Spirit's Ascension

Cole made sure he didn’t attract too much attention nor did he make too much noise as he slowly approached the man from his back.

The man walked with extreme caution, like he knew that someone was after him, but with a bit of skill he had learned in the past, Cole was able to maneuver and avoid detection.

"He really is a cautious person; he must’ve realized the secret was already out or something," Cole thought.

He only made that inference because he remembered that the last time they were at the mission hall, the man didn’t show any signs of caution.

"The prey only shows signs of jitter when it knows it is being hunted."

The further Cole followed the man along his path, the more he felt something was wrong.

The man went through unnecessary detours and continued making unusual stops and mundane places.

Firstly, he stopped at a restaurant but didn’t buy anything and then moved to the library and didn’t even proceed inside.

He just kept moving all around like he had no specific destination in mind.

That pattern of action suddenly made Cole come to a decision while he walked.

"He probably won’t be heading to anywhere I can do anything now. I should just leave for now."

Having made that decision, Cole stopped in his tracks and suddenly turned around to leave the man for that night.

"We will be meeting again tomorrow," Cole said with a sly smile.

His journey back home was filled with a little bit of happiness and a little bit of confusion.

He was happy that he had a specific direction for what was about to come, but he was still extremely confused as to why the man would do such a thing.

"I need more information and I need to figure this out fast," he said out loud.

"Tommorrow is the day,"

After intentionally wandering aimlessly around for a while, he soon arrived at the hostel again.

"I am back."

"Ohhh welcome, where did you head to? Don’t tell me it is the arena again," Bryan responded.

"Hahaha, sadly it isn’t, but I don’t mind heading there tomorrow."

The two of them continued conversing for a bit before both of them decided to go cultivate.

Since Cole had begun cultivating, he had found it a way of relaxing and something he must do every day.

That level of consistency has provided Cole a certain amount of momentum that makes him grow at an accelerated rate.

But Cole had no idea what all of those were; he only did it every day because it was enjoyable.

The two cultivation sessions went on like they were supposed to for a while until Bryan decided to head to bed, leaving just Cole to be cultivating.

Cole cultivated for a while more before he also decided to stop and head to bed.

The night flew by without any major events, and soon enough it was time for Bryan to head to school for the day.

"Aren’t you coming, Cole?" he asked with a frown.

Cole’s expression suddenly morphed to a serious one as he wondered what exactly Bryan meant by that.

Before he could think more of it, Bryan’s face suddenly grew morbid as if he just remembered something.

"Oh damn, I forgot," he hurriedly apologized.

Seeing his friend’s flustered expression, Cole couldn’t help but laugh out loud, resulting in Bryan rubbing his bald head awkwardly.

"It’s fine, you can head over to school," Cole said.

Silence reigned for a bit until Cole let out a dry cough, snapping Bryan out of his thoughts.

"Bye then," He said while picking up his stuff and then opening the door to leave.

Now the room was all to Cole alone, with him having nothing to do at the moment.

"I guess I should go visit my sister Eleanor for some combat training," He decided after a while.

Despite knowing that Eleanor was probably not going to teach him the advanced Combat stances or even anything at all, he still decided to try.

He then quickly stood up to his feet and prepared himself before heading out in a rush.

His journey to the Combat hall was extremely swift and straight, and it didn’t take time for him to arrive there.

Inside the combat hall, Cole saw the familiar training equipment and some other things in the hall, but Eleanor was nowhere in sight.

"I wonder where she is," Cole muttered.

Upon not seeing who he actually wanted to go meet there, Cole didn’t just want to leave, so he decided to use the moment to do some physical training.

He quickly changed into the combat uniform and approached one of the pieces of equipment. He slowly began his training with each piece of equipment, and about thirty minutes later he was already dripping with sweat.

"I have really grown much stronger," Cole muttered.

He realized that he had been doing much more than he could previously without much stress, so Cole had to increase it to a high level.

"Why are you here?" Cole suddenly heard a familiar voice from behind him.

"Teacher Eleanor," Cole bowed a little before approaching her.

"I heard you were suspended," She said in a cold voice.

Cole felt a wave of worry wash over him as he felt the disappointment that Eleanor would be feeling at that moment.

"Yes, I was," he said reluctantly.

"So what have you done about the task that you were assigned to complete to avoid expulsion?" she asked directly.

Despite sounding extremely blunt, Cole could still hear a hint of care and worry in her voice. That hint alone was all Cole needed to open up.

He slowly explained what he had heard and planned to Eleanor, who listened extremely carefully.

"Hahaha, Fate is really a bastard," she said after a while.

Cole, on the other hand, wondered why exactly she said that from what he had just explained to her.

"That man will be coming here this evening; you can use that opportunity instead of sneaking all around like a rat."

"Ohhh damn, fate is really a bastard," Cole muttered.