Winters in Haldenburg were long and cold, but Alex didn’t care. He spent the next months practicing Qi and developing his physical abilities. Of course, he devoted a lot of time refining the first part of Phil’s techniques.
To the outsiders Alex was still a helpless infant and his mother intended for it to stay this way for a very long time. Since a child sitting in meditative position was way too eye catching, most of the day Alex remained in their bedroom. Even the physical exercises he did only after his mother closed the shop to avoid any unnecessary surprises.
Nevertheless Alex’s progress was incredible. When the spring came, he ran around the room with ease and inwardly complained about the lack of space for training. From his looks anyone could easily take him for a two year old, but Demy blindly attributed the abnormal development to be one of his amazing father’s legacies.
Hanna’s and Sigmund’s amazed reactions she translated as compliments, but other people saw Alex only wrapped to her chest when they went for a rare stroll around the streets of Haldenburg and couldn’t tell how big he actually was.
Only when the saint Wazir payed a visit, her heart skipped a beat noticing the shocked look on the old man’s face.
But Alex played his role well. Lying on his back he greeted the old man with a smile, ‘gugugu’ sounds and clapping hands. Demy immediately apologized and explained they didn’t get many visitors and Alex was only happy to see a new face.
Afterwards she inquired if Alex was old enough for the reading saint intended to perform and if he was certain it was safe. Basically both, mother and son, flawlessly went through the scenario they prepared beforehand.
The old man hesitated for a moment, but then picked Alex up after all. The saint’s intuition was something one could never ignore. Alex was not disappointed though, and, of course, not afraid as well. He actually wanted to experience the methods of a saint first handed in order to have a better understanding on how to practice the second part of his father’s techniques.
With a smile Alex watched how the third eye on the saint’s forehead opened, but then, as if awakening from a dream he suddenly found himself in his mother’s arms. She was smiling at him while whispering gentle words of comfort. He smiled back and grabbed her boob with both hands radiating the feeling of hunger from the depths of his heart.
Then all of sudden he found himself lying on a meadow under the warm rays of sun and a pleasant voice began to speak to him.
“Empire of Armenidia …” It whispered, but Alex desperately searched for his mother’s boobies. He visualized them in front of him as well as the process of him eating. Suddenly he was back in the real world again.
“Uhmmm … I guess ... he’s hungry.” Saint Wazir said to Demy, blushed deep red while passing Alex over. The latter didn’t fool around and directly grabbed his mother’s breast making her blush all over as well.
“I’m sorry!” She whispered and quickly put Alex on the bed.
“That is not how you behave in the presence of a saint! They are important people!” She angrily ‘schooled’ Alex, but the boy made only ‘eh, eh, eh’ sounds stretching his little hands towards her brests.
“It’s fine, it’s fine!” Saint Wazir said and impatiently turned to leave, but then remembered something, “That time is approaching … be careful! And … please teach him to become a loyal subject … I really don’t want to … you know …”
After saying the last words he sighed and left, but Demy continued to play her role.
“Of course, I’ll teach you properly, my little boy! You’ll grow up to become a strong general! Yes … oh? … you’re really hungry today, aren’t you?”
Actually it was Alex’s idea for them to continue to act for a couple more hours as if the saint was still around. There was no telling if he stayed back and listened to what went on behind the closed doors and Alex didn’t want to take any chances. On the other hand, to play the ‘hungry kid’ in the dreamworld, obviously, was his own initiative and he didn’t intend to tell about it to his mother. But other than amusing himself and making fun of the old saint, he gained plenty of experience.
First of all, after going through saint’s hallucinations, Alex finally gained a deep respect towards his father. He only was brought to a nice dreamworld, but during the last battle Phil suffered attacks from three such experts! They made him feel excruciating pain, nightmares and who knows what, but the man still managed to kill two of them! And only relying on the sense of smell! What a monster!
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Suddenly Alex had an epiphany, ‘Monster! What the hell I’ve been thinking all this time?! I have also been a monster – a ranked spiritbeast blackrock wolf! My sense of smell at birth was thousands of times better developed than my father’s at his prime! The only thing I need is to recover the ability and learn how to use it!’
Of course, it was easier said than done since human’s body and brain was different from that of a beast, but after getting this idea, Alex found a new approach on how to easier learn Phil’s techniques, in fact – it was basically a shortcut!
With a new enthusiasm Alex returned to his training, except this time to the great satisfaction of his mother he began practicing the second part of his father’s heritage. Demy, after making sure Alex had memorized everything to the last detail, burned the thin book and heaved a sigh of relief – Phil didn’t want anyone to know his secrets except for her and his son.
From that day on their lives continued with the same routine. Alex practiced non-stop while Demy made herself busy around shop or laboratory. There was only a period of ten days when Demy left Alex with aunt Hanna and disappeared, but returned tired with a large, stinking leather sack over her shoulder.
