Mortal Realm, Capital Planet of the Hoborg Empire, Main Continent, Cloudmount City, Immortal Pillar Academy. When he heard the sentence, the boy looked like the world crumbled in front of his eyes. On the contrary, the other students, and especially the commoners, had a look of schadenfreude. “Good riddance!” “We're finally rid of that despicable guy.” Guang Yang could hear a few mutters, and despite not being someone who enjoyed others' sufferings, he could not help but slightly agree. He felt a bit surprised by his feeling, but he chose to ignore it and instead thought about the topic that the instructor started earlier, without finishing. When the boy was brought away, the man turned towards the class while his face turned back to indifference. “Remember this kids. I won't tolerate any bullshit like that in my class. Instead, only hard work will be rewarded.” As he saw everyone nodded their heads solemnly, he continued. “Now. let's go back to the topic of Aura. What is Aura?” “Does anyone know?” As everyone was intimidated by the man, a few seconds elapsed without anyone answering. As the instructor was about to share with them the answer, albeit slightly disappointed by the students' reactions, Guang Yang raised his hand in the air. When he saw the youngest cultivator present was the only one who seemed unfazed by his presence, he had a feeling of slight surprise. It was slight since the child was actually the whole reason that he, an army general, was teaching in the first place a bunch of weak children. To explain it simply, a few days ago, he received a message from the Grand Marshall who was only relaying an order from the Grand Elder. It was an order to go to the Immortal Pillar Academy to be the teacher of a certain fighting class. The target of this mission was a young golden hair child named Guang Yang. The general had to pay attention to him without appearing too close. That sounded annoying to this man who was known for his disdain for any cultivator who only used their position to get what they want and did not work hard. To him who came from the bottom of society, it was a blasphemy and since he reached his current position through merit and cultivation, he became the nightmare of those so-called 'young masters' and other 'young misses'. Of course, he could not go overboard or he would be in trouble with the Elders of those families. After all, despite not being Imperials, just by virtue of their high cultivation, they had a lot of influence on the Empire's policies, allowing those useless descendants of theirs to do what they wanted in all impunity. As for himself, he was not very popular among those in the Army who were in those families' pockets, and even the Imperial family seemed to be reluctant to give him more responsibilities because of it. That was until around a year ago and the 'purge'. Although he was not completely clear of the details, he knew that a very powerful senior was royally pissed at one of those useless princes and to vent her annoyance, she killed the Emperor. Just like that. That was the beginning of a series of new policies. Among them, the cultivators like Vorlock who were dissatisfied with the current Noble families were promoted and given many cultivation resources which, in his case, allowed him to reach the Early Level 7. That was a Level that almost only Noble families' Elders or the Imperial family's Elders reached, thanks to their monopoly on high level resources. That fact enabled them to keep their grip on the 'physical' and political power, without any dissatisfied people being able to do anything about it. However, as the maxim said, 'The wheel turned round and round, what was left will be right and what was up will be down'. And turn it did indeed. As many of those dissatisfied people reached the Rank 3 and a higher position everywhere, whether in the army or in the government, they started to pressure those arrogant Noble families. Mind you, not every Nobles were bad, so those who were reasonable were left alone. But as for the others, many descendants were sent to dangerous places like in the Border Army or in the Exploration Army. As for the monopoly on resources, some Laws were passed to destroy it and give even Low Rank Nobles a chance to get them. Remember that anyone who reached Rank 2 could become a Noble, albeit one without much power. That made it fairer. But to go back to the message, Vorlock asked why he had to babysit a high level noble when he had so much work to do, including his own cultivation. Although he was dissatisfied at first, his feelings completely turned around when they said that the kid was related to that incredible senior at the origin of the 'purge'. After he learned that fact, he became intrigued by the kid. After all, in the cultivation world, unless you were blood related, a powerful cultivator would usually take a student as talented as possible to teach him/her cultivation. Although there were some eccentrics out there who did not follow that 'rule', they were very rare. “I wonder how talented the brat could be then?” He thought at that time. His curiosity was indeed rewarded when he decided to go through with a practical test like the previous 'aura attack' on the students. Of course, he was skilled enough to control it so that they were just exhausted and not really hurt. After all, he may be a bloodthirsty butcher in his enemies' minds, but he had his bottom line and thus would not hurt innocent