Innate Abilities

Grassley's name had spread through the school, and even Master Jasick had to admit he wouldn't be able to outrun a black fire bear at Grassley's age.

A recording of Grassley holding the umbra wolf and Dalilia while being chased by the blackfire bear had been placed in front of him by Samuel a few hours ago.

Samuel had come to meet Master Jasick in the inner sanctuary of the school.

Sacred Fire Academy had several villages that students controlled and then an inner and outer sanctuary. The inner sanctuary is where the teachers lived along with the most talented students.

Master Jasick had taken Samuel in as his personal student, and gave him lessons once a night on the perils of cultivation. However, tonight, they spent the entire time talking about Grassley and his unnatural speed.

Grassley had failed the sprint competition, but against the blackfire bear ran almost three times faster than the top participant. In addition to holding Dalilia and the Umbra Wolf on his shoulders, his real speed was much likely a lot higher than that.

This also meant that during the boulder test, he would've been able to lift at least 300 kilograms.

Master Jasick picked up a black book and sighed while looking at Samuel still standing in front of him. He didn't want the video of Grassley getting out into the real world. Some children with talent had a tendency to disappear when powerful families determined their existence.

If someone with too much talent in the younger generation got discovered, they'd get the bulk of the resources for that year. Hence, he and Samuel had spent the entire night discussing how to keep the events that unfolded a secret.

Why?

Samuel had almost been killed three times as a child when then student Jasick protected him from assassins. Now, at this moment, the events had come full circle and three generations of top experts had arisen!

Master Jasick looked at Samuel and sighed while picking up a cup with hundreds of leaves. With a single breathe, the leaves melted into a tea that quickly got swallowed into his lips.

"When he's in the sword league, you'll be in danger."

"You did the same for me," Samuel smiled and shook his head with glee. "Ha, it's not a problem at all. At next years resource competition, our school will be faced with the twenty best schools in Planet Premaim. With Grassley there, at least in the younger generations we'll get first."

"You have that much belief in him?" Master Jasick laughed. "I felt the same about you, but every year we've gotten fifth place! Even if you score first in your year, the other years always set us back."

"Anyways, Does anyone else know about his feats?"

"Just a few of the children," Samuel shook his head and pulled out a dagger. "I thought about killing them, but I doubt they know what they saw. He was running using minor mastery of the sacred winds."

Sacred Wind Mastery had gotten famous thousands of years ago when a certain individual spent a hundred years on top of Mount Barlick in the Narmest Region in Planet Pramaim.

Sacred Wind Mastery meant that the wind helped you in battle.

Unlike an ability, earning the affections of nature could be considered one of the most powerful innate abilities. Though it couldn't be trained, in an event like the resource competition, having the wind behind you meant almost certain victory!

A person with even minor Sacred Wind Mastery would get his speed increased, and a greater sense of his surroundings without even having to try! It was one of the few abilities that only came from your primitive soul! Basically, a primitive soul helped formed your views of morality, and your personality! Only those with truly kind hearts could be blessed with Sacred Wind Mastery!

The universe had chosen to help the child against the blackfire bear! However, this also meant more and more people would try to kill him if they discovered this karmic fortune!

"Let's never talk of this. The children are years away from being able to sense Sacred Wind Mastery. However, I still don't know what to do about Grassley failing the Encroachment Heart Challenge."

"About that. He still hasn't returned to the boys dormitory," Samuel sighed and crossed his arms. "Do you think he's still in the forest?"

"He's little, but he's not an idiot. I have a feeling he's probably burying the Umbra Wolf. In the morning, meet me in class like discussed and hand me the Black Fire Beart Encroachment Heart. Let's hope that no one discovers our little genius."

******

Grassley looked up at a large inclination in the forest.

A huge black gate could be seen getting tossed and turned by the wind. A strange, terrifying presence seemed to be lurking on the shadows past the gate.

However, without stopping, Grassley walked in with a slingshot in his right hand.

'I'm not scared. I spent years practicing shooting father.' Grassley giggled seeing his father run back and forth while he shot him with a slingshot. 'I can do this. These are just level 2 encroachment beasts.'

Encroachment beasts had a lot in common with humans. The stronger they got, the more abilities they possessed.

The blackfire bear was a level 3 encroachment beast, and possessed not only the ability to manipulate fire, but the ability to greatly increase his speed for a few seconds.

Blackfire Path and Blackfire Burial represented two abilities that the Blackfire bear possessed. In the second area of the Sacred Fire Academy Forest, however, almost all beasts had single powerful abilities!

For the first time in hours, Grassley heard the sound of something gnawing on flesh a few meters away.

A small fox had a terrifyingly large bison toppled over with glaring yellow eyes facing in Grassley's direction. Seeing the slingshot in his hand, the fox scoffed before releasing moonlight and hoping high into the trees.

'A starlight fox. So beautiful,' Grassley muttered before walking over to the downed bison. He smiled seeing an encroachment heart had fallen a few feet from his body.

'Nice! Win!' Grassley picked it up and smiled before feeling something staring down his back.

Turning around, Grassley noticed a six pairs of yellow eyes slowly and carefully moving forward from the shadows. Grassley's hair immediately stood on end while a flash of trepidation spread through his body.

The next moment, the six eyes seemed to grow five times their size and appear in front of him! A large spider nearly five meters tall and ten legs slashed at him with all its might!

Grassley jumped back and instantly fumbled for a rock in his back pocket, sending out a gust of wind from his feet as he landed against a tree.

Swoosh!

Grassley jumped off a tree and landed on a branch before flipping into the air and dodging sixteen slashes from the large spider.

Flipping in the air, he fired off a single rock into one of the spiders eyes.

Boom!

A blue forcefield appeared around the spider, that flickered like bolts of lightning before Grassley felt complete apprehension and fear. A lightning soul encroachment beast had appeared in front of him!

Encroachment beasts, just like humans, had cores with special abilities in them. A lightning soul encroachment beast had lightning inside of its spiritual cavities!

Like humans, encroachment beasts has spiritual cavities, but they had developed in a different way. Encroachment beasts had something called sacred nectar, an encroachment heart, and an encroachment soul.

Sacred Nectar was best compared to a humans spiritual roots in that without Sacred Nectar an encroachment beast never could develop any abilities! However, the scariest thing about encroachment beasts had to be their encroachment hearts! Unlike humans cores, beasts had an innate sense of their cores and the abilities inside of them!

This Great Fanged Spider was just a level 2 existence, but could already use the lightning in its body to enhance its attacks and speed!

If not for Grassley being extremely agile, he would've been dead at least a thousand times!

Grassley jumped up into the trees and rushed at his fastest speed deeper into the forest. Turning behind, he saw the large, massive spider feasting on the downed bison that the starlight fox had killed.

With a smile on his face, he jumped further into the forest only to feel a burning sensation coming from his left. Reaching out to grab a branch, he found hundreds of spiders dangling from threads right in front of him!

'Are these her children?' Grassley gulped and kicked one spider in the air, sending it bursting into the distance.

Hundreds of other spiders began to climb down from the tree above him while he pushed off another tree and landed by a series of rocks.

Picking one up, he immediately began to rapid fire towards the spiders that screeched at the top of their lungs.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three spiders, four spiders, five spiders got killed instantly before encroachment hearts began to rain down and slam against the foliage!

Grassley's little hands kept picking up stones and firing them until a hundred Great Fanged Spiders had been defeated!

The best thing about the Great Fanged Spiders was that all of them were level 1 encroachment beasts! He picked up the cores and smiled before he felt something terrifying inches from his back.