To Alex these ten days were a terrifying torture. While most of the time he could pretend to be asleep, the old couple made him ‘play’ with them several times a day, obviously with a good intent – they only wanted the boy to develop well and healthy. But pretending to be a helpless infant took way too much of Alex’s strength and after the ten days he was almost as exhausted as Demy.
The only upside during the time he was with Hanna and Sigmund was the opportunity to spend some time in the sun. Alex already forgot when was the last time he leisurely sunbathed, but the two elders brought him to the seashore every day letting him finally get a healthy tan.
Only a year later when it was time for her to leave again, Demy explained Alex her absence and he finally understood what saint Wazir meant with words ‘That time is approaching … be careful!’. Turns out the same time every year she went out to gather the antennal glands of the blue ocean crabs. The huge crustaceans were coming out to nest in the delta of the Melbe river once a year and it was the only time one could realistically ‘farm’ them.
‘Coming out’ was not really the proper term to use – crabs gathered from the depths of the sea in the river delta, but the water there was still over twenty meters deep and no sane person was willing to dive so far down for a catch that basically had no edible parts. But for Demy and for the previous generations of the Brooks family the antennal glands of the blue ocean crabs were the foundation of their income. The quality of the healing elixirs they brewed was better than the other herbalists made from plants, but most people didn’t think it was worth risking their lives for. In addition, the regular herbalists could just buy the ingredients from hunters or farmers and stay safely within the city walls, thus they didn’t even intend to become competitors.
Demy didn’t mind the tough gathering of raw materials. First of all this was the tradition of her family and secondly, she had to provide a number of elixirs to Armenidian army according to their deal that let her keep her life after the war. The whole diving thing was also not that hard for her and she loved the water, although after doing it continuously for several days straight, she needed almost half a month to fully recover.
Hearing her explanation, Alex noted to himself he would have to assist his mother as soon as he grew up a bit and learned the proper Qi technique that would allow him to remain under water for a longer period of time, but unfortunately that day never came.
Four years later Demy didn’t come back from her yearly endeavor. At first Alex didn’t even notice her prolonged absence focusing on dealing with the two elders he was left with again, but when on the twelfth day Hanna served breakfast all teared up and sobbing, he realized something bad had happened.
Demy’s body was never found and Hanna blamed her for being careless and letting the beasts eat her, but one evening Alex overheard Sigmund cursing the local aristocrats for ‘finally getting to her’ and realized there might be a deeper scheme behind his mother’s disappearance.
Demy was not Alex’s first mother and won’t be the last one, but for some reason her death caused incredible sorrow and feeling of a loss deep within. For the first time in years Alex found it impossible to concentrate on cultivation and all he could think of was the person who loved him dearly and centered her whole live around him. If he was older he would’ve tried to drown his sorrow in alcohol, but now he had to deal with it sober.
There was a silver lining to all of this, albeit a thin one. A saint came over to investigate Demy’s death and ‘scanned’ the minds of Alex and the two elders, and he got to experience the saint-induced dreamworld again. It was not Wazir, but some other, a bit younger man Alex didn’t recognize.
This time Alex didn’t even need to fake anything. The emotional pain was real and the image of his mother kept appearing no matter what illusion the saint tried to cast in Alex’s consciousness, thus he passed the examination easily, same with Hanna. Sigmund had a bit harder time, though. He didn’t hide his displeasure with Armenidians, but in the end got away with a warning. If the empire killed off everyone who disliked something, they would loose half their citizens, therefore such harmless ‘offenses’ were usually overlooked.
After things settled down, the question about Alex’s future came up. Turns out already five years ago Demy made some preparations in case something happened to her. First of all, Alex was allowed to stay by Hanna and Sigmund. Second, their old house was to be sold off and the decision on how to deal with the money would be left to Alex, no matter how old he was.
To the two elders it seemed unthinkable, but Alex could only show a sad smile once again remembering his mother’s blind trust in her husband’s ‘prophecies’. Nevertheless he acted quite decisively – he immediately gifted all the money to uncle Sigmund and only asked to leave him a small sack of cash for emergencies.
From that day on Alex shut himself away from the rest of the world and only cultivated in his room. Of course, he maintained a reasonable level of politeness with the two elders, but didn’t indulge in longer conversations.
His routine was simple – he woke up before the sunrise, jogged to the seashore and did physical exercises for a couple of hours. Then he meditated and returned home around lunch only to leave right after and cultivated on the beach again. He came back in the evening, helped out the two elders around the house and then went to bed, but practiced Qi through the night instead of sleeping.
With such lifestyle Alex’s pain slowly lessened, but for some reason it never fully went away. He clearly understood it was completely illogical, but until he learned to artificially manipulate his own emotions, there was nothing he could do.