Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 115. Talking and Playing.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Laien replied with a laugh and a smile. “When there are fewer people listening,” he added with a grin and glanced meaningfully at Jugal, Richt and the other two men. As grateful as he was to Elder Samuel for cooperating with Arslan, he wasn’t about to betray his secrets to Elder Samuel’s subordinates or at this matter, to anyone to whom he didn’t take a liking to.
Met with such a direct statement on Laien’s part, all the four men present could do was to smile awkwardly. There was sparsely anyone in this world who was willing to directly share his strengths and weaknesses with other, unrelated practitioners, and those who were willing either had a good reason to do so or were simply chronically naïve. Thus, none of them was surprised to hear that Laien was intending to wait for their group to be gone before providing any explanation to his friends; they weren’t going to be tactless enough to insist for him to do otherwise, either.
“You really went overboard,” Mikaela complained poutingly the moment Laien and Raphael approached, though seeing the satisfied looks on the faces of those two, he couldn’t resist and also smiled a little. “I didn’t think it would look like that when you were speaking about a ‘serious fight’, you are crazy!” he declared helplessly, looking mostly at Raphael as he was saying so. This whole fight was Raphael’s idea, so as far as Mikaela was concerned, he was the one mostly to blame.
“Sorry,” Raphael said with a slightly apologetic smile. Then, perhaps influenced by Laien’s previous interactions with Mikaela, he reached out with his hand and tousled Mikaela’s hair, startling the silver-haired youth quite a bit. “I shouldn’t have worried you like that, but I don’t regret fighting so recklessly. I obtained quite a bit thanks to that,” he said calmly, all the while looking at Mikaela with a very gentle look in his eyes. It might sound far-fetched, but he had realized that he wanted to live while staying true to himself and to his dear ones. As such, he came to appreciate his friendship with Mikaela that much more and intended to make sure to spend more time with him in the future.
“Humph.” Mikaela looked to the side, his face flushing a little. He didn’t expect Raphael to suddenly… change so much? It wasn’t really his words, but the look he had in his eyes and the aura he had about himself… it was hard to articulate, but they had somehow become so much cooler. He had already thought that Raphael was cool and amazing before, but this impression only deepened now… though he still was a bit angry at Raphael for fighting so recklessly.
“So, where do we go now?” Raphael inquired with a laugh and glanced towards Laien. They still had almost half the day left, so they could continue to hang out.
“How about resting a bit first?” Laien suggested and smirked at Raphael. Even he was rather tired after this duel of theirs, but Raphael likely was giving his best not to show how exhausted he was, both physically and mentally. “Nothing like a hot bath after exercise. There should be some good bath in the fort, right?” he said playfully and looked at the two lieutenants out of the corner of his eye. They had spent past months in that fort, so they should know at the very least that much.
“There are a few good ones,” Jugal said with a wry smile, then suggested while chuckling. “The best one is the private bath in our quarters, which only Grand Elders are allowed to use… but I’m sure Elder Samuel wouldn’t say a word of complaint if you went ahead and allowed yourselves in.”
“Jugal, you really…” Richt said with a groan but shook his head right afterwards. “No, forget it. You guys do whatever you want.”
“Yup.” Laien chuckled and exchanged a glance with Yin. With an option like that given to them, there’s no way they wouldn’t make use of it, would they?
“Seems fun,” Mikaela said with a grin. He loved doing little things like that which were ‘not allowed’ to annoy his teachers and caretakers, so he was totally up for using the private bath of his father’s for themselves. They would be able to have some fun and get rid of all this dust; it really was convenient that there were no girls amongst them too. Dealing with girls was always such a pain in the ass; you couldn’t joke around, you needed to mind what you were saying and they constantly would try to seduce you into becoming their boyfriends. As far as he was concerned, he would rather spend all his time with other boys then hang around girls.
“I could use a warm bath,” Raphael agreed contentedly. Laien did heal his injuries, but the fatigue remained behind; his Qi and spiritual energy were also completely spent, so he welcomed a chance to do something relaxing and pleasant. This way, he would at least have a proper motivation to keep his legs moving until they arrived back at the fort.
“Me too,” Arslan supported eagerly. He used to bathe every day back in Makarash and while sailing the Sea of Betrayals, but there hadn’t been a good chance to lazy around in a full bath of hot, bubbly water in the last two and a half weeks. “We could eat something nice in the bath too,” he added musingly. He wasn’t hungry before, but after sprinting all the way here, he came to want to have a snack or two before having a proper dinner.
