Chapter 129 - "I Have Something To Ask Of You."

"You must have realized that I've kept on underselling your potential and your strength, no?" Red suddenly breaks the silence with a question.

"Yes." Fumio chuckles at the sudden, but an overdue admittance.

"Probably to keep me working hard?" He asks.

"Yes." Red nods.

"I don't need it, boss. My current situation is a motivation on its own." Fumio sighs.

"Oh? How do you mean?" Red asks in interest.

"I thought I'm gonna be all set in life once I reach the strength of a peak B-Class, around the strength of all the past and current clan heads of the Hasegawa clan. But now, even though I can beat high-tier A-Class like Xoz'gekal, why do I still feel restricted? I can't even enjoy the freedom someone of my strength should be enjoying." Fumio lets out his frustrations.

"You can." Red shrugs.

"What?" Fumio looks at him in confusion and surprise.

"You can go out and play, do whatever you want." Red clarifies.

"But, wouldn't that mean that I will have to leave your tutelage? …" Fumio cannot imagine himself from doing so.

"That's right. But don't tell me you never even thought about leaving?" Red asks.

Fumio, feeling that Red is not asking, but is simply stating a fact, shakes his head.

"I did… at first." He can only admit.

"I imagined going abroad to start a new life even." He goes further.

"But… This is home. You, my fellow disciples, my sister, the children… The closest I have to family. What I desired in the past; I already have it." He concludes.

"Hah! Bitch." Red teases.

"…" Fumio is stunned by the response.

"I admit that was cheesy, but it doesn't mean it's true." He stands by his words.

"Heh. Alright." Red is pleased that Fumio seems to be more than just loyal.

"Anyways. From the potency of your spiritual energy, I'm guessing that you're almost done consolidating your first elixir sea?" Red guesses, changing the subject.

"T-that's… From the descriptions you said of what a True Elixir Sea should look like, that's my guess as well." Fumio is surprised by the accuracy of Red's guess.

"You once said that it would take years, even decades to consolidate it, but I'm guessing that's a lie too?" He asks in amusement.

"It isn't exactly a lie. Because at the time when I said that, that was indeed the case." Red smirks.

"But after months of refining your body in flames, poisons, and herbal concoctions, that's no longer the case. Your body, your meridians, your spirit root? They are all starving for spiritual energy. Everything's changed." He explains.

"I see… Wasn't exactly a lie, indeed." Fumio nods.

"Wait…" He realizes something from Red's words.

"You said 'First elixir sea'. What does that mean?" He asks.

"You will have eight more to consolidate." Red shrugs.

"WHAT?" Fumio's jaw drops.

"Yes. Eight more, nine in total. It will take years for you to consolidate them all." Red clarifies.

"Years… For real this time?" Fumio asks.

"Yes." Red nods.

"But… I'm almost done with my first? It's only been almost three weeks?" Fumio asks in confusion.

"Sure. But each succeeding True Sea you consolidate will take longer than the last, especially the seventh to ninth."  Red says.

"May I have an idea?" Fumio asks.

"Your ninth True Sea will be almost fifty times larger than your first." Red shrugs.

"…" Fumio gets to thinking and his imagination runs wild in calculation.

A few seconds later, "Eight years." Fumio comes up with an estimation.

"If I work as hard as now, it'll take at least eight years to form nine True Seas."

"Huh..." Red frowns in confusion at how Fumio managed to come up with the accurate number.

After a moment of thought, "…I shouldn't have been too specific." He shakes his head in amusement.

"Heh…" Fumio chuckles. "I didn't expect to guess that accurately either... Well unless you were too specific on purpose for me to guess it right?" He asks in suspicion.

"I wasn't." Red shakes his head.

"At this point. There's no point in lying. You have reached a plateau in your growth." Red says.

"…" Fumio tilts his head.

"But the more True Seas I have, the stronger I'll be."

"No. Your 'juice' will only increase in quantity, not in quality. You will be able to fight longer, but you won't be stronger." Red shakes his head.

"Let's make use of non-superioris boxers as an example. Right now, you're like a featherweight boxer who can fight twelve rounds while throwing barrages of punches tirelessly. Against other featherweight boxers of the same skill, you can probably outlast them because you have a lot of juice. But that won't be the same against heavy weight boxers. Your punches will be too light to them so they can take your punches. Even if they can't fight for as long, all it takes from them is one good punch, and you're out." He explains.

"Oh…" Fumio immediately gets the difference.

"Anyways. Once you consolidate nine true seas, and after I help you consolidate them further into a core… Well… You'll get stronger." Red stops himself from revealing too much as more information might even distract Fumio.

"The hell? You don't say?" Fumio thought Red was about to say something great.

