Is that a Wisp?

Krune kept up his daily routine of cultivation and pill cultivation. Though sometimes, he would leave for a mission with Ao and Yusa. Thanks to that, their position in the mercenary team rank had finally entered the top 1000. Still, neither of them cared about it. As long as they had the points to exchange for the necessary items in the Mercenary Guild, that was enough.

After spending a few months, together with his new Spiritual Energy Meridian, Krune was finally able to break through into the 4th Stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm. At the same time, both Ao and Yusa reached the 5th Stage. Of course, Krune helped them by concocting the pills they needed. Not to mention him teaching how to control their elements better, which was the main reason behind their improvement.

They were in the mission hall of the Mercenary Guild scrolling through the list of missions when suddenly, Lu Ganan called them. "You three, please come to my office. The Mercenary Guild has a special request for you."

They had confused expressions on their faces, but since it was a direct request from the supervisor, they went there to take a look anyway.

---

One week earlier, Yule Continent's Mercenary Guild headquarters.

A meeting was happening in the main hall, and only those with the status of elders or those who had important positions in the headquarters' management could participate. The head of the guild in Yule Continent, Bary Kasfiu, was also there, waiting for everyone to arrive.

When they gathered together, the meeting finally started. Naturally, as the head, Bary Kasfiu came forward to give the news. "The Furiu Realm is opening again! We just received the message from our scouts. We believe that it will be completely open in ten days if quick, two weeks if slow."

The people in the room were surprised! The Furiu Realm was a place built by a supreme expert long before technology was developed. Cultivators had a long story, but technology only appeared around three thousand years ago. With that, one could already imagine how old the place was. The only thing that the big powers of Yule Continent knew was that no one in their Makui Planet could possibly have built such a place since they were way too weak for that.

The Furiu Realm opened randomly, and no one knew the reason behind it. Also, the place was given this name because of its location. It was located at the Furiu Danger Zone.

The ninth elder couldn't help but comment, "As expected of the randomly opening realm, its opening time really follows no pattern. Before this, it had opened a hundred years prior, and even before that, it was two hundred and seventy years. To think that it would take over five hundred years to open again since the last time."

Bary nodded as he responded, "Exactly! We need to grab this chance to temper our members. As all of you know, only those at the Foundation Establishment Realm and below can enter. If we're lucky, we might give birth to a few members capable enough to participate in the martial gathering. But don't forget, we aren't the only ones who know about that. We have indeed closed all entrances to prevent the other continent's members from entering. Though that was because we joined hands with every clan and sect in our own continent, so they will also be sending their own members."

One of the supervisors then asked, "How many slots are available for each organization?"

Bary answered straight away, "Each organization has access to 20 slots. We are expecting to have over 500 participants this time, which means that we can send at most four teams of five people each. The reason for this meeting is to decide who we're sending this time."

Everyone started discussing, and soon, the room got fired up! There was quite a good amount of promising teams in the guild at the moment. Although neither was at the martial gathering's level, they might have a breakthrough and reach it if they used this chance well.

Someone then said, "The Carnage team is a must, then. They were at the top of the rank last time and are still at the top since the last reset.

No one showed discordance with him, so they kept discussing. "I also think the Thunder Lion team is a good choice. They're not in the top 10 teams, but they definitely have one of the greatest potentials between all teams available."

Some were against it, others not so much. In the end, the Thunder Lion team was also selected. After some more discussion, another two teams were selected, the Enlightenment team and the Flood Dragon team.

By now, there were only four slots available. Although Bary said that they could send four teams of five members, it's not like every team had this number. There were some with more and others with less after all.

When they were about to discuss which would be the last team to send, the supervisor of the review applications, Kassius Ruli, raised his hand and said, "I didn't say anything during the selection of the previous teams, but I want three of the last four slots to be given to the Rainbow team."

The room immediately became silent after that. Rainbow team? What's that? No one had ever heard about this team before! Kassius then looked at Bary, who nodded in response. Kassius had already informed Bary about Krune and the others before the meeting. Bary could barely believe that their Yule Continent had given birth to such a talent, and he wished that Kassius had told him about Krune sooner.

Nevertheless, he could understand Kassius's thoughts, so he let it pass. He and Kassius had been friends for a long time, after all. As the head of the headquarters, Bary had too many things to deal with every day. Kassius, as his friend, had never given him any extra work that he considered unnecessary. So, Bary couldn't get angry at him no matter how much he wanted to.

Bary looked at everyone and then said, "The Rainbow team is not very well known. However, I'm sure you guys heard that the Mercenary Guild had given an exception to promote a new mercenary directly to Four Stars, right?"

Everyone nodded in response. The news had been spread everywhere, after all.

One of the elders then commented, "But if I'm not wrong, it hasn't been even half a year since he became a member of the guild. Also, when he joined, he was just at the 1st Stage of Foundation Establishment."

Bary nodded before saying, "Exactly! His name is Krune, and he's one of the five cultivators of the young generation of our Yule Continent to make a universe foundation. But that's not everything. He's also the leader of the Rainbow Team."

This time, it was one of the supervisors that couldn't hold himself back, saying, "But he was at the 1st Stage just a few months ago, and the martial gathering is happening in a year and a half from now. I agree that he's a great talent worth being nurtured by our guild. Still, there isn't enough time for him to catch up since the martial gathering barely has anyone at the 8th Stage of Foundation Establishment and below. The majority are all at the 9th Stage. Usually, even at the peak of that stage. Simply put, there isn't enough time for his cultivation to get there."

