Chapter 140 - "Your Silence Confirms It."

"There…" Chihiro smiles with eyes closed, feeling something inside him snap right in place.

"Very good, Chihiro." Red nods, seeing the once ordinary boy finally step into the path of cultivation.

Chihiro is the last one of the new cultivators to access his inner world and connect his meridians to his budding elixir sea without Red's assistance, lagging a bit behind Ran.

Kanon and Osamu, who were actually two weeks ahead of the rest of the children, were the first ones to access their inner worlds and subsequently connect their meridians to their elixir seas. They were followed by Taishiro. Behind Taishiro, to the surprise and envy of Yoshiko and Kotone, are Yori and Akane who just moved in the hill a little over two weeks ago. And finally, Ran and Chihiro, whose short attention spans, made them access their inner worlds and connecting their meridians the last in the group.

Red, done with his guiding, then drops back down to the ground and walks to the group.

"Stand up, children." He orders.

The children follow and wait in anticipation at what is going to happen next. They still cannot believe that something so vast is now inside them.

*Click* Red deactivates the children's resistance seals with a snap of a finger.

"Why don't you all play a game of tag?" He asks of them.

"…" The order confuses the children.

"Go ahead…" Red gestures to them as he goes to sit beside Yori and Akane.

The children seeing Red not bother with them anymore, exchange looks.

"You're it…" Osamu pokes Kanon's arm before running away.

The next moment, however, "AH!" He gets scared at the speed he is running.

"WHOA!" The rest of the children are stunned by Osamu's speed.

*sssss…* After a few attempts, Osamu finally stops himself from running, and his feet slide for a few feet against the clay yard before his momentum runs out.

Kanon is the first one to recover and "You're it.", she pokes Taishiro beside her before *whoosh* running away.

"…whoop…" She too, just like Osamu, gets scared at her new speed. But before she crashes into a bed of flowers, she manages to stop herself.

Not long after that, "You're it!" "AH!!!" a real game of chaotic tag begins.

Yori, recovering from his stunned state at the children's physical display, "Hup.. hup.."  throws a few jabs in the air.

"… I don't feel any different." He says in disappointment.

Akane realizes what her husband is doing and she too throws clumsy jabs in the air, and she too, realizes that nothing changed.

"Hah… Thank goodness." The two are interrupted by Kotone and Yoshiko joining them.

"'Thank goodness?'" Akane asks, confused by Yoshiko's remark.

"Yes. I thought you would suddenly be B-Class after your… initiations." Yoshiko explains.

"Huh?" "B-Class? What?" The couple's heads spin.

"Unlike us and the kids, they have not trained their bodies intensely." Kotone did not have Yoshiko's worry.

"HAH!" Red's cackle takes the interest of the group.

"Their bodies are trained enough. Dancing from a very young age after all." He comments.

"Yori-kun, Akane-chan. Don't tell me you haven't noticed the changes in your bodies in the past two weeks?" He asks the couple.

"I do feel stronger and more energized." Akane confirms.

"Was it the food?" Yori asks. He figures that eating the most nutritious and filling meals for the past two weeks changed him.

"Yes. The food. But also because of the poses and the breathing technique. Now that you have activated your inner worlds, you will feel small changes by the end of the day." Red adds.

"I see…" The couple are enlightened and relieved.

"Kichirou-san." Yori suddenly stands up.

"Thank you for sharing your powers with us!" and bows to his waist.

"Thank you, Kichirou-san." Akane follows too, realizing the possibilities of their new powers.

"I said no bowing…" Red's voice suddenly turns cold, making the couple stand straight back up.

"I won't refuse your thanks. But I lied about something. The power you possess is not mine, but yours. I just helped you two access it." Red says.

"Huh?" The couple are confused yet again.

"Here's how it is…" Red starts orienting the two about cultivation.

A few minutes later.

"… " The couple are quiet, pondering the things Red just told them.

Red allows the two to get used to the information and, "KIDS!" calls out, interrupting the children who are still playing tag tirelessly.

It takes not even ten seconds before the children are now lined up in front of Red.

"Now, kids. How do you all feel?" Red asks.

"We feel great!" "It's awesome!" "Thank you!" The children express what they are feeling in their own way.

"Good. But if you do bad things with your powers, I'll take them back." Red tells them with a hint of his bloody aura.

"…" The children freeze at this and they start sweating cold.

The children are not the only ones affected, but also the adult cultivators.

Yori and Akane too, start sweating. Kotone and Yoshiko are reminded for the first time in a long time, that Red is dangerous.

"Do you all understand?" Red asks before replacing his bloody aura with a blast of spiritual energy.

"YES!" The children feel how serious Red is, and they also seriously reply.

"Do you all promise?" Red asks.

