Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 111. The First Step.
“This place could be good enough,” Laien brought up after standing up. “But not with those guys watching. How about we move to a bigger training hall? Or we can just do it outside,” he suggested with a smile. This private training hall they were in was quite large for the standards of this fort, but it wasn’t big enough for him not to worry about accidentally hurting Arslan or Mikaela. He would already need to be careful while fighting normally and he wouldn’t be able to use some of the more indiscriminate attacks of his at all; it would have still been fine had Raphael just wanted to spar with him, but it was an entirely different matter since he wanted to fight him seriously.
“Let’s just go outside,” Raphael proposed and also got up to his feet. “We saw a somewhat destroyed half-open and fairly flat area when we were coming here with Mika. It’s just two kilometers away from here up the northern road. The guards must have been using it for the rougher parts of their training. We can go there,” he said with a smile. He definitely wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on fighting if he needed to worry about Mika’s safety the whole time, so going to a wider and more open space was exactly what he preferred to do.
“Sure, let’s go,” Laien agreed lightheartedly and glanced at the three still sitting friends of his, then as they began standing up he headed towards the door.
Raphael, after a second of hesitation, joined Laien by his side. By the looks of it he had habitually wanted to walk with Mika, but seeing as his childhood friend was in tow with Yin and Arslan, he had little choice in this matter unless he wanted to make the mood a little awkward. He even came to think that he was being too overprotective of Mika and scolded himself for it, but he didn’t let the thought occupy his mind for too long. Rather, he started preparing for his fight against Laien; he knew quite a few things about this new friend of his, so he could cook up a plan or two, or even more of them in case the first ones didn’t work out.
“You guys going somewhere, eh?” the familiar-looking, black-cloaked, black-haired and rowdy-raced man greeted the five of them in the corridor. “Sorry to break it to you, but I’ve been told to accompany you until one of those stronger White Guards of yours takes over, just in case,” he said wryly and laughed without restraining himself. He could bet that those little monsters were going to be unhappy with that news and it wasn’t like he thought they needed his protection anyway, but orders were orders. Despite their daily bickering, he liked Elder Samuel quite a lot and was earning a hefty amount of money as his private guard, so he wouldn’t complain over small matters.
“You’re Jugal, right?” Laien greeted with a smile. “To think Elder Samuel would send us one of his two personal guards, how generous,” he said and chuckled in amusement. Was Elder Samuel worried about someone from outside the fort launching an attack on them? Was the Ruishi Federation really so dangerous? Probably not. Elder Samuel was likely being overly careful given that he had screwed up a little once. To begin with, there really weren’t that many people capable of threatening their group of five, but Elder Samuel probably thought it was better to be safe than sorry.
“Well, it would be annoying normally, but it works out fine this time around,” Laien mused to himself. “He’s a dual water-element practitioner of the fifth rank, so he can help us out in case we go a bit too overboard with Raphael,” he thought leisurely. It would have been a problem if their fight ended up being so close that he had no energy left to heal Raphael; they would have needed to rely on Mikaela in such a case, but Jugal’s appearance erased this scenario from the list of possibilities.
While Laien pondered his own thoughts, Jugal laughed and said a bit sarcastically, “The little monster remembered my name, I’m honored.”
“Jugal.” One of the three black-cloaked men who had been standing silently to the side spoke up all of the sudden, his tone discontent. “Elder Samuel told you to mind your tongue around those young masters. Also, it wasn’t just you who was ordered to guard them, but all four of us,” he reminded sternly, very obviously not appreciating Jugal’s presence and ill-mannered comments.
“Dickhead,” Jugal murmured along with a snort, though whether on purpose or not, his comment ended up being just clear and loud enough for everyone to hear it.
“Are you trying to pick a fight?” the black-cloaked man stepped forward. He was so angry that some of his Qi started leaking, revealing clearly his cultivation base of a marital master of the sixth rank. This kind of over-reaction from his side… Laien and the rest couldn’t help but wonder how bad was the relationship between him and Jugal for one comment to prompt such a reaction from him.
“What, are you going to attack me, mister lieutenant?” Jugal asked with a contemptuous laugh. “How about you find yourself a woman to relive some of this pent-up stress? Or would you rather prefer a little girl? Or maybe a boy?” he nudged on without restraint. Yes, by the looks of it, the relationship between the two of them indeed wasn’t good at all.
Perhaps as expected by his original emotional response, the black-cloaked man clenched his fists and with an infuriated look on his face, started letting out slight killing intent. The two subordinates of his who stood behind him were beginning to grow seriously worried if this time, their leader wouldn’t snap and finally attack Jugal. However, it apparently wasn’t destined to happen this time around.
