The Almighty Ring

Alderaanians were able to extend their psychic powers to influence other life forms with weaker mental strength. That has always been their talent besides roasting meat on fire. With combined strength, Waxus and Mingsk were able to control a small school of Devils of the Lake with their minds. Although their combined mental capacity was not enough to control the Devils in the lake, it was better than nothing.

“Caylan, you drag Waxus while I drag Mingsk! We need to pull them or they’re sitting ducks!” Bacca roared. While using their mind control ability, the two Alderaanians could not move. Someone else needed to aid them in moving.

“Roger that!” Caylan acknowledged. He could not just leave the two brothers alone, or else when they stopped working their powers, the Devils of the Lake would hunt them!

Just when the group of swimmers were frantically swimming for their lives, a swift figure suddenly appeared, far behind the school of Devils. Jiang Fei, like a drifting log, was completely ignored by all of the fishes. He was basically swimming like an Olympic swimmer, unbothered by the fishes. All of them either swum over him or below him, completely ignoring his existence.

“The f*ck? How is that possible?!” Bacca gasped at the sight of Jiang Fei safe from the Devils. Everyone saw it and could not understand the situation. In that instant, they forgot about the chase and were surrounded by the fishes again.

“Jiang Fei! What did you do to be ignored by the fish?” Bacca pleaded.

“Ehrm… I did nothing. I swam from the side of the lake and all of them were focused on chasing you instead of me!” said Jiang Fei awkwardly.

“Help us! Please! I’ll make sure to return the favor in the future!” Caylan pleaded. He knew that Jiang Fei was hiding something. Be it as it may, he had to rely on Jiang Fei to survive this peril. Forget the main objective, the current objective was to survive!

“Fine…” Jiang Fei snorted after giving it some thought. He decided to help Caylan and the party since he knew about Caylan’s true identity from Bacca’s group. Knowing that he was the son of a high-ranking officer under Commander Alexis, he decided to lend a hand to build himself rapport with the top brass.

It was only natural to build a good reputation with the powerful. He had been through a storm of fire and ice and knew what must be done in order to be truly safe in the wild.

With a flicker of his thought, Jiang Fei changed the attributes of his mental powers. The invisible barrier was removed and he synced his mental power with those of the Devils of the Lake.

In that instant, all of them started to turn around, swimming toward Jiang Fei quickly. Those that were biting the others, let go and joined the rest of the school. Instead of attacking, the fishes started to swim in a spiral formation, surrounding Jiang Fei like it was some sort of dancing ritual.

“What is happening now?”

“No idea. Let’s just swim away! To the island!”

…

The rest of the group quickly abandoned Jiang Fei while he was being swarmed by the fish.

Syncing his mental powers to make himself appear as one of the Devil of the Lake was 0541’s suggestion. 0541 had explained that since the Devils were blinded in every way, they had to rely on pure psychic energy to “see”. So, when Jiang Fei synced his own psychic powers with theirs, the Devils then treated him as one of their own. However, with his massive psychic power unleashed, the Devils had assumed that he was the King of the Devils!

Currently, when they were swimming around Jiang Fei in circles, forming a sphere, they were performing a ritual, a ritual to signify the birth of the King of the Lake!

From afar, Bacca and the others had already set foot on the island. Jiang Fei could still be seen as he was floating with his lower half still dangling in the waters.

Suddenly, a bright flash of light came from the heavens, enveloping Jiang Fei entirely.

“What’s happening now? Am I being teleported?” said Jiang Fei to himself. The pillar of golden light surrounding him was not at all harmful but felt warm and calming.

“Captain, you’ve won the prize!” said 0541, excited.

“Did I now?” Jiang Fei smirked.

Whoosh!

The light around Jiang Fei condensed onto his face and was slowly concentrated on the center of his forehead. A burning sensation was felt and he could not help but groan a little as the pain was unlike anything he had felt before. However, after a second, the pain subsided and a mark appeared on his forehead.

The mark was very faint and if one were to observe carefully, one could see three tiny lines, like the scar of an attack by a tiny claw.

“Congratulations, you have been awarded with the Mark of the Tribe,” said 0541.

“Mark of the what now?” Jiang Fei asked, stammered.

“Mark of the Tribe. It is a tribal mark given to the ruler of the low-level life form,” 0541 explained after looking through the databank of the scope, a piece of information that no one really knew.

“Well then, what can I do with it?” Jiang Fei asked, excited.

“The mark represents the undying fealty of the entire tribe to you. That is all. Besides serving as a poorly designed cosmetic appearance, it has no other function,” said 0541 apologetically. He had been giving off the wrong vibe, making Jiang Fei think that he might have actually won something valuable.

To be fair, the Mark of the Tribe served as an absolute symbol of authority. The entire tribe would forever listen and obey to each and every order of his. However, he had only become the ruler of a school of carnivorous fish in a lake inside a simulation. Unless Jiang Fei could hoard every fish with him, the mark served absolutely zero purpose.

“Sheesh…all that for nothing!” Jiang Fei grunted. He rolled his eyes and started to swim. Along the way, he gave out an order, commanding all the Devils of the Lake to return to their daily business. As he swam to land, Bacca and the others could not stop staring at Jiang Fei like they were looking at a ghost.

“What’s wrong? Did I get something on my face?” Jiang Fei asked.

“What was that all about? What’s with the golden light?” Bacca asked. Everybody else, even with the help of their portable scope, failed to understand what had just taken place. It was only natural since events involving lower life forms with powerful psychic powers were rare. Those that had witnessed some had either failed to document it or was just too lazy to do anything about it since they were, after all, lower life forms.

“How should I know?! Those fishes were just crazy!” Jiang Fei said, sounding annoyed.

“That was clearly a kind of weird ritual…” the Vulcan, a member of Caylan’s party spat, not believing Jiang Fei words.