Book 2. The Grand Gathering. Chapter 19. After Tournament Celebration.
Having just eaten a really spicy pepper, Laien gulped down a whole cup of grape juice to soothe the burning sensation in his mouth. He put the cup down on the low table, then burped with his mouth closed. He looked to the side, pretending not to notice the reprimanding looks Siana and Nila were giving him. The two boys on the others hand, Anatis and Yin, were chuckling quietly and suppressing a laughter. It was them who encouraged Laien to try this pepper after all.
“That’s ‘not too hot’?” Laien asked grudgingly and looked at Yin out of the corner of his eye. He was a bit angry, but in the end, he couldn’t resist smiling. When he was alone with Anatis it was usually him who was pulling such jokes, but now Yin and Anatis teamed up against him. In its own way, it was quite an amusing situation, what he didn’t fail to recognize.
“Say Anatis,” Laien brought up and smiled mischievously. “Since you won and I lost, don’t you think it’s time to finalize our little bet?” he asked with a laugh, unwilling to be the only one teased in the room.
“This whole bet was unfair to begin with,” Anatis complained, but his smile remained playful. He was the one who had suggested the whole thing and then agreed to go through with the version of the bet proposed by Laien, so he had no one to blame but himself.
“Come on, come on,” Laien urged, unable to wait and see if Anatis would really do what they agreed upon.
Anatis sighed a little and glanced at Nila for a brief second. Hoping that his girlfriend wouldn’t mind what she was about to see too much, he stood up and walked over to the other side of the low table. For the time being, he seated himself more or less between Laien and Yin, then gave Laien a helpless look. No matter how one looked at it this bet would, in the end, make him embarrassed the most, wouldn’t it? The fact that he still was willing to go through with it could only mean he really stopped minding being a bit embarrassed while fooling around with Laien.
“Since I’m already doing it, might as well do it properly so he doesn’t complain…” Anatis mused quietly while looking Laien in the eye. He raised himself up, put his hand on Laien’s shoulder as to not lose balance and tilted his head slightly, then went ahead and kissed Laien. Since the bet didn’t specify what kind of kiss the punishment game meant, he could have ended it with a simple peck on his lips… but where would be the fun in that? He might not have gone as far as to add tongue, but he placed a long, deep kiss on Laien’s lips.
“He kisses better than Nila…” the thought crossed Anatis’s mind, soon to be followed by the question of what Nila would have done to him had she heard him say it aloud. Nevertheless, after he backed off from Laien he couldn’t help but be a bit worried when she gave Nila a look, but she only sighed heavily and smirked helplessly. She had apparently gotten used to having him do stupid things when Laien was around, so she didn’t mind it too much.
“Hey, that was unexpected,” Laien said with a merry smile. “I was sure you wouldn’t go that far. Could it be you were a bit curious about it?” he asked wryly and licked his lips in a playful manner.
Anatis chuckled helplessly. After all the teasing Laien did to him, how could he not become slightly curious as to how it would feel to kiss him? He was a boy in the middle of puberty, after all. Yet, his smile turned a bit worried when he saw the expression on Siana’s face behind Laien’s back.
“Looks like your little sister is angry at us,” he pointed out before standing up and returning to Nila’s side. Although he had gotten used to playing around with Laien, he still couldn’t deal with his little sister at all. He just didn’t know how to talk with her when she kept hiding her emotions and mood all the time, only displaying it when she was either extremely happy or extremely angry.
“They are just having fun, why so grumpy?” Yin asked curiously, honestly interested in Siana’s reasons. If she didn’t like this kind of behavior, then all she needed to do was to say it, right?
Siana harrumphed and looked away from Yin, unwilling to talk either to him or Anatis. If they were so stupid they couldn’t understand what was her problem even when they were taking all attention of her big brother, she sure enough wouldn’t be the one to explain it to them!
“Weren’t you the one to tell me to take it easy on Anatis?” Nila inquired, failing to understand what Siana was suddenly getting so angry about.
“This and that are completely different things!” Siana snapped, her patience finally reaching its limits. She had been trying not to say anything the past days, but she really couldn’t stand it anymore!
“How so?” Nila asked with a surprising amount of calm. After the burden she had been carrying on her shoulders had been lifted and after she had honestly talked with Anatis about her feelings and worries after feeling miserable during the banquet, she became a lot more cool-headed.
“How so…?” Siana repeated furiously, but the next second her expression once again became rather emotionless. “I’m going back to the school,” she declared and stood up, then quickly walked out of the room; without slamming the door behind herself, though.
“You aren’t going to go after her?” Nila glanced at Laien and asked with a hint of expectation in her voice.
