Surrounded by idiots

I waited in the foliage, using my Earth bending to soften any sounds I would make with my movement while preparing to attack.

I watched as my prey continued to graze on the local fauna, unaware of what is about to happen.

After stalking it for some time, I decided to act.

With a single motion, I reached out to the earth beneath the beast and confined its six powerful legs in solid metal.

The beast neighed in distress as the rest of its herd dashed off into parts unknown, leaving it behind in a bid to slow down the predator that attacked them.

The struggling beast finally decided to stop trying to run and fight instead as the wind surged around it, enveloping the beast and its surroundings in a mini tornado.

While such a method would have worked on a regular Earth element cultivator, it is quite unfortunate that it has no effect on me.

With a simple application of air bending, I created an aerodynamic shape around my form and minimized my profile by crouching down, making it easy for me to withstand the full brunt of the attack.

Unfortunately, that was not the case for the poor disciples that had been forced to follow me and keep an eye on me by Father.

"I told you we are ill-suited to deal with a Tempest Stallion!"

"There is no use in shouting at Senior Yang. He has already lost all sense of reasoning with his cultivation, Senior sister Wuying should stop caring about that lunatic and return with us to the sect"

I ignored the idiots who thought I could not hear them whispering just because I lost my cultivation and focused on the beast I am trying to get my hands on.

A Tempest Stallion, and an Alpha at that.

The Tempest Stallion is a horse-type demonic beast that has a blue-green mane and tail along with six legs. It is generally pure white in color unless it is a mixed breed in which case the color would depend on the genes of the stronger beast between its parents. They are typically between 8-10 feet high and 13-15 feet in length.

This particular specimen is an alpha, which was 10 feet high and 15 feet long.

I looked at its deep blue eyes that it kept locked on me since it considered me to be the greatest threat among the three of us.

The full force of its Dantian core formation realm came to the front as the tornado became stronger and the resilient trees around us started flying in the air.

While keeping eye contact with the beast, I ran forward while preparing to attack the beast. But my attack was interrupted when a golden spear pierced the back of the beast.

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Zou Yu, one of the strongest of the core disciples of the sect suppressed a frustrated shout as he continued to drive his spear deeper into the Tempest Stallion, all the while suppressing his desire to shout out curses at the waste of space that was the young master of the sect.

Ever since this former genius was crippled, he had ended up becoming a pariah in the upper echelons of the sect. A laughing stock among the various powers of the Empire. So much so that it was starting to affect the reputation of his father, the sect master.

This was supposed to be the perfect time for Zou Yu to rise up in the ranks and take over the position of the Senior disciple and the leader of the forces of the sect with authority that was only below that of an Elder.

Unfortunately, his plan fell through when the Sect Master showed blatant favoritism and refused to make his son give up the position as the Senior Brother of the disciples. Then, as if adding insult to injury, he promoted Gao Wuying as the Senior Sister of the core disciples, a position that is only below that of the Senior Brother.

This action did cause some tension in the internal factions of the sect since the Gao family was very close to the Huoshan family with marriages taking place every other generation between them. Adding this to the fact that the Gao family was neutral from the Zou family and the Qin family gave a clear indication that the Sect master was no longer being impartial in handling the matters of the sect.

Normally, such actions would result in the Elders of the five families of the Volcanic Flame sect evicting the Sect Master and putting someone neutral in that position. But this action cannot be taken right now since the current Sect master, Huoshan Liang was in the final stages of the Dao formation realm. A level of power that was only surpassed by the ancient ancestors of the sect that were hiding somewhere in the mountain ranges of the Volcanic Flame sect.

All of this would have been fine. But then, the retard of a young mistress of the sect decided to run away from the sect, causing the sect master to send the Volcanic guards after her, causing the Elder of his family that Zou Yu was bootlicking to go on a wild goose chase and stay in the city for all this time. Making it so that Zou Yu had no one to cover up his actions in the sect for the past month.

Zou Yu continued to attack the beast relentlessly while imagining that the Stallion was his insufferable, retarded, waste of space Senior Brother and the cotton-for-brains bitch of a Young mistress.

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Gao Wuying watched coldly as Zou Yu attacked the Tempest Stallion with wild abandon, not even trying to keep the frustration on his face from showing.

The idiot had forgotten the original purpose of this trip and had instead drowned himself in his bloodlust.

She looked towards her Senior Brother, hoping to find the calm rage that would have surfaced on his face before he was crippled, only to see a look of mild interest and vague disgust instead.

The attempt on his life and the loss of his cultivation has really changed him from what he once was. His fiery and mildly arrogant personality that burned with wildness like a forest fire was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he now looked calm and composed, almost like the suppressed power of a volcano. Calm until it decides to erupt.

