Chapter 6

After eating breakfast with his mother, Leo quickly ran back into his room and took out the storage ring once again and withdrew an artifact that was in the shape of a cube. The artifact was one that helped determine a cultivator's affinity level for the element with the most affinity. By using this artifact, he would be able to see what his talents as a potential mage would be so that he could decide whether to just focus entirely on the path of a warrior or to split his time and become a dual expert.

Since in this life he already knew given the amount of time including the increased life expectancy he would gain from ranking up, no matter what he could reach Rank 3 as a warrior even without using the Iron Will Sect's Sect Library that housed many training methods to increase the battle qi within a cultivator's body over time. Not only that, but because of this progress, he estimated that he could do this within ten years which would make him in the eyes of the sect a future pillar that would continue allowing the Iron Will Sect to prosper over time.

And so, without wasting another breath of time, Leo pours his energy into the cube with his eyes closed as he was actually hoping that he could become a dual expert if it made sense because this would allow him to have a bigger arsenal in combat at his disposal and with the Iron Will Sect having a large number of earth element type techniques for any sect member to use, it would be a waste not to do that as well since due to his previous experiences, it was always wise to have as many trump cards as you could especially in a life or death battle.

Opening his eyes, something happened which was completely unexpected to him, on the cube it clearly told him that he had a high elemental affinity, but it was actually not the earth element like both of his parents and everyone associated in the Iron Will Sect, rather it was for the fire element. To him, this was equivalent to a double edged sword because as a mage, he was equivalent to one in one thousand as a cultivator for that path, but if he were to walk that path, it was possible that the Iron Will Sect would declare foul play and would toss him and his mother out, which had its own dangers associated with such a scenario.

Even though he would easily be eligible to compete for the future Grand Elder position given his talent as a mage, the fact that he did not have a high elemental affinity for the earth element, would make it seem possible that his father was not his father, but that his mother had him with an outside of the sect individual. Usually, since he would be considered a genius and treated like one, it would not matter that he specialized in the fire element instead of the earth element.

This fear came from the fact that one of their biggest and strongest enemies specialized in the fire element and their mercenary group were considered to be extremely vicious towards the local villages both raping and pillaging as they deemed fit. This would mean that the impact of his father not actually being his father would be a rumor which would spread out quickly across the entire village, and the possibility of his mother colluding with the enemy faction would be enough for the two to find themselves in quite a bit of trouble!

Therefore, for the present time to avoid suspicions and possible trouble, Leo would convince others that he wanted to pursue becoming a warrior like his father was and would lie when asked and claim that he had a below average affinity with the earth element which meant it would be a waste for him to pursue the path of a mage in his lifetime. No one including the Grand Elder of the village would question this and once Leo was strong enough to personally escort his mother with him elsewhere, at that time he could pursue the path of cultivation as a dual expert since he was not in a position right now where he could take his mother elsewhere using his own strength and he did not know anyone who would assist them in this way either.

When push came to shove, Leo given his past life did not feel pity for himself that he could not immediately start practicing and learning fire element based techniques, but he could however, try to spend some time every day sensing the nature energy around him to potentially rank up as a mage over time which was something that would not raise eyebrows since it was natural during a cultivator's training to rank up on a path randomly due to training on their other paths. For example, a Rank 5 mage would be able to become a Rank 2 warrior just given the amount of time and training the body itself went through to reach the higher rank as a mage.