Ascension of the elder

Chapter 96: Of monsters and madmen

"Thank you sir it's called Scottland."

"Wait, what really your city is called Scotland?" Kyle responded with shock to this name drop.

"Not Scotland, Scottland you know its name was changed after a guy named Scott."

"You know what I don't care anymore. Ash, Faye and One I want you to organise your teams and have them dispatched before the end of tomorrow. Include a team to their hometown to get them up to scratch. Now any other business for real this time?"

Everyone shook their heads while wondering why Kyle got so irritated about the city name. With this the meeting broke apart and everyone headed to do what they needed to do. Kyle didn't like the sense of urgency he had around him right now and decided to train a little more to get as much of an advantage as he could before it all hit the fan.

Tracking down his friends, he located them in the library thanks to the use of the bastions spirit. Once there he saw they were sitting around chatting or reading books while Elena was looking disgruntled, she was probably still fuming about the loss of her pancakes and when she saw Kyle she launched herself towards him.

"Kyle you're still going to make me pancakes right? RIGHT?"

Kyle didn't know where this obsession with pancakes was coming from but he had no problem making them for her but he decided to use them as an enticement to help her train. Out of everyone else she had the most potential to grow due to her unique "heritage", but she had no desire to gain strength and would only become serious when her brother Chad was involved or when food was at stake.

"I'll make you your pancakes but it will have to be in the morning now. Tonight I want everyone to continue training, there are problems in the city and I want us all to be as strong as possible. This includes you Elena or your brother may be in danger and the availability of pancakes may take a hit."

This was Kyle's one, two strike and it was super effective, once Kyle said this sentence the temperature suddenly dropped and a palpable feeling of dread was spread out with Elena at the centre. Kyle could almost see a ghost of the eldritch horror housed within her standing behind ready to protect her family and pancakes.

"What do I need to do?"

It was a simple sentence but for once there were no strange implications or running off on a tangent, this showed just how seriously she was taking this. This showed just how seriously she was taking this but Kyle didn't want to know whether it was her brother or the threat to her sweets that had caused this change.

"We will need to push further and longer than usual; this goes for the rest of you as well. If battle comes I won't put you on the front lines but you have to at least have the strength to protect the youngsters."

Clara, Miranda, Alena and Bruno all stood up at this and lined up with Elena to show they were ready to begin training. Kyle didn't want to push their physical training in this case but rather hoped they could advance their cultivation levels. This would help them all but with Bruno getting involved in the tournament he was the one who needed the greatest improvement, just in case the enemy tried anything during the festivities as opposed to when they were expecting it.

"Okay all of you arrange yourselves in a semi circle in front of me and start circulating your techniques, but rather than do a single loop in your nodes I want you to do five loops. I'll keep an eye on each of you and if I tell you to slow down you'll need to drop back to one loop, got it?"

Kyle had limited the loops of mana his people used not because they couldn't handle more but because they couldn't monitor the damage and strain caused by overtaxing their spiritual systems. With the increase in his cultivation and the subsequent release of more of his soul force Kyle could monitor these few people while training himself at the same time.

So began an intense cultivation session which lasted the whole night. As they trained Kyle would occasionally slow one of the group down to allow their body's time to repair the strain caused before the returned to their previous level. Kyle was also pushing himself at the same time. Not as hard as during his first cultivation session but certainly more than he had done subsequently.

During this training Kyle noted that after straining and repairing the spiritual systems his friends had become stronger systems than they had been previously. Kyle decided to push the other members of the household during the morning training but due to constraints on his soul force he would only be able to do this in groups of 8 while training his self at the same time.

Once the sun started to rise the "study group" dispersed to clean up before heading for breakfast. Everyone in the household had a large appetite due to their daily training and the increase in their body's needs, so as they had money flowing in from the various ventures a large amount flowed out to support them.

Luckily with the resources gained from the fields below the mansion they had been able to offset this and with Liam taking groups out to hunt and train in the wild they could get all the meat they needed.