“Sure,” Laien said with a smile. His magic was probably the most convenient one out of the elements, so he could easily clean the place up if they ended up scattering some food all over the floor or something like that. “No point standing here, let’s go,” he said and headed into the passage with everyone else following suit.
Around half an hour later, their group of five youths had found their way into the private bath of Elder Samuel’s. After leaving the four guards of theirs in the corridor, they entered the large-living-room-sized bath with both space to clean themselves up and a large, marble-laid bath that looked like it would be able to comfortably fit up to ten adult men. The bath also seemed to be made with sitting in hot water and relaxing, so it had two levels of the bottom; one for sitting, around the edges, and one for submerging oneself entirely in the middle.
“Exactly to my liking,” Laien said with a pleased smile. He was always fond of bath house-like baths, so he was glad that the one of Elder Samuel’s was specifically designed with relaxation as the main purpose in mind. “The water is being heated up by fire-type elemental stones, huh,” he noted to himself. Elder Patrick seemed to also be using low-grade elemental stones in a fairly leisurely manner. Could it be that the Ruishi Federation had a large mine or some other kind of rich natural reserves?
“Let’s clean up and get in,” Yin suggested as the first one and stepped head towards the wooden stools, putting his clothes away into his interspatial ring without hesitation,
“Let’s, let’s,” Laien followed without a second thought and also undressed all at once. Arslan did the same, while Mikaela hesitated for half a heartbeat before discarding his concerns and putting his clothes away. Apart from his mother, he had only ever bathed with Raphael, but the last time was a few years ago; however, as he saw how unashamed Laien, Yin, and Arslan were being, he also took on the same approach. The bottom line was that he wanted to enjoy himself in the bath; what was the point of getting all fidgety and embarrassed only around other boys?
“As expected,” Raphael laughed quietly and as the last one, removed his clothes and joined the other four in washing up. He certainly enough wasn’t used to bathing with others and he was old enough to be somewhat self-conscious about certain things and subjects, but he hadn’t opposed coming here because he really wanted to get into a nice and warm bath. He hadn’t expected Laien and the others to instantly undress completely though, but since they did so then he couldn’t very well be the only one to warp a towel around his waist or something like that.
“Oh,” Mikaela tilted his head curiously while looking around, his gaze wandering around the bodies of the other four. “So you three already have hair down there… I guess mine will be silver, given how yours is the same as the color of the hair on your heads?” he wondered aloud, sneaking curious glances at the bodies of the three older boys. They really were highly talented martial practitioners, eh? Their bodies were so well toned and muscular; you couldn’t really see it through the clothes since they weren’t exactly bulky or anything, but looking at them like that, it was quite impressive.
“Mika!” Raphael raised his voice a little, appearing to be both a little frustrated and embarrassed. However, when he looked around, he noticed that it appeared to be only him who was reacting in this way. Laien, Yin, and Arslan could only be described as looking like they were amused.
“What?” Mikaela asked, confused as to what Raphael was angry about. Was he embarrassed to be looked at or something? They were all boys though, so what was the problem?
“You… ugh.” Raphael shook his head resignedly. There was no point explaining that to Mikaela right here and right now, was there? “No, forget it,” he said with a helpless smile. There was no need for him to try and lecture Mikaela for no reason; after growing up some more, he would understand on his own… or would he? Given how their three new friends looked to be amused and were acting in a fairly unashamed way, he was beginning to have doubts if he wasn’t the only weird one.
Laien laughed soundlessly, guessing what Raphael was thinking about. However, he didn’t try to tease him about it since he didn’t want to change the nice and carefree atmosphere they had going. Instead, he continued to wash up quickly, though by hand and without using magic. Although it was convenient to use magic to speed the process up, it just wasn’t nearly as fun, especially when you weren’t the only one in the bath and could chat about silly things in the meanwhile.
With the following ten minutes focusing on the subject of growing up and straying to relationships and speaking about how annoying girls were, the five of them washed up thoroughly and even helped each other wash their backs. Having cleaned themselves perfectly, they finally headed into the marble-laid bath and after enjoying themselves for a moment in the hot water, they returned to talking about the question asked by Yin before they left the outer training grounds.
