Calamity Upon This World

"I want you to become my disciple"

An awkward silence followed Michael's declaration, which was finally broken by William as he asked.

"Do you have any reason for this?"

Taking a disciple is not a joking matter.

According to the culture of this world, it's usually frowned upon to take more than one direct disciple.

So why would Michael waste such an important choice on someone he's met today?

Not to mention, taking a disciple is usually done when one is old and is about to die in a few years to pass on their legacy to the next generation.

So with that in mind, why would Michael even consider passing on his techniques despite his young age?

People would literally kill just to learn a single technique or spell from someone of Michael's status, and yet here he was freely offering it to someone he just met.

No matter how he thought about it, the offer was too suspicious.

"Well, yes, actually, I do," Michael replied.

"I'm assuming you must have heard about Vox Harrions before, right?" he asked.

William had obviously heard about Vox before he was the only human Rex had ever acknowledged as stronger than himself.

In other words, he was the strongest human alive; many even considered him the strongest individual alive out of all the races.

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According to the general public, he had a Tier IV aspect that allowed him to manipulate vectors and mass.

Due to this, aside from one or two individuals, no one had even managed to hit him.

Oh, and he was also the element's favourite of the space element.

An element's favourite is, as the name suggests, the favourite person of an element, granting them more than the known maximum of 100% affinity for an element.

Of course, an overpowered title like this would have the slight downside of not allowing its user to gain an affinity for any other elements.

While that's slightly annoying, the perks more than make up for it, especially when it's an element as powerful as space.

But the thing that William really cared about was him being the principal of Starlight Academy, which was also the academy that William planned to study at when he was 16.

However, he didn't know much about Michael or that he was the brother of Vox, but thinking about it, since they both have the same last name, maybe it really is true.

Anyway, that still didn't explain what that had to do with wanting to make him his disciple.

"Yeah, I do," he replied.

"It makes sense after all; on the whole human continent, he's the most famous person alive" Michael said.

"But you see, ever since we were kids, he's always been better than me at everything, causing everyone to compare us."

"And I hated it; at first I wanted to beat him, but I've come to accept that it's simply impossible for me, sadly."

"However, even if I can't do it myself, as long as someone else defeats him, I'd be satisfied."

"And that's where you come in; you're young and also the most talented person I've ever seen. All you need is just a bit of guidance from me, and you'll be able to defeat my brother."

"As long as you fulfil my dream, I wouldn't mind passing on my teachings to you."

"So tell me, are you in?"

'Ah, so it's a case of inferiority complex' William thought.

It seems Michael had developed a complex throughout his childhood and made it his life goat to defeat his brother, to the point it pushed him to pass on his teachings to a complete stranger like himself as long as he agreed to beat his brother for him.

After thinking a bit about it, no matter how much he thought about it, the whole deal seemed stacked in his favour.

After all, he'll be getting the techniques and teachings of one of the strongest humans alive, almost on par with Rex, just to defeat an opponent he was going to defeat in the future anyway.

That's right Even without Michael's request, William was going to defeat Vox anyway; after all, it wasn't logical for a human to be stronger than a future god like him.

But, of course, Michael had no need to know any of this.

To sell the idea, he was having a tough time deciding, so he placed his hand on his chin, acting like he was thinking about it.

Michael got a bit nervous seeing Edge Lord contemplate.

He was expecting him to practically jump at the opportunity he presented to him.

But it seems the mention of his brother Vox was making him hesitant, which makes sense considering the reputation of his brother.

However, Michael had no plans of letting this opportunity slip, so he decided to hammer it while the iron was still hot.

"If you accept my offer, I'll pass on my sword style to you," he suggested, hoping to finally win him over.

Hearing his suggestion, William smiled as he replied.

'Well, I guess that solves the issue of not having an offensive sword style'

"Fine, you win, let's do this," his tone screamed of hesitation, which was the reaction that would be expected from a young man like himself being asked to defeat the strongest human alive in the future.

Well, at least that was how it was on the outside, but inside he was practically screaming of happiness at getting such heavenly rewards for doing something he was about to do in the future anyway.

Hearing his nervousness, Michael smiled as he replied.

"Don't worry, my experience and teachings, paired with your talent, would be more than enough to even defeat my monstrous brother"

He said that as he brought out a blue-coloured paper out of his spatial ring.

This was a mana contract that was used to sign contracts in this world.

"Read it and tell me if you have any problems with any of the terms," he suggested.

"Sure," William replied.

Reading the contract, just like he expected, it was completely stacked in his favour, with Michael needing to sponsor him as well as teach him his techniques.

And in exchange, all he needed to do was defeat Vox Harrions and claim the title of the strongest human in a time frame of under 10 years.

'That's more than enough time'

His smile under his mask only grew larger once he saw the consequences of failing to meet his end of the deal, which talked about the destruction of his mana core.

This would've been devastating for almost anyone who dared to break their end of the deal. After all, it's widely known that once a mana core is broken, it's almost impossible to rebuild it.

But just like everything else, exceptions always existed, and William was one such exception thanks to his multiple mana cores.

Even if he wanted to just leave after getting taught by Michael and his mana core got destroyed, it would barely matter as he would have like 10 other cores to replace one broken core.

But thankfully for Michael, he had no plans of betraying him like that, so after a bit more thorough reading, trying to find any clause or potential loophole he missed, he finally signed the contract.

Seeing him sign, Michael also signed the contract, finally seeing the light out of his long and dark tunnel that was his impossible dream of beating his brother.

But what Michael didn't know yet was that he had gotten completely scammed today.