“If she doesn’t like what I do, she can just not hang out with me. That’s the deal we have,” Laien said with a little sigh. He and Siana were aware that the relationship between them wasn’t quite like one between normal siblings, so they had long ago set a few rules for themselves. The one he just mentioned was included amongst the likes of not taking their relationship too seriously and keeping everything between them to fooling around instead of getting too serious about it.
“Just ask her what was it about after she calms down,” Yin advised with a smile. His grandfather had always been saying that most of the conflicts could be easily resolved or even avoided altogether if people simply talked with each other.
“Eh, I will,” Laien said resignedly. “I guess she was simply jealous though,” he added quietly, wondering what else was Siana expecting of him. To pay attention only to her exclusively? She should know they were both too young to be making such choices and more importantly, he personally wouldn’t have been comfortable with such a deal.
“I’m sure it will be okay,” Yin said with a smile. He got the impression Laien and Siana were very close to each other, so he didn’t worry whether they would be able to make up or not.
“Ah, sometimes I wish girls were more like boys…” Laien mentioned with a resigned smile. “You sure you aren’t actually a girl?” he glanced at Yin and asked with a playful smile.
Yin chuckled gave Laien an amused smile. “Sorry that I’m a boy. If you really still can’t believe it, check it yourself,” he said carefreely.
“Check it myself? Do you want me to pull your pants down right here or what?” Laien asked with a smirk
“Not that,” Yin replied with a laugh. “I mean the bath thing, remember? Don’t people in this country also bathe every day?” he reminded and asked with a smile.
“Well yeah, those who can afford to at least. The public baths are quite cheap though…” Laien mused aloud, pondering where could Yin be from since apparently, it was common to bathe often there too. “You know, I might as well check it out without waiting after all,” he mentioned out of the blue, right in the mood for playing around a little.
“Here?” Yin asked, his cheeks blushing slightly. By the looks of it, he thought Laien was being serious… though admittedly, sometimes it was hard to say when Laien was or wasn’t serious.
“If you can’t stop me that is,” Laien added with a chuckle and jumped at Yin, pushing him down onto the pillows laid out around the low table. He exchanged a glance with Yin while on top of him. with both of his hands on Yin’s shoulders. By the look of it Yin had finally caught on and without wasting any more time, got straight to pulling on each other’s clothes, trying to lock the other down for a moment and also tickling from time to time.
Nila smiled and chuckled a little as she was watching Laien and Yin wrestle away. Didn’t Anatis end up doing the same with Laien not long after they met for the first time? Was this pretty typical of boys to do such silly things? Some time ago she would have frowned at the idea, but now she found herself to be pretty accepting towards it.
About ten minutes later, Laien and Yin had enough for the time being. They poured themselves more juice, then noticed that Nila had moved to sit between Anatis’s legs and was leaning against him lazily. The golden-haired girl returned the glance and raised her eyebrows, asking wordlessly if the two of them had something they wanted to say.
“Want to go check out what Sin prepared for us?” Laien asked Yin, a very much amused smile present on his face.
“Why not,” Yin replied almost instantly. Just like Laien, he looked at Anatis and Nila once more, then chuckled quietly.
“You two lovebirds going with us, or do need a room?” Laien asked wryly after standing up. He didn’t quite mean this question seriously, but he couldn’t not smile widely when he saw Nila’s cheeks turning bright red and Anatis getting pretty ashamed, too. Did these two plan to do something interesting and already had it talked out? Well, he was quite curious but he wouldn’t get in the way of their plans; he liked Anatis too much to do it to him.
“Okay then, have all the fun you want,” he said before leaving. “Just don’t forget to close the door,” he reminded teasingly and smirked at the couple.
“Just go already, okay?” Nila said helplessly, though without the usual, annoyed vibe in her voice.
Laien smirked at her one last time, then left the room with Yin. Outside, an old and serious-looking butler greeted the two of them with a formal light bow.
“Was he waiting here this entire time?” Laien asked himself, surprised to find how diligently some people treated their work.
“Good day, young masters. My name is Johan and I am the butler working for Prince Sinra. Do you wish to partake the entertainments which had been prepared for you?” Johan asked in a very formal tone, taking his job quite seriously.
“Yeah, just lead us around,” Laien replied with a smile, used to random people using formal language when talking to him.
“As you wish. Since neither of you young masters is asking for specifics, I can safely assume that you are fine with me choosing the order of the places we are going to visit?” Johan inquired politely, his way of speaking honestly beginning to get on Laien’s nerves. He was used to formal tone, but this was going a bit overboard.
