Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 112. Accepting Own Weakness.
“As expected of Mustafa’s son, should I say?” Raphael said with a smile and exchanged a glance with Arslan the moment the boy turned to look at him.
“No,” Laien said wryly and tousled Arslan’s hair. “As expected of Arslan,” he said with a laugh and sent Raphael a meaningful look, what resulted in the two of them looking each other in the eye provokingly without backing down at all, though also without erasing the smiles from their faces.
“Both are… nice…” Arslan said while breathing deeply and laughing a little. He didn’t mind it when people referred to him as ‘Mustafa’s son’ since he was very much proud of having Mustafa as his father, but he also enjoyed Laien’s approach of looking at him more as ‘Arslan’ than ‘Mustafa’s son’. He was far too content with himself at this moment to want to see Laien and Raphael knock their heads against each other because of something that was fine both ways.
With Arslan attempting to mediate between the two of them, Laien and Raphael could only exchange helpless smirks. They wouldn’t have argued over something like that to begin with, mainly because they understood the merits of each of those two approaches, but since Arslan went ahead to stop them, they wouldn’t discuss this subject anymore. Neither the two of them nor anyone else started some other discussion either and instead waited for Arslan to catch his breath.
After about a minute, Arslan regained enough strength to walk and stood up with some help from Laien. He hadn’t been able to restrain his curiosity, so he had already attempted to move about some Qi within his body and tried to infuse it with this new thing which appeared somewhere within him just a moment ago, and had succeeded. He hadn’t heard too clearly what Laien said right after he had collapsed, but were those two strange, new energies within him essences of Desire and Awareness? If so, then it was one of the greatest days in his life!
“I’m fine already, let’s go.” However, instead of bringing his feelings up, he suggested they got going. He would ask Laien about that later and try to train a little in the evening. For now, he was looking forward to seeing the spar, or rather a fight, between Laien and Raphael. Talking about his own breakthrough could wait for later, when they would be in a nicer place to chat than the middle of a rocky mountain road with nothing but greyish colors surrounding them on all sides.
“Mm, let’s go,” Laien said with a laugh and tousled Arslan’s hair, causing Arslan’s face to grow slightly red. For Arslan, It was the first time he had really done something that he himself thought was amazing, so he was very happy to be praised for it by Laien, be it even in such a simple manner as having his hair tousled.
“Allying with Makarash,” Richt mused silently while their group was making their way through the small passage. “I was wondering why Elder Samuel made such a risky choice given what happened to Mustafa, but no wonder. As long as this boy is given enough time to grow up, Makarash will only continue to develop and rise in power, even without Mustafa’s strength and wisdom,” he thought while eyeing the five youths walking in the front carefully.
Their country’s greatest young genius, Raphael. Elder Samuel’s youngest and most favored son, Mikaela. Mustafa’s one and only child, Arslan. The one who easily killed the twin guards of Elder Sophie’s, Laien. And finally, the mysterious green-haired youth who didn’t reveal much about himself as of yet, Yin. There was no ‘for some reason’; Richt had a clear feeling that he was gazing upon the impeccable youths who would shape the fate of entire countries in the near future. For five of those extreme individuals to have gathered in one place and befriended each other… what would the future consequences of this twist of fate be? He couldn’t begin to imagine it.
“Ooh, looks good,” Laien said contentedly as they opened a really big, half-open space within the mountain itself. The side they came from was guarded by a very high wall of rock and stone, just like the sides to right and left; only to the front the land appeared to be flatter and stretched kilometers ahead in such a manner. Although this place was inhabitable, it was indeed perfect as a training ground for high-level practitioners who tended to ravage their surroundings whenever they sparred seriously.
“You guys stay here,” Raphael said the Mikaela and Arslan. Then after the two nodded obediently, he turned to look at the four adults and requested, “Can I ask you protect them while Laien and I fight? We will battle far away, but I’d rather we have our peace of mind.”
