Book 2. The Grand Gathering. Chapter 26. Friends.
Laien was sitting cross-legged on top of a bed, meditating in the room he was confined in. The room surprisingly wasn’t all that uncomfortable; it was warm and the bed was soft. More importantly, however, despite being charged at the Royal Court his belongings hadn’t been taken away. He could probably thank his high position in the country’s hierarchy as Rudford’s formal disciple for that as normally, felons would be disarmed for the time of the trial. Although… considering that his main prowess laid in magic, there wouldn’t have been much point in disarming him anyway.
The night had already ended and the morning was coming, but Laien wasn’t quite aware of how much time passed since he was put here. His consciousness had long since sunk deep into his inner self, it had entered the boundless sea of spiritual energy in his Spiritual Core, then went deeper inside and reached... the soul, hidden deep beneath the masses of water-element spiritual energy.
In this extremely deep state of concentration, Laien could sense the characteristic auras of the Aspects of Tranquility and Wrath emanating from within his soul. With each passing moment, he was getting a clearer and clearer image of those strange orbs. When he had made a breakthrough and completed the foundation of the Aspect of Wrath, his soul had stirred enough to practically force him to become aware of its within. Now, however, it was incredibly calm, so he needed to put a lot of effort to even sense his soul and exert himself even further to enter his soul realm.
After some more time, Laien’s consciousness finally entered his soul realm. In there he saw the same two omnicolored orbs formed from the essences of the Aspects of Tranquility and Wrath. The two orbs were still orbiting around each other and constantly exchanging minuscule amounts of energy, but the whole process was much slower and calmer than it had been previously.
“That’s so amazing,” Laien thought to himself, something akin to his own incarnation materializing within his soul realm. He stretched his hand and brushed the essence of Tranquility with the tip of his fingers; at first he smiled dreamily as the peaceful, tranquil feeling spread throughout his mind. He became perfectly calm, like an unmoving sea… it was as if he no longer had or needed to care about any of the worldly problems, it was an exhilarating feeling. However, his last few remaining strands of consciousness screamed ‘danger!’ at him, very fortunately proving to be enough for him to snap out of the trance and hurriedly pull his hand back.
“It was so close… I nearly got swallowed by the Tranquility. It’s dangerous… too dangerous,” Laien swallowed nervously. He could tell during these brief few seconds, his insights into the Aspect of Tranquility had increased by as much as a month of normal meditative training, but he wouldn’t consider doing that ever again.
“Good thing I began with Tranquility… had I checked Wrath first, I could have harmed myself by going mad with anger…” he mused, for the time being deciding not to carelessly fiddle with those essences anymore. Instead, he sat down in the lotus position and focused on the two nearby, complete orbs.
“So mysterious, the essence of those Aspects contains the insights I myself do not have. Is it because I established a full foundation? Just by meditating on them here I can tell my progress is many times faster than normal.” Laien smiled contentedly. He had found out that what should be his soul was inside his Spiritual Core quite some time ago, but only now could he enter it with his consciousness. Training in this peculiar state would be of a great benefit to him.
In fact, he could vaguely tell that if he spent all his time in his soul realm, it would take him about twenty years to completely master the Aspect of Tranquility. He couldn’t make a similarly accurate statement about the Aspect of Wrath, but he was pretty sure he would need fifty to sixty years to complete his insights with the regard to it. It looked like his affinity towards Tranquility was a fair bit higher than that towards Wrath.
“What about Awareness though?” he wondered and shifted his attention to the messy cluster of strands of the essence of the Aspect of Awareness which was floating to the side of the two complete orbs. “At the rate I am currently capable of gaining insights into Awareness… thousands of years? Or even more? I can’t tell,” he noted with a sigh. There were fourteen Aspects, but mastering just the two he was most talented in would have taken him nearly a century of restless training, and that’s if he were to do nothing else but meditate in his soul realm each day every day!
“I’m slowly getting tired, though. It’s like my mental energy is draining… I probably can’t spend here more than a few hours at once,” Laien deduced and laughed helplessly. To master the Aspects of Tranquility and Wrath… it would realistically take him more than a thousand years. What kind of timespan was that? Ten centuries! To him, a twelve-year-old, it was an unimaginably long period of time.
“That being said, how come the Principle of Energy is nowhere to be found in my soul? I thought I understood it quite thoroughly…” Laien looked around, then attempted to focus and manifest the ‘essence’ of his insights into the Principle of Energy. As a result, a cloud of golden mist about half as large as his body converged in front of him. Yet, when he tried to study it just like he did with the Aspects, the mist began dispersing; converging back only when he once again properly focused on manifesting it.
