Third Person POV

“You can run more than that now, can’t you?” Elowen said patting Alaric’s back.

“Hah…” Alaric huffed, wiping his forehead with his sleeve, “Running in snow is hard, I can reach around a hundred a forty laps right now, I guess.”

Elowen chuckled, her boots crunching on the gravel mixed with snow as she started walking. She waved for Alaric to follow, and he did.

The estate's training grounds were not the only place—or even the primary place—where people trained. In fact, the grounds themselves were rarely used, except for spars held under the cover of night. Ever since Alaric began his training, the general consensus was unanimous: no one wanted to disturb him.

Alaric was being led to the actual training place. Before him stood a building so vast it could rival the quarters of a high-ranking royal worker. Its structure was an elegant blend of practicality and opulence, its exterior polished yet unassuming. The sheer size of it made Alaric pause, his curiosity bubbling.

This is the place where guards and the butlers or sometimes even the maids come to train. Valen and Caelum took turns—Valen in the morning while Caelum handled butler duties for Xironia and Novius. When Valen finished, they’d switch, with Caelum stepping in for training. The maids, on the other hand, don’t follow a strict schedule—they train whenever their work is done, which usually means late nights for a couple of hours.”

When Alaric entered he saw a group of guards, five of them, who were training.

Two of them were standing in front of two training dummies. There was a creamy white tablet embedded in these dummies' chest. One of the guards punched the tablet. The dummy shook from the impact for a few seconds. Alaric watched, intrigued, as the creamy-white tablet flickered and began to change color. First, it turned black, then a sharp red. In mere seconds, the red brightened to a deep green before transitioning to orange. Alaric stood there for a while, the man did too but after a moment the man simply sighed, his shoulders dropping low.

“Granny, What is that?”

“Hmm?” Elowen turned towards where Alaric was pointing, “That dummy measures your physical strength or the strength of a skill. The tablet on its chest measures the force of your attack. The color you see represents the average cultivation stage that would match the strength of the attack.”

Alaric nodded, beginning to follow Elowen again. By now the guards noticed both Elowen and Alaric. They straightened up but were quickly dismissed with a nod by Elowen.

Alaric noticed how the building was extremely spacious, packed with training equipments and dummies.

“Father is filthy rich, isn’t he?”

Elowen heard Alaric and giggled, “He is.”

The guards started leaving the building, and soon it was just Alaric and Elowen. The grandmother and grandson had stopped and Alaric was looking at multiple black tubs that were covered and neatly arranged.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Elowen gestured for Alaric to come closer with her hand and removed the lid of the two closest tubs.

“That water, it is moving” Alaric quickly covered the distance and leaned closer to the tub. Fishes, barely visible, their scales blending perfectly with the tubs. These fishes weren’t even discernable from a few feet distance away and Alaric only noticed the water moving because of the light that was falling on the water’s surface to highlight the slight movement.

The tubs were just about as long as Alaric’s arm span. The fishes swam lazily inside, unfazed by his and Elowen’s presence as they knelt beside the tub.

Alaric was fascinated. He tried to use [Eyes of Panoptes] on the fishes darting around, but with so many of them in his vision moving at different paces, it was hard to focus on one of them and Alaric triggered too many panels to open. Their opening caused rings to resound in his head and his vision getting blanketed by the red panels. He groaned and stopped using [Eyes of Panoptes]. “Too many…”

[Rank-6 Beast]

[Name: Blitzscale]

[Mana: 55]

[Vitality: ??]

[Strength: ??]

[Defence: ??]

[Speed: ??]

[Intelligence: ??]

[Stamina: ??]

[Host is too weak, [Eyes of Panoptes] couldn't scan the target.]

“Blitzscale…” Alaric muttered under his breath looking at the fishes, “And Rank-6.”

“Oh, you know about them?”

Alaric whipped around to face Elowen, startled. “N-Not really!” he stammered, “I just, uh, read about them… in a book. Don’t actually know much.”

“Ah, that makes sense. How could I forget you’re such a devoted reader? I should thank Averin… she is probably your motivation, isn’t she?”

“Huh! No!”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, very really. Very very really.”

“Hmm~” Elowen smiled. Her smile was one that sent a weird tingle through Alaric’s body and he looked away in an instant as if trying to hide.

“How about Granny hooks you two when you grow a bit older?” she asked, wiggling her brows.

“For god’s sake, please don’t try something like that” Alaric grumbled, his face practically glowing at the surprising offer but he was still facing away. His body seemed to stiffen for a few seconds before he let out a sigh and muttered, “I’ll… I’ll do it myself when I’m ready!” he mumbled the last part so quietly it was like a mosquito buzzing—but of course, Elowen didn’t miss a word.

Elowen blinked once before her lips curled into a small smile, “You didn’t even try to deny any of it,” she said which made Alaric look at her. His face this time was expressionless, his brows straight as he stared at the grinning woman he called his grandmother, it was clear to her that he forgot he could always deny things. She ruffled Alaric’s hair, and by the time she was done, his messy mop was even worse.

“Alright, alright, come back from your daydream, Sonny. You are still too young for her…” Elowen tilted her head, her gaze softening slightly as she studied him. “You are really similar to him, except you are aiming at an even older woman.”

Alaric stared at Elowen questioningly, wondering what she meant but it was soon disclosed.

“Your father.”

There was a stretch of silence before they both simply decided to not speak any longer about the matter.

“Blitzscale are Rank-6 beasts, I know they don’t look it but looks can be rather deceiving,” Elowen started explaining as if nothing happened at all. “Especially in their case. These little guys can swim as fast as a Yellow stage cultivator can run on land. Seriously. And that needle-like head? It’s not just for some aerodynamic superiority against other creatures. They use it as a deadly weapon. If you jump into the water, in their territory, you're basically dead. They will attack you before you can even blink and you will most likely be left with enough gaping holes in your body through which you might as well breathe underwater.”

Alaric raised an eyebrow, glancing between Elowen and the silently gliding fish. They weren’t even bumping into the tub or each other. “They… look cute.”

“In nature, anything that looks cool and beautiful is most certainly deadly. They seem cute to you ’cause they’re lazy. Super lazy,” Elowen grinned. “So lazy that they won’t even bother jumping out to get their prey. But that’s just for when you’re outside.”

She brought out a piece of meat from her ring and motioned for Alaric to watch.

Her fingers let go of the meat and Alaric saw one of the ends touch the water’s surface. The intrusion formed a small ripple but before the ripple could even manage to grow the water turned bubbly and frothy. It was hard to distinguish what had happened but the noises in the water made it obvious that the Blitzscales were on the move.

Before Alaric could even breath out to finish a single breathing cycle the noises in water stopped, then it took a few seconds for the water to calm down.

After the disturbed water calmed down, Alaric could only stare at it in shock.

Not even a shred of that meat remained, but that wasn’t what surprised him.

“Damn…” Alaric gulped audibly staring at the water, “Not a single one of them is injured. They didn’t even graze each other… at that stupid crazy speed.”

“They’ve got crazy control. All those fins aren’t just for show. Plus, they recognize their group extremely well—they’ll never hurt each other, no matter how fast they’re moving.”

Alaric’s eyes moved from the fish to Elowen. “Granny… Why are we doing this again?”

“Because you are going to be fishing. Barehanded”