11 - Strength

As Su Tao left Su Xue in the training area, the surrounding disciples looked at her in confusion. None of them had even properly seen what just happened, and therefore, they were extremely confused. Why was a core disciple here, and how had a mere Su Tao hurt her? Why had she been sent by the family Elders to assassinate Su Tao?

Once one reached the silver rank, they would become an inner disciple of the family, and they would be provided enough resources for their whole family to live in comfort and they would be given resources from the sect. They would even have enough money to be able to afford expensive weapons and resources. But a core disciple would be treated even better, but the only way to become one was to have an extremely high talent. Su Xue was an example. She was a super genius within the family and would be directly raised by them.

Without saying a word to the surrounding disciples, Su Xue left right away. She went back to her own residence instead of reporting to the Elders. News would spread and the Elders would find out anyway, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, so she did not bother to tell them. They would come to find her once they found out and they would ask how Su Tao had almost killed her.

But she did not care about any of this right now. Instead, she was thinking about Su Tao. He seemed to be ruthless and arrogant on the outside, but in reality, he was cold and calculating, with inhuman reaction speed and precision. His state of mind must also be extremely strong to be able to completely ignore getting shot all the way through the arm and act as if it never even happened.

Even when he was talking to her, he did not seem to blame her at all for shooting him. Instead, he asked her to explain herself, but she had a weird feeling that even before she told him, he already knew everything, and that he was just getting her to say it in front of others to make herself seem more innocent.

Along with that, she felt as if she did not have the ability to lie to him, as if his eyes could see every breath she took and every beat of her heart, every little detail that no one would be able to notice.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the boy which she had almost killed was not simple in the slightest. Every move and word she said and did seemed to be entirely anticipated by him, and he played her like a fiddle, elegantly forcing her into doing what he wanted her to do without her realizing.

But even then, he made it seem like she was not the one in the wrong and did not blame her for her actions, instead calling out the Elders who sent her for cowardice and shamelessness. Every move he made was cold and calculated to the point that he was in control of the entire situation from beginning to end, and he seemed to take her into account at the same time, making both her and him seem to the the innocent ones while the Elders were the ones who were manipulating them both and using shameless methods to take care of him.

Such intelligence and skill was surely not something that any normal fifteen year old could have. Without her knowing, a feeling of admiration rose in her heart and established itself in her being.

Although she was much stronger than this boy of fifteen years old, she could not beat him and instead she was manipulated to his every choice. She felt helpless when thinking about him, and from this helplessness arose admiration.

Then, she looked at her arm, which was already starting to heal. She could feel that although it had only been a total of fifteen minutes, the bone which was cracked by Su Tao's arrow was already one hundredth of the way healed. According to this speed, it would be fully healed within only a day.

One day later, her bone was completely healed, and the skin around the wound was already starting to heal. Along with this, she felt as if the healed part of her bone was even stronger than it was before. She was extremely surprised, but she continued to watch her skin heal.

Two hours later, her entire wound was entirely healed and the purple drop of water dissipated, leaving nothing behind. She could not help but notice that the skin which was healed by the purple drop was softer and the bone which it healed was stronger.

She was a super genius within the Su family, but even she had no clue what type of medicine could heal a cracked bone in only a day and heal it stronger than before. This only made her admire Su Tao even more.

At this time she made the decision to never become his enemy, and if possible, she would even be his ally and friend. But she thought that the chances of this happening were low since the way they met was her trying to kill him. Little did she know that Su Tao did not blame her in the slightest.

At Su Tao's house, he sat down on the floor, looking at his arm, which still had the arrow impaled all the way through it. He did not remove it from his arm yet, and there was a reason for that. This arrow was shot by Su Xue, and she had probably not even thought about it, but the arrow was barbed and made of metal.

This meant that if he pulled it wrong, it would tear off a chunk of flesh with it, which would not be good. Because even though he had increase healing abilities, he would not be able to survive if he lost too much blood.

Then, he grabbed the top of the arrow, and he carefully started pulling. He felt a jolt of intense pain from his arm, but it was absolutely nothing compared to the torture which he had experienced, so he did not even react to it at all and continued to pull without flinching.

Slowly, the arrow slid through his arm, and it eventually came out, leaving his flesh mangled and with a hole straight through his arm. Even his bone in his arm had been broken by it, and the end of his forearm was now dangling on by the chunks of muscle and flesh on either side.