“What kind of a Profound Mystery I used, eh,” Raphael said with a slightly awkward smile. He laughed helplessly and explained in a somewhat embarrassed manner, “I’ve been trying to master it for almost a year now, but as for the name… well, I’ve read a book that spoke about the universe and the stars, you know? And it said that all the stars we see in the sky are the same as our sun, just much further away… and well, when a star dies, it apparently implodes. That book called those near-death stars ‘Supernova Stars’ … so I’ve been thinking to call this insight ‘the Profound Mystery of Supernova’.”
“Ooh,” Mikaela nodded, pretending to understand what Raphael was talking about. However, since he never had really been particularly interested in abstract stories, he found Raphael’s story hard to relate.
“Hoo.” Arslan ended up reacting in a similar way to Mikaela. Although he was diligent in his studies, he had never been taught anything outside the practicalities that would be required of him as the future ruler of Makarash. This story about the stars of Raphael’s sounded nothing but fantastic to him.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“A good name,” Laien agreed with a nod. A Supernova, huh? Raphael’s highly concentrated and barely stable magic was indeed very similar to that phenomenon. However, if someone asked him how he knew that, he wouldn’t be able to answer; he just knew.
“It’s the correct name too,” Yin said with a smile before he could bite his tongue. Faced with intrigued looks from Raphael, Mikaela, and Arslan, he scratched the back of his head and smiled apologetically. He couldn’t quite tell everyone that he knew about the Profound Mysteries from all the books his grandfather kept in his house in the mountains, could he? That explanation would be way too unbelievable if he didn’t also mention his roots as a magical beast.
“Fine, we won’t ask,” Raphael said with a smile. He was already more than happy that no one laughed at his naming sense; the knowledge that a Profound Mystery of Supernova really existed was simply an unexpected bonus for him. “I could try and explain in detail how it feels to use Supernova, but…” he brought up, returning to the beginning of the subject. He was the only-light element practitioner in their group, so he saw no point in going into the details… but he could do it if everyone wanted him to do so.
“A simple explanation will be enough,” Laien said lightheartedly. There was no point in having Raphael explain the intricate specifics of manipulating his energy. The overall picture would be much more helpful to them as in the end, it just wasn’t possible to comprehend any complicated insights just by listening about them, without ‘sensing and understanding’ them on your own.
“Okay.” Raphael nodded. He would have been very reluctant to tell anything about the inner workings of the Profound Mystery of Supernova to even his teachers, but he didn’t think twice before providing an explanation to this little group of his friends. “The principle behind what I’m doing isn’t complicated. I just take my light-element spiritual energy and compress it as much as I can. The problem is that before today, this magic of mine always dissipated or exploded half-heartedly before it could take proper shape,” he began saying, at first making sure to pick the words carefully… but he soon got carried away with excitement and sped his explanation up.
“I guessed that to achieve an even momentary stability would be way too hard, and that’s because when a certain density is reached, the properties of light itself change and its new form becomes uncontrollable. Thus, I had only one option left and that’s to find a balance in instability… but as simple as it sounds, it would have been impossible if I didn’t learn about the Primordial Energy. I somehow managed to find a halfway point of fusion between the Negative and Positive Energies and applied that to my magic and finally managed to gain a degree of control over that uncontrollable mass of energy… though I guess saying I managed to prevent it from imploding too soon would be more correct. I can’t control it properly yet and so I can’t direct the blast or throw this magic, nor can I form it far away from my body.”
“I guess that’s pretty much it,” he said after a few seconds of wondering whether he didn’t omit anything that could be useful to everyone.
“…” Arslan chuckled soundlessly. He didn’t understand anything at all! He was good at studying, but this talk about insights was entirely beyond him. It was the same when Laien was explaining the Principle of Energy and the Elemental Law of Water to Mikaela, though back then he had had at least a gist of what was what. This time, he simply had no idea what Raphael was talking about at all.
“That’s the simple explanation?” Mikaela asked with a wry smile. “Showing us is out of the question, I think?” he said with a laugh. Laien’s teachings were much easier to understand since every theoretical aspect was joined by a practical example. In comparison, learning anything from Raphael was just too inconvenient; having a teacher who had the same elemental affinity and similar skillset, and even a similar way of thinking, was quite an important thing, huh?
