Conclave of Tyrants

It had been a day since they started traveling and during this time they had only met either normal rats or demonic rats of the first tier. Thus the trip so far was relatively safe, most of the time Taku and Tino were cultivating, whilst the others stood guard next to the coachman.

During the last twenty four hours, Taku could feel his power slowly rising, be it in soul power or in his actual cultivation base. He found that every single time he exhausted his soul power, he noticed that when he recovered his level in soul power would have risen by a bit. Someone's soul power went hand in hand with that person's cultivation base.

The more powerful your cultivation base, the more powerful a person's soul power would be. In this world there were no techniques to increase soul power, the only thing you had were soul techniques that allowed you to attack, defend and control soul power but there were no techniques that allow to raise your level of soul power.

Somehow Taku seemed to be different, the more he exhausted his soul power, the more powerful he felt as he recovered his soul power. At this point he did not think too much into it cause he had realized long ago that he would go insane if he was to compare himself with this world's logic.

He really could not wait to meet Maka so that he would have the opportunity to meet Saru. Saru was the only person he knew who had knowledge with things regarding the soul. He was the one who had initially helped him to understand the predicament that his soul was in. The problem was that even if he did meet Maka there was no guarantee that he would be able to meet Saru. Not to mention that big, beautiful...ehem.

Traveling now he couldn't help but envision the three months he had spent with Maka and truth be told he would rather have been stuck with her in the carriage than these two sweaty mongrels. He had often closed his eyes, in an effort to remember her eyes. Even though he had seen her at only ten years of age; the man in him could never help but be entranced by her beauty and power. She was the one person who he would willingly raze a million villages if it meant spending just one night with her.

He immediately shook his head attempting to stop the feelings of lust from distracting him. He knew that the feelings he harbored for her were nothing good. He knew that if he was driven by lust only it could lead to something that he would never be able to live with. Even though in this world things like a pure heart did not coincide with cultivation, he still felt guilty because of his thoughts towards someone who was visibly on paper of course younger than him.

He had no idea why he was having these thoughts now, back on earth he could have any girl he wanted. It was just that back on earth he had no time for them, from running a business empire and trying to lead a stable life for himself, he had no time for any form of romance or lust nor was he interested.On earth his IQ was incredibly high but his EQ was very low. So it came as a huge shock to him that he could actually feel the way he felt now towards this one particular person.

The way he felt for her felt wrong, but from time to time he couldn't help but think what that one night with that luscious piece of perfection would feel like. Taku had a nagging feeling that if he got that far, he would be distracted from his training for a while. Sitting in the carriage he knew that he would not get any work done even if he tried, so he decided to step out and join the coachman.

"Aren't you a little bit too young to have such a troubled look on your face," the coachman uttered, noticing Taku as he stepped out of the carriage.

Hearing this Tadi and Ranga who were already with the coachman looked towards Taku with questioning glances; Taku only sighed and went and sat beside the coachman and informed Taku and Ranga that they could go back inside if they wanted to cultivate.

Even though they both nodded Ranga had a very peculiar expression on his face. He was happy that at least he and Tadi would be inside but he wasn't happy that there were still two people inside the carriage which made him feel rather dejected.

As the two went inside, the coachman asked Taku the same question again, "Aren't you a little bit too young to have such a troubled look on your face."

Taku then goes, "It's not that I'm troubled, it's just that a lot of things in this world don't make sense."

The coachman replies, "Isn't that a bit contradictory, seeing as how if something that you want badly doesn't make sense, it's still something that troubles you. Young men should be full of ambition, especially those at your age, you should be dreaming about reaching the peak of power. Things like logic and laws should not apply in certain situations, I mean look at you, you are only this young and you are already a member of the Ivory guard. In fact not only are you a member but you are a team leader. I know people my age who can only dream about joining the Ivory Guard. With your talent logic is something that's absent, seeing as how, someone so young is already at the peak of Tohwe level."