“Yeah, it’s fine. But can you stop being so stiff and formal? It feels so awkward,” Laien mentioned resignedly.
“Fine then. Please follow me,” Johan acknowledged Laien’s request and spoke simply. He would still be polite, but he wouldn’t go too far with formalities like before.
They were about to leave when another servant of the mansion called out for them to wait. The man approached the three of them hurriedly, bowed to Laien and Yin and apologized for causing a disturbance to the old butler. He produced a letter sealed with the sigil of the eagle, the crest of the Valius family, and handed it over to Laien.
“Next time something like this happens, call for me first,” Johan reprimanded the man, not too pleased with how deep into the Royal Palace a random messenger had been let into. What were the guards at the main gate thinking?
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“From Garon?” Laien frowned slightly and unsealed the letter, then skimmed through its lines. As expected, reading this thing was a pure waste of time.
“Anything interesting?” Yin asked, taking a peek at the piece of paper unfolded by Laien.
“Nothing much, congratulations on my performance and some warning to take good care of myself since I have ‘such a good talent that it would be a pity if I died an early death’,” Laien said dismissingly and shrugged his shoulders. He released a bit of his spiritual energy and filled it with the Primordial Energy, causing it to instantly burn down to ashes.
“Shall we go?” Johan asked, visibly straining himself not to speak formally.
“Yes,” Laien said with a nod, appreciating the old man’s efforts to meet his preferences. He and Yin followed and meanwhile, chatted about everything and nothing.
After walking for about ten minutes, they arrived at a separate building which in itself was about the size of an average inn. They walked inside through the sole door and entered a spacious hall, in the second half of which was located something akin to a large pen for the animals, though with a strangely low fence.
When the three of them walked closer, they saw hundreds of different small cubs, puppies and all sorts of small animals. The little ones were playing around with one another and running around the straw-covered floor, making for a truly cute spectacle.
“As you can see,” Johan began saying. “These are young spirit beasts from all over the world. They aren’t too rare and honestly, aren’t that useful. They are popular pets amongst nobles who have a degree of talent in spiritual practice. You can go play with them, they are usually good-natured towards people. If you take a liking to one or two, feel free to take them,” he explained in a calm manner. He was aware that Laien and Yin weren’t really listening to him too attentively, but he was thankful they had at least enough courtesy to wait for him to finish speaking before going to play with those little things.
“Young master Laien, since you are a spiritual practitioner all you need to do is to let the spirit beasts you like feed on a bit of your spiritual energy to establish the connection. Remember however that unless the spirit beast itself is willing, you won’t be able to forcefully tame it. Only the spirit beast can establish the connection. As for the side-effects and consequences, there are none. The amount of spiritual energy the beast will feed on is so minuscule it’s completely negligible, although I advise against making contracts with many of them,” he spoke calmly, without hurrying. The way he elaborated on the subject kinda of reminded Laien of the way Elder Bumne was speaking… what was making him want to yawn even more.
“As I said, those animals are pets. Even after they fully develop they don’t grow stronger than fifth mortal realm. One can have some unrealistic dreams, but many powerful spiritual masters attempted to ‘raise’ a spirit beast to higher realms and never had they succeeded. But on the topic, once a spirit beast merges with someone it will live within his spiritual energy. The spirit beast can then be summoned by the owner whenever he wishes to, just like that,” Johan concluded with a little sigh and stretched his arm to the side. Some black mist oozed out from the palm of his hand formed into a black, adult-sized guard dog which barked happily and started wagging his tail. He was quite happy to be let outside by his master.
“If you want to, you can now enter the pen and familiarize yourself with these young spirit beasts,” he added, barely restraining himself from once again referring to the boys as ‘young masters’ what he might have had accidentally done during his explanation.
Since the explanation was finally finished, Laien went forward and leaned against the wooden one-meter high wooden fence. His appearance immediately attracted the attention of many little spirit beasts who all looked at him with bright eyes, then began quickly swarming over in huge numbers.
Laien was a little amazed to see these little ones react to enthusiastically. The butler did say they were good-natured towards people, but was it normal for them to act like this? Seeing them jump at the fence and on top of each other as they were desperately trying to get closer to him made him worry if they wouldn’t hurt themselves in the process.
Wondering why Yin didn’t come yet, Laien looked over his shoulder. Yin was still standing at the butler’s side with a troubled expression on his face.
“Yin, what is it? You don’t like animals?” Laien asked, choosing to refer to those so-called spirit beasts as animals from this point onwards. As they couldn’t advance past the fifth mortal realm, they truly weren’t much different from normal animals so he felt no point in going out of his way to say ‘spirit beasts’ each and every time.
