A Cultivation Tale: The Godly Punisher

"Elena, we have to move together now." Alex said.

"If you say so. But I know what your motive is" Elena said with a grin.

"Huh? What motive is that?" Alex asked scratching his head.

"You plan to use me to get your own treasure-artifact" Elena said with a smile.

Alex shook his head with a smile hung on his face.

"Well, that's a part of the reason why I want us to move together" He said in a teasing tone.

Then he brought out the treasure-artifact that he collected from Elena from his spatial necklace.

"Here. It belongs to you" Alex said, stretching the treasure-artifact at Elena.

"Nah. I can't take that. It belongs to you now. You deserve to have it in your possession" Elena said with a lovable smile.

"What? No. Don't say that. It's yours." Alex said waving the treasure-artifact in her face.

Since Alex strongly refused to accept ownership of the treasure-artifact, she took it from him and stowed it into her spatial ring.

"Happy now?" She asked with a faked angry expression.

"Yes" Alex nodded with a smile. Then he softly pinched her cheeks and curled an arm around her neck as they continued to walk into the distance.

It was Elena that chose the direction they should go in. Then they began to chat on the way. They weren't in a rush like the others. They had found one artifact and there was still lot of time before the competition would come to an end. So they moved at a leisure pace and chatted like couples. Students that came across them were dumbfounded. They were like who are these people? Are they actually here for the competition?

Many moments later, they arrived where a pool was. They saw many students also gathered here. The students had the plan of jumping into the pool and swimming to the bottom to see if they would find any of the treasure-artifact.

They came up with this plan since they had been hinted by that voice that they could discover any of the artifacts in static or moving water bodies.

Seeing the crowds of students and how solemn they were, Elena said to Alex "I guess we would also have to jump in and swim to the bottom"

"I guess that is the only thing we can do" Alex said. Then he continued "But it won't be that easy. There have been no difficulties lately. Apart from the battle that would take place when one discovers a buried treasure-artifact, there have been no other thing that we would struggle against for acquisition of the artifacts. But that might not be so. There would be elements put in place which we would battle with to get the treasure-artifacts wherever they are hidden"

"Hmm. You are right. Then that means there might be things like beasts in the pool if a treasure-artifact is in it?" Elena asked.

"Yea. If there is" Alex replied.

"Okay. I was thinking of diving in to search for the treasure-artifact. But I guess I would have to leave it to you now" Elena said and winked at Alex.

Alex smiled. Then he looked back at the pool.

He wouldn't jump into it to search for the treasure-artifact like the others since he had an ability no other person had. And this ability was his telescopic vision.

Possessing a powerful far-seeing vision, he was sure he could see to the depth of the pool and also know if there were things like beasts or puppets or even cultivators hiding in the pool which they would have to battle and defeat before acquiring the treasure-artifact if truly there was any located in the pool.

Although he had an enhanced sight, little did he know that why he could see to vast distances was because of the heavenly mystery revealment eyes or star-gazing eyes.

Looking straight into the pool, Alex willed his augmented vision ability to come up.

Then in an instant, golden abstruse patterns appeared in his eyes. Suddenly, he could see the bottom of the pool.

The entire stretch of the pool's bottom appeared in his eyes. But he couldn't see anything like a treasure-artifact on the pool's bottom surface.

Slowly, a smile appeared in his face.

He had actually guessed right.

There were things in the pool! Those were there to give them a tough time.

But there wasn't any treasure-artifact at the bottom of the pool. He then began to wonder why those elements were there. Then he came to a conclusion that these elements would be everywhere to inhibit them.

He felt they were concealed deep in the earth and were waiting to come out of their stealth positions to combat them if anyone of them unearthed a treasure-artifact. But Elena had exhumed one and they didn't appear. Then he felt it wasn't time for their appearance yet. She was lucky. He guessed. 

He looked at Elena and said "Let's go. There's nothing here. We would only be wasting our time"

Elena's eyes widened in shock.

