The waters of Lake Sagathan were as clear as blue glass windows. The light of the Sohwl seemed to refract in every direction, carrying with it a mystical shine that illuminated the brilliant indigo body, both above and below.

Near the shore, where the depth was not great, one could clearly see the sandy floor rife with colours.

There were corals, conchs, crabs and many other denizen creatures scurrying about the lake bed in their daily struggle to survive.

But a few hundred meters out, far outside the Lontwood barrier, the translucent waters did not allow the sunlight to delve so deep.

The blue morphed into the deep colour of the unknown, and only a hint of the abyss that lurked without life would reflect on an onlooker’s eyes.

“[Claw-Crimson Spear]!!!”

But today, the silence of the abyss was disturbed.

A young man with menacing red claws shouted aloud with a manna-filled roar as he swiped the crimson glowing spear in his hand outwards, aiming his fury towards the incoming gheist.

The gheist, a monstrosity that looked like the cross between a turtle and a crocodile, merely grunted without even breaking its charge.

Clink!

The spear tip slashed the glossy outer shell of the creature after failing to pierce it. The attack only left an insignificant, barely noticeable nick on that hard armour.

The young man grunted, feeling the painful feedback in his arms. But he had no time to rest.

He flowed his swiping motion into a blocking one and hurriedly parried the fierce assault of the earthen ranked Rockfin Crocofish.

“Ugh!”

The inertia of the impact threw him tens of meters away, but the soft water around helped cushion the force.

Despite that, he tasted blood in his mouth. Luckily, the young man’s Nascent Totem was sturdy enough to withstand that full-powered rush head-on.

If he were an early Earthen realmer and not mid-Earthen, he was sure his treasured totem-spear would have snapped.

“Brother Romero! I cannot hold on for much longer.” The young man yelled as he desperately avoided the snapping jaws of the enraged Rockfin Crocofish. The gheist flared, seeing its attack miss once again.

It circled around the young man, preparing for another manna powered charge.

By now, it had already noticed the injuries of its prey. The supernatural instincts of a gheistrum compelled it to not give an ouch of rest to the four-limbed game.

Seeing that, the gill-like slits which opened on the young man’s scale-covered neck constricted and relaxed, the deep breath transferring some of the life and manna from the surrounding waters into his body.

“Ha. Rister, looks like you’ve been slacking off in your training. To not be able to defeat even a weak Earthen Crocofish. And in front of the prince and princess no less!” A playful voice reverberated from above. “After today, be prepared for harsher methods of underwater combat practice. This time even father can’t stop me from whipping you into shape.”

“This is no time for jokes!” The young man referred to as Rister grunted. He wanted to retort that he had already hunted two gheistrums before this and was already out of manna before the battle started.

But Rister likewise knew that it was just an excuse. As the second son of the Onthoakt, he should be able to fight these beasts day in day out, rather than crying like a baby in front of the clan royals.

Parrying another strike from the enraged gheist, he concentrated the manna at the tip of his spear according to the Haragol House’s recently acquired cultivation method.

There was no time to think so deeply about his next move, but the mockery from his elder brother had calmed him down.

Rister held back patiently, looking for a chance to counter-attack.

Finally, after what felt like hours, his wait paid off. His eyes flickered with an evil light as he spotted a gap and violently struck the side fin of the Crocofish as it drilled past him once again.

“Guaaaaaah!”

The stone-like fin of the creature shattered with an anguished roar. Reddish blood gushed out from the open wound and stained the surrounding waters into a cloud of murkiness.

“…. Bloody Gheistfur.” Young Rister cursed, not in the mood to celebrate his successful offence.

He had meant to use the opening of the wound to immediately skewer the gheist’s insides. But the darned beast was too fast and had already left his spear’s range before he could change his stance.

Now that its blood had drifted out with the water currents, his elder brother, the Haragol Mage Romero, could not guarantee that he could stop other gheists from rushing into this area after detecting the scent of wounded prey.

In other words,

“Aye, that would be enough.”

Rister sighed, raising some bubbles underwater. Before the sigh even completely escaped his gills, a brilliant ray of red light in the shape of a claw hit the Rockfin Crocofish square on the muzzle.

The gheist had been charging up manna for another rush with an enraged visage that demanded vengeance. But the sudden attack from above caught it entirely off guard.

“…. It pisses me off, but I can’t help it. I will at least score the last hit!” Rister cried out with complicated feelings. He knew he could not solo the gheist unless he was resolute enough to trade wound for wound. But at the same time, it did not feel great to fail a hunt in front of the Earthloch princess either.

Whatever the case, he would not miss the chance.

Rister immediately activated one frame in his totemic soul. The nodes blazed with crimson manna, gushing through the spider-web like channels, shifting from immaterial to material.