Everyone nodded in agreement. Maybe in the gathering ten years after the next one, it will be Krune's moment to shine! But now wasn't the right time. They should send a team that had a real chance to fight for the five slots of the Mercenary Guild's worldwide selection.

Bary then looked at everyone and said, "What if I tell you that in these few months, he went from the 1st Stage all the way to the 4th? Not only that, both his team members had their cultivations increase by two stages! Ao Sulian and Yusa Shen joined him when they were only at the 3rd Stage of Foundation Establishment, but they're at the 5th Stage now."

"Also, we checked Ao and Yusa's past. Ao had barely passed the test when acquiring his One Star Mercenary badge. In Yusa's case, she participated in the same exam as Krune and got a Two Star badge. Simply put, they were pretty common cultivators back then. However, not only had their cultivation improved by two stages since then, but both of them also reapplied for the mercenary test and are now Three Star Mercenaries! I might as well tell you that they got those Three Star badges quite easily."

This time, everyone was shocked! Yusa and Ao's improvement had been way too fast! Still, it was also a reason for concern.

"But if they improved their realm this quickly, their foundations should be totally unstable. It might look great right now, but it will leave horrible side effects in the future."

Naturally, Kassius heard that, and a smile appeared on his face as he said, "I ask everyone to take a look at the monitor behind Guild Head Bary. Also, please understand that what you'll see has been recorded in the past week."

Kassius then pressed a button on his communicator, which made the monitor show three graphs. Those graphs had names beside them, Krune, Ao, and Yusa.

This time, quite a few got up from their chairs.

"Impossible!"

"There's no way you can keep such a stable foundation after jumping so many realms in such a short amount of time!"

Bary then struck the iron while it was hot, saying, "Whatever you say, this is undeniably the truth. I had the Kaley City supervisor, Lu Ganan, check it three times. Their foundations are as shown in the graphs, and we believe that the reason for Yusa and Ao's improvement to be Krune himself. During the time that we were keeping a look at them, we noticed that both Yusa and Ao kept receiving pointers from Krune from time to time. Of course, the majority of the time Krune was teaching them, we had no way to see it. But it's pretty much confirmed that Krune is the reason behind his own and his team members' amazing improvement."

One of the elders then said, "In that case, why don't we call Krune over and have him pass his teachings to the high-level members of our guild? It would be several times more effective than passing such knowledge to people like Yusa and Ao."

Kassius shook his head as he replied, "Not gonna work, every cultivator in the world, us included, have their own secrets. To do that is to pry into Krune's secret, and from what we found, Krune puts a lot more importance into relationships. As for being the number one in the world? Screw that! If we force the issue, he might as well just leave the Mercenary Guild and join some other power. If that happened, we would only have tears left to cry."

Bary then said, "That's why I think we should send his team as well. Have you forgotten? He and his team members are all at the Three and Four Star Mercenary level now, and they got to the 4th and 5th Stages of Foundation Establishment in less than half a year! If Krune and his group keep up the pace, they might just be able to take part in the Mercenary Guild's qualifiers for the martial gathering."

The supervisor of resources intervened after hearing that. "But to send them inside the Furiu Realm with their actual strength is too risky! Do you remember the rules? As long as it's inside the danger zones, no one will care if someone is killed. If he dies there, then we will really lose a critical future member."

Kassius and Bary then smiled as Bary replied, "There are two reasons why we should send them this time. First, with Krune's cultivation speed, he probably will be at the Core Formation Realm by the time the next Martial Gathering after this one starts. Because of that, he wouldn't be able to participate anymore. Second, as for the danger problem, we have a solution. We are going to use the last slot to send Shinja Avril with them to protect Krune's life at all costs."

The fourth elder was surprised to hear that. "Did she agree with that? Shinja Avril had never joined a team before, and she had always been alone as far as I know. As another special Four Star Mercenary at the Foundation Establishment Realm, we tried to make her join or create a team of her own before, but she always refused. She also has a universe foundation, so it's really a pity that she never joined the ranks."

In response, Bary replied, "There's no need to worry about that. I have reached an agreement with Shinja, and we have signed a blood contract already. Unless she's in a life or death situation, she will protect Krune's life." After hearing that, no one said anything anymore.

Shinja Avril was a female human with a Pure Yin Body! She came from an ordinary family but got where she was with her own power and effort. As for her universe foundation, it was as Krune had commented in the past. Even when one chose the same foundation as someone else, they were bound to be different since there was no identical foundation in this universe.

Because she had a Pure Yin Body, she was very beautiful, but at the same time, she had a cold personality. Due to her constitution, her hair was blue like the ocean, and as said before, she had never joined or created a ranked team. She was also considered one of the strongest Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators in Yule Continent, and Guild Head Bary had to pay a wealthy price to convince her. Another reason as to why she accepted this job was because she wanted to meet this demon beast in human form that also had a universe foundation like hers.

And with that, the twenty slots were shared, and the meeting was over.

---

Back at Kaley City's Mercenary Guild, Lu Ganan was explaining to them everything that was decided about the Furiu Realm. Unfortunately for him, he didn't get the answer he was expecting.

Yusa, Ao, and Krune looked at each other and smiled. After that, they looked back a Lu Ganan and said, "We refuse. Goodbye!"

And then, just like that, they eventually left.