“Principles seem to work different, huh?” Laien murmured and relaxed, allowing the golden mist to disperse.
“For now I will focus on the Aspects of Tranquility and Wrath. Because of that accident before… I can tell the energy I get from merging them will become less stable and weaker if my insights into one of the two become comparatively too high. I guess it means I need to pay more attention to the Aspect of Wrath since I got a lot less insights into it and I’m also gaining them at a slower rate,” he recognized calmly, very used to training in this look-and-see manner. He was pretty much self-trained as a spiritual practitioner so looking for the best ways to go about training had become a habit of his.
“Gotta concentrate, I can’t waste my time here,” he said to himself and closed his eyes, setting his sights on increasing his insights into Tranquility and Wrath as much as possible. He was already strong enough to beat an average martial master of the first rank, but if he wanted to have a chance against someone who was cultivating a martial art comparable to the Red Dragon Art… he needed to get a lot stronger.
It could be said he had the strength of an average martial master of the first rank, certainly. However, as far as Laien was concerned, was this really a thing to be so proud of? That statement was only true when he compared himself to those average people who just barely managed to reach the Realm of Heroes. On the other hand, Anatis and Yin were far away from being martial masters and yet one of them was about as strong as he was and the other one was considerably stronger! If he were to think about it again, now that Yin had made a Blood Pact with him and awakened his emerald lightning he would probably be able to crush him head-on and without much effort.
Thus, Laien wasn’t too satisfied with his current strength. It wasn’t bad, but when compared with other prodigies he knew… it might not pale in comparison, but it certainly didn’t shine as brightly as a common bystander might have thought.
“I am still so lacking… yet I acted big and wanted to help Sin get the crown. I must focus on training more,” the thought crossed Laien’s mind, which then became completely clear as he committed all of his attention to meditating on the two Aspects.
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Laien opened his eyes when he heard somebody open the door. Along with the afternoon light entering the room through the window, he saw Sinra whose expression was pretty grim. “Bad news?” he asked with a hint of worry. Given the circumstances, he couldn’t imagine how anything could go wrong. Unless… ‘If the truth is not on your side, lie, lie and lie. A lie repeated often enough, loudly enough and by many enough will become a truth.’
“He said something like that, I’m pretty sure,” Laien quietly recalled another thing Tei’ru had taught him. Back then he was still too young to be interested or to properly understand and make use of those things… but now they were slowly starting to make sense to him.
Sinra sat down on the bed beside him and groaned quietly. “The situation is more or less as I’m about to explain. You know that well over million people saw the battle between our two alliances, right? We thought it was a good thing there were so many witnesses as it should have made it harder for Sauras and Fohan to lie their way out, but… ugh,” he spoke bitterly, ashamed of the results he brought to Laien. It was the first time he ever directly competed with Sauras, who to make matters worse was supported by the three Great Families with all their intelligence resources. How could he have hoped to actually emerge victorious or even not-defeated from a confrontation that didn’t involve a direct battle?
“Basically, both the Great Families and Sauras, along with their hidden allies and agents began spreading massive amounts of misinformation about what had happened,” he began saying, then explained all at once. “After the twelve hours from the event, about ninety percent of the many millions of people who are here for the Grand Gathering believe you got into an argument with that whole guy… ‘Masi’ or whatever he was called because you wanted to settle some old grudge against him, then attacked him and his guards. The story goes that Masi tried fleeing to get help from Zhira, but you chased him down and killed him before they could rescue him; meanwhile getting into a battle with Zhira’s subordinates and somehow informing Rudford of what you were doing so he could come and help you… the rest of the story… well, you can imagine who looks like a villain in this setting even if they did not change much of the content of what went on later.”
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“So they are making me into a scapegoat for events which did not happen,” Laien summed up with a bitter laugh.
“They are going all-out to frame you and destroy your reputation,” Sinra added helplessly. “From what we know, they are even stretching the truths and making up things about your past. They intend to smear you with enough shit that the whole country will demand to have you exiled or worse,” he elaborated briefly. He wasn’t worried whether Laien would be executed or not; they wouldn’t allow for that to happen. However, depending on how the trial would go permanent exile could become a scarily real possibility.
“It looks like even elder brother’s reputation will be hurt a lot by them,” Laien mentioned with a silent groan. “My little sister and I nearly died, I got all my friends involved, elder brother and the Twin Phoenix School are being put up against the rest of the Kingdom… and there’s this trial waiting. I… I don’t know what to do anymore, I’m scared,” he admitted weakly, the thoughts that he had far overreached with his reckless decisions hitting him like a ton of bricks. When he focused on training it wasn’t so bad, but not that he was talking with Sinra… just as he had expected, he felt terrible.
