Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 136. Precious Knowledge.

“That’s already very good,” Laien said with a smile as he recognized the slightly sulking look on Arslan’s face. Wasn’t Arslan only approaching the level of a martial practitioner of the third rank by this point? Even considering that the latter parts of the Nine Refinements of Mortality were harder to comprehend, he had already accomplished more than any kid his age should have.

“You think so?” Arslan asked in return, to what both Laien and Yin nodded. “Thanks,” he said and chuckled a little. He had never thought about it explicitly, but he had always aimed to one day become as great as his father. He had naturally assumed that his level of talent was exceptional, what his current achievements at the young age of five more than proved. Thus, he couldn’t help but develop some competitive feelings towards these four monster-like geniuses, with whom he associated on the daily basis, even though he understood that he was far too young to compete with them in any meaningful way.

“The choice is up to you,” Laien began saying with a calm smile. “But I think you should try and come to see us once again before you make your breakthrough to the Realm of Heroes in the future. It would be a waste for you not to make use of the last three of those mortal-level refinements,” he added straightforwardly. In a way, it was a good thing that Arslan was still so young and his cultivation was so low. Thanks to that, it shouldn’t be too troublesome for him to meet them at least one more time within the next four or five years. In comparison, it would have been a lot more inconvenient for Mikaela to attempt the same as he was likely to become a spiritual master in just three or four years.

“I definitely will,” Arslan said eagerly, the thought of asking Laien to borrow this book and return it later not even crossing his mind.

“Give it to me for a bit,” Yin said somewhat out-of-the-blue, but Raphael didn’t think much about it and grabbed the tome, then leaned forward and carefully handed it over to Yin. As for sliding it over the floor or throwing it, he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to do such a thing now that he understood how priceless of a treasure this tome was.

“Feeling a bit challenged, huh?” Laien asked with a smirk. Yin had only originally comprehended up to the second level of the Nine Refinements to Immortality, so it wasn’t surprising that he was rubbed the wrong way by Raphael’s result of the third level of immortal-class refinements.

“Shut up,” Yin replied with a laugh and after exchanging a look with Laien, he focused on the Intent of the tome. A full breath’s worth of time later, he opened his eyes and said contentedly, “I’ve gotten hang of the third Immortal level too and I’m pretty close to learning the fourth as well.”

“Good for you,” Laien said while resisting a laugh. He glanced at Raphael for a bit, then returned his gaze to Yin. It didn’t take more for the golden-haired youth to understand; it looked like Yin’s old ‘score’ was lower or perhaps equal to his, so Yin tried again after his cultivation advanced to the peak of the ninth mortal realm. Still, they didn’t really know if being a dual practitioner affected the amount of intent one could comprehend and if so, then how heavily, so no matter the scores, it was hard to compare pure marital practitioners amongst them to the dual practitioners.

“You try again too,” Yin suggested and pushed the tome over to Laien. As for being concerned with the cover’s well-being, he could tell that only a blow at the level of a marital or spiritual master would be able to damage this cover in any way. Thus, what was it to push it across the wooden floor here? If this much damaged this tome, then it wouldn’t be worthy of containing its Intent.

“Well, why not,” Laien said with a quiet laugh. Unlike Yin, his cultivation was still stuck in one place, at the early eighth mortal realm in both cases, so he doubted he would see an increase in his ability to derive knowledge from the tome’s Intent. However, since it wouldn’t hurt to try, he went ahead and did just that.

“As expected,” A few seconds later, he spoke up he said with a hint of frustration present in his voice. “I’m pretty much where I was to begin with. I get the fifth Immortal level, but I have little to no clue about the sixth,” he said with a sigh, as a result unintentionally stunning the trio of Arslan, Raphael, and Mikaela.

“How did you…” Raphael blurted out, but he bit his tongue in the middle and shook his head. “No, forget it. I’m sure it’s related to some other secret of yours… or at least I do hope so, because if not, then it means your comprehensive abilities are a league above ours,”

“It’s the former one,” Laien said with a laugh, though just like Raphael said, he merely gave the three of them a meaningful smile and didn’t explain further. He was willing to share one of his and Yin’s secrets with them because it would be hugely advantageous to the three of them, but he saw no reason to increase the risk by revealing all of their secrets for no particular reason. “Right, before I forget,” he added with a wry smile and took out two more tomes, then gave Yin a quick glance.

