As they were walking back to the estate Emin could see the downcast face of Adrain and tried to console him “Young master, you’ll have your chance at cultivation but you are still to young to even think about it. Most people, generally start cultivation at the age of 8 as human body needs to grow to be able to build a foundation”.
“But Emin, thats too far, I want to start now, just little by little, muu”. No matter what, Adrian was still just a 3 year old child, he wouldn’t accept the truth easily.
Emin sighed and wondered if it was a good choice to let Adrain know about cultivation this early. He’ll have to leave it to Master and Lady to convince this stubborn young master of his. Suddenly thinking of something Emin added “But there is still a good news for you, may be others are helpless before 8, but you are a descendent of the Silvermoon, those born in great family can prepare much better than others. With the help of resources and training methods in our family, young master can start building the foundation at 5 and prepare your body for cultivation. With that, you’ll have a stronger and solid foundation than others which will help in smooth cultivation and progress later in the future. You’ll be much stronger than the others your age, isn’t that great?”
A little excitement appeared in the young boys face after hearing that he could start early. Even though he didn’t understand everything Emin said, he still felt it was something great and couldn’t wait to grow soon.
Soon they reached their home and saw a luxurious carriage waiting outside their house. They had seen various kinds of luxurious carriages before but this one was different. Embroidered with precious jewels, curvaceous edges, rubbered wheels for comfort than the normal plain wooden wheels, the prices of tens of the normal carriage probably couldn’t even buy a single such carriage. Curious to know about the kind of guest that had come to their home, Adrian went inside while Emin waited outside.
Inside, Adrian saw his parents seated at one side. Across the table a plump golden man could be seen smiling. Correction, the man was normal but he was wearing so much gold that it was giving a golden radiance to his whole figure.
Erna motioned with her hand calling Adrian to sit beside her and his father. Adrian soon followed and began studying this man in gold.
“This must be young Adrian I presume, how cute, just like Lady Erna. He will surely be a handsome lad when he grows up unlike some musclebrain I know, hehe”. Commented the man in gold while giving Alfons a quick glance. He had the weird smile plastered on his face.
Alfons gave a grunt and retorted back, “talk about yourself Hugo, carrying all that weight around, you might accidentally kill someone if you bump into them. But, I guess you could compensate them with all that gold. Uh huh, so thats the reason you wear so much gold!”
Hugo Plancius was the richest merchant in the Silvermoon town. Although the town was under the Silvermoon Clan, Hugo came from a long line of merchants family who had travelled to the area a few centuries back. Alfons and him were childhood friends or a more accurate term would be childhood rivals. Rivals, for both aspire to do great things. One came from the long line of powerful cultivators and another a renowned merchant family. Merchants were regarded high in the Moonshine empire, as in any world, power and wealth went side by side. To become powerful, one required wealth and as long as you had wealth, power was within reach.
The rivalry between the two had always been complicated, sometimes even going to the extreme. But being two of the major pillars holding the town, they had to tolerate each other. Adrian could sense the hostility between his father and the golden man. Seeing his always calm and cool father making unhappy face against this man, he marked the man as a bad person in his mind.
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“Of course, you don’t have to worry about me Alfons, I am very careful. In fact, that is why I am here today, you still haven’t paid me for the piece of land you bought a few months back. your interest is pilling up, if I don’t come to remind you, it’ll only increase more so here I am helping you to make some profit, hehe. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for a beautiful lady like Erna managing all things by herself”. Stating his generous intentions he directed a face of pity towards Erna.
Rolling her eyes towards the two, Erna couldn’t help sigh inside but still maintained a lady’s grace and said with a smiling face. “I have no problem whatsoever Hugo, please don’t bring me in both of your childish games. Your money will be sent to you tomorrow. Give my regards to Celia, and hows the young lady. Right, how about I send Adrian along tomorrow so that he can meet the young lady? It’ll be good, they are around the same age and it is nice to have some friends.”
The golden man’s smile grew even larger at that “what an excellent idea Erna, of course, it’ll be a good opportunity for the young ones to make friends and play, that daughter of mine is few months younger than young Adrain here so may be she can learn a thing or two from him. Hehe, what do you think young man?” Turning towards Adrian he asked but what he saw puzzled him as he saw an angry expression on a childish face which made it more cute. The irritated face of this child somehow gave him a bad premonition.
Adrian had been listening to this golden man bickering with his father and the unhappy face his father made whenever this man talked. In this life, he had never met a person who wouldn’t talk respectfully with his mother, but this fat man in front of him had been talking without any care. At first he was irritated but soon he disliked this man more and more. He wanted to scold this man but didn’t get chance to interrupt the elders.
And when the golden man suddenly turned and asked something to him, he wanted to say “i don’t like you gold man” or “who are you to talk like that to my father”, but instead he did something that was totally unprecedented and unexpected.
When Hugo asked the question to the boy, he saw the boy take a deep breath, press his lips hard and “THHWOOOO… !!!”. Time itself seemed to slow down right at this moment. Hugo couldn’t process what was happening. He could see a spray like water flying out of the boys mouth towards him. His eyes became round and he wanted to say no to what was happening as he couldn’t accept this outcome, but when he opened his mouth to speak, he realized midway that he shouldn’t have done that and soon closed it shut again. Alas, a few drops went in, by reflex all he could do was gulp down. He could feel the cool drops mixed with warm saliva in his throat. He felt like crying, he tried to say something but no words came, he opened and closed his mouth few times. For the first time since he came, there was not smile on his face.
“ADRIAN! You.. you unruly child!”. Both Alfons and Erna stood at the same time. Disbelief was plastered on their faces. Alfons was a cultivator, may be he could have reacted in time and stop it but when it happened he was numb from shock. This was something out of the world, adults sometimes gave an expression of spitting but it was limited to an expression, nobody had ever spit in others face like this. If the word of this ever got out, it’d be a disgrace to the Silvermoon’s name. He was angry but felt a little glee at the same time seeing the crying face of the fatso like that for the first time.
Erna was shocked beyond belief, worried that something might go wrong, she proceeded to quickly mend things before it became worse. She grabbed Adrian’s ear and pulled it a little and scolded angrily “You undisciplined child! How could you do something like that? Quickly, apologize to uncle Hugo! Doing this kind of things, are you even our child? Please forgive him Hugo, we’ll send you extra money tomorrow for compensation. This will never happen again!”
With a pained face Adrian whined - “Aai ya. ow.. ow… I’m sorrry mother… ah.. the gold man was rude to father and mother. I just…wuuu”. As Adrain began to cry, Erna felt a tinge of pain in her heart and left his ear. This was the first time she saw Adrian do something like this, he was a little mischievous but this was out of the world. “Silly child, you don’t get to decide on matters of the adult. Now quickly apologize!”
By this time Hugo had stood up, with a bitter face that lacked the cunningness of a merchant and its previous glow he said few words getting ready to leave - “haha, don’t punish the child lady Erna, I guess he gets his anger from his father, haha. Then i’ll be waiting for the money tomorrow. You can send young Adrain along as planned, it seems it’ll be him learning from my daughter. Then, I’ll be taking my leave”. Saying this, he turned and started leaving.
“Wait, Hugo! Why don’t you have a cup of tea and…” Alfons tried to make some comment but stopped midway seeing Hugo hurrying out without looking back.
“I guess he had enough of his fill for a day!”.