"Okay let us begin"
With a single command, the entire hall was filled with chatter, clinking of spoons or forks on plates and other forms of noise. While some parts of the hall were filled with chatter like the side of Li Ru, some sections of the hall table like the places of Ao Ning were filled with one sided conversations (that is [i.e.] Ao xu, Ao Ning's mother talking obnoxiously about herself) and places like that of Li Xing were filled with silence with occasional glares and sneers being thrown around.
"Dad… can I ask a favor?"
The word "dad" rolling off smoothly surprised her but decided to attribute it to the body's intuition
"What is it, sweetheart?"
"May I ask for permission for my friends and me to head into the ruins?"
And the crowd goes MILD.
It was as if the very mention of the word "ruins" was sacred as everyone turned to look at Li Ru who said it.
The ruins, a place of monumental opportunity and danger. The beasts in the ruins are far more cunning and stronger than those parading the world. In the past, it was so popular that people would give up their children to the ruins in order to give them raw power and strength. These children were deemed as 'Ruinspawns', children accepted and raised by the ruins. The only problem were that the kids put in the ruins would become feral and violent, often killing people who merely disturbed their sleep and that this process stops a child from being able to use magic. It is also not a given that every infant put into the ruins would survive or become a ruinspawn. Due to these downsides, the process of turning children to Ruinspawns was more or less abolished on the surface and those turned into Ruinspawns were shunned by society.
The first to recover was Li Luo himself.
"[clears throat] and why would you want to go?"
"Several reasons… first of all, it's quite boring in here"
"I can arrange a play date session" Li Luo intervened.
"Also, we need the experience even if it is just a surface type as the trials for the academies will soon begin"
At this, he couldn't retort as he felt it was a valid point. Seeing this, she continued.
"I heard the academies will be holding a survival type game and we just want to see a glimpse of what we are up against"
With this final nail on the coffin, he leaned into his chair, looked towards his daughter and sighed
"Fine. But my condition is that you must have guards follow and protect you"
"But..."
"No buts. That is my condition. Do you agree?"
"Yes, dad."
"Good. You leave in a week. For now, let us carry on"
With that, their day of departure and escort was set and the rest of the family carried on with their duties like it was breeze in the wind. None brought it up as none felt the need to. Aside from the occasional grumbling and obvious distaste and glares thrown by some of the youths who felt more deserving of the opportunity. This though could not stop the journey ordained by the head of the family and as such they could only swallow their dissatisfactions.
Leaving the dining hall in all smiles were three girls ready to face all challenges and thwart their upcoming deaths. Three girls ready to open forth a new chapter of their lives and control their destiny whether with the fate wills it or not. The consequence. Does. Not. Matter.
Meanwhile, deep in the ruins. A boy with long parted white and black hair was hiding deep within the huge bushes of his environment stalking his prey, a 4 feet tall sabre toothed tiger.
Waiting a while for the prey to lower its guard, he pounces and grabs it. Through sheer luck, the sabre toothed tiger managed to avoid death narrowly by twisting its neck falling the boy on the ground. The tiger clearly not happy about being almost ambushed to death roared and leaped towards the falling boy. Seeing his foe approaching him, the boy rolled sideways on the floor and gazed smugly at the tiger.
Feeling infuriated, the tiger leaped towards the boy. Using the momentum of the tiger, the boy extended his nails and tore through the hide of the tiger leaving a deep scar that may potentially kill the tiger or hinder it from surviving the fight.
Realizing the fact that it will lose, the tiger attempted escape only to be caught midway by the tail and flung towards a tree. Its neck then quickly severed by human claw-like nails.
Looking down at his prey, the boy felt satisfaction at his strength. While the sabre toothed tiger was a low rank monster, it is capable of killing any average person his age. This boy is Asura albeit younger at the age of 13 and wearing a white shirt and trouser stolen from passersby and torn at several places
Carrying the corpse back to his [nest] (or invisible castle, in his case), he was interrupted by a warning from his gut feeling and an instinctual feel to look behind him
Turning to look behind him got him face to face with a bunch of people who had previously sought to ambush him. Seeing their plan has been compromised, they immediately attacked him.
Grinning toothily at them, he dropped the tiger and back flipped out of the encirclement. He then turned tail and began running. Following him were 3 men and 2 men in cloaks.
Through the dense foliage and trees they ran till dusk. Due to their fatigue, they lost sight of Asura. Deciding to call this a loss, they went home. Asura meanwhile, just smiled happily at them and then began to head home towards his invisible castle.
There, he saw the tiger corpse on the floor. Suddenly, a bat came out of nowhere, transformed into a girl and started to beat Asura up while Asura merely covered his face and attempt to pacify the girl. After a while of this back and forth, the girl was finally calm as she then dragged the tiger by the tail into the castle as Asura followed behind.
He had decided it to be best to forget the incident that just happened