Then, Su Tao put the bloody arrow on the ground and got up and went to the place in the house which had medical supplies. He then wrapped his arm so that he would not lose blood, then grabbed some rods and attached them to his arm to act as a brace. He reckoned that he might only need a week or two to heal his arm because of his insane healing speed. Then, he went to bed, because it was already nighttime.

When he woke up in the morning, he found that all his skin and muscles had healed, leaving only the bone left to heal. But he left the bloody bandage on to give the impression that he was still severely injured and that he would require a long time to heal.

Then, he went outside and sat on a chair on the porch. He was not able to train, so he figured that he would simply sit on the porch for a couple weeks until his arm was entirely healed. After all, if he trained like this, it would not be able to heal properly and would instead probably heal out of place and mess up his arm. He could not go to any shops because he did not have any extra money, and what little he had saved he used to pay for a little while longer in the house.

Obviously, there was nothing he could do aside from either sit outside or just walk around the family. But obviously, with the Elders now trying to kill him, he would not walk anywhere outside of his house unless he needed to since it was obvious that they were trying to kill him.

Already, the news had spread that a core disciple super genius of the family was forced by the family Elders to try to kill Su Tao. This news had not only spread through the Su family, but also the whole city of silver sparrow. Such actions by the Elders of the Su family were scolded by the others. But this was because only the higher ups of the families knew that the city master favored Su Tao for some reason and insisted on protecting the latter.

As such, the actions of the Su family Elders was directly slapping the face of the city master. The scolding of the other families not only brought them shame, but also fear that the city master would do something to punish them.

They were also obviously extremely angry at Su Tao who did not die like he was supposed to, and instead, he shamed them further as well as exposed their whole plan without a single flaw, as if the entire thing was planned by him and him alone, and they were all just pawns in his game of chess.

Nobody liked to be pawns, but they could do nothing about it since Su Tao would now be on guard against them, and if he could defend himself against an assassination from someone at the silver rank and not only survive but corner her into a desperate situation, all while being off his guard, then what would he be capable of when he was on guard against them?

The answer was simple. There was no way that they would be able to kill him in the dark. If they wanted him dead, then they would have to kill him themselves without hiding in the shadows. After all, they had already sent the best first star silver ranked assassin genius they had, and the only person above her in terms of assassination ability was the Elders of the family, who were at the second silver star.

She herself was actually quite weak, but her inner energy type allowed her to be great at assassination, such that only the elders were above her in terms of ability.

Only the grand Elder of the family was at the third silver star, also known as the sixth rank of the martial path.

It might seem like there were too many silver ranked warriors, but there were not actually that many. Only one tenth of the population who reached the third bronze star would be able to reach the first silver star, and of those people, only one in a hundred would be able to reach the second silver star. And of those people, only one in a hundred would be able to reach the third silver star. This was because of the differences in talent between people. When one reached the silver rank, talent and potential were by far the most important component.

As such, there were about a thousand one star silver ranked warriors in the Su family, ten Elders at the second silver star, and one grand Elder who only reached the three star silver rank by luck. Most of the eight small families did not even have a three star silver rank in them, and the Su family was one of the top three among the eight small families.

But compared to the two top families, they were barely worth mentioning. Each of the top two families had three three star silver ranks and countless of those at the first and second silver stars. This was because everyone in the top two families had much higher talent and potential. A super genius like Su Xue was only a higher level of talent in the top two families, and she was not considered a super prodigy there like she was here.

As for those who were in the silver sparrow guard, there were only six of them, but they were all at the peak of the third silver star. The combined strength of them all was almost enough to rival all the families in the city of silver sparrow combined. They were only weaker than the city master and were extremely loyal to him.

They were the trump card of the city of silver sparrow, and they would be able to instantly double the strength of the city so that the city master would not have to get involved in the battle. If things went wrong, then the city master would get involved and resolve it. If he could not resolve it, like if there was another gold ranked warrior with the enemy, then he would talk terms with them and come to an agreement.

Although their strengths didn't seem to be very different, there was a very big difference between those at the peak third silver star and a one star gold rank. The city master alone could rival the entire city of silver sparrow, which was why no one dared to fight against him.

This was the way of the world. Those with absolute strength ruled over everything, and no one else could resist them unless they possessed the strength necessary to. For now, Su Tao was far too weak, and he knew it. He had to find a way to get stronger, and quickly.