Ascension of the elder

Chapter 83: Preparing for the timeskip

"All of them!"

The response came from all around; looking back Landon could see that it was all the married people who responded. The ladies responded with happiness while the men responded with defeated expressions. Seeing this Landon moved towards the largest group of men and received a bro hug while the women just crossed their arms and clicked their tongues.

"Hahahahhaa" Kyle couldn't help it after the fear and confusion he had been suffering from seeing this ridiculous situation he finally broke down in a fit of giggles. Maria seeing Kyle was happy swooped in and gave him a strong hug.

"Are you okay sweet heart?" She asked with motherly concern and care.

"Not really but I think I'll be okay." Kyle responded before he returned her hug.

Everyone stopped messing around seeing Kyle had brightened up and began to crowd around chatting and laughing as they did before. Eventually they all sat down and had their meal. During which Landon spoke to Kyle about his training.

"Kyle I think you should spend some time with me and the family council to learn about statecraft and in how to lead people. You need to learn to see things from a distance and operate on the political stage. Why don't you train with your people in the morning and learn from me in the afternoon?"

Kyle thought about this for a minute but he couldn't refute what his father said as he truly had no experience in commanding a large group of people and he may need to learn some tricks.

"Okay dad I'll come to you after lunch but only if you train with me and 'shadow hand' during the morning."

"I don't have a problem with that. I'm actually curious as to how you're training your special force."

Hearing Landon's response Kyle began to grin which made the members of 'shadow hand' and Miranda's father Liam shake in fear. Landon could also feel something incongruous with Kyle's smile but wouldn't know until later that he had awakened a true beast.

With breakfast over everyone headed to the training grounds and began their usual warm-up followed by a cultivation session. Kyle moved amongst them checking on their progress he corrected a few of the younger children but everyone else was progressing well.

Kyle found another 3 of the 'death watch'; One and Landon would be able to fully open their first gate. Helping them push through Kyle noticed Landon had barely any adverse reaction and believed this was due to him already being in the second stage. Maria wasn't ready to open her gate as she still needed to cultivate a little longer as her previous technique focused on her mental abilities so her body required more work.

Once Kyle finished with the breakthroughs he checked on the members who had injuries previously. Everyone barring the one armed guard and the burnt girl had already fully healed. The guard's spirit realm had continued to strengthen and fill in so Kyle checked his stump and it was clear to see it had begun to grow out. Seeing Kyle's look the guard also noticed and had a little hope that his young master may be able to return him to being a full person again.

Finished with the guard Kyle went to his last "patient". The young girl with burns down the side of her body, when Kyle approached she didn't shy away but instead stood there passively allowing him to inspect her. Her spirit realm continued to recover so he began to inspect her arm.

The scarred flesh had become brittle and started to crack. Kyle inspected the damage and was pleased to see that through the cracks new flesh was appearing. Having the girl drop the hood she wore he was able to see the same was happening on her face and shortly she should be fully healed. Deciding it would be fine now he lifted the girls arm in front of her own face.

"It's okay to let you know now that my techniques healing properties appear to only grow stronger as you do. So with your efforts you have begun to heal properly. Now can you tell me your name?"

The girl was looking at her arm with dead eyes until Kyle spoke, as he said she was healing life flooded back into her eyes. Looking at her arm closely she could see it was truly healing. Tears gathered in her eyes before she looked at Kyle and only responded with.

"Alena."

"Well done Alena and welcome to the family."

Ever the motherly figure Nettie took the young girl away as she had become overcome with emotion. Kyle watched until they had moved out of his sight before he clapped his hands.

"Okay everyone you know what to do, to your places 'shadow hand' with me again Liam, dad this way."

With this Landon finally understood Kyle's grin and what the face of hell was. How did he raise such a beast but his training was truly effective. 'Shadow hand' had already gained a level of combat efficiency Landon struggled to believe, they could already be said to be on the way to being elites but seeing Kyle throwing them around even in group battles Landon realised they still had a long way to go.

After several hours of torture.....um training they broke up with Landon taking Kyle with him for his first lesson in statecraft while 'shadow hand' joined 'steel lotus' and 'death watch' in a more regular training which felt like a reprieve for them.

The training Kyle undertook that afternoon was necessary but man was it boring. Meeting upon meeting, reading reports and issuing commands. It seemed the main family was trying to drown Landon in paperwork. Kyle was reading these reports with Landon and could see a lot of them were repeated requests and authorisations so he decided to look into this as there should be a way of allowing certain subordinates to deal with this with only the truly important requests requiring the family heads intervention and Kyle would be damned if he was going to spend all his time reading reports.

After several hours of this Kyle was far more tired than he should be from paperwork but he felt as though his soul was being torn from its new moorings. If the void wanted to wipe away his soul it should have just given him this to do.

Finally free from his torment Kyle returned to his mansion to bask in the joy of being alive once again. When he returned he was assailed by a feeling of joy and completeness from the spirit in the mansion. It had been strangely silent recently but it had come back much stronger than before, it's joy couldn't help but bring a smile to Kyle's face so he went to his office to connect to the spirit privately.

When he connected to the remote link Kyle found the spirit was much stronger than previously and seemed to have gained the ability to communicate if only in the most basic way.

'Father.' The spirit spoke/projected to him, he could feel the connection between them was much stronger so he used this connection to try and understand what was happening. When he looked within he could see his mansion but also another destroyed mansion. This was the one he had purchased only yesterday. It appeared the mansions were now networked for a lack of a better term, with this other mansion regaining power and growing in strength it seemed to be strengthening the spirit.

'Well done.' Kyle projected to the mansion only to feel an increase in the joy he felt previously. This spirit was truly like a pet rather than a child but Kyle cared for it never the less. After spending a little while with the spirit Kyle excused himself as he had 'people' things to deal with. With a little wave the spirit sent him off even though it could still 'see' him.

Kyle's next stop was to check on Elena as if his understanding and prediction was correct she should be waking up anytime now. Going to the infirmary he could see Chad was sitting with his sister again but he looked much happier than previously and was trying to read a children's book aloud.

Kyle walked over and checked on Elena and saw her awakening was imminent sop while he waited he helped Chad read the book. After about 30 minutes Elena began to stir eliciting a cheer from Chad.

Kyle watched as she gradually opened her eyes and looked around with a confused expression on her face, suddenly she began laughing and crying at the same time which made Chad scared for her.

Kyle used his abilities to check on her and found that her mind was in turmoil. All the previous feelings and emotions of the young girl were running riot and the entity now residing within her didn't know how to cope.

In this chaos Kyle stood like a pillar allowing the entity somewhere to anchor itself. Gradually the chaos died down while on the outside Kyle appeared to be stroking the young girls head. It appeared as though the entity had absorbed all the memories of its host in bulk along with the emotions essentially merging them both with the side effect of an emotional overload.

Once the tirade was over Elena fell back asleep but a much more natural one, Kyle took his hand from her head before he made up a story for Chad.

"Chad it looks like what made your sister sleep has affected her. She will get better but it will take time, can you be patient and help her."

"Of course she's my sister."

"Good boy, let her sleep for now once she wakes up she'll be hungry so bring her to the kitchen."

Chad nodded so Kyle left them alone before he headed down to the kitchen to grab some dinner with everyone.

"Hey Kyle where's Chad?" Clara asked as she had taken the role of Chad's caretaker.

"Elena just woke up so he's going to bring her down once she's up to it."

"Great so what's the plan for now?" Asked Bruno who had just sauntered over.

"Well now I think it's time for the timeskip."