Taku stared at the coachman is shock, when they first met he could not sense any ripples of power coming from the coachman and had only thought of him as an ordinary mortal. Yet this man could easily tell how high his cultivation base was. There were only two possibilities, the first was that Ranga with his big mouth had accidentally coughed up information about his cultivation when he was complaining to Tadi; which was the more plausible reasoning, or the man in front of him was way more powerful than he had originally imagined.

This sent a chill down Taku's spine because at the moment he did not know whether this man had any malicious intent or not. If he did not have any malicious intent then why did he feel the need to hide the fact that he was a cultivator?

The coachman saw Taku's wary gaze and could not help but chuckle, "He he he… If I had any bad intentions you would not have made this far, so just relax. The cultivation world wasn't for me, there was just so much that I had to sacrifice for me to be able to reach the superficial goals that I thought I wanted, but by the time that I realized that all that I wanted was back home, it was slightly too late."

The coachman's expression turned solemn as he gazed forward as if he was lost, his eyes were blank, as if he was reminiscing, Taku just sat there and did not say a word because he knew that it was not his place to say anything. He waited and waited for what seemed like an eternity and only after five minutes did the coachman regain his senses.

With a sigh the coachman spoke, "You should only worry about mortal matters once you've reached the goal you wanted because the minute that those mortal thoughts come to you, It will completely ruin your cultivation heart. Even though things like love, and lust and friendship, can drive a man to the peak but they can also ruin one's life. So in this world if you are a cultivator you need to be able to sacrifice everything that you love or not love at all. Because those you love could either hold you back or you could just leave them behind.

Taku thought about his feelings towards Maka at this moment, he had nothing but desire towards this woman. What made it even more dangerous was that he felt this way but he barely even knew this woman. They had traveled together for that short period of time but they had barely even traded any personal information.

Taku shook his head and just said thank you to the coachman because he knew this little piece of advice would go a long way in helping him to either figure out why he felt this way, or to completely eradicate the desire that he held in heart altogether. He suddenly turned toward the coachman but his gaze was no longer that troubled, instead he looked towards the coachman with curiosity because he could not fathom the fact that this cultivator, was here driving a coach.

As if the coachman could read his mind he sighed and the spoke and then spoke in a very sad tone, "Before I was at the peak of the Tamba level, I was getting ready to break through into the Kusakura level but it was at this moment that I heard that my family had been murdered by a local gang. You see in my family I was the only one in the last thousand years who had the talent for cultivation; my family was just a local merchant family.

Since I was the only person who could cultivate they did not have the resources to help me with my cultivation. So my father found me a master who I followed, and before I knew it, I had gone forty years without ever seeing my family.

By the time I went back most of the people that I grew up with were already old and grey but I hadn't changed, I was still the same even though they were still my brothers and sisters. Time went by and another forty years passed and by now only my brothers and sisters descendants were left, and instead of going to take care of them I decided to live my life in the cultivation world.

It was during this period that a rumour spread, and that rumour stated that inside the tombs of my brothers and sisters was wealth that was imaginable. This lead to a lot of people wanting to take control of my family and raid the tombs.

But my family was firm with their stance and this led to them making several enemies and these enemies attacked, and not only did they raze my family to the ground they also disturbed the peace of those who had been laid to rest and dug up their graves. It was such a psychological blow to me that even my cultivation level had been affected so I dropped down to the Zhanje level.

Doing what I do now, helps me gain some sort of peace of mind because even though helping ordinary mortals won't help me bring back my family, I can still protect them on their journey and make sure that at least for that time, they are safe."

Taku was shocked at just how dangerous it was to have kin in this world, especially if you were a cultivator. Cultivation was a cruel path that involved killing and certain people would not hold back, and would even go as far as to use under handed methods to get what they wanted. Taku had never been so happy to be an orphan in this life because he knew that without any form of kin no one would be able to threaten him with anything.

This also made him understand just how much of liability his feelings for Maka could truly be. He wasn't exactly worried about his team mates because not only were they talented but all four of them had a significant background and no one would dare to mess with them. His only concern was Maka, he needed to make sure that whatever he felt for her now would never grow into anything more. He knew that if he grew any type of romantic feelings towards her, she would be his Achilles heel, or him hers.