“Aah, I’m not tagging along with that,” Laien commented out of the blue and walked past Jugal and the black-cloaked man. “C’mon everyone, let’s go,” he glanced over his shoulder and called out to the four friends of his, leaving both them and the four guards rather speechless. The former group, however, agreed with Laien’s opinion wholeheartedly and followed him without much of a delay.
With the five youths walking away, the two main culprits were left feeling a bit dumbfounded. The heated-up atmosphere from a few seconds ago seemed like a bad joke now, especially since their argument had been treated with a complete disregard by a bunch of kids they were supposed to be protecting. As adults, this development brought a decent blow to their pride. The black-cloaked lieutenant gnashed his teeth and admonished himself for being so easily riled-up by Jugal’s stupidity, while Jugal himself, very much to the contrary, quickly laughed the whole situation off.
“They don’t really need it since they are so strong, but let’s follow’em and keep’em safe,” Jugal said with a carefree laugh and followed after the five youths. Looking at his attitude, it was easy to tell that the thoughts of the squabble had left his mind entirely.
“Tch.” The lieutenant wasn’t pleased at all, but he had no other choice but to tag along as he had been ordered to protect those five. If possible, he would rather not associate with Jugal at all, but he wasn’t blinded by his dislike of the man enough not to understand Elder Samuel’s intentions. Having a powerful water-element practitioner who could both heal allies and take care of himself during a battle was impossible to undervalue. Still, he was greatly annoyed that he needed to follow behind in close proximity to that pest of a man.
“Captain Richt,” one of the two black-cloaked man in the lieutenant’s company began saying quietly. “What did that guy mean by saying that those kids are so strong they don’t need our protection?” he inquired, wisely not trying to console his captain over this argument with Jugal. He had been in this unit of thirty-six under Elder Samuel’s leadership and Richt’s command for long enough to have that much sense, at the very least. The fact that Richt and Jugal were like water and oil was commonly known within Elder Samuel’s faction, but from time to time there would be idiots who tried to court the favor of either of those two by badmouthing the other. The results of that were, without exception, that both Richt and Jugal would treat such a person coldly and with disregard.
“He meant what he said,” the black-cloaked lieutenant, Richt, said with a snort. Yet, when he saw the confused look on the faces of both of his subordinates, he sighed and explained, “Elder Samuel requested those of us who learned of that to keep the news from spreading, so you aren’t allowed to mention what I’m about to tell you to anyone outside of our unit. Apparently, those twin guards and Elder Sophie herself were all defeated by that black-haired foreign kid, Laien.”
“Huh?” The two men gasped in shock and confusion at once, then the same one of them as previously spoke up. “Isn’t that kid just a dual practitioner of the eighth rank? I thought it was Jugal who took them out given the kind of wounds they had… are you sure this information is correct?” he asked but didn’t dare to voice one of his thoughts, that maybe Jugal had simply lied to his captain for the fun of it… such a thing certainly wasn’t out of the scope of imagination given their relationship.
“If you heard Elder Sophie when she woke up in front of the rest of the Grand Elders, you would have believed it too,” Richt said with a rare, genuine smile on his face. The memories of Elder Sophie yelling in panic, fear, and pain were still fresh in his mind. Given that it had been him and his unit who had been clearing up the mess this woman and her allies caused in the country for the last two centuries or so, it brought him a dark sense of satisfaction to have seen Elder Sophie in such a pitiful, half-crazy state.
Having gotten an explanation of this kind, the two black-cloaked men could only smile awkwardly. A brat killed two martial masters of the fourth rank, eh? They still had trouble believing that, but they decided not to question it any longer. In the end, although they weren’t entirely convinced, they did entertain the possibility of the news being true too. However, to truly believe something so ridiculous, they would likely need to witness it with their own eyes.
“Oi, oi,” Richt frowned a little, seeing the five youths head straight towards the stairs leading up the northern wall of the fort instead of the gate. “Are we going on a sightseeing trip?” he asked with a sigh. He would, of course, obey the orders, but it had been more than two hundred years since he had been taking care of any children. Just thinking about all the other things he could be doing instead was causing him to want to sigh. All that was left for him was to hope that those White Guards of Arslan’s would take over sooner rather than later, but in case they said they were too busy, their group of four would be stuck with those kids until they left their country.
