Ordyntsev tried not to be too pressing, alternating his inquiries with stories about the army, warmasters, or the battle he took part in.
He even made up a couple of exciting scenes for the stories, just to keep the conversation going and impress the naive maids.
The earthling didn't want his sources of information to ponder the reasons behind his questions. The best way to prevent that was to constantly overload the feeble minds of his interlocutors with impressive but absolutely useless information.
Laughing and smiling, Stanislav never forgot why he was doing this. Although he wasn't particularly sociable, Ordyntsev was perfectly capable of deliberately being likable.
He knew how to present himself in the best light and engage the other person in a conversation about their favorite thing – themselves.
It would be a lie to say he didn't enjoy the company of the two maids, but he definitely wasn't as cheerful as he tried to appear.
Gradually, in front of the man's eyes, the inner workings of the daimyo's son's palace court began to form. It was an extensive network that could give a pretty good idea about the state of the country, or at least this prefecture.
The court consisted of a great many people who buzzed like flies around a few "flowers" in the form of the nobility and wealthy samurai. The latter, in turn, revolved around the son of the daimyo, trying to push the interests of their family or even the entire clan.
Especially active were the merchants and the few heads of large artisans' guilds.
The main reason for such hustle was the prestige of sponsoring the court and everything associated with the daimyo, even though it brought little direct profit. At least, if one analyzed all the information obtained, it became clear that the merchants were not chasing immediate gain.
Rather, the benefit for the merchants came indirectly.
In other words, merchants who could afford to feed the daimyo's court inadvertently gained status and orders from other nobles who wished to be no worse, maintaining the standard.
And the person in this equation who decided which merchants would be the main suppliers was none other than the steward Kero Yo. This chubby man negotiated with all the interested fat cats, distributing who would supply what goods to the palace.
Where there was big money, corruption was just around the corner.
A sly smirk touched the earthling's lips. For now, this information was of little practical use, but even so, it had already made the path he should follow clearer.
Stanislav leaned back in the tub with hot water, surrendering to the diligent hands of the girls. Needless to say, he felt better now than ever before in his life.
Remembering of missing Levi was like a sudden pang. The man had become so accustomed to her following him everywhere that now even such a brief absence of his faithful snake was sharply noticeable.
Ordyntsev had left Leviathan with the prince. The earthling had long noticed that Levi had formed quite good relations with Sumada, enough that she didn't try to bite him when he decided to pet her.
Although Stas was on guard at that moment, there was no need to snatch Levi away. She stoically accepted the stranger's scent without attacking.
"A-a-a-a!" A double piercing scream right at his ear made Stas jump and then plunge headfirst into the soapy water.
Spitting out and trying to open his eyes, Stas could only hear the wrenching howl that drilled right into his ears.
"A-a-a! A snake!"
"Easy there!" Ordyntsev finally wiped his eyes and barked loudly at the panicking maids, cutting off their squeals and screams. "It's my snake! She's tame. No panic!"
The maids collectively darted behind Stas, sitting in the tub, simultaneously pointing at Leviathan, who had frozen near the entrance.
Right now, she was sitting on her tail, tensely moving her head back and forth. Apparently, the coordinated sound attack had affected her too, stunning her.
As if that wasn't enough, the door burst open, and two guards rushed in, menacingly holding their drawn katanas.
"Everything is fine!" Stas waved his hands, attracting everyone's attention. "The girls were just scared by my pet. She's the kindest soul of a snake, so please, no need to point swords at her!"
It was a scene worthy of the best Renaissance painters: two naked girls, two samurai, a snake, and a man in the center with his arms spread out.
When the sudden panic subsided, Stas was left alone with Leviathan. The maids excused themselves with some made-up reason and slinked away after the guards.
"What was that all about?" grunted the man, looking at the snake approaching him. "Couldn't you wait for me a little longer? Had to crawl all the way here? By the way, how did you manage to pull that off without anyone noticing? And how did you even find me? By smell?"
Leviathan carefully sniffed the tub, then, rising, began to immerse herself in the warm water. A tail flickered in farewell, and the snake completely disappeared into the bathtub.
"Damn it, Levi, stop wriggling. It's ticklish," Stas twitched, lifting the snake to the surface with his hands.
She just blissfully rolled her greenish eyes and pretended to be a bobbing corpse on the surface.
"How did you even get into the room?" mused Stas, flipping the snake belly up with his palm; she floated for a few seconds before deftly turning back over. "Ah, no, question withdrawn." The man noticed a neatly gnawed hole in the paper part of the door.