In less than half a second, while Rister was still in his stance, winding up for a special attack, the manna appeared in reality inside his marrow core. It flowed through his meridians with the speed of light, and a savage grin emerged on the young man’s face.

Three fourth of a second, and he completed his stance. Rister poured the augmented manna into his spear through the apertures on his palms.

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The spear tip glowed an imposing red, and the water in the surrounding started sizzling, threatening to spill out.

But it didn’t, for the [Claw-Crimson Cultivation Technique] was the magic of controlling the heat inside water as quickly as a dragon can wield its claws!

Rister stared at the gheist straight into its beady eyes, and without giving it the chance to escape,

“Eat this!” threw his manna-charged spear with the force of a volcano.

“[Claw-Crimson Spear Rush]!!!”

The gheist was still fumbling with the after-effects of Romero’s spell while wailing loudly. Usually, its uncanny instincts would have urged it to escape as soon as it noticed it was fighting one versus two.

But it was too late. Romero’s spell wasn’t so simple.

The Rockfin Crocofish only noticed the danger just as the spear tip reflected in its eyes.

“GUAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Leaving one last cry of defiance, the Mid-Earthen realm Rockfin Crocofish was blasted backwards without a chance to fight back.

The spears momentum carried it diagonally upwards with a long train of blood floating in the lake waters.

By the time Rister reached its falling body to recover his Nascent Totem, the [Claw-Crimson Spear], from the gheist’s eye socket, it was long dead.

The mighty gheistrum, which had even successfully injured the young Haragol scion, was now just another addition to the feast his house would host for their royal guests tonight.

****

“Wow, he used fire underwater!”

“U-Uncle Romero, can you teach me that spell? Pretty please? That plasma beam was sooooo cool!”

“Hmph. Hmph. Papa is the strongest. And papa didn’t use paksma bim! He used [Claw-Crimson Rending]! Hmph!”

“Tsk. Earthen realmer, yet still needs help to hunt a same ranked gheist. Well, this is an Onthoakt house, no doubt.”

Above the lake waters, on top of a large yacht-sized boat, the group of hyper-excited kids jumped up and down.

After their fruitful time playing in the water, they had already changed into fresh pairs of attires. It was only after a nice afternoon snack did they resume their picnic, this time finally venturing out to the lake on a boat under Randuman’s safeguard. Captain Anouk had left their soaked clothes with the Haragol tribesmen to dry.

But no one had any mind to think about clothes anymore, even though Cati and Ysbail were deliberating how long it would take for their cute robes to dry without magic just ten minutes ago.

The two little girls were now, along with Agwyn and Elrhain, amazed senseless at the display of man versus gheist.

A battle between two mid-Earthen realm entities, a hunt for prey. And it was underwater to boot!

The way Rister moved under the surface of the lake as if he was on dry land, his grace of a shark, no, an underwater dragon! His control over manna so much that even the lake currents couldn’t drag his spear down. It was almost as if the overflowing whirls of water underneath the lake had zero impact on his fluid movements.

Rister was flying underwater!

And that final spear throw. That giant-killing move was no different in destructive force than armour-penetrating plasma-tipped pile-bunkers.

If this was Earth, Rister could single-handedly take out a modern-day war submarine before anyone knew what happened.

‘So this…. is the strength of an Earthen Realm cultivator. Freaking cheats!’ Elrhain screamed in dazed silence. Only Agwyn could hear his shock and awe. The very idea that an individual could possess such power was mind-boggling.

The fight had jolted Agwyn as well. But she was doing a better job covering it up, pestering Romero like a fish gremlin looking for treats. Even her apprehension towards Ruba, who was proudly preening on Romero’s lap, was long gone.

Elrhain was even more shocked at the fact that Rister’s might could even surprise him.

He always knew in his head how overwhelming cultivators were. He had watched, read, played thousands of hours of fantasy dramas, Xianxia fiction, battle academy novels, and king killing chronicles.

Elrhain thought he was immune to the supernatural. That no matter how powerful magic could be, it couldn’t surpass his imagination.

It didn’t.

Rister was nothing compared to fictional characters like Son G*ku, Th*nos, and S*perman.

But seeing someone with enough energy inside him to rip a tank apart piece by piece was a whole together different experience than TV or virtual reality.

This… was reality.

And Rister was a mere Mid-Earthen realmer. Yes, Mere!

What about Bromwyn, who was Oceanic? Or Lilian, who was a Sky realmer?

Elrhain concluded.

Cultivators were scary f*cking war machines!

He could not, in good faith, refer to anyone with Rister’s strength with the word, ‘mere’.

Elrhain shook himself out of the confusion and gave Cadfael, who made that last derogatory comment, an uneasy glance from the corner of his eyes.