“Sure thing,” Jugal said with a lighthearted laugh. So it would be those two fighting, huh? It looked like this day wouldn’t be boring after all.
“As you wish,” Richt replied with a slight nod of his head. He did wish to see if it was their Raphael of the foreigner Laien who was stronger, so he would definitely protect those who remained behind well… but with just a mere spar, he doubted he would be able to see which of those two geniuses was truly superior.
Both Jugal and Richt were excited about the fight that was about to come; alas, as the two of them ended up responding to Raphael simultaneously, they couldn’t help but exchange menacing glares the very next second. The formal attitude, the informal attitude… they really couldn’t stomach each other in the slightest, even in such small and relatively meaningless issues like this one.
“If you don’t mind,” Yin spoke up with a smile. “Could you protect me too? I’d rather not use my Qi before I’m fully recovered,” he said and chuckled a little. It went without saying that he would be protected as long as he stood by Arslan and Mikaela, but he preferred to make it clear that he would rather not need to be forced aid in defending their group in any way.
“No problem.”
“Understood.”
The two men replied at the same time once again and once again, exchanged angry looks. Indeed, they were like water and oil.
“Thanks,” Yin said with a laugh; he was somewhat amused by the childish bickering of those two grown-ass men.
“Good, come on,” Laien said eagerly and gestured Raphael to come along, then started running farther away from the eastern wall of this half-open training ground.
Raphael followed Laien without delay, increasing his speech rapidly with each step he took. This time around the two of them didn’t need to match their speed to Arslan, so they crossed five hundred meters in a matter of just about fifteen seconds. Having judged that half a kilometer would be reasonable enough of a distance, the two of them came to a stop. They exchanged a glance and walked away from each other, leaving just about twenty meters of space between the two of them.
For a few dozen seconds, they continued looking at one another without saying anything as they focused their minds on the fight that was about to come. The mood from a moment ago was fairly relaxed, so they needed this moment to refresh their attitudes. It wasn’t a straight-out life-or-death battle either, so it wasn’t like they needed to force themselves to make it as real-life as possible.
Finally, after a few moments, the two of them recognized that the looks in each other’s eyes changed. They were ready to fight.
“Come at me without holding back,” Raphael said strongly and took out his black-gold spear, quickly assuming an offensive-oriented stance.
“Relax a little,” Laien replied with a smile and a quiet laugh and similarly equipped himself with his white spear. “How about a warm-up first? I will start going at it seriously only after you get used to fighting,” he suggested with a confident smile and assumed his usual defensive stance.
“So you want us both to hold back at first?” Raphael asked, feeling a little confused. “There’s no need. We both know the gist of each other’s abilities. I’m not so weak to need a warm-up,” he stated with a laugh. He might not have experienced any gruesome battles, but he had sparred and fought with so many people that he had already forgotten how many there had been. A warm-up before the real fight? He had already made sure to concentrate properly, so he didn’t need that.
“No, no.” Laien shook his head. “You go ahead and attack me seriously. I will tell you when I’m going to start retaliating in earnest,” he said with a slight smile.
“Laien,” Raphael said after a second, a serious and rather discontent look present on his face. “Aren’t you underestimating me too much?” he asked somewhat angrily. He could still pretend Laien had never said that if Laien took those words back, but had it been someone else, he would really have gotten angry with such a person and beaten him or her to a pulp.
“If you think so, then force me to go all-out from the very beginning,” Laien said lightheartedly, without any malice or excessive pride present in his voice. He was pretty sure that he was stronger than Raphael to begin with and there was also the lack of experience on Raphael’s part; it wasn’t arrogance that dove his words, but pure knowledge and battle experience. Since Raphael wanted them to fight seriously, he would do so. However, he really didn’t want to risk overwhelming Raphael from the very beginning; even if he didn’t wound him all that heavily, this fight would end all too soon and the whole purpose of having Raphael experience a true duel would be lost.