'What has this transition done to you?' Ordyntsev curiously examined his pet. 'I bet no one has thought to use snakes as trackers before. But there's simply no other explanation.'
Ordyntsev scratched the growths on her head, which had become significantly larger. Moreover, upon closer inspection, Stas noticed that Levi was beginning to grow some overly thick scales on the back of her head.
Comparing their position and how they would look when they grew bigger, Ordyntsev's eyes widened in surprise.
'Is this a real tiny crown? So, you're a snake of royal blood now? That's why I've been accompanied by royals lately. It turns out, I have a little princess, or maybe even a queen of snakes, living by my side?'
Stas was in a good mood, so he allowed himself a bit of frivolity.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
In any case, he had managed to get some of the necessary knowledge from the maids. Now, other sources of information were needed, which had yet to be found.
The problem was that few would want to talk to some stranger and share their secrets with him.
Sighing heavily, Stas resolutely got up and moved towards his soaked clothes. They still needed to be washed and given time to dry somewhat.
As it turned out, having only one set of clothes could be very problematic.
A couple of hours later, Stas headed upstairs, constantly adjusting his not-yet-dry clothes.
The first thing the man decided to do was to visit the prince to check on his health.
"Look what she did!" Jishin was in mixed emotions. On the one hand, he was clearly amused, and on the other, he was annoyed. "I only looked away for a second, and your slithering belt managed to gnaw through the door and escape! Now I have a holey door," the prince's finger pointed to another neat hole in the corner. "Where did you even find her?"
"She managed to follow me all the way to the baths," grumbled Stas. "And at that moment, I was being washed by two fair-looking maids. They saw her, raised a scream, then the guards burst in, and it was only by a miracle that it didn't all end in a chopping spree of anything that moves or doesn't."
"Ha! Your master won't ever get bored thanks to you, will he, Leviathan?" laughed the prince. "Alright, what brings you here?"
"I need to check on your condition and dry off a bit before I go to the servants' quarters. First impressions are the most important."
"Fine, sit somewhere in the corner and don't interfere," Sumada relented, settling down at the calligraphy table. "Start asking your questions again, and you will feel my wrath."
Ordyntsev didn't bother to watch what he was doing. The earthling had slightly different plans at the moment.
Right now, he thought it was the most appropriate time to finally continue his attempts to awaken prana.
During the journey, Stanislav repeatedly tried to replicate the state of deep meditation and detachment, which he somehow managed to enter on the bank of that river.
Only every time he was met with failure, or he simply fell asleep due to exhaustion.
Today, Ordyntsev, once again, as that time, was in a good mood, so he had high hopes for this attempt.
For meditation, he chose the corner opposite the prince and placed one of the special fringed pillows under himself. Then he leaned his back against the wall.
'Close your eyes, relax your arms and legs. Deep breath and slow exhale. Again, inhale and exhale.'
Complete and absolute calm. On the edge of his consciousness, Stas felt someone carefully climbing onto his knees.
'If this turns out to be another dead animal, I swear on the health of all the samurai and warmasters, I'll get angry, and someone will get a good smack on their scaly behind!' But this thought quickly dissipated, carried away in the whirlpool of detachment and serene tranquility.
Everything was going the usual way, but the man felt something strange. Something wrong was floating in the air, preventing him from completely relaxing.
Stas somehow gradually realized that something was off. This feeling began to grow like a huge tsunami. Here, the water slowly begins to recede into the ocean, leaving tens of meters of beach dried up.
Where water once splashed, now there's trash, crawling aquatic creatures, and dirty seaweed.
But the knowing people are already running away, as far from the shore as possible, because somewhere in the depths of the ocean, an ever-increasing roar and noise of water is heard.
The ocean begins to rise slowly upward.
And finally, a seemingly small wave reaches ten or more meters. It stretches hundreds of meters to the sides, leaving no hope or chance of salvation.
Impact! Thousands of tons of liquid crash down from the heavens in a single torrential force. Any screams immediately drown in the roar of the raging element.
Water swirls around the man, breaking bones and twisting remnants in the stone-crushing whirlpools.
And just as quickly as all this horror began, it ends...
Stas realized that he was still alive, but nothing was over yet!
The man's consciousness frantically tried to understand what had happened. He remembered perfectly that he sat down for meditation, trying to awaken the prana core. So why the devil was he deep in the water?!
The man quickly spun around, trying to understand where he was, but to no avail. Above, below, and to the sides was water, with no end in sight.
The earthling shuddered with the overwhelming, irrational terror. He knew he was not alone in this dark, endless depth.