“Hey.” Just as Richt sulked, Jugal called out to the five youths climbing the stairs a few steps ahead of him. “I don’t mean to pry, but where are you kids going to? I’d rather be mentally prepared if I’m going to be doing something boring,” he said with a laugh, caring little for the formalities and pleasantries of the nobility. Young masters? He had seen how those kids acted in that room after killing the twin guards and disabling Elder Sophie; they were anything but the usual, stereotypical young masters… but even if it wasn’t so, he wouldn’t have cared how he spoke to them anyway.
“Some half-open area nearby, I guess?” Laien replied while glancing over his shoulder, then laughed and turned to look to the front without providing any further explanation.
“So we are sightseeing after all,” Jugal said with a heavy sigh, unknowingly causing an awkward expression to emerge of Richt’s face. Just the fact that the two of them were having similar thoughts was enough to make Richt feel quite some frustration as he saw himself to be an almost exact polar opposite to Jugal in terms of personality. However, he sure as hell wasn’t about to voice his discontent in any way as revealing the truth to Jugal would be even worse than the current sour status quo.
“Sightseeing, huh,” Laien repeated quietly and chuckled, then glanced at Raphael who, in turn, met his gaze almost instantly. “If we look at it from the pure cultivation point of view, then Raphael’s talent is overwhelming. He’s just a few months older than me, but he’s already a step away from becoming a spiritual master and he’s at the early ninth mortal realm in his martial practice. His cultivation base if extremely stable too… In this aspect alone, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the number one on the entire continent,” Laien mused in silence, his excitement for the duel with Raphael rising slowly but surely.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
It would depend on Raphael’s innate potential too, but If Raphael actually started improving in other areas than pure cultivation at a quick pace… then he could potentially overshadow even him or Yin. Of course, it would take him some time and quite a bit of luck to catch up, but the possibility of that happening existed. Yet perhaps contrary to one might have assumed, just thinking about it filled Laien with competitive spirit and anticipation instead of making him feel frustrated and nervous. It might have caused most ‘geniuses’ to feel pressured to have seen someone who could overshadow them in the future, but Laien shared no such sentiments.
To begin with, Laien had already accepted that he was weaker than Yin and had been striving to overcome his friend for the past two and a half months, ever since the two of them came to know each other. Laien enjoyed the rivalry coming from having strong friends and liked to use that competition to propel himself forward. As for the things like throwing logs under the feet of others just for the sake of keeping a self-proclaimed ‘strongest’ spot, they weren’t things Laien would ever consider doing; they were simply against the most fundamental traits of his personality.
“Mika, can you jump alone?” Raphael inquired the moment they reached the top of the walls. It was just fifty or sixty meters, but Mikaela was still just a martial practitioner of the fifth rank. There was a very considerable difference between fifth and sixth ranks for martial and spiritual practitioners alike, so while keeping that in mind, he didn’t want a situation where Mikaela would try to show off and end up injuring himself to occur.
“I’ll be fine,” Mikaela said with a cheerful laugh and a confident smile on his face. He used not to be as crazy about training as Raphael, but he hadn’t been lazing around either. His martial cultivation was still in the middle of the fifth mortal realm, but his body was definitely comparable to some martial practitioners of the seventh rank. He could jump from ten times the height and still be fine, much less those fifty or sixty meters.
“I could use some help though,” Arslan said with a laugh. He was a martial practitioner of the second rank despite his very young age, but it wasn’t nearly enough to allow him to safely jump from the height of fifty meters. Maybe if he was given three… no, just two more years, then he would be fine. However, for the time being, he could only rely on the help of his friends.
“Mm,” Laien nodded and reached out with his hand to Arslan with a meaningful smile on his face. Arslan caught on quickly and grabbed his hand, then without any hesitation, jumped up and over the top of the wall with him. Yin, Mikaela, and Raphael followed almost right afterwards in this exact order, making it so all five of them were falling down just around the same time.
As for the landings, Yin, Mikaela and Raphael hit the ground heavily, without much of a care or concern. Yin and Raphael needed not to be mentioned, but even Mikaela didn’t have any trouble covering this kind of a height. Then, a second later, Laien and Arslan also landed safely, having slowed down considerably thanks to a layer of water that Laien created under their feet. Technically speaking, he could have also taken Arslan on his back or held him tightly in his arms, but he didn’t feel that the trouble was worth the hassle. His insights have long since reached the threshold necessary to sustain the ‘air walking’, the so-called ‘fake flight’, so the amount of spiritual energy he used up just now was so small that it would recover within half a minute or so.