“Uh, yeah,” Raphael responded helplessly. “I honestly don’t think you would have gotten much from seeing this magic anyway, even if we went outside to try it,” he added and glanced at Laien, who nodded in confirmation. He had used his aura to scan the Supernova Magic of Raphael’s during their duel, but apart from the realization about the Principle of Energy, he ended up being unable to find out anything else. This magic was simply too condensed; aura couldn’t invade it forcefully, even with the aid of the Aspect of Awareness, thus rendering any probing entirely pointless.
“Still,” Laien spoke up, his voice sounding rather excited. He exchanged a look with Yin, then said with a smile, “That’s a new approach we didn’t think about. Condensing your magic beyond its normal limits with the aid of the Principle of Energy… no, isn’t the Principle of Energy only used as a reference to find a balance in imbalance? It shouldn’t be possible to condense any magic that much just because you can find a point of ‘balance’, even if it’s the almost immaterial light. I think there’s one more thing to this Supernova Magic and if I’m right, it’s the Principle of Density,” he mused aloud, making use of the knowledge he had gained from one of the Intents from the tomes Patrick had shown them.
“Principle of Density?” Raphael asked, feeling intrigued by this new revelation. None of his teachers had ever mentioned that any other Principle other than the Principle of Energy existed. Could it be that he had been studying and using a Principle without being aware of it? But if so, then were there no apparent signs of increased understanding with regards this Principle of Density like in case of the golden runes and the Principle of Energy? Or were those signs simply less noticeable?
“Yeah, Principle of Density,” Laien confirmed with a nod. “Just like normal practitioners find it impossible to manipulate the properties of the elements since they don’t truly understand the Principle of Energy, they also find it impossible to increase or decrease the ‘density’ of their magic or martial techniques in any meaningful way beyond the already given properties. It’s the same for me and Yin, too,” he elaborated without going too deep into the subject. He didn’t know that much about the various Principles to begin with, not to mention that it was detrimental to know too much about them before comprehending their basics. All he was aware of on this subject was the overall image and the very basics of some of the Principles, all thanks to the Intent from one of Patrick’s tomes.
“Density, density,” Raphael murmured with a slight frown on his face. He retraced the process of creating his Supernova magic once again, step by step, to see if Laien’s didn’t have a point. However, he ended up shaking his head after a moment. “I don’t think I’m using this Principle of Density after all, unless it’s an integral part of the Profound Mystery of Supernova. I told you that my light changes into something else after I concentrate it hard enough, but does the same thing happen to water or lightning?” he inquired, having a feeling that it was an important part of the possible explanation.
“No, it doesn’t,” Laien confirmed straightforwardly. He had tried compressing his water, ice and even mist or the boiling steam, and he had indeed succeeded to a degree through the use of raw force, but whatever benefits this slightly increased density brought to his magic were not worth the hassle considering how much energy he needed to use to achieve it. Without any proper insights into the Principle of Density, it appeared to be just too inefficient to mimic its effects.
“It doesn’t for me either,” Yin replied simply. Just like Laien, he had made a few attempts in the past while looking for new ways to use his Qi, but he didn’t achieve any success in the regard to density. He could increase the strength of his lightning by using more Qi, but he had no idea at all how to increase its density… and to be honest, he wouldn’t be quite able to describe the lightning’s ‘density’ if he needed to. In other words, he was far away from gaining any proper insights in this field.
“Mm, so it’s probably like I’m saying,” Raphael said contentedly, happy to have reached a sensible explanation. “The Profound Mystery of Supernova allows me to skip the understanding of the Principle of Density. Light is likely to be unique in this aspect compared to other elements, at least in this particular field,” he elaborated briefly and looked at Laien and Yin to see if they were of the same mind or if they had some other theory to present.
“Yeah, I think you are right,” Laien agreed and Yin nodded too. It was a bit of a pity that they wouldn’t have a chance to gain an understanding of the Principle of Density, but at least they cleared everything up. They also didn’t waste time trying to find something that didn’t exist thanks to discussing the matter properly, so all in all, it wasn’t too bad.
“I guess that’s all, then?” Raphael asked with a slight smile. He wasn’t against continuing the overall subject of insights, but he wanted to have a confirmation that he had sufficiently exhausted the part related to his duel with Laien and the improvements he had made during it.