people. That is unless they attacked him first. But then, they would not be exactly innocent anymore. Anyway, as he was pondering the information his Divine Sense gave him about the kid, he was secretly amazed. First, he could feel how young he was, not older than 3 years old from the aura of vitality emitted from him. Then the quality of his energy and body was amazing and both reached the Peak of Rank 1 which was highly unusual, even for powerful cultivation families who used high level cultivation scriptures. And finally, the little brat's willpower was incredible for someone so young. He should be comparable to a veteran soldier who spent decades on the battlefield. Of course, it was only a rough estimation, since willpower was a very elusive notion. But still. Vorlock wondered what could have happened for him to be able to have such a strong mentality. Because willpower was not innate, but something that one acquired as one live his/her life. Of course, some could be talented and could increase theirs more easily than others, but there was a limit to that. To reach the level that he observed earlier and with his young age, he would have needed to survive some horrifying experience and grow from it. Oh well, the reason did not matter for the man, as long as the kid was good. All of those thoughts only took a fraction of a second in his mind before he said out loud. “Go ahead, kid.” “Aura is the pressure emitted by a cultivator thanks to his cultivation base. It can be used to attack someone or something.” Vorlock nodded and said. “Very concise. To explain a bit more in depth, it is an energy field that contained your energy, body strength, soul strength and mind strength. The latter includes the killing intent that I talked about earlier.” He paused for a moment to let the student digest the information before continuing with his explanation. “You need to remember that your Aura can be very flexible if you can control it well enough. Does anyone know why?” He asked them, hoping that some of the other 'kids' would be more proactive. Indeed, probably thanks to the young fox's earlier answer which did not result in him being sent to the Exploration army, one of the Noble girls raised her hand up. “Go ahead, lass.” Despite feeling a bit flustered, she was clear in her answer. “Aura can be flexible because the cultivator can adjust the intensity of his or her Aura.” The instructor nodded and said. “Correct, albeit a bit incomplete. A cultivator can indeed adjust his aura like I did earlier with you kids. However, that's not the trickiest part. What is the trickiest part is that the component of your Aura can be adjusted as well.” As he saw the confusion on their faces, he continued his explanation. “I see your confusion. Think about what I told you earlier about what composed your Aura. Now, you need to know that if you can control all those aspects well enough, then you can first add or subtract anyone of them and second you can adjust their intensity too.” “Some of you are probably wondering about the use of all that, right? Think of it this way: if a cultivator with the same strength as you controlled his Aura to only emit one Level under yours, you would then underestimate him, which would allow that cultivator to sneak attack you easily. It can also be used to hide one's characteristics, like your killing intent. If you have to infiltrate a place and you let your killing intent in your aura, you will definitely get caught.” “Anyway, there are multiple ways to use your Aura, but for the more intricate ones, you will need to be very precise with your adjustment. It won't be instantaneous, so you will need to practice again and again to succeed.” He then looked at everyone and said. “Now, it's time to practice. All of you find a place to sit and start practicing retracting your aura completely and pushing it to the maximum around you. You have to control it well enough not to affect your other classmates though. Keep your aura close to your own body.” Following his instructions, the students dispersed and found themselves somewhere to sit before concentrating deeply on controlling their own aura. As they were all practicing, Vorlock used his Divine sense to feel the progression of each of them. He felt a bit amused at some of them who clearly had some trouble retracting and pushing out their aura. Why? Because of the constipated face they made while trying. Although he mentioned pushing out the aura, it was completely different from defecating... Kids... As he saw those people failing, he started to send messages to each of them through his Divine Sense to help correct what they were doing wrong. When he was done with helping those funny brats, he started to pay attention to the more successful ones in the classroom. Among them were the last two groups who fell under his aura. Although there were differences between them, he could still notice how quick they were progressing. From his observation, it would take only three lessons maximum for the slowest of them to completely master the trick of completely control their aura's intensity. “Interesting. Especially that small brat Yang. He's almost completely mastered the move. I guess that his teacher probably made him do those exercises before.” He thought. As the minutes passed by, the students were improving more and more, some of them even mastered the whole thing completely. At least in a controlled environment. After all, during a fight, one