud slap and cracking noises resounded, Ten had hit the woman twice, once in the head, and once more at her core, where the dantian was.

Thirteen did not rush into the room to help kill the target, instead he began searching the room. 'Where is it, where would it be.' He thought as he lifted one end of the very large bed with a single arm, punching the floor hard with his other.

'Not there.' He concluded quickly as he moved over to the desk and pulled it out of the way.

At this point he could hear the groaning and coughing of the two men outside.

'If they're already coming to then we're out of time, the nearest patrol will be here soon.'

Punching the floor that was below the desk, the hardwood floor collapsed and broke to pieces, revealing a furnished tunnel beneath.

"Found it." He called to Ten as he jumped down.

Half a second later, Ten followed suit as the sound of weapons being drawn and angry yells resounded from behind them.

'That's fine though. Now that we're in the evacuation tunnel they won't catch us in a sprint, and it will take too long for the archers to get here from their outside posts.' He concluded.

And he was right. An hour later, after following the escape tunnel they found themselves in the woods to the west of the Clarke Estate, the place they used to hunt every month. The hunts now were a lot more irregular and far less often.

Raising his hand high, Thirteen looked back to Ten, who met his high-five with a smile before exhaling deeply and lamenting.

"Uuuhhhh… That was so stressful." She complained.

Stretching, and relaxing his shoulders thirteen replied "Couldn't agree more. At least we got it done quickly this time." There were some times when plans were completely ruined by the random patrol units, making an infiltration take far longer than it should have.

"Well, its still an hour from here back to the manor, no one can blame us for taking a rest right?" She said with a cheeky smile.

——

Three hours later, the two returned to the manor with stomachs full of rabbit meat. Hunting rabbits was extraordinarily easy for the likes of them. Thirteen could see them through thick forests and trees as if he had infrared vision, while Ten's instantaneous movement was incredibly swift and deadly.

When they did return and reported their results, the Head Instructor was very pleased.

"Only one unnecessary kill, you made good time, hid the evidence well, and managed to avoid killing the door guards. Very well done." Ever since the eighth generation had begun doing these sorts of advanced training exercises, Thirteen had learned something about Head Instructor Nicholas.

He was very straightforward and never seemed to hold much personal interest in the improvement of the children, unlike Instructor Diroes. But he was never stingy when any among them managed to truly impress him.

"Freezing the wound was a good call. Even if the blood didn't run under the door, warriors like them would have smelled the blood with ease."

"Thank you sir." Thirteen replied, his back straight.

A moment of silence then ensued. This would normally be the moment Thirteen was expected to leave. A silent dismissal. But he and Ten both stood there nonetheless staring at Nicholas with expectant eyes.

A small, very rare smile emerged on Nicholas' lips as he spoke. "All right, head to Piers at the theory hall."

Thirteen and Ten both smiled widely in response. ""Thank you sir."" as they left.

Today's exercise had also been a test. The best performing pairs were given an opportunity, one Thirteen had been waiting on for over four years now.

A chance to leave.