"Anyways. It's actually great that you came to see me tonight." Red changes the subject.

"I have something to ask of you."

"Oh? Of me?" Fumio feels that the task somehow feels special.

"First of all…" Red pulls out two objects from his storage space.

"Chinese butterfly swords?" Fumio cannot help but comment seeing the weapon he has only seen in the movies.

"But… that's not right.." He notices however that unlike regular butterfly swords that are short and pairing, Red's swords are longer, a bit narrower. And while the two swords' shapes are similar, they do not look identical.

"Here." Red tosses one of the broad swords to Fumio, which Fumio catches.

"Ever rode a skateboard before?" Red asks as he releases the sword he is holding to the air, making it float to his chest level.

Then, he jumps on it, standing on it like a skateboard.

"Boss… This a hoverboard? It looks like one from that movie." Fumio cannot believe what he is seeing.

"Now that you say it, it kinda is. I always called it as a flying sword." Red nods.

"Flying sword." Fumio shakes his head at how obvious the name is.

"But... You can sell this…" He then imagines Yen bills raining looking at the floating sword mounted by Red.

"Get your head out of your ass." Red scoffs.

"This can only be used by us. Just like that communication token, or your resistance seals."

"Oh…" Fumio is disappointed, but he gets excited once again as he tosses the sword on the air.

Unlike his expectations however, the sword *clink* drops to the ground.

"Where'd your brain go? Put some elixir in it." Red scratches his brows at the unexpectedly idiotic mistake from Fumio.

"O-oh.. That's right." Fumio picks up the sword with his spiritual energy.

As the sword draws closer, he cannot help but notice etches and lines engraved on it. He is already starting to dabble on drawing spiritual seals and is confident in drawing a basic spiritual energy storing seal, but the seals on the sword is making his head spin.

He decides to stop studying the seals and a familiar emblem catches his eyes. This emblem, he can study as it is an Advanced Spiritual Energy Storing Seal that is drawn to imitate an emblem. Now is not the time however to study it and he infuses some of his spiritual energy on it instead.

The next moment, the sword floats in front of him on its own. As he jumps on it, his legs buckle before quickly finding his balance. With his well-trained balance and coordination, he would not have buckled, but something distracted him.

"Illusion seals?" He asks Red in wonder.

"Yes." Red confirms.

"So, it can also be used like this… wow."

What distracted Fumio is the heads-up display that suddenly appeared in his vision which displays icons that symbolize the amount of spiritual energy on the sword, its speed levels, and even an invisibility feature.

"Try supplying 10 percent of your reserves." Red suggests.

Fumio follows and he sees the 'battery' symbol be filled a third full.

"Boss… This thing is a glutton." Fumio cannot help but complain.

Ten percent after all is enough for him to boost his body strength and speed by 25% for an hour.

"What? You can recharge it for an hour using just the basic breathing technique, if I'm not wrong?" Red asks.

"…" Fumio does not bother arguing, but he still finds it a waste.

"Just follow me. Set it to level one." Red orders, and soon they are off.

It does not take Fumio that long to operate the flying sword with skill, and him and Red are now flying smoothly 1000 kilometers per hour 500 meters in the air, heading north.

While Fumio is having fun at the fresh experience, he is keeping his eye on the 'battery' of the sword. To his relief, it is not draining as quickly as he expected.

Ten minutes later, the two enter a mountain range.

Red, through the communication token, "Slow down.", orders Fumio.

"…" Fumio follows and soon, he has a guess of their destination.

A huge hill, attached to a mountain side in the middle of nowhere. No roads accessing it, or even near it. Isolated, and hidden, surrounded by other hills. If it is not for the thick spiritual energy he can feel convening towards it, he would have not given the place even a second glance.

He then sees Red start to descend and he does the same.

The next moment however, what he thought was a hill filled with trees, is actually a hill with its land tilled, ready to be used for farming or gardening.

As soon as they land, Fumio sighs in relief. He checks the battery of his flying sword one last time and sees that it used barely half of what he supplied to it.

"Incredibly efficient, isn't it?" Red asks.

"Yes." Fumio nods.

"183 kilometers in ten minutes." He reads the distance travelled that the illusion display is showing and, "Just five percent of my reserves…", utters in satisfaction.

He feels disappointed however as he deactivates the sword. He does not want to part with it.

As he is about to hand it back to Red, "Hold on to it for now.", Red stops him from doing so.

"… I- uhh…" Fumio hesitates, feeling that the sword is very, very valuable as he has not even seen the second or third level of its speed.

"Hold on to it for now. I have something to ask of you. If you accept it, it's yours. If you won't, then, I will have to take it back.." Red says.