Life Giver

A shirtless young man with bushy brown hair and a tall young woman with long hair patterned like a cheetah's fur, laid down near to each other. They both breathed heavily and their clothes were soaked with sweat.

As they looked at each other, they could see a fire in each others eyes. A fire that burned passionately as it tried to take hold of them and will them to continue their contest of strength.

This silent, yet intense contest suddenly ended when Zaya laughed out loud joyfully.

"Hahaha, that was great! I didn't think there would be anyone my age that could stir my fighting spirit like this..."

Casmir, still heavily breathing, nodded back saying "That was fun... I've never been.. pushed like that by someone before..."

Casmir felt as if he just practised the Life Body Cycle, his senses were heightened, his heart was beating a mile a minute and his body was now completely exhausted. This time however, he wasn't alone, nor was he using the Life Body Cycle and because of that he felt a strange sense of satisfaction and strength from being able to fight so freely under his own control.

He wanted to fight Zaya again.

"Ok, that was a good start Casmir. Lets go grab something to eat, we can practice more later." Zaya said as she stood up.

Zaya started stretching as she waited for Casmir to stand up, she let out a satisfying and pleasant sounding groan as she released the built up tension in her body.

Casmir couldn't help but glance at Zaya's elegant body as she stretched in her tightly fitting clothes. His eyes showed admiration and a ting of l.u.s.t as he looked at Zaya but his l.u.s.t faded away quickly as he remembered Elena and Rose, the thought of them was more than enough to satisfy him.

Pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind, Casmir stood up. He similarly stretched himself and g.r.o.a.n.e.d out load only to be berated by Zaya.

"Hurry up Casmir! I'm hungry and I don't want to spend my time watching you stretch." Zaya said after she glanced at Casmir.

Casmir could only put on an awkward smile as he put on his shirt that he had previously tossed aside, he didn't notice that Zaya's face grew slightly redder as she glanced at Casmir's half n.a.k.e.d body.

=========

A short while later, Casmir and Zaya had left the arena and made their way over to a small public square on campus.

There were many students here resting and purchasing foods from the nearby food stands. Zaya had recommended a particular food stand to Casmir, apparently it served the best fresh food in the university.

However when Casmir saw the food being served the corner of his mouth couldn't help but twitch, the food stand was incredibly basic only containing a large stove and a large wooden box that acted as both a work surface and storage crate.

Standing behind the box waiting for customers was a large man with a bulging stomach, he had a thick forest of hair on his face stretching down to his c.h.e.s.t making him look very rough and unclean.

What stuck out most however was the pair of short tusks that protruded from his mouth, clearly this rough man was from a beast race and likely related to Wild Boars or a similar creature.

Zaya was smiling in anticipation as she walked up to this man.

"Big Beard, 2 lamb legs! Give us some good ones." Zaya shouted out roughly, clearly they were familiar with each other.

Big beard simply nodded at Zaya, not wanting to speak much. He pulled a pair of large fresh lamb legs out of the box before piercing them with a few metal skewers and laying them on the grill.

Casmir couldn't believe how simply Big Beards cooking was but he didn't want to rudely stare at him so he turned to Zaya.

"Do you get food from here often Zaya?" He asked.

Zaya walked over to a short wall nearby and sat on it before speaking.

"Of course! This is the best food stand at the university, all the other food stands use fancy machines and 'special' recipe's but their food always tastes weird to me."

Zaya didn't use to care much about food but when she came to Ellaris, she realised that people in the city cooked food a lot differently. Everything here was in her mind over-cooked and precisely made, Zaya preferred simpler foods like roasted meats and fresh fruits and vegetable's.

However when she saw Casmir's surprised expression as he watched Big Beard, she realised she should explain herself.

"I'm from a traditional nomadic tribe, we don't have a lot of the stuff you do.." She said reluctantly as if she felt that Casmir might look down on her because of it.