“Mm,” Yin nodded slightly and extended his hand, producing yet another two ancient-looking tomes to accompany the ones taken out by Laien.

“Ancient Magic. Introduction to the water element.”

“Ancient Magic. In-depth analysis of the water element.”

“Ancient Magic. Introduction to the lightning element.”

“Ancient Magic. In-depth analysis of the lightning element.”

The four close-to-priceless tomes appearing one after another caused Arslan, Raphael, and Mikaela to forget words in their mouths. They had already been thoroughly amazed by the one ancient tome Laien had taken out, but now it looked like he and Yin each had two more! The three of them didn’t doubt that those four tomes were items the worth of which couldn’t be measured with money. However, out of the three of them, it was Mikaela who was excited the most.

Water-element ancient magic! To a light-element practitioner like Raphael or wind-element practitioner like Arslan, those four tomes were of relatively lower value, but those two water-element tomes were of great allure to Mikaela! He had benefitted a whole lot from his skillset being extremely similar to Laien’s by this point, but he didn’t think he would obtain even more benefits thanks to that one thing. Looking at the two water-element Ancient Magic tomes, he could barely contain himself, what apparently was quite obvious to everyone as Laien hurdled the two tomes towards him while chuckling in amusement.

“Go ahead,” Laien said without providing a detailed explanation. At first, he had thought to tell Mikaela about the fact that attuning oneself to two of the tomes at once can bring further benefits, but he decided not to do it just yet. For him, that realization came instinctively and it was the same for Yin. On the other hand, even Patrick, the original owner of those tomes, appeared to be unaware of this fact. As such, he couldn’t help himself and wanted to see if Mika met the ephemeral requirements those tomes seemed to have for those who wanted to learn from them.

And to his surprise, he saw Mikaela receive the intent of the first and then the second book while looking mesmerizingly excited, but that was it. Mikaela didn’t attempt to receive the Intent of both of the tomes at once. Instead, he closed his eyes for a bit, most likely in order to get accustomed to the new memories that appeared within his mind.

“I wonder what the requirements are?” Laien mused silently. “Is it related to the bottom line of one’s cultivation? Or maybe it’s influenced by the size of one’s soul and spiritual sea?” he questioned, but he understood that without a much larger sample to compare the results he wouldn’t be able to come up with any reliably-true answers.

“Mika,” Laien said calmly, seeing as Mikaela was about to slide into a meditative trance. That was all good and nice if he wanted to train right away, but he could at least finish learning the Intents first. “Can you try and focus on both of the water-element tomes at once?” he requested when Mikaela opened his eyes and gave him a questioning look.

“I guess so?” Mikaela nodded a little and put his hands on both of the tomes. With his eyes half-closed, at attempted to concentrate on both of them and see what happens. However, all that came from it was the weird feeling of both Intents surfacing and yet not being able to enter his body as they seemed to be obstructing each other. “It doesn’t work,” he said with a slight frown. Since Laien told him to try, there surely was something that he could gain by doing so. Thus, he became a little bit frustrated once he found out that it doesn’t work.

“Maybe you are still too weak,” Laien speculated. “From what Patrick said, those books also seem to take one’s elemental affinity into consideration, but your affinity with water is extremely high,” he wondered aloud, meanwhile bringing up Patrick’s name in a half-conscious manner.

“Patrick?” Raphael raised his eyebrows. “You mean Magistrate Patrick? The one who’s staying in Lugna? What does he have to do with those tomes?” he asked, feeling that there was a bigger story behind these five priceless tomes that laid right in front of them, on the floor.