‘This freak might have zero EQ, but to think he can calmly critique Rister after seeing him defy the laws of physics to an absurd degree.

But wait.

No, not just Cadfael. Howell, Vesiphis, and even Ysbail and Cati look as calm as a cocktail. They were only excited and not dismayed. Yes, physics or not, this was their reality. This is Fanas Diosca, where magic was possible.

Am I…. The weird one for getting shocked? Am I, Annie?’

Agwyn turned back and stared at Elrhain with a complicated expression. She then closed her eyes slightly and shook her head.

‘Yeah. We are human. Earthlings. Weird sh*t is weird, no doubt about that.’

Elrhain let out a dispirited sigh, then turned his attention back to the conversation at hand.

As Rister was swimming back with the fallen Rockfin Crocofish, Vesiphis could not let Cadfael’s comment towards the heroic young man pass.

“Cadfael, how dare you insult the Haragol house who so graciously host us tonight! Do you know no shame?” The winged boy said.

「Heh. Same as always. Vesiphis could be the most responsible class captain if he were a student in the Collective.」

Agwyn nodded, giggling as she grabbed Elrhain’s sleeves. 「Well, you did set him on the path of an Ace Manager!」

Though it would seem there was one person who didn’t even pretend to heed the ace manager’s word.

“What is wrong with telling the truth? To turn a blind eye to one’s weakness is to be a coward.” Cadfael replied, which incensed Vesiphis even more.

“There is a good way of saying something, then there is the stupid way. What you do is the most brainless way of antagonizing allies I have ever seen.”

“And how much exactly has a 7-cycle old whelp like you seen?”

Sharp words turned into mockery, which finally twisted into barbed insults without pretence.

The atmosphere got more and more heated, and finally, even Ysbail and Cati huddled themselves behind Howell, away from the cross-fire of name-calling and fault picking.

“Hahahahaha!” It was then that their host, Randuman, burst out into a spurt of uproarious laughter.

The older man thumped his chest with such force that a small shock wave beamed out, scaring Ysbail so much she fell down.

Sitting on the boat's bow, Romero coughed with an awkward expression as he patted the bewildered Ruba’s head.

“Father… could you please not?”

“Ah? Oh my. Did I scare young lady Ysbail?” Randuman looked down, and the tiny Ysbail nodded timidly, with tears in her eyes.

Randuman was about to speak up, but Ysbail herself suddenly interjected, “D-Don’t be m-mad. Black m-, no, cousin Cadfael i-is not smart. He speaks w-weird thingies. Don’t h-hurt us, please.”

A few moments of absolute silence.

Even Cadfael, the not-smart-cousin in question, stood there without speaking or moving.

And then, ““HAHAHAHA!”” the oppressive quiet on the boat was mercilessly shattered by the simultaneous laughter of five kids and one old man rolling on the boat, laughing their backsides off.

“N-Not smart!”

“Weird things! Hahaha!”

“Ysbail, so mean.”

Cati was the first one to gather her bearing. She trotted to Ysbail’s side and hid the clueless girl behind her from Cadfael’s line of vision.

But surprisingly, the shadow boy did not look offended at that unintentional insult at all. He simply snorted; his face the picture of calm.

“Father, enough. You are a bad influence on Ruba!” It was Romero who could not stand it.

Not Ysbail’s words, but his father acting no better than a 3-cycle old. He even had to stop his daughter from scuttling to Randuman’s side and imitating the old man’s cackle.

“Hahaha. What a treat. This Randuman hasn’t laughed like that in years.”

“Don’t lie!”

“Aye, yes. I shouldn’t lie. Don’t you worry, my young lady Ysbail. I am not so thin-skinned to harm children. Not to mention, you kids are our liege. I would rather slit my throat than harm an Earthloch.”

“D-Don’t.” Ysbail squeaked, her face paling even further. “Don’t slit!”

“I won’t, haha. Children, so amusing….” Randuman rubbed under his nose as he failed to control his snicker.

“But as I said, we should not lie. Hence, I will admit without shame that young Lord Cadfael is absolutely right. Our Onthoakt house’s cultivation techniques are nothing compared to the main house’s.”

“It’s good that you know,” said Cadfael, much to Vesiphis’s disapproval.

Randuman continued, “In fact, the Grand Shamanka herself was the one to bestow the [Claw-Crimson Cultivation Technique] upon us when we were ennobled five cycles ago!”

The Onthoakt laughed some more, then suddenly changed the topic with a mischievous glint in his eyes, “So, young Lord Cadfael, Howell, and Vesiphis. I have a presumptuous offer for you. Today, how about trying to fish a gheist yourselves? What honour it would be if us Haragol’s could feast upon prey caught by none other than three of the shining scions of the main house!”