(MC POV)
This is the life: the fresh air, the rustling of the leaves, and the chirping of the birds.
"This is a robbery. give us all your money--Ahhh!"
A lovely disciple that clears the road of any obstacles that might want to hamper your mood—this really is the life.
We were in a carriage heading to one of the practitioner cities in the Qidian kingdom. Actually, it was the only practitioner city since other kingdoms had theirs.
That was the only place to get the herbs I needed for both the sorceress and to increase Chuyans' affinity tier, since she is actually a divine tier but somehow also has a wood tier affinity. I feel either cleansing her elemental veins would awaken her divine tier talent, or increasing it would also have a similar effect.
In fact, there are a lot of things that I would be getting on this trip, and luckily money is not a problem.
I mean, when you exterminate a bandit group, you will have to look around and see the goodies that they had. Thinking about how I almost left those gold coins back there always makes my stomach churn. Not only that, but I almost left the elemental stones back in the dark sect base. Another reason for my stomach to churn.
I was in such a hurry to leave that I almost forgot all those riches! I need to be beaten. Even practitioners need money too, you know. there are some things you can't get just by being a powerful practitioner with a lot of powerful equipment to trade; you will still have to buy them from other practitioners since what they need at that point is an elemental stone or money.
Right, I have not been teaching Chuyan about the basic knowledge of practitioners, only the techniques. I am really a bad teacher.
"Chuyan, come inside for a bit." Pulling the curtain covering the window of the carriage door to the side, I poked my head out and called Chuyan, who was sitting with the driver of the carriage, who was also a disciple of the sect.
"Yes master."
Entering the carriage, I noticed how she had a red face and was panting slightly. It seemed that the sun was a little too hot for her; let's cool her down.
Creating a block of ice in the corner of the carriage and using my air magic to blow over it, I created a cool breeze in the carriage, and seeing her let out a relaxed sigh, I knew It was effective.
"You see, I have not been a very good master," I started the conversation. "It has been about a week plus now, and I have not taught you much about the world of practitioners and its ranking system, so we are going to cover that for the remainder of the trip since our destination is about four days away, so I expect you to be able to grasp everything I teach you during this journey."
"Yes, master, and master has actually been a great teacher. look, I can easily take down those bandits with ease," She said with shining eyes.
Ah~ So cute.
"First I would start with the ranking of us practitioners. You see, practitioners are ranked based on their mastery of the elements and how easily it is for them to quickly connect to the element they want to use in that time, so your affinity tier also plays a major role in this."
"The rankings for elemental mastery are beginner, novice, proficient, elite, and master. But that is not the only ranking; there is also a mastery ranking for practitioners who are able to master more than one element and are also ranked like the mastery of the elements, but with the addition of grandmaster and spirit."
I explained.
"But master, what is the difference between element mastery and mastering the elements? are they not the same, but with just extra ranks added?" She asked, looking confused.
"Good question. mastery of the element and elemental mastery may sound the same but have different concepts. Element mastery only applies to how good you are at using an element, while mastery of the elements is when a practitioner is good at using more than one element, unlike focusing on just one."
"For a practitioner in the beginner rank, it means that he or she only has an elemental mastery of beginner; novice is when you have an elemental mastery of an element in novice rank, proficient is also having an elemental mastery of one element in proficient tier, but from elite, you need an elemental mastery of two elements in elite rank, master means you have an elemental mastery of four elements in master tier, and grandmaster means having an elemental mastery of seven elements in grandmaster rank."
I waited for her to slowly digest my teachings, and seeing the look of confusion appear on her face again, I knew a question was coming.
"But master, what about the elemental mastery? It only has up to master rank, but in the mastery rank, you need to have a mastery of seven elements in the grandmaster rank; that is so confusing."
"Well, that is, there is a kind of extra step. You see, when you reach the grandmaster rank, new types of elements are opened up to you, aside from air, water, fire, earth, wood, lightning, ice, lava, sand, and so on and so forth. After reaching the master rank, you would increase your elemental mastery from four elements to seven, causing your elemental core to fracture and turn into a gas, allowing you access to these elements."
"Space, light, shadow, metal, blood, time, life and gravity."
Chuyan looked as I first created a small black hole, but before it could start devouring everything, I changed it to a ball of light and then a ball of black mass that was twisting as if it were alive, a sliverish ball that slowly turned red after cutting my finger to manipulate my blood.
"Wow, master is so cool. so other grandmasters can do this?" She innocently asked. And I found it hard to answer.
You see, unlike other grandmasters, I was actually the only one that controlled all these elements in the mortal realm since you can only get them after reaching the heavenly realm. the reason I showed her was because she was my disciple, but it seemed that I had brought it out too early.
Even the storage rings were created by me, which I had given to my mother last year. it seemed the knowledge about how to control the elements stayed with me; that was why I could still wield them, even though my physical body never stepped foot there.
"Uh, no, master is... special." I vaguely said.
"Ooooh! Okay!"
Ah~ what a lovely girl; she did not even bother to ask me why I am special; it seems she does not want to pry. She deserves a head pat.
"But master, what about the spirit then?"
Right, the spirit mastery rank.
"That can only be available in the spirit realm."
"There is a spirit realm?"
"..."
Oh, right, they don't know about that.
"Master Zen, we have arrived at Humin village!"
The driver yelled, right at that moment, saving me from trying to explain what the spirit realm was.
Thank you, disciple working as a driver. whoever you work for needs to give you a raise...
What? He does not work for me; he works for the sect master. I am just borrowing him.