“No… It’s more like, they don’t like me,” Yin answered with an unsettling smile. He didn’t want to destroy Laien’s fun and neither did he want to see all those little spirit beasts get frightened of him.
Seeing Yin’s mood turn worse, Laien thought about what to do for a short while. He wanted to play a bit with those cute animals… but Yin didn’t look like he would come with him. He looked at the fluffy mass of swarming little ones one last time, then stepped away from the fence. “Forget it, let’s go somewhere else,” he said straightforwardly. He wasn’t about to be having fun while Yin stood to the side and waited, obviously feeling uncomfortable.
Neither Laien or Yin noticed, but after hearing these words Johan began looking at Laien with a lot more warmth in his eyes. From the kind of behavior Laien had been displaying he couldn’t tell what Prince Sinra and Master Injar saw in this kid… but now he was beginning to recognize what there was to Laien apart from his potential as a practitioner and influence as Rudford’s disciple.
As for Yin, instead of being relieved by what Laien said he became even more anxious. “D-Don’t mind me, you do it by yourself, I will wait here,” he insisted, for the first time getting nervous about something to the point of acting timid and stuttering slightly.
Laien sighed heavily; he really felt like rolling his eyes. Was this really important enough to be fidgeting about so much? “Aaah, I’ve got enough. What’s gotten into you? Just come, we will see if they will be scared or not!” he said with some frustration in his voice. He approached Yin and pulled him by hand towards the pen, what Yin didn’t resist at all; partially because of surprise, partially because he gave up and decided to show Laien why he didn’t want to come close to any animals.
The moment the two of them reached the fence, the previously energetic and overly friendly little animals all froze. After a second, the hundreds of little creatures started trembling; some curled up in fear, hiding their heads under their paws in a human-like fashion while other ones simply stood there, shaking so hard that they couldn’t take a step even though they really wanted to flee. The majority, however, followed their instincts and scattered instantly, running as far away from Yin as possible.
“What the…?” Laien stared at the scene, flabbergasted by what he was seeing. He had never seen animals react to a human in this way. For them to start running and shaking the moment they saw Yin… what was going on with them? What in the world could cause them to fear Yin so much? Wondering, he turned his head and looked at Yin who had a saddened expression on his face.
“They always react like this. So many people became scared of me when they saw animals react in this manner,” Yin said in a depressed voice. “Are you going to think ill of me because of that too?” he asked worriedly. He didn’t care about those random people from the last few months, but he really cared about Laien’s opinion of him.
“Um, no? Why would I?” Laien asked with a chuckle. Sure it was a bit strange that all animals were apparently scared of Yin, but why would that matter to him? Rather, because of this question of Yin’s an idea came to his mind. Without any explanation, he grabbed Yin under his shoulder and jumped into the pen, causing the few spirit beasts who were still at the fence to flee in terror.
Yin didn’t say anything, but he smiled with relief. So far almost everyone who learned of this little fact of animals being scared of him would begin treating him like some kind of a bad omen. He was really glad Laien wasn’t like that, but he was also confused by what Laien was planning to do by bringing him inside the pen.
Laien crouched, so he did the same. The little beasts were now so scared that many started peeing themselves… but Laien smiled nevertheless, apparently having something in his mind. “What do you want to do?” he asked, failing to understand the point of what Laien was making him do.
“Mm, I want to wait a bit and see what happens. If some of them will come, then great. If none of them will come, then screw it. They are the stupid ones,” Laien explained and sat down on the straw-covered floor. He kept looking at the spirit beasts, picking them out one by one and gesturing them with his hand to come over, trying to find one which wouldn’t be so scared of Yin.
“You know, they won’t come…” Yin said resignedly. No matter how much he tried, all animals and even magical beasts were always scared of him. He didn’t care too much about this fact on its own; he was used to it. What mattered to him more was that people saw it as a bad thing. Since Laien did not it already made him happy enough. He didn’t want to waste time in this pen only to scare these poor little ones to accomplish nothing.
Laien frowned, not too happy with Yin’s negative attitude. It didn’t fit Yin’s image at all, it just felt wrong. What he wanted to do was to prove something… perhaps to his own satisfaction. “Eh, is it really too selfish of me?” he asked himself and shook his head. Maybe it really would be better if he just let the matter go and moved on?
He stood up, intending to leave. However, the moment he did, one particular spirit beast jumped up and retreated further away. There wouldn’t have been anything strange about him being startled, that is if he wasn’t the only one out of hundreds who reacted in this way. Thus, Laien couldn’t help but look at the puppy curiously. He sat back down and reached out with his hand, displaying an open palm and waiting for the little one patiently.