may not have the time to concentrate on doing one thing only. Once the lesson was over, the instructor said to everyone. “Some of you completed the exercise fully, which is good. Next lesson I'll teach you how to adjust the intensity of your aura. As for those who did not succeed, you don't have to feel bad about it. Like I said at the beginning of the lesson, hard work pays off. And that's what I ask of you. I want you to work on this exercise until you master it. I hope that next time I see you, you'll be like those who completed the exercise.” He paused for a second and added. “You're dismissed.” He then walked out from the classroom and disappeared from all their views. Hearing his declaration, some groaning noises could be heard as those who had trouble with the exercise felt despair at the assignment. As for the ones 'in front' they were relaxed since they had nothing to do but wait until the next lesson. However, they all sighed in relief as the man left. After all, he emitted a certain formless pressure that affected them greatly. As the lesson was over, Guang Yang and the other students waited for the next one in the same classroom. As all of them were Level 3 Cultivator, they were all placed in the same class,, so no one moved from where they were. The boy noticed a few jealous gazes from some students, but he decided to ignore them and instead focused his mind on the previous teacher's lesson to see if he might have missed something. As twenty minutes went by, another teacher arrived in the classroom. It was a beautiful dark haired woman this time. She introduced herself to everyone first before explaining the simple stances that one need to know before doing close combat. Indeed, even Bai Yue told Guang Yang the same thing. There are some immutable simple stances that correspond to the human body's movements capabilities. From those movements, variations are added to them so that they could be adapted to each fight. Feints is one of those variations, if one needed an example. As all the students were practicing the stances on their own, some of them clearly mastered them, and among them was Guang Yang. Although the mastery may only be out of combat. The teacher noticed it right away and instead of letting them waste their time, she decided to make them spar, so that the 'theoretical mastery' could become 'practical mastery'. They would also change partners every ten minutes so that they would face different type of opponents. The first 'adversary' that little Yang had to confront was one of those who seemed to dislike him. The teenager was quite handsome himself, but he had a disdainful sneer on his face that prompted a feeling of dislike from Guang Yang. Intrigued, the latter looked at the former and asked. “You seem to dislike me, but I've never met you before. Why?” The other boy arrogantly declared. “I just don't like you. So what?” Still confused, the young fox decided to ignore him and said. “Let's spar then.” After which he started to attack with a straight punch, to which the other boy reacted by sending a kick to his waist, which was blocked by Yang's leg. The two then kept attacking, blocking and evading the other's attacks. They both seemed to have more of a straight style, with few feints, probably due to their lacking combat experience. However, it did not change the fact that they looked very impressive to the other students. Even the teacher nodded in appreciation. Of course, they still had much more to learn, but they were still far ahead from the others. It was always more interesting to teach those students who progressed quickly. Patience was less needed than with the others. After ten minutes of non-stop fighting, the two separated, feeling a bit tired. The teacher then said. “There will be a ten minutes break before you'll have to change partners.” As they heard her, all those who 'mastered' close combat and who were fighting previously sat down on the side to recuperate from their exhaustion. As they were cultivating, mana could be seen entering their body to replenish their reserves. Thankfully, it was mostly a class on technique, so they did not use too much of energy, which meant that they would get their mana back to full in less than 10 minutes. What was interesting to the teacher was that when she observed the quantity of mana absorbed by the students, she noticed a few interesting kids. A few were able to absorb as much as a Level 4 Cultivator, while one was even able to absorb as much as a Level 5. “A bunch of talented brats. Nice.” While they were recuperating, the other half of the class started their spar. Many clashes and grunt of pains could be heard from them. Some of them getting thrashed by the others and some that were more or less balanced in their strength. As the ten minutes mark arrived, the teacher made them take a break and instructed the others to take their place and spar with another partner. The whole thing lasted until the end of the class when the teacher bid them goodbye. Everyone there were exhausted, so they did not waste their time and left the classroom. While walking towards the Shuttle area, Guang Yang sent a message to the other three so they could meet. A few minutes later, the young fox noticed them walking in his direction. They all looked exhausted but happy from their lesson. Norah, curious, smiled at him and asked. “How were your first fighting classes?” Guang Yang smiled and replied. “They were... interesting.”