Rise Of The Dragon Emperor

Although Oogway could impart much more profound knowledge to Ronan, considering the child's low level, he chose not to delve into sage level theories. As for the rest of the lecture, he only further explained the basics of elements he had already explained in brief. Subsequently, Ronan gained unprecedented insights from this exchange as his fundamentals about elements became rock solid.

As the hours passed by, Ronan's chaotic golden thunder was also suppressed by the rich life essence of Oogway as he placed a life filter around Ronan's dantian, which would counter the destructive golden thunder formed by it to make it just normal thunder before it was absorbed in Ronan's blood stream.

If nothing untoward happened, Ronan should be able to practice lightning for 7-10 years like a normal lightning user without any problems. However, if his emotional state was aggravated to the extreme, it would cause the seal placed by Oogway to crumble before time. If it happened, it would unleash an uncontrollable burst of golden thunder capable of destroying everything that came in contact.

Hence, to prolong the lifeline of the seal and suppress the destructive nature of the golden thunder, Oogway decided on giving Ronan a high-difficulty spell that required a combination of both thunder and fire.

Training fire alongside thunder would reduce the load on the seal placed by Oogway, and hence prolong the lifeline of the seal. Thus, before parting, Oogway gave Ronan the A-ranked technique 'Flaming Lightning wheel'.

This was a move whose difficulty was only one step less than the grand move used by Alexander to destroy the fire god's temple.

The move involved creating a wheel of fire with the inner and outer rings made of flames, along with thunder acting as spokes of this wheel, rotating at nearly 3000 rotations per second.

The move, when used in its full glory, could even cut mountains in half with a single slice, and its value could not even be estimated in monetary terms.

Even a prosperous country like Avalon only had a very low collection of A-ranked spells, with none of them being of the thunder element.

Yet the spell that Oogway gave was not only of a superior element, but a high-ranked spell of a dual element! Its worth could easily be equal to 10 normal A-ranked spells.

Should Ronan wish to sell it, he could buy a whole small-sized country with that wealth. The price tag on the skill was that astronomical.

However, it was basically a dead end for Ronan, as according to Oogway's logic, no matter how high his natural talent was, no 7-8 year old could ever learn something so profound. It was simply too difficult. Even the most talented ones would need a decade of practice to learn it.

This was his last-ditch effort to save Ronan from his own fate for as long as possible. Training in this one technique for a long time would not halt the boy's progress like learning a pure fire technique could. Furthermore, it would also not put a load on the seal the way if Ronan had instead practiced only thunder-based techniques.

Although Ronan would not progress as fast in the path of levelling as with only practicing thunder, he would at least live a few more months without his secret coming out, at the minimum.

Hence, while Ronan was elated beyond words, the same expression of joy could not be seen on Chanakya's face. He knew that with this new A-ranked technique given by Oogway, Ronan would not practice anything else, slowing down his progress.

Even though it was not as bad as with Ronan practicing pure fire techniques, the A-ranked spell was still something that needed several years' worth of effort to learn, without any short-term gains to be had.

It was also the reason why only after schooling was completed did the school issue B-ranked techniques to alumni or top performers, as it was the perfect time to start practicing such techniques that needed a long time to perfect.

Chanakya wanted Ronan to develop as fast as possible during his school years, but if Ronan should start on the path of learning the Flaming Lightning Wheel, it would become a project that could not be completed even after his schooling was over. Hence, as his mentor, Chanakya, on their way back to the campus, said, "Ronan, that technique will need consistent training and years' worth of effort to master. Although it is incredibly powerful, with your level 28 strength, even if you master it, you will only be able to bring out a fraction of the spell's true power.

"For now, it is better to keep that spell away for future use as you should focus on improving on the path of the thunder element…"

As Chanakaya spoke, he saw Ronan furrow his eyebrows, remaining silent throughout. Hence, he stopped speaking for a moment and said, "Are you listening to me, student?"

Ronan was silent for a moment before he slowly said, "But 3 months is all I will need…"

Shock was evident all over on Chanakya's face as he looked twice towards Ronan, as if to confirm if his ears were not playing tricks on his mind.

"Did you say you can master an A-ranked spell in 3 months?" Chanakya asked Ronan, his voice raised high, anger seeping through his tone.

As Ronan meekly nodded in response to the question, a vein popped on Chanakya's forehead.

"Ridiculous. Kids these days don't understand how high Mount Tai really is, thinking they can master A-ranked spells as if they were F-ranked ones.

3 months? Ridiculous! I will spell my name backwards if you can learn it in 3 months..."

For a minute there, Chanakaya lost grip on his emotions as he babbled on and on about Ronan's claim. However, after regaining some control, he said "Alright. You said it, boy. If you cannot master the move in 3 months' time, you will never try to learn it for the remainder of the schooling period. Is that a deal?"

Chanakya voice was cold. Ronan had no choice but to agree.

3 months. It was exactly the countdown left for the winter games and the challenge against Percy.

Ronan was on the clock now, as he needed to go full-gear till the next coming tournament!

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(Meanwhile in Avalon)

Terrorist attacks continued all over the country as more and more clans reported casualties and civilian activity disruption due to the organisation the people started naming, "The Black Mask", after the black masks that every terrorist wore.

Everything started to change once merchant cargo caravans started to be raided on the inter-city roads as the internal security of the kingdom was compromised.

Food and grain transports were delayed, causing inflation in price as an atmosphere of panic was starting to spread amongst the commoners.

Merchants were afraid to travel with expensive cargo, bringing trade between cities to a crashing halt over fears of terrorist raids.

Leif was unable to provide security to every single traveller, as even though the military patrolled the roads thrice a day, merchants were still being looted on the same roads.

Petty crimes started to rise and bandit groups began to appear as the internal law and order of Avalon started to go in a cycle of downward spiral.

The situation had became more critical now. Alexander was demanding answers that Leif did not have at the moment. However, that was about to change as a messenger carrying important Intel that disclosed the involvement of the Seven Seas organization and the Phoenix clan members was riding at full speed towards the palace!