Conclave of Tyrants

It had been a week since Taku had won the battle royale, and in this one week he felt as though time was moving way too fast.

At first he thought that he would be the captain of a newly formed team, but to his surprise his team had a lot of experience already.

This was weird because Taku himself was yet to sense to sense zesa, so for him who had no cultivation to lead a team of cultivators was unheard of. As much as he tried to not believe it, the facts had already been laid down in front of him.

He was even more shocked to find out that the team he would go meet was already on a mission and he would have to meet up with them mid-mission.

Luckily Tino was also assigned to the same team which was also quite a shock, but the real sucker punch came when the two kids were told that they would have to travel alone to a Valley that was 3 months away from where they were.

The only form of transportation there was around here were either Elephants, horses or their own feet.

Even though the elephants were powerful and safer to travel with, they were still rather slow.

If they were traveling on foot it would take them even longer so their only option was to use the horses.

Horses were not very welcome in the Gutu Empire. Even though they were faster than Elephants they were not as secure. A normal elephant could easily handle a dozen or more attacks from a low level cultivator, but horses would die in an instant.

At the moment, he and Tino had no other option. A week after the battle Royale and Taku was already going on his first ever mission.

He didn't even have a cultivation base and yet here he was waiting to depart.

Most people began sensing zesa at 16 but there were some who were abnormal like Tavonga and Tino who were only 15 and another monster like Taku who was only 14 years old. So usually after graduating most people would form teams and go into the nearby forest to train in actual combat against normal beasts.

Taku and Tino would not have such luxuries though.

Even though Honde Valley barely had any Demonic beats, it did not mean that they didn't exist within it. The demonic beats there just barely showed themselves. Over the years there had been a few sightings of demonic beats, and most of these beats were at least tier two beats which scared the living hell out of lower level cultivators.

At the moment Taku and Tino were sitting in silence in a hut near the training camp. The two had not bothered to say a word to each other as they waited for their orders to leave. To their surprise the hall master came personally. The two greeted him respectfully as he entered.

The hall master nodded and told the two to sit as he began explaining.

"Normally this stuff would be explained to you in the period of the next two years but I have no choice but to explain this now… ultimately there are 3 levels of cultivation and each level apart from the last, have 3 other sublevels, the last level having 6 sublevels."

"The first level is called the Pamamonya and the sublevels consist of the Tohwe, Zhanje and Tamba levels. The first level is to temper the skin and your Zvikanganwahama (Kidneys): although the tempering of the skin is important the tempering of your Zvikanganwahama is just as crucial. This will determine which element you will be using afterwards…

After you temper your Zvikanganwahama it will determine whether you will use Rudyi (Yang) or Ruboshwe (Yin) elements. Most men use Rudyi but there has been cases in which a male cultivator used Ruboshwe elements. Usually in this level you will require the MaTohwe fruit to help speed up the process of tempering your skin."

"The second sub level, which is the Zhanje level, is the level in which you temper your bones and muscles. In this level you require the aid of the MaZhanje fruit to speed up the process."

"The third and final level is the Tamba level which is the level you use to temper your organs through the Zvikanganwahama. This is to allow all your organs to be better suited to your elemental affinity.

As you know there are 5 types of cultivators. Even though it is essential to temper all the organs, the type of cultivator you are determines which organ your Zesa will focus on more when tempering."

"Reinforces, mostly have to temper their Moyo (Heart)."

"Summoners, have to temper their Mapapu (lungs)."

"For those practicing Body Transformation, they'd have to temper their Dumbu (stomach)."

"Manipulators, on the other hand, have to temper their Pfungwa (Brain)."

"And lastly, Muroyi (Necromancers) mostly focus on the Chiropa (Liver)."

"Reinforces are cultivators who can use their zesa to reinforce weapons and or their bodies. Since their zesa focuses more on tempering their Moyo, their zesa (qi) is purer than most, thus even though most people can infuse their qi into their weapon, the reinforcer's qi is so pure that he will be able to strengthen his body or weapon by at least ten times that of someone in the same level. I don't really need to explain summoners and what they do, but the reason why their Mapapu gets tempered more is because they are required to use chants in order to summon their beats. The level of beast one can summon is determined by their very own cultivation level.

Body transformation cultivators strengthen their Dumbu because it is the base of all body transformation cultivators' power.