“Yeah,” Laien said with a nod. “We got those five tomes from him as a ‘present’. Well, we… I kind of swindled him off them, but he was nice enough to uphold his word and give them to us,” he explained and chuckled a little. The confounded looks on those three’s faces were quite interesting to look at. “We had more than those five to choose from, but we took those in the end. I suspect Patrick has sets of Ancient Magic tomes for all elements, so if a chance appears, you can try getting the remaining ones out of him. After all, the powerful mysteries of elements other than your own are incredibly useful too, just much harder to train in,” he explained leisurely and got the trio of Arslan, Raphael, and Mikaela to nod in understanding.

Yet, had those words been heard by almost anyone else on the continent, that person would have been absolutely dumbfounded. Much less using the Profound Mysteries of incompatible elements, it was unheard of for anyone to learn the Mysteries of different elements than his own! In that sense, Elder Samuel and the rest had naturally assumed that the powerful fire-element Mystery Laien and Yin had displayed came because of some great and yet a bit unlucky-lucky-chance, as the two’s affinities didn’t fit with the Profound Mystery. However, they couldn’t have been more wrong.

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“Say,” Mikaela spoke up with both curiosity and some frustration sounding in his voice. “What does using two Intents at once give? Is it an even better Profound Mystery?” he asked, already having his own suspicions about the answer.

“Yeah,” Laien confirmed. “In the case of these water-element Ancient Magic tomes, combining the Intents allowed me to get a bit of a foothold into the Profound Mystery of Maelstrom, though I still can’t actually gain any real insights into it just yet. I’m likely still too weak… In Yin’s case, with the lightning-element tomes, it was the Profound Mystery of Lightning Rush. I don’t know which ones the other pairs will give, but they should be on the same general level and thus be classified as the Supreme Profound Mysteries of their element,” he explained straightforwardly and was happy to see that everyone was listening to him attentively.

“Supreme Mysteries?” This time around, it was Mikaela who repeated Laien’s words in a daze. That sounded just too cool! Laien had told him about the incredibly-powerful Profound Mystery of Maelstrom before, but it was the first time he was hearing this name for it! The Supreme Profound Mystery of Water! He couldn’t wait to grow strong enough to start getting insights into it!

“Interesting,” Raphael said with an intrigued look on his face. “Then that Profound Mystery of Inferno you showed us, is that the Supreme Profound Mystery of Fire? And do you think that the Profound Mystery of Super Nova of mine is also in this category?” he asked expectantly. He had always enjoyed learning new things about the theory of cultivation and he had committed a fair amount of time to reading the ancient records available both in the public and the hidden library of their faction, but he had never come across most of what Laien and Yin tended to bring up.

“What’s up with that,” Laien laughed, looking to be really amused for some reason. “Are we all going to ask many questions at once now? How impatient can you get?” he asked wryly, though he still went ahead and answered with a smile. “We know for a fact that the Profound Mystery of Inferno is in the top three fire-element Mysteries, but we aren’t too clear about the kind of a relationship those three have. As for your Super Nova… it’s close, but something is lacking.”

“Hrm, you are right,” Raphael said after a moment of thought. “Do you know that when you two displayed the Profound Mystery of Inferno in the morning, it seemed that Victoria and Jasmine seemed.. suppressed? I can’t put it too well in words, but it felt as if their strength was heavily restricted. Victoria herself acted quite shocked, too,” he mentioned, then smiled with satisfaction. Judging by the look on the faces of those two, they understood what he meant and agreed with him in this regard. Thus, he quickly added a few more words to finish his speculation up.

“I suspect that the Supreme Profound Mystery of the certain element is so different quality-wise that it has a suppressive effect on all other powers within its own elemental domain. Thus, someone who practices the Supreme Profound Mystery will find it far easier to beat other practitioners of the same element unless they also have some insights into it,” he finished up quickly, truth to be told feeling quite satisfied with this hypothesis of his.

“Reian didn’t seem too affected though,” Yin pointed out, his eyebrows furrowing slightly. “Was it because he is a dual-element practitioner? Or is it because the Profound Mystery of Heavenly Tempest that he learned restricted the effects the Profound Mystery of Inferno had on him? Heavenly Tempest should by the Supreme Profound Mystery of Wind, after all. It was strong enough to give me that feeling,” he mused aloud, though he was fairly convinced that he was going the right way in looking for the answer.

