The Oblivion Walker

It'd been about two and a half years since I'd met Kali.

We'd basically done the same thing everyday for that time, it's probably the most routined I'd ever been in my life. Even more than when I was training like crazy.

It was a pretty interesting time.

By now he was a somewhat knowledgeable kid and looked somewhere around 13 to 14 years old. So I guessed he really wasn't much older than he looked, or he'd simply not age.

Cultivators could reach thousands of years in age, and even though it was at a much slower rate, they definitely still aged, except for a few unknowns that had possibly already reached immortality. However, whether they existed or not… isn't really confirmed or not.

Turns out, Kali's age could quite very well be… anything plus 2. They said that they don't know how old they are. Except that they were inside of somewhere dark for what they felt to be a long time until they met me.

In terms of prowess, he was completely average, but that was likely due to the small amount of exposure he had to fighting. With his only experience fighting being very light sparring matches, which was mainly due to my fear of accidentally getting too into it. His ability to learn was incredibly fast. I had no doubt if I threw him into a battlefield he'd adapt beautifully.

I did feel though, that I wouldn't be able to nurture this sort of talent myself. Their basic hand to hand abilities were basically perfect, but the fact they weren't able to use mana or qi worried me. If they were capable of doing so, even with a fraction of the amount an average human could use, I wouldn't have any fear, I'd be able to mold his talent.

But they couldn't.

This child had potential though. This was the one thing I knew. I would not be able to help this child find what that was though. I once thought their talent was raw physical strength, as without any sort of reinforcement, they were immensely strong. It was a close guess, but no. That wasn't quite it. Probably something much more esoteric. There were a few other paths to power out there.

He'd have to be the one to find it himself though. Then again, there was no real reason for him to get as strong as I wanted him to be. Nonetheless, I still wanted him to be at the very least near my strength, in case anything were to ever happen.

So I guess, I did have one option that would probably work. Thus I began preparations.

———

After a few days, I called Kali over.

Sitting him down, I started giving him the rundown, "Hey Kali. Both me and Melissa have decided that you and Dice are gonna be going to school soon."

"Alright."

"Do you have any questions for me?"

"Why are we gonna be going to school?"

"To teach and strengthen you two. Also to have you guys socialize with other kids. Since we don't think it's good for your development as adults to just… never talk to anyone else."

"Okay. What's the school?"

"Cogshift High."

"Alright, so when will we be going?"

"Meh, like 3 to 4 months."

"Alright."

"Yeah a few more things before you do go. You'll be living with Dice, I'll be giving you a device to call me in case anything crazy happens, and the school is filled to the brim with both cultivators and mages. Now like, a bunch of people go to this school to like, build connections, blah blah blah, but I'm sending you there basically purely for the knowledge, also to expose you to more things."

"Alright, but June."

"Yeah?"

"What do you mean by connections?"

"AHHHHH! It won't really matter for you, but connections are basically…" I began explaining.

———

Meanwhile, Dice was talking to Melissa.

"So me and Kali are gonna be going to a school?"

"Yep."

"Daaaaamn it." He sprawled over his chair, groaning.

"Don't be so grumpy. You should be more like Kali, he's not so salty about it."

"He's not salty about anything ever."

"Tsk, what's this? Your rebellious phase?"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh." He groaned exasperatedly.

"Hey. You'll get to fight people."

Perking up immediately, he turned to Melissa, "What type of school is this?"

"A prestigious hybrid mage cultivator school that focuses on survival of the fittest."

"That sounds dumb as hell. I'm all for it."

"Yeah well, it was June's idea. I woulda just suggested a normal school, but she said something about the two of you not having that sort of disposition."

"Damn, I gotta thank June later."

Gripping his head, she spoke coldly, "You better be thanking me too, it was such a pain in the ass to place you guys here."

"Ow- ok-ok- I'm sorry- I'm sorry! Thank you Sis!

"Yeah that's right, you better be." She said, letting go of him.

"Jeeez, how hard was it to even do? Like what did y'all have to do?"

"Weeeeelllllllll. There was the fact this school is incredibly prestigious. It's highly difficult to even get in without having either a good history of grades and stuff, innate talent, or connections."

"Alright. I see how that could be sorta annoying."

"But fortunately, me and June are pretty acclaimed, so that was fine, but then we had to deal with the fact you guys have no history. Like none at all. Wellll, you do have quite the history, but I didn't use any of it. So they just had to really take our word for it."

"That seems… kinda suspect don't ya think?…"

"IT WAS! It was SO GOD DAMN AWKWARD."

"So we have a few months till then right?"

"Yeah, so get up."

"What are we gonna be doing?"

"I'm not gonna let you slack for those few months, let's get in some light exercise."

"You're a liar."

Cracking her neck, Melissa smirked, "I have absolutely never ever lied in my entire life."

Opening up the window, Dice got ready to leap, but Melissa grabbed his shoulder. Tightening her grip, she wore a cold expression on her face, "Not gonna work this time."

"Is this? Is this child abuse?"

"Nah. This is normal abuse. But I'll give you a little break. You can jump out the window and we can take a little break before exercising."

Quickly jolting away, he jumped out the window into the night, falling a total of three feet, before beginning his maximum speed dash.

Looking down at her wrist, Melissa yawned, "I should get a watch."

Pointing her finger out the window, a ball of mana formed. With it swirling and condensing, she looked forward at Dice.

Firing it off, it broke through the air, speeding and gathering speed it flew towards Dice.

Widening his eyes, he placed his hand on the ground, molding it to his will, the dirt formed into a giant earth string. Firing the end towards the orb, it was being ripped through with ease.

Dodging the ball, he willed the earth string to spin, twirling around, spiraling, until it formed a giant shield.

Summoning a staff, he got ready as the mana orb turned back around, shooting straight for him.

As the thing broke through the earthen barrier, he chucked the pole straight towards the ball.

Colliding, they both remained suspended in the air.

"What the fuck? How the hell are they doing that?"

"That's a really good question." Walking towards him, Melissa yawned.

With the magic ball exploding, the pole rocketed towards a tree, pinning itself straight through.

"Well. So I guess I caught up. Breaks over, do two hundred push ups as fast as you can. We're gonna spar in a bit."

"Damn it! Alright. Fine."