CHAPTER 89: JOINING THE ELDERS!

Chapter 89: Joining the Elders!

"Ken is right; don’t worry about anything. The methods aren’t as bad as they seem." The first of the official disciples to speak was Annalise.

She came from the elder’s side and stopped right next to Ken.

Her cheerful demeanor made the atmosphere around the group light up.

"Ken, they’re asking for you up there." Annalise glanced right into Ken’s eyes and pointed upwards.

Ken then got up, dusted himself, and nodded.

"I’ll leave them to you." He said.

"Feeling responsible for them already, are we?" Annalise smiled sweetly and turned to look at the freshmen.

Then her demeanor got slightly, just slightly serious, and she started speaking:

"Everything you just heard from Master. Forget it!" These were the first words, and they made everybody’s minds buzz.

Ken, who had just brought out his cloud, looked back and smiled.

She was doing it her own way, but it’s good to ease the tension in their minds.

While he could see some of the official disciples dispersed amongst the disciples, he understood why his batch had Annalise.

She was the perverted elder’s own disciple, so there was no one worthy of explaining the technique to them.

In the end, the sure-kill techniques only consisted of those 4 steps; how you did them... didn’t matter.

To what lengths you took them... didn’t matter.

What truly mattered was going through those 4 phases, and that was the problem with disciples.

The sect didn’t need brutes who faced things head-on; it needed strategists, thinkers, and planners, not suicide bombers.

It needed them alive; it needed the talents to grow and then reach the right level to take on the true enemies, not the small fries on the side of the mountains.

Ken left his batch of disciples a few meters away from him and got up on his cloud, and then in a flash, he was looking at the elder’s.

Strangely, among the core and official disciples dispersed, there were two lacking.

Eldora and Sara... he didn’t know why, but seeing them standing behind their masters made Ken have some deductions.

"You had 12 hours; how about it? Thought enough?" On one side, Elder Karim spoke in a calm tone, but his expression spoke of slight infuriation.

"Sara is as dear to me as my daughter; I can’t just give her away." Elder Aristo replied after a few seconds of silence.

By this time, Ken reached a round table in the sky. The same one that was below before.

He sat in his place next to his elder master and looked at the drink next to his plate.

"I understand your way of thinking, Aristo, but the girl and the boy both love each other; you can’t be a barrier between them." Elder Karim replied calmly, making Ken turn to look at them.

Eldora was standing next to his master, his face a mix of resolve and slight unwillingness.

On the other side, Sara was almost drowning in shyness.

Holding her master’s robe, she constantly called to him in a soft voice, but elder Aristo almost seemed as if he couldn’t hear anything.

Then, the elder looked at Eldora and took his time doing so, only for his mouth to open and then close, and then it happened a few times before he shook his head:

"Eldora is a good kid; I like him... but..."

Ken dragged his eyesight back to his cup, a soft smile on his face.

Even elders were still humans.

Their attachment to their disciples was on par with, if not greater than, that of their own parents due to their long lives filled with solitude and seclusion.

"A funny situation, isn’t it?" Ken’s elder master noticed his soft smile and spoke.

His hand on his cup and his eyes on his plate, Ken shook his head.

"I wouldn’t dare say so." He said.

"Mhm." The elder master smiled even more and nodded.

What was funny about a father refusing to give away his daughter?

Ken could only see love and affection.

Though the elder master was speaking about the fact that it was an inner sect elder doing so, a master beyond masters, a strategist feared by hideous abominations and monsters.

But nonetheless, he was nothing more than a father in Ken’s eyes at the moment.

"One day I might be in his position... I don’t want to look back and feel sorry." Ken spoke words that made the elder master shiver and turn to take a look.

"How old are you, disciple Ken?" With squinted eyes, the elder master asked, his face serious.

"This year I should be turning 21, elder master." Ken replied with total calm.

Then he turned to look at the elder and smiled.

"I just enjoy seeing life from different lenses." He said.

The elder master looked at him for a long time and turned back to take a sip of his drink.

’His high comprehension, his battle sense, his achievements... it’s more than meets the eye. But it’s all lacking compared to his mindset.’ Words floated inside of the elder’s mind like a mantra, giving him a feeling that this realization came too late.

"Oh come on, you crazy old man. Let the lady get together with the lad; one single day more than this and she might just go crazy." The conversation on the side changed when the perverted elder’s wife interrupted.

Ken couldn’t hold back his interest and turned to see a funny scene.

The two individuals almost couldn’t see each other eye to eye from the elder’s comment; both their faces forgot all composure and turned beet red.

On the side, the perverted elder looked at his wife, who was followed by his son and daughter-in-law defensively.

"Don’t interfere, not this time." He said, his words coming from the back of his throat.

He knew what he was doing was wrong and selfish; his disciple knew, Elder Karim knew, and his wife, son, daughter, and Eldora knew.

Everybody on the table who was eating and drinking casually... knew that the man was selfish.

But he cared not... if he could still have Sara as his disciple and daughter for a single second more, he would.

-----End-----

Sometimes I myself hate these cliffhangers.

Making me write a new Chapter to see what’s gonna happen... tuff!