Instinctively, he began to paddle with his hands, trying to swim to the surface. However, despite the sensation of movement, the surface never appeared. Moreover, he felt that he was only sinking deeper into the anthracite abyss.
Suddenly, his entire being vibrated along with a moan or scream coming from the depths. Or perhaps it was a greeting spoken in a language alien to humanity itself?
'Grandpa Lovecraft, let me go,' nervously giggled Stas, desperately looking around. 'If I knew that these damned awakenings of the prana core send you straight to a meeting with Cthulhu or other underwater monsters, then...' His thought froze into pieces of ice when he saw movement somewhere in the depths of this watery darkness.
The movement of something very, very big!
'Damn hell.'
The darkness trembled again, allowing Stas to get a much better look at the gigantic scaly side of something so enormous that giant Atlantic ships could be considered a tasty meal for it.
Despite Stas's desperate spinning, he could not fully see the unexpected visitor, who lazily circled around him, staying beyond the light spot.
There was only the disgusting feeling that someone was examining him very attentively, like a funny doll on a miniature stage.
And when Stas was about to really panic, everything stopped. The surrounding water receded, tumbling the man's consciousness back into the real world.
But something remained.
Ordyntsev didn't open his eyes, feeling how a new and unexplored sensation bloomed inside him.
As if a frosty flower had opened in his heart, from which cold sap flowed through his veins.
Prana felt like something absolutely foreign and superfluous. As if his vessels had been filled with liquid nitrogen.
'What did Jishin say? That I should feel it to make it easier to invoke next time? Well, let's try; after that mystical, creepy stuff, I'm ready as ever.'
Ordyntsev focused on the force flowing through his body and came to an unpleasant realization that his prana was resisting his efforts to examine it more closely.
His body and all his senses literally screamed about the foreignness of this stuff. It was cold as chilled water, shackling the insides with ice. And the realization that it was just an illusion didn't make the situation any better.
'Come on! Open up, damn force!' Stas cursed, trying with all his might to peer into his prana channels: 'Let me feel you!'
And as if his pleas were heard, the mystical vision that allowed him to feel the channels running through his body suddenly became clearer, almost making the grown man shout out in all-consuming terror.
The energy, moving calmly on its own, suddenly bristled with thousands and thousands of tiny eyes of countless snakes when approached.
Now the cold was clear - it was the cold of the scales of many crawling reptiles, which somehow turned out to be the man's prana.
Stas tried to calm down, taking a deep breath and exhaling. Looking again at the subject of his anxiety, he realized that nothing had changed. The same snakes moving about their business.
They were in the muscles of his arms, in the abdomen, in the heart, and in the legs. Somehow, the man could even look at his own head, and there, too, was a nest of these creatures.
Stanislav loved snakes, but not when they literally lived in his body!
He felt a wild desire to cut open his flesh and try to pry them out. To cut out this tumor and throw it away...
Stas abruptly exited the meditation and nervously laughed, trying to come to his senses.
It would be a lie to say he was ready for something like this.
"So, did you manage to feel the prana?" Jishin's voice broke into his thoughts. The prince had turned away from the table with scrolls and was now looking at the earthling with interest.
"Yes, I did," Ordyntsev managed to say, and immediately asked the question that interested him most at the moment. "And how do you feel your prana? What does it look like to you?"
"Oh, did you immediately manage to step onto the next level of prana perception?" Sumada raised his eyebrows in surprise. "I must admit, it's a real waste that you didn't start training at an early age. Then, with luck, you really could have become a strong warmaster. As it is, it's just an interesting feature, nothing more. As for your question, I perceive my prana as soft, warm sand pouring throughout my entire body. Why do you ask?"
"Well," Stas hesitated. He didn't want to show all his cards right away. Who knows how Jishin would react to the truth. "My prana was very cold. Unpleasantly cold."
"Strange," Sumada frowned. "Usually, prana brings peace and a sense of comfort. After all, it's part of you. It's strange to perceive it as something unpleasant."
'Part of me!' A thought shot through the earthling's head, 'That's the thing, if the locals' prana is indeed a part of them from birth, but I never had it, then it only appeared after I arrived here. That's why this energy is so alien and frightening. It remains to be understood why it took the form of snakes, and this world will become a little simpler. Could it be that Levi somehow influenced it? Does this mean that I also had an effect on Leviathan?'
The fear beating in his chest was extinguished by a wave of thirst for knowledge.
Although not without flaws, the man had still managed to reach the local magical energy.
Now, having felt the prana, he had to automate its sensation. Then, Stas planned to coax the prince into revealing more information on the warmasters' techniques and their training.