Gao Wuying was not sure if she liked this new personality of his or not. Especially since her childhood friend has become extremely reckless in certain subjects after the incident. Even more so than he was before.

Then there was the entire issue of him being able to manipulate the elements even without his cultivation.

It caused quite a stir in the Sect when it was revealed that he had power over multiple elements despite not having any cultivation except his stronger body obtained through the Body Refinement realm. Some even accused him of becoming a demonic cultivator. But these claims were immediately dismissed since his elemental manipulation and his body lacked the darkness that exists in all Demonic Cultivators without exception.

After that disaster of a meeting between the elders of the sect, the Sect master decided to assign bodyguards to Huoshan Yang to keep an eye on him and protect him.

At first, Gao Wuying was quite happy with the assignment since she did not mind spending time with her friend and making up for all the lost time, but when Zou Yu was also assigned along with her, her mood took quite a hit.

The fourth young master of the Zou clan was a power-hungry person with a petty personality stemming from his inferiority complex since he was an illegitimate child of the clan head. Worse still, it was clear to every one of the Core disciples that he coveted Yang's position in the sect. For that, he was even willing to try and seduce his sister. Fortunately, Huoshan Xiuying was not an idiot and recognized his intent the moment he tried to get close to her and maintained a great distance from him.

While all of this was an inconvenience, she was still okay to handle all of it since as the only heir to the Gao family she was used to these politics. But what drove her up the wall was the way Huoshan Yang was behaving after his accident.

Particularly, his habit of suddenly disappearing from the sect to head off to random places in search of random things. There was no denying that after losing his cultivation, Yang has become interested in strange things.

For example, just a week ago, he had Zou Yu and Gao Wuying follow him to a small city located west of the Divine Thunder capital to chase after some rumors about a rare cultivation technique. The trip alone cost 1000 Spirit stones in round trip via airship travel, the equivalent of the monthly income of an inner sect disciple. Then, he wasted a lot of money on trinkets and strange metals along with throwing away 50,000 spirit stones on a multi-element cultivation technique. A supreme waste of resources since there was no one aside from him who was suicidal enough to cultivate multiple elements except the ancient cultivators who did not know any better.

Then there is this trip where he dragged them both to the massive forest that separates the Volcanic Flame sect territory and the Divine Thunder capital to find a beast companion for himself. Something that he never showed any interest in before his accident despite the fact that most of the disciples of the sect have one.

For Gao Wuying, one thing was clear. The boy that she once knew was no more, and in his place, she is now with a man that is extremely calm but extremely chaotic at the same time.

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After waiting for the idiot Zou Yu to express all of his anger on the poor beast, I released the metal around its legs, allowing it to fall to the ground dead.

Zou Yu looked at me with a smug look.

"It is fine to get closer, Senior Yang. I took care of the beast. I hope you don't mind if I take the core of the beast since I killed it"

I did not give the idiot any reply and looked away from him and the corpse, focusing on my geo-sensing to locate any other Tempest Stallions in the vicinity.

Thanks to his actions, I have lost the opportunity to gain a guiding animal. An essential part of being an Avatar.

Avatar Roku had a Dragon, Aang had a Flying Bison, Korra had a Polar Bear dog, and Kyoshi had a fox. It is considered a tradition and necessity for an Avatar to have an animal guide to keep them grounded in reality and to learn the natural way of living. It was not my knowledge of the Avatar series that informed me about this. Rather, it was the inherited knowledge of an Avatar that was slowly feeding this information to me.

That is why I had spent a great deal of time going over all the texts that the Sect had about various fauna on the continent to find a suitable animal guide for myself. It would normally have been a dragon since as Huoshan Yang, I am a successor of the Volcanic Flame sect. A sect that deals in the element of fire. But that was right out since most of the stronger variants of dragons had long since left this realm to travel to the Demon Realm. What still remains are lesser dragons or Wyverns as they would be called back in my old world.

Another strong contender was the yellow crows that live in the vicinity of the sect. The direct descendants of the Three-legged golden crow. But I decided against it since they are extremely wild in their temperament. There was also the restriction placed on taming the yellow crows by the sect since having a yellow crow as a companion is a symbol of being an elder of the sect.

Aside from these all the other fire element creatures were either not strong enough or too strong for me to tame.

So, I decided to try to tame a beast of a different element, which led to this expedition of getting my hands on a Tempest Stallion. Since the element of air is complimentary to fire, I decided to go for it. But thanks to this idiot Zou Yu, I failed.

As my geo-sensing failed to show any more Tempest Stallions nearby, I sighed in disappointment.

Looks like I will have to return empty-handed this time.

But next time, I will make sure to keep that loose cannon Zou Yu back at the sect.