A Cultivation Tale: The Godly Punisher

In the registration room...

Elena was discussing with the person who was going to register Alex's name.

"Alright. Your registration fee is five hundred yellow sapphirstone and your apprenticeship fee is ten thousand yellow sapphirstones." the man said looking at Alex.

Elena's eyes widened.

She was the one in charge of the talking as Alex knows not a dime how to go about registration.

"Isn't that too much? He is the boy Instructor Jennifer brought in" She quickly said.

"Oh. The special candidate. Alright, this is what I would do. Since you were brought in by an instructor of the academy, I will exempt you from paying the registration fee and then I will slash the apprenticeship tuition fee by half. Now, you would only pay five thousand yellow sapphirstone." the man said.

Elena nodded. This was better.

Then Alex was given the registration form. He would take it to Instructor Jennifer to sign for him.

Days went on smoothly.

By now, Alex had spent two weeks in the academy.

There was no problem from anyone. But he knew in his heart this was just the calm before the storm.

He could feel in his heart that something terrible was brewing but he just couldn't place it.

He decided to be more careful.

On a certain day...

Jennifer was summoned to the principal's office.

She was before an elderly man that looked fifty.

Perhaps he once had a problem with his cultivation, that was why he looked elderly.

This is because normally, cultivators don't age as long as they as they have smooth and continuous breakthroughs into the next cultivation stage.

This man was a bald man with thick eyebrows and a friendly smiling face.

His name was Gerald.

He was the principal of the academy. He was in the grand saint emperor stage.

"So Jennifer, some extremely wealthy merchant came to our academy to ask for our help. They want to transport an item to another city and they fear they would robbed. They have asked for our help and the help is they want the protection and guidance of a saint emperor-level expert. I thought about it and decided to give you the job." Gerald said.

Jennifer's brows furrowed.

"Why me? There are many others you could give the job. I am not interested." she said.

"Don't be quick to reject. They want to trade the map of a sage lord-expert inheritance for this service" he said.

The instant she heard that, her heart shook.

A sage lord-level expert's inheritance. That was the apex stage in the sage category.

Every cultivation stage are divided into groups or categories. The Sage Lord stage was the acme stage in the group it was in.

She thought deep for a while.

Then she nodded her head.

"Good" Gerald said.

"They would move during the weekend. So, prepare yourself" he said.

Jennifer nodded and left his office.

The academies had many ways of generating profit for themselves. One was through this means. By sending out instructors to protect people who are transporting items from one city, state or region to another.

The institutions are paid heavily for it while the instructors who acted as protection would be awarded something too.

Evening...

She told Alex about it and adviced him to be more careful. Micah who wanted him desperately was still around. She didn't know what he would do before she comes back.

He nodded in the light of understanding.

Next day which was the weekend, she set off.

She met up with the merchant who wanted her help. They were going to transport an item from one city to another. The city they were going to was ten cities far away from the school she stayed in.

It would take her months to complete this mission.

She got into the ultivehicle with them and they sailed away.

In her heart, she was tremendously worried about Alex.

"That cute boy" she said inwardly.

She could clearly visualize the face which she believed would tug the heartstrings of goddesses.

"Just be careful. I would be back soon." she said.

A few days later...

In the academy.

A large number of students were gathered before the principal.

He was addressing the whole school.

The whole school was always addressed like this whenever something important comes up.

"People have reported appearance of the egg of a water dragon. We would send many of you out to retrieve the egg. But only the ones in the entry stage would be allowed to go." Gerald said.

The ones at higher cultivation stages grunted.

Gerald smiled upon hearing the pained grunts of his student "Come on. Why are you grunting? This was decided upon by all the academies, not me alone. We want our new students to develop themselves in battle. So, instructor Douglas, please call out the names of those that have been chosen to go" he said now looking at instructor Douglas.

Instructor Douglas came out and began to call names. He called out the names of twenty people.

Alex's eyes shone when his name was called.

He then furrowed his brows as he began to think of many things in his head.

First, instructor Jennifer was sent off. Now, he was called out to venture with some people to retrieve a water dragon egg.

Although, they wanted to use this means as a medium of competition between the academies but he felt there was something deeper going on.

"Is this that storm that's about to happen?" He asked inwardly.

Then he quickly reorganized all that he had said were his powerful cards. The god-eye of destruction, his physiques, his mutated strengthforce energy, his powerful senses which can further be heightened by entering the ultra 'perception state' and treasure-weapons.

When the names of the twenty people were called out. They were given time to prepare. Then they set off in the academy's ultivehicle.

They headed to the south where the water dragon egg was rumored to have been seen.

...

A person in the cloud looked at the ultivehicle as it shot into the distance.

Then this person gave a sinister smile.