Chapter 185: You're A Sky Full Of Stars

(MC POV)

"Please get up."

"No! This worthless one does not deserve such magnanimity! How could I have been so blind to what was in front of me?! Please accept the cutting of my left hand as my apology!"

"Ok, now you're just being dramatic about it. I'm serious, get up."

"No! I have deemed that this is the most efficient way of both begging for forgiveness and placing myself in your care at the same time! Please! Allow me to atone for this, Master Lin!"

I sighed.

After I regained my original body, I made some excuse to go deliver a candy for my dear little Cai Hong. When I returned, I found Brendan kneeling with his head on the ground back at our dorm room.

A quick questioning revealed that he had been in this position ever since he came back from the yard. The other students were sent to the infirmary by the Elders since they were still unconscious, which left me alone with Brendan inside the room.

The only reason I came back here was to pick up some of my stuff I left behind before heading back to my own courtyard. But I didn't expect to find Brendan in this position.

Not to say we were that close or anything but I believe our little heart to heart talk while he was confined kind of made him attached to me. Maybe it has something to do with his missing brother? Like he's looking for a big brother figure that was missing in his life and found it in me?

I guess that would be the most logical explanation as to why he suddenly got so mushy with me after that day.

It took a little bit more convincing before Brendan finally got his head off the floor, opting to just kneel at where he was.

I sat back down on my bed, giving up on trying to get him to move from his current location.

"I believe you were seeking out to be Master Lin's... I mean... My disciple, yes?"

Brendan nodded his head so quickly I thought he was having a stroke, "Yes! Please! Master Lin, I would do anything to learn under you!"

"Anything?" I asked.

"Anything!" He repeated, obvious enthusiasm in his voice.

No, I don't swing that way, get your mind out of the gutter.

I scratched my chin while I thought about it. He wasn't that bad of a student at least, definitely not the best but not the worst either. He also has a firm grasp on most of the theory aspects which is much more than what most new students can say.

With the fact that he was the son of a wealthy merchant family also helps his case a lot. Who wouldn't want the support of an influential group of people eh?

I've said it once and I'll say it again, networking is important.

Not to mention the fact that this might be the prelude to his villain origin story as well if things go wrong.

Oh you know the one, a really dedicated and hardcore fan that keeps following his idol around hoping for recognition. Then the idol rejects him, causing him to take the rejection way more harshly than he should have.

Said fan then vows to take revenge on the idol by gaining power through insidious means, eventually putting the idol in a situation to make them regret ever rejecting him back then.

Yeah, I definitely don't want to put myself in that situation if I can help it.

But that doesn't mean I'll just give him everything that he asked for so easily. It's not like I'll just take in anybody who asks to be my disciple after all.

I accepted Lian Li since she had the potential to destroy the world, I had no choice but to keep a close eye on her just in case. She turned out to be a heaven sent genius in the Practitioner arts which sort of confirmed my assumptions.

I had initially taken in Eris to make her into a masterchef, which she has been making really big strides in I must say. But she has also shown herself to be extremely proficient in swordplay which is a nice bonus.

Diao Chan is a witch. A rarity by itself and her exceptionally flexible mind has guaranteed her great success in the magical field. If there was a magician's academy here, she would have already graduated as the valedictorian.

Manami and Kiyomi have fluff. Like a lot of fluff. That's ��nuff said.

And Cai Hong is a cute loli dragon. Who doesn't want to have a cute loli dragon as a daughter?

So obviously my standards for accepting disciples are quite high as you can see.

"Tell you what," I said after some time of thinking. "I'll take over Elder Gong's classes until the final exam. Among everyone in this class, I'll take the student I think most suited to be my disciple."

I half expected him to get a little upset about me giving the other students the opportunity, but Brendan merely just bowed his head again.

"Thank you Master Lin for the chance! I will not disappoint your expectations!"

I nodded, "The other students should be fine by tomorrow, so make sure to tell them what has happened."

"Understood!"

Picking up the clothes I had left here, I returned back to my own courtyard through teleportation. It is just unfortunate that my room's door is still broken and the inside's still a mess.

I cleaned up as best I could but the door's going to have to wait till tomorrow before it gets fixed.

Now that I've regained back my former adult body, I settled down in my room to focus on my Cultivation Point, trying to find out if anything changed after absorbing the Wendigo's Monster Crystal that resulted in my body accelerating its age to that of an adult's.

Once more, my sight shifted to that of stars, all of them blinking in unison at my arrival.

This time, instead of just sitting there, I opted to look around instead.

At first glance, it looks and feels like the space is infinite. But somehow, the connection between the stars and myself seem to suggest that they were almost within an arm's reach, prompting me to try and walk towards one.

For the first few minutes, the sense of infinity held. No matter how much I tried to move towards the stars, they still remained at where they were in the distance.

But just as I was about to think it was a fruitless endeavor, one of the stars shined brighter than the rest, detaching itself from the darkness and moving straight towards me.

There was a bright flash of light before everything dimmed to blackness.

Not even a second passed before the darkness receded again to show me a scene of battle.

Two dragons that I did not recognise were embroiled in a fight with the horrors of the abyss.

The scene was frozen in time but I could see clearly that there were hundreds, if not thousands of those tentacled monsters alongside various other abyssal creatures on one side of the scene. And facing this army was just these two dragons.

Before I could even start to make sense of this scene, my vision shifted once more and I found myself back in my room again.

What the hell was that?