“I don’t really feel like running,” Laien mused aloud and scratched the back of his head. “But I don’t want to change the mood too much by chatting along the way…” he continued and sent Raphael a meaningful and slightly amused glance. “So, how about we run after all? It’s only two kilometers,” he proposed leisurely as the four men landed in the background.
“Sure.”
“Why not.”
“Yeah.”
Raphael, Mikaela, and Arslan all agreed to the idea. As for Yin, he simply smiled without saying anything.
“Arslan.” Laien glanced at his five years old friend. “Do you think you can sprint all the way there without resting?” he asked with a challenging smile. He was aware that for a martial practitioner of the second rank, and more importantly a young child, it would be pushing the limits to sprint two kilometers at full speed, without slowing down at all. However, he didn’t think it would be impossible for Arslan to do… and more importantly, it would serve to be an interesting little game in the meanwhile.
“I can!” Arslan responded energetically. He had been training less during those last few days, so he was excited to be able to finally move his body a little.
“Straight ahead?” Laien asked while glancing at Raphael. The northern road was yet another mountain path, so they had no luxury of seeing where they were heading to.
“Straight ahead,” Raphael confirmed. “In about two kilometers, there will be a small passage to the left. We need to cross it and then we will end up in the half-open area I talked about,” he explained, thus at the same time unintentionally informing the four men what they were planning to do.
“Hoh!” Jugal exclaimed with a broad smile. “So you’re going to the outer training grounds of ours, huh? Are you just going to train there or will you show us something more interesting, I wonder?” he asked, personally wishing for the latter option to be true. Alas, more or like as he expected, Laien only gave him a brief glance and said nothing; as for the remaining four youths, they unanimously followed Laien’s choice and didn’t speak up needlessly.
“Hrm, something’s lacking,” Laien wondered aloud, then a second later showed a ‘Eureka!’-like expression. “Right, there’s no prize!” he said with a laugh and once again turned to look at Arslan. “How about it, I’m going to pick a steady pace for myself. If you can arrive at the goal before I do, you can ask one thing of me, but if you can’t then I get to request something of you,” he proposed lightheartedly, using the same simple set of rules which had accompanied quite a few of their games in those past two and a half weeks.
“Deal,” Arslan responded with a playful smile. He very much liked all their games of this kind and if the content was challenging, it was all the better.
“On three then,” Laien said eagerly and stepped to the front, only to be joined by Arslan the next second. “One, two, three!” he counted quickly and started running, picking a pace high enough so it would be just around Arslan’s limits. Having trained with Arslan a few times on their way to the Ruishi Federation, he knew what his young friend was capable of and knew how to make this little run challenging enough and yet not impossibly hard for him.
Just a few seconds after beginning to almost spring ahead, Arslan realized that it wouldn’t be easy for him to keep up with Laien for the entire two kilometers. However, instead of groveling over how hard it was going to be, he smiled and focused on breathing steadily and reducing the unnecessary tension in his body. He would huff and puff, but he wasn’t going to lose in this game!
“Let’s follow them,” Yin said and started jogging ahead at a very casual speed. What was an exhausting long-distance dash to a martial practitioner of the second rank was a mere quick jog for someone at Mikaela’s level, much less for someone like him or Raphael. Thus, the three of them occupied themselves with watching how Arslan was doing as they progressed onwards.
The four men followed suit, running a few dozen meters behind the five youths they had been ordered to guard. As such, their little group of nine jogged, or sprinted, spending on the perspective, towards the outer training grounds.
Thanks to their decent pace, just four minutes later, they crossed the two kilometers and perhaps even a few hundred meters more than that… but the passage to the left was nowhere to be seen. At this point, Arslan was wet with sweat and was running on his last fumes. He still had a little bit of strength left, but even though he was looking ahead of himself properly, he couldn’t see the goal as far as the next two hundred meters he could see went. He was pretty stubborn, but if this goal didn’t appear soon, he doubted if he would be able to keep up with Laien and overtake him at the last second, but he didn’t want Laien to slow down for his sake either as it would defeat the purpose of this game.
“After this turn?” Laien asked and glanced at Raphael over his shoulder. He had adjusted his pace for more or less two kilometers run, but they had already run almost two and a half kilometers. He could see that Arslan was giving his best despite being very short on breath; if their goal wasn’t relatively close, then Arslan likely wouldn’t make it.
“… Right after the next one,” Raphael answered in an embarrassed manner, his handsome face flushing red. It really looked like he had no sense of distance at all, ugh.
