To Live Again, For the First Time!

Warning alarms sounded off in the heads of the animals of the zoo.

They all jumped up from their seats in apprehension with their eyes wide open.

Well, Sloth sat with his eyes wide open, but the effect was similar enough.

They exchanged glances with each other when they heard Emilin's offer coming from that mechanical-sounding voice and shifted their gaze to the computer their teacher was in front of in unplanned unison.

They had just communicated with each other with their eyes and successfully transmitted their message, a skill only accessible at moments of real crisis.

THIS WAS A MOMENT OF REAL CRISIS!!!

'We have to stop him at all costs!'

That was the message they had all understood.

The Captain, Bear, Falcon, Sloth, and Serpent had all assumed that their teacher may have forgotten who TWO was seeing as he was in seclusion for the majority of the time in which they were looking for the man.

Their teacher had only heard TWO's name once or twice, and that was over half a year ago.

This was because when the boss talked about him, he would always concentrate on M rather than TWO.

All the disciple's assumption was indeed correct.

Though Master Giovanni found the name somewhat familiar, he brushed that feeling off as he was contemplating how to approach the current matter at hand.

He didn't have the time to think of unrelated matters or at least things that seemed to be of less importance.

Then another text accompanied by its audio popped up.

[If you are currently considering it, click the 'y' key on your computer, and if you are still undetermined, please key in the 'u' on your keyboard. We can call to have a more in-depth understanding and to facilitate this negotiation.]

Master Giovanni's eyebrow rose ever so slightly.

At first, these instructions may seem quite simple, but if you dug a little deeper, you would see how complicated and trap-filled this one sentence was.

First of all, such simple requests, though simple to accomplish, determined who here had the initiative and the upper hand in this negotiation.

Though previously, Giovanni had said, in his mind, how because the other side brought it up first, he had gained a small chip in the negotiations, it was also a fact that the cub he wanted to poach would be in demand nearly everywhere.

TWO's talent could not be denied.

Master Giovanni's small advantage was only relative to his starting point, which was already a little weak due to his disciple's failure to beat the other party soundly even with a numerical advantage.

Another thing that stopped Master Giovanni from gaining the upper hand was clearly this expert better than himself who was backing TWO.

There were just too many pros in taking TWO in as a disciple.

He could take in a good seedling who would owe him and carry on his name as well as make good relations with an expert better than himself. Something that could help him with his advancements in the future.

Meanwhile, though the weight of his own name was by no means small, Master Giovanni didn't know the clear reasons why the other party wanted to have him teach the cub from their family.

He didn't know how replaceable he was in the other's eyes.

Though the other party did seem quite keen on getting him to agree...

This could be seen from the other small psychological hints, which weren't necessarily well hidden. Nor were they really meant to be.

Some people may just think that the two keys were simply chosen at random, perhaps because they were close to each other, or for some other insignificant reason, but if you thought for even a bit longer on the matter, one could see where the psychological hint lied.

If he was considering it properly, then he would type in the 'y' key, a letter in this case, that generally correlated with the word 'yes', signifying his agreement, meanwhile, the letter for undetermined was naturally 'u', making the previous suggestion feel more natural.

Not only that, the other party directly eliminated the option of rejection, only giving him the two options of agreeing now or thinking about it a little more, and then agreeing later.

'I don't believe that after so thoroughly hacking my computer and system they still can't hear and see what I do and say!' Giovanni shouted this observation in his mind as if he were proud of his realization, even though there was certainly nothing to be proud of when it came to the content of that sentence.

But he didn't realize any of that in the heat of the moment, his face only sinking after the whole ordeal was over when he was thinking back to the whole matter from the view of a clear-headed person, someone he couldn't be at the moment.

Master Giovanni didn't fail to notice how the other party was showing their superiority using such a method of conversation through text, showing how his own skills were subpar.

He could only sit there and listen while the other party spoke to him.

He didn't even have a way to contact the other side, that was how hopeless he was, and that's exactly how hopeless the expert made him feel.

What Master Giovanni didn't know was that this was also Emilin and Theodore's way of stalling while they were talking among themselves.

***

Theodore didn't know how to feel at the moment.

Well, first of all, he felt like this was a great opportunity, he wouldn't exactly lose out, but at the same time, after having defeated what Emilin told him to be the other person's disciples, he almost felt like he was being taken advantage of, but that wasn't the main point.

With Emilin's care for him, he was more worried that with his connection to Master Giovanni, she could be taken advantage of.

Accepting a disciple and in the same fashion, accepting a teacher was a great deal in this world.

Of course, it may not seem like it from how easily it had been brought up until this point, there were some things that were planted so deep into the society that they simply couldn't be ignored or taken lightly.

Teachers who had accepted disciples were meant to teach unreservedly while disciples were never to betray their learnings as well as their mentors.

This was a silently accepted law, inlaid in the foundations of society.

Once discover that you had done something as unsightly as stabbing the back of your teacher, you were pretty much ruined.

Society would not accept such people.

It was almost in the same way how society naturally frowned upon the idea of incest, something that was hardly ever questioned and once mentioned, naturally soured the faces of everyone who heard of the matter, whether it had anything to do with them or not.

The main point was that this 'law' was not really questioned, it was something simply accepted as a fact.

On the other hand, if the teacher were to have framed their student of betrayal, the mentor would similarly be shunned and pushed out of their circle, even if they were a Master.

It would be taken the same way as the murder of one's own child.

The teacher would be quite literally killing all future prospects of their disciple.

If there is a saying that a teacher for a day was equivalent to a father for a lifetime, then such framing would also naturally not be taken lightly.

This would all be taken care of by the Master Association, the only ones who could approve and officialize a master-disciple relationship.

They were also the ones who would officially give one the title of a Master, naturally, secrecy was guaranteed.

Their roles in the upper society were numerous and thus their importance was equally huge.

And as a matter of course, their leaders were Advanced Masters or sometimes even Grandmasters of every profession and specialization that came with it, each with their own weight in the Association.

We can delve deeper when this Association becomes more relevant.

The more pressing matter here was in fact Theodore's decision.

His main hesitance laid in whether he was bringing too much trouble to his own little sister. Someone whom he had promised to protect at a young age.

Theo was feeling incredibly conflicted when their roles had been swapped time and time again.

Of course, he also came to realize that if he took this opportunity to become stronger and more dependable, he would be able to help more in the future or at least become less of a burden.

Theo just didn't know if it was worth the exchange of a promise of mentorship for life. The connection would forever be there, and if his mentor ever came to face trouble, chances were, he would have to ask Emi for help once again.

This was completely different from when he took Master Sungcha as his teacher.

He had his school's guarantee, and even if Master Sungcha came to face trouble, his own disciples would never be in the front line when he was facing them.

All he had to worry about there was learning all he could and enjoying school life.

As for Master Giovanni, he had many other involvements. 

Theodore's eyebrows furrowed once again.

It was then that a voice sounded in Theo's ears, as clear as a wind chime, clearing all the chaotic doubts in his mind as if already knowing all the troubles in his heart.

"Big Brother Theo, you don't have to worry so much. I already have a certain degree of involvement with Margo, your connection with her uncle won't change much."

In front of her big brother, Emilin no longer called her Sister Margo for fear of making a big deal out of nothing major.

"There will always be burdens that come with opportunities."

That was a fact that Emilin knew all too well.

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