“Fine,” Raphael said with a quiet snort, rousing his Qi and pulling onto his spiritual energy. He liked Laien and he wasn’t an overly prideful individual innately, but he did hold pride in being the strongest practitioner of his generation in the whole Ruishi Federation, which was famous for its high quality of practitioners. He had even made a breakthrough in his Principle of Energy and became stronger than before! He would go all-out and make Laien regret being so overconfident.
“Cage of Light,” he murmured the name of the spell and of a martial technique, and thrust his black-gold spear forward, releasing dozens of incredibly fast streaks of light. Some of those dazzling streaks were made of Qi, some of them were made of spiritual energy; it was nigh impossible for a normal practitioner to use both of those energies alongside each other without causing his techniques to grow considerably weaker, but Raphael was accomplishing exactly that!
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Whether it was because of the light’s innate properties or because of his inhumane control, or perhaps because of both of those factors, he was able to achieve results almost as good as Laien in terms of using Qi and spiritual energy in unison. Thus, the strength of this extremely fast and almost undodgeable attack was unnaturally high! It held enough penetrative power to heavily injure even a martial master of the second rank; if received incorrectly, it was more than capable of killing someone who was a martial practitioner of the eighth rank like Laien.
“If you didn’t take it seriously, you might die here,” Raphael though as he kicked the ground, rushing forward in step with the attack he had released. He could tell that Laien had roused his own energies, but he didn’t see him preparing a defense even though the dozens of streaks of light of the Cage of Light were flying at him. “Are you really going to be so careless?” he wondered angrily, looking how the technique he had released entered the second phase.
A few meters away from Laien, the streaks of light scattered in every direction, then reflected back towards Laien, all of them attacking from different angles and at varying time intervals. Cage of Light, it was a simple spell that every light-element practitioner learned how to use, but only a few of them were able to manipulate it to this degree. Needless to say, he was one of the few people capable of doing that and he was the only one amongst them who wasn’t an expert in the Realm of Heroes!
The speed of the Cage of Light was extreme; it’s somewhat lacking striking power had been solved by using both the spell and martial technique in a perfect unison, while the predictable and straightforward aspect of the attack was eliminated by manipulating the very structure and effects of the Cage of Light. The first strike by itself had potential to be lethal and it was merely a preparation for what was about to come! Raphael was confident; he might not have fought any true life-or-death battles, but it mattered not. He knew how to seize the initiative and how to keep calm during a fight. He didn’t know why Laien insisted on underestimating him so much, but he would take this victory!
Yet, when he saw a wry smile emerge on Laien’s face, his train of thought got instantly interrupted as he was overcome with a strange feeling, a feeling that was unfamiliar to him. Then, split-seconds later, he saw milky-white mist appear all around Laien. He couldn’t begin to fathom how Laien intended to defend against his attack with this half-hearted defense, but when he saw the streaks of light dissolve and dissipate one after another the moment they came in contact with that mist, almost as if they carried no power within them, he almost couldn’t believe his own eyes.
It was just a set-up technique, but he had put all his insights into it! Even the power coming from those two golden runes of the Principle of Energy! Had he used an attack like that in a tournament, then even Chris, the second strongest youth in their country, would have been at least wounded by it! Apart from Chris, he trusted there were no practitioners his age who were capable of escaping relatively unscratched from the Cage of Light. However, Laien defended against it so effortlessly! How was this possible? He could tell that Laien hadn’t even made use of the full power of his insights! He was only using one Aspect along with the various Profound Mysteries to create this mist! It made no sense at all for his attack to be blocked so effortlessly despite all of that!
“Who would have thought,” Laien laughed inwardly, wondering if Raphael was as shocked as the look on his face suggested. “The Ancient Tome with the introduction to the water element might actually be worth more than the one with its in-depth analysis. Its Intent contained no hidden Profound Mystery, but the knowledge of the potential uses and the theory behind the water element and its variations is invaluable in battle! I should find some time to read this tome properly instead of relying only on its Intent,” he thought half-consciously, not really putting his thoughts into proper words. Even though he had attention and room to spare, he was in the middle of a fight with Raphael. He couldn’t afford to be too leisure.