Now, she was surprised beyond what any word could describe because of what Alex said.

She looked at him and asked "Are you sure? How do you know about that?"

"I have this gut feeling that there's nothing here." Alex said in a tone that portrayed unbreakable confidence.

"Gut feeling?" With her brows wrinkled, Elena asked in an extremely puzzled tone. 

But she recalled something.

She remembered Alex telling her to shout his name if she were in trouble. Some moments after she did that when she was faced with many combatants, he came running over.

She wondered how he was able to hear his name despite being very far from each other.

She looked at him with a light of mysteriousness in her eyes. Alex had been doing some really impossible things. Now he was saying that there was nothing here and that they should go to another place. She wondered if she should believe him or not. But she had once decided in her heart that she would do whatever Alex said.

With a smile in her face, she nodded.

Once she nodded without further questioning him, Alex smiled back. He thought Elena would ask him to explain how he arrived at that conclusion that there was nothing in the pool. 

When Alex told Elena that there was nothing in the pool, a boy who was far from their side heard what he said. He could as he cultivated soundforce energy. Despite Alex saying it in a way that only Elena would hear and no else could, he still heard it. He detected the sound waves in the air.

With a smile, he focused his hearing on them and continued to listen to their conversations. Then when they turned to leave, the boy shouted "Yo man! Wait up"

Alex felt that the shout was directed at him. But he didn't stop walking. He continued to walk, ignoring the person.

Then all of a sudden, a powerful, visible wave of sound-energy shot towards him at a great speed.

The hairs on Alex's skin instantly stood on their ends. They were reacting to the intense vibrations of the air caused by the sound-attack shooting towards them from the far distance.

Quickly, Alex wrapped his left arm around Elena and jumped away from the path of the sound-energy attack.

Boom!

The sound-attack impacted the ground where he initially was. It left a deep crater in it.

When Alex landed from where he leapt to, he removed his arm from Elena's waist and gazed at the boy in the distance.

The sudden attack attracted people's attention. They looked at the boy that produced the attack and at Alex and Elena.

"Wow. What sharp senses." The boy said as he began to walk towards them.

"How did I offend you?" Alex asked.

He was angry, but he concealed it.

"When I talk to people, they listen to me. What do you mean by ignoring me? I told you to wait up. You heard but you ignored and kept on walking. This hurt me as it made me feel like I was talking to air" The boy said in a furious tone.

"Oh. Then I apologize. Now, what's it you want from me?" Alex asked.

"I heard what you said. About nothing being in that pool. How did you know?" The boy questioned.

"Oh. You were actually eavesdropping on our conversation. Well, it was only a gut feeling. I am not sure" Alex replied.

He wasn't in the mood to fight.

"And you turned to leave? I find that very hard to believe. You must know something. Who knows, you could be cheating by using treasure-instruments that would enable you know if there is a treasure around" The boy said.

Feigning lack of knowledge of such instruments, Alex asked "So there are such instruments?"

"Haha. There is. Stop pretending like you don't know such exists. I will advise you to surrender it or you would be in trouble" The boy said.

When the boy ended his speech, someone who wore the same uniform as him came to his side and said something into his ears.

The boy's eyes narrowed before it was filled with marvel.

"Gosh! He is that strong?" He uttered inwardly in a deeply astonished tone.

Then he left with that person and walked away without looking back.

Everyone were expecting some action. But they saw the boy turn around and leave with his fair-skinned face now sheet-white in color. Then they began wonder to what that person told the boy to cause his sudden paleness.

Seeing that the boy had left, Alex then left too with Elena. He heard what that person said to the boy with his powerful hearing ability, so he began to smile inwardly.

Then he thought that very soon, everyone here would know and fear him.

Few of the people who fought Alex earlier were also in the crowd. Then they began to say to others how mighty Alex's strength and battle proficiency was. Some even exaggerated it, making it seem like Alex was on a whole other level.