“So it works like that, huh,” Laien said with a smile. “Since the Supreme Profound Mysteries are on the same general level, they can lift the suppression off each other. So, as long as there’s a super-expert on both sides, they can both restrict each other’s aura and prevent it from affecting the battle at large,” he hypothesized, but just like Yin, he was quite sure that he was right in his assumptions.

“Arslan,” Mikaela joined in at the first opportunity. “Did you feel suppressed when Reian was using that whole Profound Mystery of Heavenly Tempest? Or does one need to firmly establish his Qi Origin into his affinity to feel that?” he asked, curious to see if they could confirm the status of the Profound Mystery of Heavenly Tempest in this way.

“I felt alight,” Arslan replied, trying to recall the details of those moments. At the time, he had been too focused on the fight to pay attention to himself, but when he thought about it, he didn’t recall feeling anything that could be called ‘suppression’. “I was feeling that Reian’s aura was amazing and mighty, but it didn’t seem to affect me much,” he added mindfully. He wanted to answer the question he was asked as thoroughly as he could, so he did clarify as much as possible.

“It might be two reasons,” Raphael deduced in no time at all. “It’s either because your Qi still isn’t transformed into the proper elemental form or because Reian wasn’t exactly wildly unleashing his aura like those two did in the end,” he said with a smile and glanced at Laien and Yin. No matter how powerful something was, it wouldn’t suppress anything if it was kept hidden. Considering that the two of them had their insights into the Supreme Profound Mystery of Fire, or into something that was very close to it, they would have yet another card to play against fire-element cultivators if need be.

“Mhm.” Laien and Yin both nodded in agreement. They didn’t expect it, but just by talking about this topic here, they managed to learn a few things too.

“For now, learn the rest of the Intents,” Laien suggested casually. It was fine if the five of them continued to talk or if they took a look at the actual content written on the pages of these tomes, but he was of the mind that it was best to do the first things first and only then move on further along.

“Kay.”

“Fine.”

“Okay.”

Mikaela, Raphael, and Arslan all agreed at once. So far, it was only Mikaela who attuned himself to any Intent other than the one of the Martial and Spiritual Transcendence tome, but given the quickness of the process, it didn’t even take a full minute for the three of them to be done. After that, it proved to be Raphael who spoke up the soonest.

“You mentioned swindling Magistrate Patrick. Would you mind telling us more about?” he inquired, probing for the boundary of what they were allowed to ask and what was too much. They might have learned a great secret of Laien and Yin’s just now, but he was confident that those two were hiding much more than just those five tomes. However, he wouldn’t be shameless enough to actually insist on learning everything about what they were keeping hidden. He wouldn’t be able to call himself their friend if he did such a thing.

“Sure,” Laien agreed easily. He had already mentioned that they got these tomes from Patrick, so there was no harm in telling them the whole story behind it. Still, he would keep a few details hidden, like the content of their deal with Patrick as a result of which they had obtained the fifth tome. If he wanted to explain that too, then he would need to reveal Yin’s identity and as much as he trusted those three, he didn’t think it was wise to take the risk while there was no potential reward in sight.

As such, he went ahead and told the story to the trio of Arslan, Raphael, and Mikaela. With Yin’s help, he summarized the events leading up to them meeting Magistrate Patrick, then described how the meeting had gone. They didn’t hide the fact that Luca had quite some problems with his cultivation due to both himself and due to Magistrate Patrick taking the words he himself spoke very much literally. Then, they told the three of them how Laien played Magistrate Patrick with a play of words, which the man actually upheld and granted them what they wanted.

They also described all the tomes they could have chosen and mentioned a few things they had learned so far, like the Martial and Spiritual Transcendence tome not describing the mortal-level refinements on its pages and Patrick being unaware of its existence. Additionally, there was the fact that the last three immortal-level refinements weren’t included in the tome’s content either. Those revelations, if at all possible, only increased the already sky-high opinion of this tome in the eyes of the three youths.