“I think so,” Laien said leisurely and raised his arms, stretching his whole body in a lazy and relaxed manner. After a second or two, he let out a satisfied sigh and leaned back against the side of the bath. It was still afternoon, but he felt like he had done way too much this day. “I’ve had enough, so how about we just rest until evening?” he suggested without beating around the bush. The plan for the next six; well, now five and a half days, was to train from evening to morning with Yin and spend the rest of the time with their friends. However, if he wanted to actually be rested enough to train tonight, then he really needed to cut down on doing anything mentally or physically taxing.
“I’ve had enough for today too,” Raphael said with a grin. The hot water in the bath washed away some of his fatigue, but after that stressful fight with Laien, he didn’t feel like training or doing anything hard for the rest of the day.
“I’m up for being lazy,” Arslan supported with a smile. He wasn’t all that tired yet, but he was still far from the age when it was recommended to begin intense physical training. So, even if he didn’t do anything in particular for many days in a row, he wouldn’t feel all that guilty.
“I’m still recovering anyway,” Yin added with a shrug of his shoulders. It would still take two, maybe three days for his Qi to calm down, so until then he intended to take it easy.
“Mmh…” Mikaela hummed quietly, seeing as everyone wants to laze around. He smiled wryly as a thought came to his mind, then said playfully, “I actually wanted to train a bit more with Laien… but since you guys are all tired, I guess I won’t mind doing you a favor and leaving it for tomorrow.”
“Mika,” Raphael groaned quietly and shook his head, though just like the other three, he couldn’t help but smile. Mikaela was a bit of a naughty child, but it was one of his cute points; especially since he would never mean anything bad by his words when he spoke them to those he liked.
“You will do us a favor, huh?” Laien said playfully, the smile on his face turning into an amused one. He leaned forward, then swam up through the deeper water up to where Mikaela was sitting. “Well then, let’s see how you do that, you little devil,” he said with a laugh and jumped at Mikaela, then accompanied by a splash of water he quickly grabbing ahold of his side and starting to tickle him.
“Ah!” In half a second, the wrestling and tickling battle between Laien and Mikaela began. “Ah! Come on, you!” Mikaela struggled while laughing and smiling broadly, attempting to turn the tables on Laien and let him taste some of his own tickling medicine too. He simply loved this kind of play, so he continued having fun with Laien without restraining himself at all.
“Wow,” Raphael let out a somewhat helpless chuckle. By the looks of it, this childhood friend of his and Laien were quite compatible personality-wise. He had already seen how well they got along when they were training together and he had gotten somewhat annoyed back then already, but now he was clearly annoyed; and well, jealous that his best friend was being seemingly stolen away?
“Hrm,” Yin smiled in a rather dangerous manner, then glanced at Raphael. “There’s nothing else but to join them, right?” he asked with a grin and put his hand on Raphael’s back. Before the golden-haired youth could protest, he shoved him forward with quite some strength, sending him directly into Laien and Mikaela. Then, he glanced at Arslan and proposed wryly, “Help me pin Laien down?”
The surprise painting itself on Arslan’s face quickly changed into eagerness. He smiled and nodded happily, only to join the chaos alongside him the very next second.
With all the shouting, laughing and thrashing around, the delicate layout of the bath began slowly suffering from random demolition. Especially the moments when Laien, Yin, and Raphael struggled against each other proved to be destructive as they would allow themselves to use more strength as long as there was no danger of hurting Mikaela or Arslan. This liberty of theirs, though, cost the marble surface here and there quite some damage. After all, the three of them had physical strength rivaling that of marital masters of the first rank, with Yin begin a step ahead of the other two. How could the delicate construction of this bath possibly withstand their fooling around?
The only good thing about this little demolition was that the internal structure of the bath appeared to be unnaturally sturdy. Whoever had built it seriously needed an increase in salary as despite all the cracks on the marble, it continued to stick to the overall structure of the bath like a shell to the boiled egg.
However, the fact that the playing of their group wasn’t disrupted by sharp pieces of the marble falling into the bath was only serving to spread the destruction further and further. The act itself was fairly audible and sure enough, it was causing Richt to groan and pale in worry. The two subordinates of Richt’s were half-worried and half-amused, knowing that the responsibility what’s on their shoulders, whereas Jugal was chuckling uncontrollably. He just needed to see the look on Elder Samuel’s face when he would see what happened to his favorite bath; it would certainly be priceless.