The little spirit beast was still trembling at the wall, so Laien used those seconds to take a better look at it. The puppy had strange, dim-blue somewhat metallic-colored fur and also had some qualities of a wolf. The little one had a long line of deeper shade running from above his nose, through his head, back and all the way to the tip of his tail. His paws were white, looking as if he had walked through some spilled paint somewhere. Overall, it looked quite nice and cuddly.
“Come,” Laien encouraged simply, still reaching out with his hand. The puppy looked at him hesitatingly, then glanced at Yin only to quickly look away, scared that Yin would notice he was peeking at him.
At Laien’s side, Yin was observing the same puppy with curiosity. He truly began wondering if this one would finally come to them or not, only to be startled when Laien suddenly put his hand on his head and tousled his hair. He looked at Laien questioningly, though had a guess or two as to what Laien was up to. He leaned against Laien, this time catching him a bit off-guard.
To Laien’s satisfaction, the puppy seemed to have understood what was going on and didn’t appear to be as scared as before. He slowly started walking towards the two of them, weighing each step carefully. Since the distance was great, around two hundred meters or so, the puppy grew somewhat unsettled as he was walking slowly. After an internal battle, he threw all caution away and sprinted forward, closing his eyes and in the end jumping at Laien’s stomach and falling onto his lap with a courage worthy of a warrior heading to the certain death.
Laien muffled a laugh when he saw the dim-blue-furred puppy shake on his lap with his eyes shut tight. He gently caressed the puppy’s head, and then stoked his fur affectionately. The puppy calmed down a bit, but when he opened his eyes and saw Yin’s face just nearby, he shut them again.
Laien felt a weak thread of spiritual energy probing at his body, attempting to enter it. In his eyes, this little fearless puppy was worth keeping. Maybe given some time, the little one would even get used to Yin’s presence. He allowed the thread to connect to his spiritual energy, what resulted in the puppy dissipating into a puff of blue mist and heading into his reservoir of spiritual energy.
Laien closed his eyes and attempted to look inside his Spiritual Core, where he managed to sense the puppy’s presence. He instinctually understood that if he wished to, he could summon the little one at any time he wanted just like the butler did with his guard dog. Also, just like the butler said the puppy was absorbing a minuscule amount of energy, far below its natural recovery rate. Keeping him would indeed not be problematic at all.
“It really came close to me… That’s a first. Think he will let me pet him later?” Yin asked cheerfully, no longer as bothered by the hundreds of other little beasts which remained fearful of him.
“I sure hope so,” Laien said with a laugh. “And by the way, want to name him?” he asked as the two of them were walking back to the butler. He liked naming techniques, but he never had a good sense for naming pets.
“Maybe Felix?” Yin proposed casually, saying the first name which came to his mind.
“Felix then.” Laien nodded his head happily, then looked the old butler in the eye. “Hey, can you tell us what are the other things left before we go to see them?” he asked, having changed his mind about enjoying the surprise each time. If there was something annoying or boring, he would rather avoid it altogether.
“Yes, as you wish. There are three more activities prepared. One is choosing a weapon out of the rich stock of the Royal Family, it’s an additional prize for the top four contestants of the tournament. Second is the Heavenly Flame Scroll with first three levels of the Heavenly Flame Arts which the winner’s camp receives the access to. The last thing is something Prince Sinra prepared himself, the rejuvenating water. Each of you will receive a bottle, which added to a bath will wash away the fatigue from one’s body and aid recovery of both Qi and spiritual energy,” Johan explained unhurriedly, personally considering those prizes to be quite good. His plan had been to take the boys around in order he just used, but he would, of course, adhere to any of their wishes.
“I don’t really need any weapons though…” Laien said with a shrug of his shoulders. He could take the best one and treat it as additional money prize and that was what he would probably end up doing, but he wasn’t in a hurry to go through with that.
“I already have my martial art so I don’t care about that scroll too much,” Yin added from himself and exchanged a look with Laien. Apparently, they were thinking about the same thing. I was the highest time for a bath!
Johan sighed heavily. Those two boys… they weren’t interested in the precious weapons for which countless practitioners would be ready to kill for? They couldn’t be bothered to go pick up the Heavenly Flame Art and meditate on its secrets? Instead what they looked forward to was fooling around in the bath? Heavens… those two were really hopeless.
“I don’t think you need me to show you where the private baths in the mansion are, so here are two bottles of rejuvenating water,” Johan said resignedly and handed the bottles to Laien and Yin. He bowed lightly and forgetting to ask if there wasn’t anything else he was needed for, walked away and returned to more productive and important duties of his.