“Water Flow,” he mused, fusing his insights with his spear arts and causing a layer of constantly-flowing water to engulf his spear. He didn’t move much as he waited for Raphael’s strike to arrive; he simply did the same thing as always. He grabbed the attack, pulled it into the unceasing flow of water and gently deflected it to the side, making it miss with minimum effort. “He really lost his cool, he actually attacked me in a purely physical manner, without using any additional insights,” he thought with a sigh. Sure, he did stop Raphael’s attack with surprising ease, but for him to lose concentration for almost a whole second because of that! That’s why he insisted on having a warm-up first.
“Oh, he’s coming at me with light-enhanced thrust this time? Does he want to break through with force?” Laien asked himself, the question itself making him want to laugh. Out of all the elements, lightning boasted the strongest penetrative power with wind being a close second. Light wasn’t the worst out of the bunch, but it was nowhere near the top two; even Yin needed to use a full-strength strike to break through his Water Flow defense, so there was no way that an impatient attack like the one of Raphael’s was going to have any effect.
And indeed, the black-gold spear once again ended up being effortlessly pushed aside by Laien’s white spear, much to Raphael’s dismay.
Truth to be told, however, speaking from the perspective of pure power, Raphael’s strike was ‘stronger’ than the ‘strength’ Laien used to defend. Raphael was, after all, employing the full prowess of all his insights while Laien was restricting himself to using only the Profound Mysteries of Water and the sole Aspect, the Aspect of Tranquility. He wasn’t even infusing the Principle of Energy into his defense! However, the difference between Laien’s Elemental Spear Arts and Raphael’s immature Spear Techniques was simply too vast; there was also the matter of Raphael having lost his cool, what resulted in his attacks being predictable and rushed.
In such circumstances, the pure ‘strength’ of an attack mattered very little as Laien continued deflecting and blocking Raphael’s thrusts, one after another.
“There’s no killing intent in your attacks,” Laien said calmly while continuing to defend, without counterattacking at all. “You aren’t aiming for my vitals. You aren’t calm. Your attacks are monotonous,” he pointed out ruthlessly, sending Raphael off-balance by sending his black-gold spear flying to the side with the end of each sentence.
Seeing how Laien could spare time to talk to him while defending, Raphael couldn’t help but grow frustrated. The two of them had exchanged a few dozen blows, but instead of getting hang of the opponent’s rhythm like usual, the feeling of being caught in a quagmire was only growing stronger. It was true that he had lost his cool for a second previously, but he had regained his ability to think right after that; he hadn’t been attacking mindlessly! He had been prepared to react in case Laien counterattacked and he intended to slowly overwhelm him in a melee since his mid-range attacks seemed to have little effect, but unexpectedly, he found out that he couldn’t hold a candle to Laien in frontal combat despite being a full realm above him in martial practice!
“Still, he is right. I’m not trying to kill him at all.” Raphael grit his teeth. Was he unconsciously allowing himself to relax since Laien declared he wouldn’t fight seriously in the very begging? If so, then it was infuriating! “Ha!” he let out a quiet shout as he thrust out with his spear, having accumulated a large amount of Qi and Spiritual energy around it. If he couldn’t break through with technique, he would break through with force!
“Wrong,” Laien said with a click of his tongue, bringing forth a layer of mist and dissipating Raphael’s technique just like the last time, then blocking the thrust of his black-gold spear with his own weapon. “Being calm is one thing, but you should also use your head! Don’t you know the Principle of Energy? Make a proper use of it!” he admonished, starting to feel annoyed with Raphael. Raphael had such a great potential, but he was wasting it so thoroughly! One unexpected thing in a fight threw him off this bad; his claws and fangs truly were dulled from this peaceful life.