Even someone as powerful as Magistrate Patrick wasn’t judged to be sufficient by this tome’s Intent and yet, they were! All five of them were more or less vaguely aware that both mortal and immortal-level refinements consisted of nine levels, though each of them managed to comprehend a different number of them due to their varying strength and due to other factors they were yet to completely understand. However, regardless of whether they knew the full scope of conditions this tome had for its user, they felt it was amazing that all five of them would sooner or later be able to comprehend it in its entirety.

In the end, the five of them spent three more hours looking through the five ancient tomes and discussing their contents among themselves. Since Laien and Yin had some prior knowledge about those tomes, they were able to point out the important parts to the other three and thus heavily shorten the amount of time needed for them to get relatively familiar with the main points. Still, mere three hours wasn’t nearly enough for them to comprehend all the information those tomes contained. Had they been some normal books, they could have simply remembered them word by word during one night and recalled them later on. Yet, the text of those tomes appeared to be infused with a weaker kind of Intent too, so unless one understood the point the certain part was making, he would soon discover that he is unable to even recall its rough content.

As much as Arslan, Raphael, and Mikaela wanted to make the most of the time they had, they got somewhat weary after focusing so hard for three full hours. Thus, instead of forcing themselves to keep going, they decided that it would be for the best if they took a twenty-minute break to allow their brains to rest a little before returning to the ‘studying’.

“Those three ones are just so amazing,” Mikaela said with a tired laugh and leaned against Laien’s shoulder in a lazy manner, then naturally slid down and came to rest his head on top of Laien’s thigh. Naturally, as the two of them were the only water-element practitioners here, they ended up studying the relevant tomes together while sharing the Martial and Spiritual Transcendence around between the two groups which had formed early on. “I didn’t think there was so much to learn about the Profound Mysteries or the right ways of storing and using spiritual energy and Qi. I think that even a few months won’t be enough for me to learn everything from those three tomes,” he said a bit helplessly. On one hand, such an amount of knowledge to be studied filled him with terror, but on the other, it was all unexpectedly exciting and actually very interesting.

“I don’t think we have three months,” Laien said with a slight smile. Had it not been for their plans with Arslan, he would have actually very strongly considered the option of staying in this country for three months, since they did have a lot of time left to reach the Eclipse Academy left anyway, but as the matters stood, they couldn’t really afford to stay. “Eh.” Sighing inwardly, Laien decided that it was the highest time to tell Raphael and Mikaela about their intentions to leave very soon.

“Mika, Raphael,” he said calmly, though the unusual tone of his voice alone was enough to immediately attract the undivided attention of the two. “The day after tomorrow… well, it’s close to the midnight, so I guess it’s just tomorrow? Anyway, Yin and I will be leaving tomorrow in the morning and Arslan will leave two days after that,” he said with beating around the bush, assuming that it would be best to deliver the news without coating them in too much sugar.

“Eeh?!” Mikaela sat down so suddenly that it started even Laien, who expected Mikaela not to be too happy with that news. “What’s up with that? You’re going to be leaving so soon?!” Mikaela asked, looking and sounding very flustered and unhappy. They only had more day to spend together? That was way too short of a period of time! He thought he would be able to stay around Laien at least for a few more weeks! Yes, it was a pity about those tomes, but compared to studying them in detail, he would rather spend more time with Laien instead!

“It’s a bit of a long story,” Laien said with an apologetic smile. Both Mikaela and Raphael were aware that Arslan had come into an alliance with their country, but they hadn’t been told of the plan they had devised and had Elder Samuel help them with. Maybe he shouldn’t have kept it hidden from them until today, but he didn’t think that telling them a few days sooner would have made everything all that much better.

“We’ve got time,” Raphael said with relative calm. He was also surprised, but at the very least, he wasn’t as disturbed by the news as Mikaela. “Well, we’ve got some time, that is,” he clarified and laughed to himself. Actually, he was quite curious what was the reason for those three leaving so soon and in truth, he could offer a few guesses. However, he opted to wait for Laien to explain everything on his own, what Laien indeed went ahead and did.