“You know, maybe it’s not up to me to be saying since I benefited the most, but I don’t think there’s much point in regretting your decisions,” Sinra brought up in a calm, reassuring voice. He exchanged a look with Laien who didn’t appear to be too convinced yet, then continued. “Once when I was seven or eight years old I snuck away from my room in the Royal Palace. I remember that the day before I had been punished for staying out too late and being unruly, but I wanted to go out regardless. I did promise a guy who I thought could become my friend to meet with him, so I went out anyway and didn’t tell anyone about it. That night the two of us went to the city and had a lot of fun. It was great, really. But…” Sinra suppressed a sigh, his gaze wandering over the plain wall of the room. He took a deep breath, then continued speaking. His voice, however, didn’t sound as calm or collected anymore.
“It turned out that my disappearance caused quite some commotion in the Royal Palace and even a big search for me was organized… and you know what? In the end, I only got scolded and got my training and studying regime increased as punishment. However, the boy and his family got thrown out of the Royal Palace, just so the kid wouldn’t be there since he ‘had a bad influence on me’.” Having said so, Sinra smiled helplessly, almost sarcastically.
“What do you think I found out had happened about three months later?” he asked rhetorically, his expression turning complicated.
“I learned the boy’s family had been attacked by some minor group of thieves on their way to another city. They were all killed for the few coins they had on themselves,” Sinra said and laughed bitterly, still feeling horrible every time he remembered this event from his past.
Usually, he preferred not to think about the bygone days at all since they weren’t filled with many happy moments. Despite having Injar at his side, he didn’t have easy or pleasant childhood living the fate of being born as one of the younger Royal Children. He days back in the Royal Palace, even as recent as a few weeks before had been poisoned thoroughly by his older siblings.
Especially Finella had made it hard for him with Sauras not falling far behind. However, even those of his older siblings who weren’t in the competition for the crown anymore would often release their pent-up anger and frustration on him. For those reasons, he never really had any real friends and thus viewed his relationship with Laien as such a precious thing despite knowing him only for a very short period of time.
“You mean,” Laien spoke up, still unconvinced. “I shouldn’t feel bad and guilty because I had no knowledge of the true power and intentions of the Cail family and didn’t have any influence on what ended up happening?” he asked, this kind of reasoning not resonating with him at all.
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Sinra said with a light, warm smile. “I had cried for the whole evening after I learned that boy was killed; I blamed myself for doing something stupid and getting his family thrown out. I kept telling myself that if it weren’t for what I did, they wouldn’t have died; and I was right to blame myself in this way. However…” he paused for a second and smiled at the recollection.
“Injar told me it’s a good thing I feel guilty and that it’s good I’m blaming myself. He even said he would have been furious with me had I not,” Sinra said with a chuckle and continued quickly. “Most importantly, he also told me that if I have time to be wailing over myself, I should focus on thinking what I need to do to prevent such a thing from happening ever again,” he elaborated confidently. He personally had been following this one advice ever since then and never did it fail in making him wiser and more far-sighted as a person.
“Prevent it from happening, huh?” Laien asked with a bit helpless and awkward laugh. “Do you mean I should have never agreed to try and help Anatis or you?” he inquired with a slight smirk.
“Well.” Sinra laughed helplessly. “I’m not saying not to take risks and live your whole life in a safe cage, I’m saying that it’s important to tread your path carefully,” he clarified with a smile. “I must say though… I have also gotten caught up in the mood and failed to be more cautious. I think all of us have, everything was simply going too well,” he added apologetically, feeling that he also shared a portion of the blame for how the events developed.
“It’s not your responsibility, it’s mine,” Laien responded, frustration resounding quite clearly in his voice. It was him who made the decision to help Sinra, it wasn’t like he got coaxed into it or anything. Sinra was right to say he should have been more careful, but how was Siana getting into a dangerous situation Sinra’s fault? It was him who hadn’t been concerned with her and his own safety badly enough.
“It’s not only yours, nor only mine,” Sinra said calmly. “It’s also your sister’s and Rudford’s, just like it’s Injar’s and everyone’s who had been involved on our side. Some bear bigger responsibility, some smaller… but it’s not one person’s fault,” he tried to say it as well as Injar when he told him about those things but wasn’t sure if he chose the correct words.
“So you want me not to worry because I wasn’t the only one who could have done something about it? Something to prevent all this danger and this crap with Royal Court now?” Laien asked, but this time kept his calm as he was pretty sure he was misinterpreting what Sinra was saying again.