It was true that mist was a perfect counter to any attack that was based on pure light… but it would be absurd for it to be an answer to all light-based attacks and techniques. It was a useful little card to play in certain situations, but in the end, it was a one-trick-pony used to guard against a specific type of attacks! Laien trusted that as long as Raphael actually gave it some thought, he would quickly find out a way to work around the unique properties of the mist.
“Principle of Energy?” Raphael frowned and backed off by a few steps. He swallowed his pride and stopped attacking for a moment and instead, started thinking. “Why would that make any difference? But if he said so… does it mean that his mist can stop my light so easily because of the elemental imbalance? It’s scattering my light? I keep using the Positive Energy to enhance the speed and penetrative power of my light, but maybe the right answer is to use the Negative Energy to make my light more material and defensively-oriented?” he wondered, suddenly beginning to feel quite ashamed. What was up with him that he chose such a cruse approach after his Cage of Light was seemingly rendered useless? It was quite a miserable thing to realize, indeed.
“Yes, that’s it,” Laien praised with a smile, watching how Raphael started giving thought to what he was doing. “You aren’t used to fighting, so you need to think while you fight! With time, it will become normal and you will think with your instinct and intuition, making your responses sharper and harder to deal with. However, your experience is lacking, so you need to make up for it with thinking on your own! Spread your aura, focus your senses, entrance yourself in the battle,” he advised, at the same time releasing his Qi and Spiritual energy, both mixed with the essence of the Aspect of Tranquility. Wasn’t it also one of the Aspects Raphael had insights into? He refused to believe Raphael wouldn’t be able to rapidly improve once he discarded the unnecessary worries and needless thoughts.
“…” Raphael clenched his fists, then relaxed his whole body. Yes, he really wasn’t being himself. Was he rattled because for the first time in his life, in the back of his head, he worried that his talent might actually be inferior to someone else’s? Was he that unwilling to accept Laien’s offer to allow him to warm-up first that he lost all sense of reasoning due to his silly pride? His battle experience was lacking… it was hard to accept, but this initial exchange of blows with Laien forced him to accept it.
“That’s what he meant by saying he can’t promise me a serious fight, eh?” Raphael recalled and actually laughed out loud, causing Laien to smile contentedly. Yes, he finally relaxed! “I apologize. This time, I’m going to properly attack with everything I have!” he declared with a smile, the shadows of frustration, anxiety, and doubt finally disappearing from his eyes.
“Come,” Laien said with a merry laugh and brandished his spear. He could easily tell that Raphael was many times stronger than Luca, so he didn’t expect this fight to end in a similarly stupid and pointless way. He was also planning to obtain some benefits for himself from this duel if possible, so the closer the fight, the better it was for him too.
“Licht,” Raphael said quietly, invoking a spell he was all too familiar with. Then, he attacked while infusing his spear with the heavy and more material version of light and actually, even to Laien’s huge surprise, ended up getting through Laien’s defense and leaving a small wound on his shoulder!
“The particles of light are distorting my vision?” Laien realized and couldn’t help but smile broadly. He had reacted on instinct at the last split-second, else he would have had his shoulder pierced through by Raphael’s spear. What a frightening technique! He didn’t even notice that his sight had been affected until it was too late!
“One more time,” Raphael thrust his spear once again, aiming to establish his own rhythm in this fight and start from there, but he failed to break through Laien’s strange water-based defense. The reason for that was pretty simple, though also ludicrous enough to make him feel helpless. Were there really people out there who would unhesitatingly close their eyes and decide to rely purely on their aura and other senses to fight after their sight was influenced one time? Looking at Laien, who was now facing him with his eyes closed, it appeared there were such people after all.
“His aura changed.” Raphael noticed somewhat late. “He is using the Aspect of Awareness. Damn, it looks like tricks like that aren’t going to work anymore… but fighting with his eyes closed should make it more difficult for him regardless,” he thought contentedly and drew from his Spiritual Core and Qi Origin, intending to launch a few proper attacks against Laien. If he couldn’t even force Laien to fight him seriously, then he didn’t deserve to dream about reaching the summit of cultivation!