Chapter 44 - The Capital (2)

"Calm down. Don't fight them," Mei said, holding Lance's arms as he glared at the group.

"Yeah, kid. Don't fight us. You'll get beat up. Run along to mommy now," the man laughed, his friends roaring with laughter.

"Mei, let go before I hurt you too," Lance said. Mei quickly let go as Lance smiled at the gentlemen. "You guys look like you make enough to get by. You must have a lot of stuff. Give it to me or watch as I rip your arms off."

"This guy," the man laughed, pointing at Lance. "Thinks he is so tough. Just what is his cultivation to—"

"Oh gods. Meteor Vessel Stage?" one of his friends gasped, pale with fear. "It has to be. I can't sense his cultivation."

"It can't be. What do you know? You're only a Spirit Forming practitioner. I'm an Element Adept. Now, let's—" another friend scoffed, then fell back onto his chair. "It's true! Boss, he's a Meteor Vessel practitioner!"

"What?" the man frowned, turning to Lance, choking as Lance appeared before him in a flash and grabbed him by the throat.

"You know, I'm having a hard time adjusting to the changes over the past three weeks. Feeling pity for others, having to care about people's feelings, and being a good person. It's fucking annoying. How do you people deal with this shit? Do I have to be an idiot kid and grow up to understand it?" Lance mocked as he lifted the man into the air. "Fuck. I'm taking your arm now."

"Wait!" a receptionist at the desk cried, but she was too late as Lance ripped the man's right arm off. "He's left-handed!"

"Oh. Then it's both arms," Lance said and mercilessly ripped off the other arm before turning to the friends. "Save yourself the pain and tell me which one is your sword arm."

"Wait! Wait! Here is my storage bag. I've unbound it. Take it. Take it," a man cried, and the others followed suit, unbinding their storage bags and giving them to him.

"Lance!" Mei cried, and Lance turned to her.

"What? Is what I've done illegal? This idiot boss and I are both cultivators. According to the law, as I understand it, it's legal if one party enrages the other. So long as it does not involve murder, fighting is allowed," Lance said.

"You are trying to be a better person. This is not how you do it," Mei sighed.

"I didn't torture the bastard. What more do you want? I didn't even poison him," Lance said, a green haze appearing in his left hand.

"That's just spirit energy," a woman in the building said. "How is that poison?"

"I am a poison cultivator. My very spirit energy is poison," Lance smiled, and the people backed against the wall as Lance grinned at the man he had choked. A burst of cold came from his hands, and the man was encased in ice from the neck down. "I can't kill you. Against the law, you see. I am also attempting to be a better person, so I won't kill you outside the city either. No point anyway. You have no arms. Unbind the storage ring you have, and I will use my light element healing art: Radiant Touch, to heal you."

"You know a human practitioner art?" Mei frowned.

"Hey now. Just because I don't use them doesn't mean I don't learn them either. Those bandits had quite a few practitioner arts manuals. I merely took a few without you guys knowing about it," Lance shrugged and looked at the man. "What's it going to be? Your arms or your stuff? Frankly, I can just inject my spirit energy around your arm. It will become corroded by my spirit energy, and no one would be able to regenerate it, spreading the poison instead. Of course, that's just the second option. The first is ideal, I think. No?"

"My arms," the man sobbed. "Please give me my arms."

"Of course," Lance said, snapping his fingers, and the man was still held by the throat. The ice disappeared, and his arms were restored. Surprisingly, there was no blood or limbs to be found anywhere as the man unbound his storage ring.

"What just happened?" a man cried, even Mei stunned.

"Ah, people. I am trying to change, no? I merely used my Light Puppet Art. There is a Radiant Touch Art, but I never learned it."

"But, but I saw you rip out his arms. We all did," the man's friend cried out.

"My Light Puppet Art is hypnotism. What the mind sees, the mind believes. It also helps to have people hear what I said," Lance smiled and turned to Mei. "Mei, am I the brute type of fighter?"

"No. Far from it," she replied immediately. "We didn't look at your eyes, though."

"Indeed, but don't humans use a medium to entrance others? When something exciting happens, don't you focus on precisely that to avoid the details? When I choked the man, what did you look at?" Lance asked.

"Your right hand," Mei said, her eyes widening as she stared at the red storage ring. "You used your storage ring as the medium!"

"Bingo. Er, I believe that is the word," Lance shrugged as he let the man go, the poor guy gasping for breath. "Did you see water around the man as I encased him in it? I can create water out of my spirit energy, but I cannot freeze anything without water already being there. The devil is in the details. Magic is a form of deception, er, hypnotism. Magic does exist after all."

"So you couldn't rip my arms off," the man glared as he caught his breath, a chill running down his spine as Lance smiled at him.

"Oh, you poor stupid man. Do you honestly believe a Meteor Vessel Stage practitioner cannot rip the arm off a man with a lower cultivation? Save for the whole freezing in a block of ice, I really did show what the old me would have done. I think that's progress," Lance nodded, pleased with himself.

"That is...progress," Mei admitted, scaring more of the people in the guild. "We came to register with the guild. At our cultivation, I believe we qualify for a C Rank license."

"Yes. Please come with me," the receptionist said quickly, hoping to calm the situation and restore order.

"Here. I only wanted the storage ring of the man who insulted me," Lance said, returning the storage bag to the man's friends. If you want to make friends with a racist asshole, he better damn well have the strength to back it up. In this society, strength matters. In others, not so much. You might not want to leave the Pangu Continent if you stay with this ass."

"Yes. Thank you," the men sighed with relief as they got their storage bags back.

"You didn't keep them?" Mei asked as he walked back to her side.

"I already checked. It's not hard. They had nothing of value. Even a storage ring costs 10,000 demon spirit coins. Storage bags cost a measly 100," Lance shrugged, many growing silent with shame as even 100 demon spirit coins can last a scrooge for a month.

"Week 3," Mei wrote in her journal as she completed her guild test and waited for Lance. "Lance makes some progress. He did not kill a man and returned some storage bags. Some negative progress was the fact that he uses more devious methods to trick the minds of others. He uses hypnotism with his words now. He jokes, but it is too scary, and the time and place are not suitable. Is Lance Wang, a more emotional human, better than Guo Yang? That remains to be seen for now."

"Got the damn license. Now we can go to the auction and ditch this empire," Lance said. "I never did explore the planet. I'm actually getting kind of excited."

Mei scratched out some words before following Lance. "....to be seen for now. He exhibits more of his emotions, albeit in a cold manner sometimes. However, he is more curious about the world."

"What are you waiting for? We need to book an inn to rest for the auction tomorrow," Lance frowned as he stood at the door, the people in the building silent with awe and fear. Fear for him as a person and awe in respect to his cultivation at his young age.

"Just writing in my diary," Mei said, Lance tilting his head.

"You have a diary. I suppose you're a girl after all," Lance nodded and went on ahead.

"Hey! What do you mean by that?" Mei shouted as she stormed after him.