The Legendary F Rank

Lao gulped as he saw that one of the kids that were sleeping in a room nearby had opened the door to their room and was now looking towards him while rubbing his eyes. 

"Haru, It's time to go," Lao said and picked Meiling up into his arms while she was still unconscious. He looked back at Haru who had a sadistic smile on his face. 

"Haru come on. I thought you said that you didn't want to cause any trouble. We had better get going before anyone else decides to show up." Lao said again but Haru had other plans. 

Haru walked over to the child that was standing in the doorway. 

"Hello there, young one. Do you know where I can find your teacher? He told me to meet him here but he didn't show up." Haru said to the boy who looked to be around eight years old. 

"Do you mean Mr Jing? The teachers all sleep on the floor above ours so he should be there." The boy spoke, still half asleep and couldn't see the situation very well. All he knew is that two adults were in the corridor so he assumed that they were people from the association.

"Is that so? Well, thank you. I will make sure your teacher knows that his students are very helpful. He might even reward you." Haru said with a smile and then looked back at Lao who looked disgusted by the fact Haru had just manipulated a child to get information on his teacher. 

"You know. Li Jun always praised you for being kind and caring. I think you might be eviler than I am…" Lao said as they entered the elevator once again, this time joined by Meiling. Haru laughed upon hearing what Lao had said and then pressed the button to close the doors before heading up to the twenty-eighth floor. 

As the doors opened the amount of Qi in the air differed dramatically from the floor below. And the first thing that he noticed was that each floor seemed to have a barrier around it to stop Qi from leaking down onto the floors beneath. 

Most of the people who were sleeping on this floor were at the manifestation stage the same as Lao and to Haru, it felt like he had just walked into a cage full of sleeping lions. 

He knew that he could fight one or two manifestation stage cultivators at a time but he wasn't sure if he could take on the fifteen of them that were either sleeping or cultivating throughout the night. 

No one had sensed Haru and Lao as they arrived on the floor given that Lao's understanding of Qi was enough that he could conceal himself at will and Haru had a flooded soul ocean so his stage of cultivation was currently being hidden from those who weren't strong enough to perceive it. 

Lao looked back to where Haru was standing and saw the same sinister grin on his face that he had previously. It wasn't hard for Lao to guess what he was smiling for and it was made even more obvious when Haru cast out his spiritual sense across the floor to look for someone who cultivated a flame technique. 

Out of the total of twenty-two of the people that had their own rooms on the floor, only three of them cultivated a flame technique. Two of them were at the manifestation stage and the other was at the heavenly spirit stage. 

Given the degree of the burns that were on Meiling's arm, it was nowhere near the level of damage that someone at the manifestation stage would inflict even by accident. So that left the man one at the heavenly spirit stage as the main suspect. 

The teachers all had rooms of their own so that they could diligently cultivate without distractions which made it easier for Haru and Lao to go unnoticed as they crept down the hallway and then made their way into the sleeping man's room. 

Lao stood by the door as Haru moved closer to the side of his bed and stood over the teacher as he slept and held out his index finger as a flame began to form at the tip. 

The flame looked similar to a drop of water and soon dripped down from Haru's finger and landed on the man's face. Suddenly the flame expanded over his lips and Haru was careful that the flame was only strong enough to cause him pain and not burn him to cinders. 

The teacher's eyes suddenly shot wide open from the pain of the fire burning his lips. He couldn't speak since the flames were imbued with Qi and were forcing his lips to remain sealed. But despite that fact, he still managed to make a high pitched squeal. 

"Do you like playing with fire?" Haru giggled slightly as he spoke and then grabbed the man by his arm and yanked him out of bed with so much force that he flew across the room and struck the wall with his back, before falling down onto the wooden dresser behind him and shattering the glass lamp that was stood on top of it.

The sounds from the shattering glass were enough to gain the attention of one of the manifestation stage cultivators that were in a room nearby and they soon came running out of their room and came to the entrance where they saw Lao blocking the doorway while holding Meiling in his arms. 

"Who are you!?" The woman asked. He was confused by the situation. She didn't understand how someone had managed to get onto the floor without her realising. Which either meant that he was strong or so weak that he wasn't detected as a threat. 

"Is that Meiling? She is a student here? What do you intend to do with her?" The woman asked with suspicion. 'Is he one of the managers of the association? How come I haven't seen him before' The woman thought to herself, mistaking Lao for one an association member.

There was no response from Lao who wasn't in the mood for idle chatter with a human and before she could say anything else Lao held out his hand and surrounded the woman's body in his Qi and then pulled her towards him. 

Lao's Qi was so strong that she couldn't even begin to resist and was swiftly brought inside the room where Haru was looking down upon the man that had attacked Meiling. 

Lao closed the door behind him as he entered the room too so that they wouldn't be distracted by anyone and so Haru could speak freely. 

As soon as the door was closed Haru removed the flame from the man's mouth and hovered it in front of him as a warning that if he tried anything he would soon be burned again. 

"Who are you!? What did I do to offend you?" The teacher asked in a panicked voice. He didn't recognise either Haru or Lao but saw that their strength was enough to restrain a manifestation stage cultivator. 

At his measly level of strength, there was nothing he could do but sit down and wait for whatever punishment that they decided upon. 

"Take a look over at that little girl and then tell me what you think this is about." Haru directed his gaze over to Lao who was holding Meiling who was still sleeping in his arms.

"Wait. You are here about that incident? It was just a warning to a disobedient student that is all. She thought that I was spying on other students and threatened to tell someone if I didn't give her money. She tried to blackmail me so I had to punish her a little bit!" The teacher rushed to make up an excuse as to why he had attacked Meiling but his lies were seen through by everyone in the room. 

Even the woman that had been dragged into the room by Lao could tell that he was lying but she had no idea what was going on and didn't dare to say anything out of fear as she could be targeted next. 

As soon as the man finished speaking the flame that Haru was controlling spread to the teacher's whole body. It was the same temperature as it was before. Not enough to burn his skin but just enough to cause him unbearable pain.

"If you lie to me again I will kill you. So I'm going to ask you only once. Did you intentionally injure Meiling because you were scared that she would tell someone that you are a pervert?" Haru asked with anger in his voice.

The man screamed out in pain as the heat from the flame unintentionally began to increase and singed the hairs on both his head and eyebrows. 

"Yes okay, I did injure her! But it's not what you think! I wasn't doing anything like that! Please forgive me. I will never do it again I promise!" The teacher cried out once again but Haru had heard enough. He had gotten a confession from him and he didn't care about the situation.

Haru had made a promise to Meiling and intended to keep it. Whoever hurt Meiling would have to answer to him.

"Then die," Haru said as the flames suddenly grew violent and out of control and expanded into a ball that surrounded the teacher's body completely. 

"What are you doing? You can't kill a member of the cultivators association! Even if he did something wrong then you still need to follow the guidelines." The woman Lao had captured said in protest of Haru killing the teacher.

But the damage was already done. The teacher was burned until the only thing that remained was a pile of ash that dropped the floor as soon as Haru dispersed the flames.