This also applies for the Muroyi who temper their Chiropa, this organ is the one that stores more of the eerier, ruboshwe energy than any other organ, so it's essential for necromancy.

Manipulators usually mostly consist of healers, and even though it's not an organ, they have to temper their Pfungwa.

"Now, the other thing I need to explain is how martial skills work for us in the Gutu Empire. Most of the martial skills we have are like templates. They don't have really have a definite element that they are designed for. So you can find that a Bone Piercing punch has different variations to it.

Any questions before I continue?"

The two youths were in a bit of a daze at the moment of all the information that they were flooded with they only really knew a tenth of it.

It took them a good minute to completely comprehend what they were being told. Tino kept quiet and didn't ask anything as his ability as a reinforcer had already been successfully explained.

Taku on the other hand had one thing that was bothering him, and he could not help but ask. "Hall master, I was told that I have no definite class as a cultivator. Won't this be a problem in the future?"

The hall master's brow furrowed as he sunk deep into thought. There had never been a case like Taku's in the history of the Gutu Empire. Only a few people knew about his condition, and the only reason why The Hall Master knew was because of Saru.

He had met Saru once after the battle Royale and he had been told about Taku's special "Condition" and he himself had asked this very same question.

Yet even someone as knowledgeable as Saru could not answer it, so how could he a mere Hall Master of a training camp be able to answer?

After staying silent for what seemed like an eternity he suddenly shook his head and said the same words Saru had told him. "Young man, you are going to have to wing it."

"Ah!"

Both Tino and Taku could not help but exclaim in shock when they heard this.

The hall master just smiled when he saw their reaction and then continued.

"Your situation is rather complicated and there are no records of it at all in history. So there is really nothing I can say. You are on your own on this one."

After this, Taku simply nodded and the Hall Master began his second explanation.

"The Place that you are going to is not a very dangerous place for me, but for you it could be considered a nightmare; with your current strength both of you could easily fight normal beasts and also maybe tier 1 and some tier 2 demonic beats. And even though these are the most common beasts that you can find there, there have been sightings of a tier 3 beat, and even once of a tier 4 beast."

The two felt rather dizzy when they heard this. The trip which was supposed to be relatively safe for them was now pretty dangerous. They both had no words to say so they just kept quiet and continued to listen.

"The place that you guys will be visiting is relatively safe and the most powerful beast that was found there was a tier two beast. But you will still need to be careful… Now about your teammates. You have Nyasha who is supposed to be a summoner…"

The two boys could only cry out in their minds: Supposed?

"…his ability is weird, since he can only summon the essence of the beast and not the beasts itself. So to be honest all he can do is summon a projection with the aura of the beats. But luckily he is a rather good fighter.

The second is Tadi who is a Muroyi. Usually most Muroyi can raise anything they want from the dead and use it, but she can only use humans and only those who haven't been dead for more than a day.

The last member of your team is Ranga, he was born into a family of manipulators, healers at that. The difference between most manipulators and healers is that healers are born with life energy which they use to heal people. Ranga has the most life energy of any healer in his clan's history but the problem is… he can only really heal himself and no one else."

The last part really caught the two youths off guard.

Just when they thought that there was someone normal in the team they got hit by this sucker punch.

After finishing his explanations the Hall Master handed Taku a piece of paper and told him that it was from Saru, then wished the two good luck and left.

Taku wryly smiled and looked towards Tino and spoke. "Looks like you're the only normal person in our team."

Tino let out a bitter laugh when he heard this and then said. "Actually I have something to tell you.."

F*ck!

"I am pretty good at enforcing weapons and amours and all. But I actually can't enforce my own body. I have tried a million times but ultimately I have failed. So you do not have to worry about me not fitting in and being the odd one out. We basically have a healer who can't heal, a summoner who is probably the best fighter out of us but can barely summon anything for assistance , a Muroyi who has a time limit, an enforcer who is useless without weapons and… well… a body transformer who turns into smoke."

The two boys broke out laughing at how useless their team sounded, but both of them knew that one doesn't just join a team without some sort of ability.

Even though they were laughing now the two boys couldn't help but feel excited at the prospect of working with such a dysfunctional group.

"It's about time we left now…" Tino started. "I know that we have had our differences in the past, but I hope that we can work together well in the future."

Taku smiled and nodded.

Tino then took out a pouch and handed it to Taku. "This is a storage pouch and has enough space to fit 6 elephants."