“What the hell took you so long?!” Sigmund angrily barked while inwardly sighing in relief.

“Are you alright? Does it hurt? Do you recognize me?” Hanna shot out one question after another.

“I’m … I’m fine!” Alex felt great, but was confused by the presence of the two elders – normally they didn’t come to his room and let him practice in peace.

“You moron! The next time you go into a prolonged cultivation at least warn us! You almost gave Hanna a heart attack!” Sigmund scolded.

“It was you who almost got a heart attack!” Hanna argued back, “Who ran off to his friends looking for advice on what to do? Huh?”

“Alright, alright! Please don’t argue!” Alex tried to pacify the elders. He was not clear what exactly transpired, but from what it looked like it seemed he had lost himself during the meditation.

“Hmph! Watch it, boy! Next time I won’t go easy on you!” Sigmund was still angry, but everyone knew he had no clue how to punish Alex or whether if he actually could.

“Are you hungry?” Hanna had a more practical mindset, “It’s been over a week since you … well … you know.”

“A week?!” Now it was time for Alex to be shocked. He knew experts could meditate for months, but he himself never had a session longer than few hours.

“Nine. Damned. Days!” Sigmund corrected slapping his palm on the knee after every word.

“Sorry.” Alex tried to look as apologetic as he could, but then got an idea and said, “It happened because of me being so inexperienced. I wonder if you could help me so the next time I won’t get lost in time.”

“What do you want?” Sigmund angrily asked.

“Well, you have plenty of connections around the city. I wonder if you could get me an item with a simple Qi brand on it – doesn’t matter what – even a piece of a rock is fine as long as the brand is primitive.” Alex said.

His idea was to learn how to recognize a brand on an object to later create his own. Of course, he could always go and look at his father’s sword, but his intuition told him that the brand pattern on it would be anything but simple.

Sigmund didn’t say anything, only harrumphed and left, but both Alex and Hanna knew he went out to look for one of his old contacts.

He returned few hours later and after dinner pulled out a silvery coin from his pocket and threw it to Alex.

“One of my friends left a simple brand for you to look at.” Sigmund said, “You can keep it.”

“Thank you, uncle Sigmund!” Alex smiled in return, but the old man mumbled something that sounded like ‘uncle, schmuncle’ and left.

Hanna patted Alex’s shoulder and said, “He was really worried. You know how much he cares about you.”

Alex nodded, helped to clean up the dishes and returned to his room.

It felt as if the coin in his pocket was burning with hot fire – Alex was so eager to check it out. But noticing his own anxiousness, he forced himself to calm down first and only then slowly let a thin stream of Qi flow through the coin.

In the beginning Alex didn’t notice anything in particular, but after gradually increasing the amount of Qi, he felt how the Qi stream slightly altered its flow on its own at three points. Obviously the person leaving the brand made a simple triangular imprint.

‘Alright!’ Alex was satisfied with the experiment.

All that’s left was for him to think of a brand pattern and attempt to create his own. The triangle the person made didn’t seem too complicated.

But then Alex remembered the captain’s words - ‘the brand will act as a shield against mind attacks. Saints will have to break it apart with their own Qi to take control over the person’. This was not an easy decision to make! It would be simply moronic for him to create something overly primitive. In fact, he didn’t even intend to make anything simple in the first place!

‘I wonder what kind of brand my father had on his sword.’ Alex grinned to himself.

He finally had learned everything he wanted in Haldenburg and was ready to leave. Before the departure he would, of course, check out his father’s sword and say goodbye to captain Tarazi, but there was no reason to stay. All that was left was simply to continue to cultivate.

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Of course, Alex didn’t intend to crawl into some cave and stay there for the rest of his life. He still planned to travel to the capital and later to other continents as well – he had plenty of time.

It was not easy to explain himself to the two elders, after all formally he wasn’t even eight years old. But Alex’s argument was solid – the newly baked saint would look for the revenge sooner or later and them staying together would only put all three in danger. In the end he even managed to persuade both elders to sell their house and leave.

Hanna was not too happy about it, but Sigmund kept murmuring ‘should’ve done it a long time ago’ while packing their things. He even felt relieved when their wagon left the city and the only feeling of loss was regarding Alex. Aunt Hanna kept sobbing from the moment decision to leave was made and probably continued for several days after their departure, but Alex finally was at peace. If anything, his experience taught him that people in general were bad and evil beings, and the two elders avoiding the potential harm little bit restored his faith in the humanity.

Alex was not afraid of anyone finding them. Sigmund, even though he looked harmless, was an experienced old fox and recognized the dangers. Alex was certain they would settle down somewhere in a nice, quiet spot and lead their lives in peace.

