One Last System

The atmosphere at Oloan's mansion was different than usual. In a sense, it held a striking similarity with how Arthur's day looked like. The main difference was, Jenne's activities actually influenced both the work and the mood of everyone else in that place.

Contrary ta the simple training pillar slapped in the garden that Arthur had, Jenne trained indoors. He sat down in the middle of a massive array that encompassed the entire training room.

Jenne's legs were crossed as he meditated and breathed the air in and out, allowing the spiritual energy to sink into his flesh.

Training by actually hitting the training pillars was a method that only the poorest of the cultivators would use. Once one would reach the wealth, allowing them to invest in spirit stones, training formations like that were a given.

That is, as long as one managed to reach the qi condensation stage!

'Now,' Jenne thought, slowly but steadily opening his eyes. His entire body followed this motion, moving up in a graceful manner.

He looked ahead at the single pillar erected in the room.

Those who could afford the spirit stones could ditch the idea of using the training pillar to grow their strength. But the cultivator's worth ultimately boiled down to how strong he could hit. That's why, despite having all the stones he could ever need, Jenne took a position against the stone before proceeding to smash his fist into the pillar.

There was no finesse behind his moves, but they weren't crude either. They were an effect of a long period of training, a perfectly repeated form.

The blood started to run quicker in Jenne's veins as his forehead started to ooze sweat.

'Nothing beats a few rounds of exercise after cultivation,' Jenne thought, a satisfied smile growing up on his lips.

Not only moving around allowed for the newly absorbed energy to spread through his flesh more effectively. It also allowed him to kill the feeling of staleness, something that was given after spending hours in the exact same position.

"What's wrong?" Jenne suddenly asked. He didn't move his head around, nor did he prickle his ears. He simply continued to smash the stones in a perfectly rhythmic manner, paying no mind to the drops of blood that started to appear on his fingers.

What kind of exercise it would be without pushing his body to its limits?

"Young master... I have to say, I'm positively surprised," the butler said, emerging from the shadow of the room.

"That doesn't answer my question," Jenne scoffed, grabbing a towel that the butler passed to him and wiping his forehead clean from the sweat.

"Young master, I'm not really sure how to put it in words..." the butler hesitated before shaking his head and raising his eyes. "It seems that all the restraints that silently blocked our moves... loosened up."

Groundbreaking information. The main reason why Jenne didn't do anything about Arthur and Mia over the last week was because of Vaner putting pressure on them. Even though nothing was said openly, the second Jenne would do something unsavory, he would likely lose the sect's position in this remote place!

And for how little Jenne cared about someplace as primitive as the Skyladder sect, he didn't dare to uproot his sect's position in this place. It was primitive, that part no one argued about, but it still provided quite a lot of promising disciples over the years!

"Do I look like I care about it?" Jenne asked, his face taking an irritated look.

There was no sign of the scheming lord that used to plot all sorts of mischiefs against Arthur. After the short period of focusing on the training, his personality changed by a whole lot, as if reaching the second stage of cultivation enlightened him.

But the reality was even more surprising than what one could guess from just observing Jenne's reactions. He actually had a mental disease that made his character... extremely fickle.

A few days of scheming to get something done behind the scenes? That was all Jenne needed to turn into a master schemer with absolutely no moral spine.

A week's worth of diligent training so that he wouldn't fall behind the expectations placed on him? That time alone was enough to turn him into a hardworking and honest person who scorned at all sorts of misplay and hiding daggers in the shadows.

The source of his disorder wasn't known, but his sect never really cared about the origin of his disease. They cared about how effective of an asset this mental disorder made Jenne be.

"Right now, we no longer need anyone's help to make trouble for that guy. To be honest, give me the order, and I will bully him into giving you the girl right away!" the butler offered, unaware of the changes to Jenne's mental state.

In the end, his special condition was a secret that only a few people, even in the sect's main quarters, knew.

"Just leave him alone," Jenne waved his hand as he threw the towel on his back. "If he really is weak, then there is no point wasting our time on him. And if he hides his strength, then we will come to clash in a straightforward bout," Jenne pointed out, proving that even his current, musclebrain character didn't deprive him of his innate intellect.

"Young master..." Butler uttered in a shock, barely able to come up with the air to muse those two words.

"Anything else?" Jenne turned around right as he reached the doors of the training room. "Or did you come here just to report on that situation?"

"Young master, I came to report because I feel like..." the butler hesitated. "It stinks. It leaves an incredibly bad taste in my mouth," he said, an ugly grimace appearing on this middle-aged man's face. "That's why I wanted to at least make sure that young master won't involve himself in this matter personally..." the butler mumbled, the change of Jenne's character making it hard for him to adapt.

He simply didn't know how to act around this new version of the Oloan kid!

"I don't need to do anything," Jenne scoffed, rolling his eyes. "My friends from the middling sects, on the other hand," he cast a meaningful glance over his shoulder, "they might be interested in how the situation changed," Jenne added before smiling lightly and moving out of the room.

For a single more moment, the butler just stood in place, unable to understand just where did that sudden change come from.

Since the matter smells like a trap, let the others take care of it. Instead of risking our own position, push others to risk theirs.

In a sense, this was exactly the thing that the young master the butler knew would do. Yet, it just didn't sit well with the overall change that the middle-aged man had no choice but to notice.

It was this dissonance between the new Jenne and the Jenne of the old that made it extremely hard for his butler to understand the situation. To find his place in this new situation.

The butler shook his head.

'Whatever the situation is, there is one thing that there is no doubt about,' he thought, looking in the direction of the doors that Jenne just used.

"Young master... You have grown."