Chapter 5

"Ansel! I challenge you to a duel!"

On second thought, I didn't want an awesome victory, I just wanted to get this over with as little commotion as possible, preferably without a fight.

The boy glaring at me was Luke van Vizard, the grandson of the current head of the Vizard Clan. He had lost to Ansel before in a sword skill competition. I was brooding in Earth during their competition, so I couldn't witness the thrashing. However, from my memories it seemed to be quite a brutal ordeal for a Young Master type to endure.

"Why should I compete with you, Young Master?" I calmly answered back, emphasising the last words, with as much sarcasm as I could muster.

"Wh-What do you mean!?!" He practically barked at me with rage clearly discernible in his words.

Haaa. Sighing softly, I spoke, "It is clearly evident for anyone with a properly functioning brain, Young Master, that your mighty sword skills are enough to trash my lowly self to the point even my own mother would fail to recognize me. Furthermore, even if by a twist of fate I somehow manage to best you, I would bring nothing but trouble for myself and my family. After all, to save face your great clan will surely exterminate my entire family and myself, wouldn't they?"

I paused for a second to let the idiotic Young Master comprehend my words and to single out any other enemies, namely the instructors bought by the Vizard Clan.

"How dare you talk to the Young Master like that, you lowly brat!!"

Ah. Talk of the devil.

I turned my head to see the instructor spouting nonsense and turns out, my intuition was right. He was a muscle-brained lackey. This was turning out to be easier than I thought.

"Oh my utmost apologies, mighty Instructor. My lowly self wasn't humble enough to the esteemed Young Master. As retribution for my great crimes, I will proclaim my loss to the Young Master's great skills in front of the entire academy, nay, the entire city today."

Speaking my part, I quickly walked back to the classroom as the gears slowly clicked in the heads of the slow Idiotic Instructor and Lamebrain Luke.

"Hey! Stop there right this instant!"

Someone called from behind me, probably the lackey, but I ignored him and kept walking back. I was almost there when something whooshed behind me and I could feel the object aimed for my head, it was a knife.

Had I not assimilated the Air element, I would have probably died, along with most of the world. However, fortunately for the countless people and myself, mostly myself, I had experienced an increase in speed, defence and flexibility just minutes before. Well, looks like a time to test them.

I turned my head and felt as if time had almost stopped. The knife was nearly about to go through my head, so I tilted my head enough for the knife to miss me, saw it was the Instructor who had thrown it, and then as if a switch had turned on, time resumed. It was an awesome event, the whole time stop thing, but surprisingly, I didn't feel fear from my first near death experience.

I saw the Instructor's eyes widen in shock and enjoyed the look on his face for a moment. Watching the rest of the crowd I could feel similar emotions from them. I reveled in their amazement for a moment, satisfied my ego for another and then turned and headed back, further into the hallway, to my classroom. Soon the rest of the crowd joined me and everyone went to their respective classrooms, talking about the event while pointing at me. I could feel the curious and amazed gazes of countless people on me but the murderous intent of Lamebrain Luke and his lackey Idiotic Instructor was causing me to curse and sigh in my head. How I could sense murderous intent was beyond my understanding but right now, I was at least glad to know they planned to kill me.

Sigh. Well, there goes my peaceful first day of school.

Lost in my thoughts, I soon reached the classroom along with my classmates who were still whispering about the event. Taking my seat, I let my eyes roam around the room, and saw them gradually quieten. Soon, the next teacher came and started droning about the history of the Xia Continent.

Trying to concentrate on a boring history lesson becomes even harder when people are stealing glances at you. And since Ansel knew almost everything thanks to having a nerdy family even though he himself wasn't one, I tried to experiment with my new found abilities. Besides the increased affinities I found out some more abilities.

If I concentrated enough I could go into the slowed time mode which I called "Bullet Time". However, it required a lot of concentration and energy but with practice I could improve it. With Earth I could harden my skin, enough so that normal weapons won't be able to go through me, and I named it "Iron Skin". I checked it using a knife I had carried in my bag, for "safety purposes". Hey, I am not going to be unarmed in a psychotic cultivation world. Anyways, there was no visible change when I used it which was good. It also required a lot of energy but not that much concentration. I had to practice it to improve it, obviously. And with Water, I found out I could momentarily move my limbs as if they had no bones. It was creepy but I liked it. My "No Bones" ability almost got me caught but thankfully I was lucky and no one spotted me. At least, I think no one spotted me.

Aside from these awesome abilities, I also found out some more abilities. "Super Instinct", using Air I could sense everything around me, to a certain degree, which meant I had no blind spots. It made me a bit dizzy the first time, but it was manageable. The energy load was negligible so I kept it on. "Metal Arm" which used practically all my energy in about 3 seconds, was awesome in that I could turn my arm entirely into metal, not just a layer, but even my inside bits. It was painful, but not as much as I had thought. I was thankful for our full sleeved uniforms and my low energy as no one spotted it. This time I knew for sure, due to "Super Instinct". And lastly, using Water, I could spread damage taken at one point throughout my body in waves so I aptly named it "Ripple Defense". I felt as if I could learn more abilities but the rest of them weren't suitable for a classroom.

So to summarise, apart from the innate speed, defence, flexibility and strength increases, I had learnt six more abilities which could probably save my life from the assassins Lamebrain Luke would send after me.

I was slowing inching along on the path to become an all-rounder OP character and I was loving every second of it.