Seven years ago one of the first things he clarified after learning about saints, was that there were no clairvoyants in this world, at least Demy never heard of such. Later Sigmund confirmed that, but warned Alex that the mindreading abilities of the saints were basically godly. But Alex didn’t need to hear anything else – if no one could find him like cardinal Theodor did, he knew how to disappear.

After the two elders left, Alex went for a long walk through the city. Fresh snow from the last night colored everything white and a nostalgic feeling grew within him as he remembered how Demy carried him during their first walk around Haldenburg. Alex even went to take a look at their former home, but a shoemaker’s family lived there and he could only observe it from outside.

The house felt incredibly small compared to what he remembered, but he already experienced similar effect in all his previous lives and somehow was used to it. What he couldn’t get used to was the feeling of loss every time he thought about the last mother and it annoyed him greatly. If in the previous life all the emotional turmoils he immediately blamed on the hormones, than now he didn’t have a reasonable explanation of having strong emotions, or at least one that satisfied him.

After the nightfall Alex finally went over to the central square. He was waiting for the dark to not draw any unnecessary attention so that he could freely inspect Phil’s sword.

When the nearby guard patrols marched away, he quickly approached the statue and fell on one knee as if worshiping the emperor, just in case anyone noticed him. And while keeping one hand on the sword, Alex slowly channeled a stream of Qi into it.

As expected, there was nothing at first. Alex continued to increase the amount of Qi and soon began to notice slight deviations in the Qi flow at multiple places.

‘Thought so.’ He inwardly nodded, ‘It would be strange if the mighty Phil had a trivial brand.’

Out of curiosity Alex kept increasing the amount of Qi, but to his great shock he began to notice more and more nodes where the Qi flow got altered. And the strange thing was that these alterations began to form a picture.

Even though Alex was practicing Qi in this life for seven and a half years, he was also that young and his Qi reserves were limited. Thus, before he ran dry, he made a last ditch effort and sent all he had in the sword only to immediately jump back in shock.

He was covered in perspiration and panting, but still conscious. At least the pain coming from the thigh he kept pinching signaled that. Alex simply couldn’t believe what he saw – the moment he infused the large amounts of Qi, every node, the whole brand on his father’s sword lit up like a Christmas tree in a picture of … his mother!

‘That crazy bastard!’ Alex laughed to himself.

What kind of effort one needed to put in to draw such complex brand on a sword! But then he suddenly realized – Phil made this brand not only on his sword, but in his consciousness as well! But there were f*cking thousands of nodes! Does that mean he made a brand from thousands of soul particles?

Alex felt the ground swaying, but he guessed it was from the Qi deprivation. He took few deep breaths to calm down and then quickly went to the closest inn. It didn’t matter that the prices in the city center were sky high, the way he planned to leave would not cost him anything anyway. He also ignored the curious looks from the owner and rented the room without any delay.

After finally settling on the bed crosslegged, Alex tried to calm himself down first and it took a lot of effort and time to do so. Contrary to his own principles he had seriously overestimated his own abilities and that hurt him the most.

Alex was certain he didn’t see a hallucination and that it was indeed his father’s brand. The question was – was he the only one who recognized the pattern or it similarly lit up picturing his mother’s lovely face for everyone? And did his father have an analogue brand in his consciousness made of hundreds if not thousands of soul particles or he had his sword branded like that ‘just for fun’?

Alex realized he would not be able to figure these things out by himself, at least not in the near future and there was only one person in Haldenburg who could help him out. But first he wanted to make sure what he saw was real.

He rested in the inn for the night and the next day, after dark went to check out the sword again. This time he used his Qi reserves from the start and immediately saw the same picture, except this time it was clearer and more vivid.

Deep in thoughts Alex returned to the inn and kept pondering about the implications through the night. After realizing it was already morning, he meditated for few hours to recover Qi as a form of rest and only after noon went to the governor’s mansion.

He tried to pick a time when the class or combat training was over to not meet the annoying little pricks, but was unlucky and ran into their group right at the gate. Cursing his own bad luck, Alex forced his way through the small crowd the kids created on purpose to make things difficult for him ignoring the jeering and pushing around.

Just when he was already in the clear, Alex’s vision suddenly turned black. He felt someone kicking him in the back and fell face down on the walkway, on the dirty snow mixed with gravel.

His ego hurt way more than the few bruises, but he still managed to keep the mind clear – after he was kicked down, his vision immediately returned and it was obvious someone was trying to ‘play saint’. Alex picked himself up, patted the clothing and silently cursing to himself all the saints in the world continued on his way.

The whole entourage laughed while Robert proudly explained the new skill he just used only to receive a bunch of compliments and words of admiration in return.

‘You little f*cker!’ Alex thought, ‘His trikuta opened just a couple of months ago! And he’s dumb as a wood! How the hell did he managed to learn that mindf*ck skill?!’