“…” Neither Laien nor anyone else made any comments, feeling somewhat speechless, whereas Arslan groaned inwardly. It wasn’t that surprising for strong martial practitioners and marital masters to have a distorted sense of distance, but it wasn’t that usual for spiritual practitioners. Yet, it seemed that Raphael was pretty bad at this game; to mistake three kilometers for two… it really was a bit too much.
A moment of silence later, their group made another turn and thus learned how far away they still were; judging at the first glance, it was around three hundred meters.
Maybe because it was more than he expected, Arslan staggered slightly and ended up slowing down by a beat. He was already feeling lightheaded and his lungs were hurting as hell; though surprisingly, his body felt quite light overall, even his legs. “Can I do it?” he asked himself uncertainly, but the very next second he imagined how the situation would play out if he gave up now, how regretful he would have felt, and made up his mind.
Much to Laien’s and everyone else’s surprise, he kicked at the ground with renewed strength and sped up, catchup up to Laien and matching his speed while keeping himself a step or two ahead of him. Each breath being painful? Lungs feeling as if they were on fire? Sight slowly getting blurry and murky? So what? He wouldn’t die because he overexerted himself, so there was no reason not to give his best! But it was just a little unimportant game, a play proposed by Laien? Some people might say so and snort at his efforts, but he was of a different mind. It wasn’t that he was already at the level of being able to put his feelings into words, but he felt that if he gave up in little things, then he wouldn’t be able to achieve anything great and reach, then surpass the legend of his father.
Recently though, it stopped being just Mustafa who was there, far ahead, figuring as a goalpost for him. There were also two youths he came to be good friends with, Laien and Yin. If he couldn’t overcome his limits and actually complete one small challenge just because some unexpected obstacle showed up, then how could he ever hope to stand shoulder to shoulder with those he admired? There was no way he was going to give up so easily, even if the obstacle that was in front of him this time around appeared insignificant and not all that important.
Thus, he ran, engulfing himself in those emotions and sustaining his desire, making it burn strongly enough for his body to keep moving. Step by step, one leap after another… a mere few hundred meters, something that could be crossed on top of a horse in a matter of seconds. Who would have thought that such a little distance would end up proving to be such a great obstacle?
He wanted to close his eyes and simply dash ahead without paying attention to anything, but since he needed to make a turn, he couldn’t do that. Just a dozen or so more steps… ten more, six more, five, four… one! He jumped to the side, but his foot slipped and he almost fell down. “I can’t slow down now!” he told himself and looked ahead; the passage Raphael spoke of was just another dozen leaps away! There was no strength left in his body, he could barely breathe at all, but strangely enough, his mind was surprisingly clear. So, he stubbornly ordered his body to move, his legs to go forward, his hips, shoulders, and arms to move in accord, and he ran.
After taking five steps and speeding up again, he closed his eyes and kept going forward; he knew that all he needed to do was to move his legs five more times. Then, he would have won! The mere seconds felt like an eternity to him as he counted down, feeling how his body moved, how his feet stomped on the ground, how air was going in and out of his lungs, how his chest rose and fell in accord. Two more steps, one more… and finally, the goal!
But what if he had miscalculated? He closed his eyes, so he couldn’t be sure. He felt that even if he opened them now, all he would see would be blurry darkness. As such, he resolved himself and took two more steps, making them as long as he could, then after he did, when happiness, relief, and immense satisfaction came, his body lost its strength and he fell to the ground.
Or rather, he expected to fall to the ground, but the impact never came. He wasn’t sure if it was just a moment or a few minutes later, but as he gasped for breath, the sensations returned to him and he realized that he was sitting down with his torso leaning against someone. He opened his eyes and as expected, he was first met with a blurry image; however, he couldn’t mistake Laien’s black hair for someone else’s. He smiled and even wanted to laugh, but all he managed to do was to chuckle in between the deep breaths he was taking.
“Oi oi, you must be kidding me!” Jugal exclaimed in shock, albeit for a different reason that could be expected. True, he, Richt and the other two men were surprised by Arslan’s tenacity, but that alone wouldn’t have caused all four of them to stare aghast at Arslan as the bits of Qi along with unique aura leaked out from his little body.
“No one’s kidding you,” Laien said with a smirk, then turned his eyes to Arslan, looking at him with true delight and fondness. “Desire and Awareness, at the age of five!” he said with a laugh. Judging from the strength of those two essences, both of them were created with half-complete foundations. Who would have thought that this little game would result in Arslan obtaining such a massive harvest? If someone who didn’t know better looked at him, he might have thought that gaining insights into the Aspects was a simplicity in itself, while in reality, Arslan’s achievement was nothing short of monstrous and entirely comparable to Laien and Yin’s accomplishments!