Once everyone was fed and watered Kyle began to lead the training. Rather than begin with their usual physical warm-up, Kyle instead began to push their cultivation. He ordered the groups he would train with based on their location within the training grounds rather than by who was within them. He spent about half an hour with each group pushing their cultivation to the limit almost damaging their spiritual systems before winding it back allowing them to heal before pushing forward again.

With this everyone suddenly had a boost in strength and power but this level wasn't sustainable as the pain and stress from training like this would make people detest doing it, so with this in mind Kyle decided to do this kind of intense training once a week and would look at it again at some point in the future. One thing he had everyone promise was that they would only do this kind of high intensity cultivation if he was there with them as the chance of injury was very high and Kyle didn't want to risk something permanent happening.

Once the intense cultivation sessions were complete everyone began their physical training, the Daryl's were present for this and as this was their first training session they were shocked and appalled by what was happening. As mercs they had received a lot of physical training and also punishment on various battlefields, but here they saw young boys and girls fighting more brutally and skilfully than veterans, they even doubted that if these kids were a little more powerful in their cultivation their old captain would lose miserably.

Kyle put the Daryl's through their paces during this session and they had to admit this training was very good for them although by the end they just ended up lying around like dead fish.

"Just do a simple cultivation session and you'll be fine. We'll be doing this again tomorrow, get yourselves cleaned up when you're ready then go and see Ash and he'll have your posting ready for you."

With that Kyle walked away weaving between the collapsed bodies lying haphazardly around. What had they done to get involved with these monsters and madmen?

Kyle was leaving the field as he had received notification that his cousins and the other members of the family team had arrived so he needed to greet them. He also saw that Leonard's son had arrived but he had also brought along his little sister.

As he was walking to the entrance he tapped Bruno on the shoulder and indicated that he should come with him. As they were on the same team he wanted him to get to know the other members and also officially meet Leonard's son. They already knew Ruby the daughter of the Black family as she often came to play with Chad and Theo once she met them. Archie the black family scion didn't really come by to much as he was older than most of the youngster's in the household but he did get on well with Kyle's cousins.

Once they reached the entrance Kyle commanded the door to open while he stood in the centre of the room with Bruno by his side. As the group trooped inside Kyle used his soul eyes to inspect the arrivals. He could see a little anxiousness from the two new comers but from the rest he could only sense friendship and in the case of little Ruby a little bit of excitement.

"Hello Ruby if you want to see Chad and Theo head to the training ground they've just finished their morning exercise."

"Thanks Kyle." With that she vanished off within the bastions to find her friends.

Once Ruby had gone Kyle looked at the rest of the new group. Kyle was thinking about how he would broach the problem of teaching them his techniques and skills as even though he trusted the small outside group he couldn't guarantee they wouldn't tell their parents or those close to them, but as members of his family and those he had a good opinion of he didn't want to force something on them. Before he could come up with a way to talk to them about this Neil his oldest cousin broke the ice on this issue.

"Kyle uncle said that you are going to train us in a secret technique but in order to learn this we need to have a 'secret seal' put on us, are you going to do it or is aunt Maria going to?"

It looked like Landon had already thought about this issue and had already informed them of what to expect so they weren't averse to this seal being placed on them. Archie was looking between them confused as to what they were talking about so quickly Kyle just told him that they were training in a secret technique and in order to receive it they had a seal placed on them preventing them from telling others about it. Kyle offered to teach Archie if he agreed to have this seal placed on him to which he agreed. Kyle decided to teach him this as they had few allies and with the scion of the Black family in his pocket they would have more scope.

As they were talking and Kyle placed the seals upon them a member of 'steel lotus' materialised beside him and passed a letter before disappearing into the shadows shocking those around them. Clyde the younger cousin saw the letter and couldn't help but ask.

"Kyle what is that letter about?"

"Don't worry it's just some information from my inside man."