"We promise!" The children nod in return.

"Good." Red nods.

Akane and Yoshi, even though Red was talking to the children, feel like they too, are being addressed. More specifically, they feel they are being warned.

So just like the children, they too promise not to do anything bad with their powers, only silently.

The two now know that their powers can be crippled, and they do not even want to imagine being crippled, or worse, being crippled by Red.

"Okay. Your Yoshiko-nee here will teach you all more about your powers." Red orders Yoshiko to teach the children how to cultivate. The children having all near perfect initiations, is not worried about a rookie cultivator like Yoshiko teaching them.

"And you two." Red turns to the dancer couple.

"I need to tinker with your bodies."

"…" The couple is weirded out.

"Kotone. You assist me." And with that, the group enter the house.

A few hours later.

*FWAAAHHHHHHH*

A loud disturbance destroys the peace of the hill. The children and the dancer couple who are cultivating together all open their eyes.

Yoshiko and Kotone look towards the direction of the noise with serious eyes, feeling immense power coming from the north side of the hill.

"INTRUDER!" They all hear Ichiki, the demon chef's scream piercing the air.

"Wha..>" The new cultivators are shocked seeing Kotone and Yoshiko suddenly wrap them in what looks like ropes that are made up of spiritual energy.

"Do not fight it." Kotone's serious voice stops the group from resisting the hold of the rope on them.

Soon enough, they are all in the air, the new cultivators being dragged along by Kotone and Yoshiko.

"Where are we going? Kotone-nee?" Ran asks in worry.

"Somewhere safe." Kotone says.

As soon as they are at a high enough altitude, "Oh dear." Akane exclaims, being the first one to spot something.

"WHOA…" The rest of the group also see that right beside the hill, a huge turtle made out of water, two thirds the size of the hill itself, is standing.

"Take them there." Kotone passes the people she is carrying, to Yoshiko.

"Alright. How about you?" Yoshiko asks.

"I'll check it out. If they're enemy or not, we have to find out." Kotone explains.

"Be careful. I'll be back." Yoshiko nods and proceeds to bring the children to Red's cave.

She can only hope that Red has not yet left to somewhere.

"WHO ARE YOU?" Kotone asks, amplifying her voice with an elixir technique to make sure that whoever the turtle belongs to, or maybe the turtle itself, can hear it.

She then sees that at the head of the turtle, a figure of a Caucasian man resurfaces.

"YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT I NEED." The man responds in foreign accented Japanese.

"WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY NEED FROM US?" Kotone asks.

"YOU HAVE TAKEN SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO ME." The foreigner declares.

Kotone frowns, not knowing how to proceed. She knows that the man must be talking about one of the treasure fragments that ended up in Red's hands. She figures that the man is related to the two Australians, or the man from the Brotherhood of Adam.

Before she can deny any fruther, "YOUR SILENCE CONFIRMS IT." the man says in certainty.

Kotone swallows in nervousness, seeing that on the turtle's body, tens of spinning water balls the size of volleyballs, materialize.

"LET'S BE CIVIL." Kotone reasons.

"CIVIL? WITH YOU? WHY WOULD I BOTHER?" The foreigner asks.

"YOU… ARE TRESPASSING." Kotone can only say, not coming up with something else.

"THEN SHOW ME IF YOU'RE WORTH TALKING TO." The man says before sending the water balls to Kotone's way.

"…" Kotone's heart jumps at the speed of the water balls.

She immediately summons platforms in the air and jumps on them in a zigzagging manner to try and dodge the attack.

"YOU'RE PRETTY GOOD." The foreigner nods in appreciation at Kotone's evasive maneuvers.

The short pause by the man gives Kotone a breather and she immediately activate the invisibility seal on her kimono, making her being pop out of existence in the eyes of the man.

"Huh…" Dominic smirks in interest. He has seen the same feat performed by Fumio when he first met the young man.

"TRICKS." He says before sending two water balls at a seemingly random location. He then sees the water balls he sent suddenly explode in the air, as if impacting something.

"Ooff" He also hears Kotone's grunt follow.

Unlike ordinary people and weaker superiori, he has sharp eyes that can see subtle contortions in space around Kotone, or more specifically, light being bent by the illusion seal.

Even though he cannot see through the illusion seal, he sees enough to know Kotone's location.

Suddenly, his gut tells him to dodge, which he does.

*fwap* he then sees the top of the head of his turtle he is standing up, get a small cut before that cut fixes itself immediately.

"She must be the other one." Dominic utters to himself as he looks at the direction of where he figures the attack came from.

"…" Yoshiko, who just attempted a sneak attack, feel her heart drop, seeing Dominic look exactly to her direction.

"CHILDREN."

She then hears from Dominic before seeing water balls upon water balls come her way.