"Oh wow, really? I've never met anyone like that before." Casmir said in genuine interest.

Nomadic tribes were fairly common place a hundred years ago when national borders were less maintained and ferocious beast Domains were more widespread and unrestricted. This caused weaker permanent establishments to often become the targets of ferocious beasts, in such chaotic times movement meant life for ordinary people.

However with the development of civilisation and Qi technology, nomadic groups became increasingly out of place and only some of the strongest and oldest groups continued their traditions.

Seeing Casmir's interest, Zaya called him over to explain further.

"My tribe has decided it's time to stop, they want to settle down in Ellaris but it's been difficult.. It's not easy to completely change how you live. I mean just paying bills is strange to us, we use to hunt for our food, drink from free rivers and choose our own land to live on... but now..."

Zaya looked quite serious as she spoke, you could see her eyes slightly flickering with worry.

Casmir didn't realise it was so tough for nomadic tribes, in the end he was simply to inexperienced.

Nevertheless he still tried to support Zaya.

"Hey, if you need anything I could help. I might not be very good at fighting yet but I know my way around the city." Casmir said.

Zaya simply smiled back at Casmir.

"Hey, don't look down on me, my tribe's not going to have to listen to a kid. How could our Red Plains tribe face our ancestors if we couldn't even make a living for ourselves in the city?" She said proudly.

Although Zaya appeared to be worried, she was mostly just home sick, she wasn't use to life in the city yet as she had only been her for a few weeks.

Casmir smiled after hearing Zaya, he was quite interested in how she use to live as a nomad, after all Casmir had rarely even left the city.

"Hey, tell me about your tribe Zaya, what's it like out there in the wilderness?"

Zaya was happy to talk to Casmir about her past, they soon received their food and took a long lunch break to relax and get to know each other.

While they talked they didn't notice that the cook, Big Beard, occasionally looked over at them. He paid special attention to Zaya, seemingly looking out for her, however when he looked at Casmir his eyes showed cautious interest.

=======

Meanwhile in an isolated alley not far from Heldan Academy, a certain young man was foolishly trying to organise Casmir and Zaya's downfall.

"What do you mean you want double?!" The handsome young man shouted as he lightly rubbed his jaw as if in pain.

However the young man did not rub his jaw because of pain, he did so because of an unpleasant memory that was surfacing in his mind.

Across from him was a short person wrapped in a thick cloak in an obvious attempt to disguise their figure, he was much too short to be human but there was no way to discern any other characteristic of theirs in this dark alley.

"Don't mess with me, we both know what your asking for and how much money you could actually spare for this endeavour. Hehe I'm only asking for some of your spare change.." The short cloaked figure said in an unpleasant high pitched.

The young man didn't know how to reply to the cloaked figure, he hadn't bothered to disguise himself or worry about the short figure finding out his identity because he was confident in the power of his family. However when he thought about it for more than a few seconds, he realised he had perhaps made a mistake in outright exposing himself.

After a few moments of contemplation the young man reluctantly gave in to the short figures demands.

"Fine.. but you better get the job done! I don't want that arrogant piece of crap walking around my university after Friday. I was lucky enough to get this opportunity in the first place, don't let it slip away." The young man said coldly.

The short cloaked figure was surprised that they had achieved their goal so easily, they lightly chuckled to themselves before speaking.

"Hehe, don't worry. I'll use my good stuff on the beast, even a Grade 2 cultivator might get trampled under its feet let alone a kid like him."

The cloaked figure turned away quietly and began to walk away, clearly uninterested in talking to this young man any further.

The young man frowned as he watched the figure walk away, secretly cursing them for trying to play him.

Soon enough he too began to walk away, however he made his way directly towards Heldan academy and after leaving the alleyway his face was it up by the sunlight and exposed for all to see.

If only Casmir were here to see this young man, he would easily recognise him as the 'sc.u.mbag' young master of the Feniss Farming Initiative, Arthur Feniss...