“Again, no,” Sinra replied with a resigned, but understanding smile. “It’s good you are concerned with it and both you and I should absolutely think about what we should have done to make it better and what we can do to fix everything from now on. However, what we shouldn’t do it to let the guilt overwhelm us and cause us to make even more mistakes which we could have avoided otherwise,” he explained, this time pretty sure he did a good enough job wording his thoughts.
Laien gave Sinra a long look as he thought about what his friend said, then smiled slightly and nodded. “I think you are right. Feeling bad is one thing, but it’s better to use those negative emotions to do something productive rather than to sit down and keep worrying and feeling bad about yourself,” he agreed, then took a deep breath; he could tell that he was much calmer now than before Sinra came. He was still feeling bad about what happened, but his thoughts were surprisingly clear and light.
“Thanks, Sin. Really,” he said with a smile, very grateful to Sinra for taking the time to calmly explain those things to him. Even though Sinra was only a year older than him, he really was much more mature, or so he couldn’t help but think.
“I’m glad I managed to do it without being as awkward as Injar was with me,” Sinra responded with a wry smile, causing Laien to chuckle; this time very much worrilessly. “Think you can approach the trial with a cool head now, or do you need me to tell you more stories from my childhood?” he inquired playfully with a smirk on his face.
“I should be good now, spare me the depressing stories for today,” Laien said with a laugh. He wouldn’t mind learning more about Sinra’s past, but not exactly at this exact time and place.
“Okay, but just to make sure…” Sinra bean saying mischievously, then moved a bit further back on the bed and lightly strangled Laien at the throat with his arm, then slid his other hand under Laien’s armpit… Well, what could he say? He knew Laien had been spending a lot of time fooling around with Anatis and yesterday with Yin, he also wanted to have some carefree fun; if it could help both of them to relieve some stress then even better.
Laien didn’t mind at all and very quickly got totally into the usual game of wrestling and ticking with Sinra. They finished after a few moments, however, he asked while laying down with a face flushed from laughter. “You are strong… at what realm are you exactly at?”
Sinra smiled in a troubled manner and replied. “Late stages of the eighth mortal realm.” He snickered at Laien’s surprised expression, then added. “I practice Heavenly Flame Art, but I’m not a monster who masters the Secrets, the Aspects one after another. I have no insights into them at all, so, all in all, I’m weaker than any of you.” He finished saying, still smiling helplessly due to the look Laien was giving him.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Laien asked curiously, doing nothing to hide how shocked he was. Were Sinra to gain insights into the Aspects… wouldn’t he instantly become incredibly powerful?
“You never asked,” Sinra replied plainly. He learned about the Secrets, or how everyone was now starting to call them the ‘Aspects’ when he was still a brat. His martial talent was great so Injar expected a lot from him… but even though he advanced through the realms very fast, he failed to awaken any special insights during his training. He was always rather ashamed of himself because of that so he didn’t like to mention his cultivation base; so what if he was ‘stronger’ than Laien and the others if, in reality, they would be able to easily defeat him?
“I guess I didn’t,” Laien said with a laugh. He had unconsciously perceived Sinra as more of a leader than a practitioner… but surprisingly, Sinra’s innate talent was incredibly high.
“Mm,” Sinra sighed slightly, then stood up and smiled at Laien. “I was supposed to stay only for a moment, but I spent more than half an hour here. Injar’s is so going to scold me,” he mentioned and chuckled quietly. He definitely wouldn’t regret leaving late given how his chat with Laien went.
“Sure,” Laien said and smiled back at Sinra. He did call out to him just as he turned around and began walking away though. “Thanks again, I feel much better now.”
Sinra glanced over his shoulder and smirked. “Stop thanking me so much, we are friends. It’s only natural to help each other, right?” he asked straightforwardly and honestly.
Laien’s eyes opened slightly wider, after what he laughed merrily. “Yeah, you are right,” he agreed and even blushed a little, feeling really warm and fuzzy inside. Having good friends… it was such a great thing.
Sinra smiled at Laien one last time, then left. After he did, Laien laid back on the bed, feeling strangely exhausted. He closed his eyes and quickly dozed off into sleep, as a result ending up completely unaware of the change which was occurring within his soul.
The cluster of strands of the essence of the Aspect of Awareness began growing bigger and steadily took on orb-like shape. After a moment or two, it stopped changing and although it wasn’t yet a full orb like the other two, it definitely resembled it. By the looks of it… the first half of its foundation had just taken shape due to Laien becoming more self-aware, both of his actions and their consequences and his attitude towards life.