Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 48. Secret Association.
“Should we just get down and pretend to pray with the others…?” Laien wondered silently. It didn’t sit well with him to do so, but if that was the only way out then he could bear with it.
“We should at least get out of the view…” Yin thought with a resigned smile. “But how are we supposed to do it with all those people occupying the ground?” he asked himself and laughed helplessly. How come they were getting into trouble even when they did nothing to provoke them?
Suddenly Laien and Yin both jumped up a little, their bodies tensing up. They both turned their gazes towards the nearby bar, but failed to spot the source of the frightening powerful aura that had just swept past them. They were pretty sure that had it not been for their improvements during the Trial of strength, they wouldn’t have even sensed this aura. Just who did it belong to and why did that person probe their group for no apparent reason?
Just two or three seconds later two Jiran-clad women left the main building of the bar-inn and made their way towards them, maneuvering agilely between the kneeling men and women.
“Rala Salar, dear travelers,” one of the women greeted loudly, what was fairly necessary considering the ongoing call for prayer. Judging by how her voice sounded she was a young woman; most likely around thirty years old. “Do you perhaps wish for a less crowded place to give your prayers to Rala? Our inn still has enough open rooms, are you interested?” she offered, looking at Laien, Yin and Ruan as she spoke. When she finished, however, she glanced at Liza ever so briefly, their eyes meeting for half a second.
Liza’s eyes opened wide when the understanding dwelled upon her. She was sure now! she knew the owner of that voice! Yet, she managed to hold herself back from saying anything that could provoke those who were listening in and simply looked at Ruan; an action the onlookers would interpret as nothing but her waiting for her master to make his choice.
“She seems excited?” Ruan read Liza’s emotions from her eyes fairly easily, having been interacting with her quite a lot during the past weeks. He took a deep breath and quickly made a choice. “Rala Salar, yes we would appreciate that,” he replied to the woman, his words causing the heavy atmosphere around their group to become visibly more relaxed.
“Come, let us quickly leave your horses in the stables behind our inn,” the woman said calmly and made a slight gesture with her hand towards the inn.
Eight Slaah guards moved quickly from their usual inconspicuous spots around the bar and began clearing part for the new guests of their inn. Although their act was met with some grumbling and even some random threats of revenge, the black-skinned guards paid them no heed. Those people praying on the streets were all lower-class citizens, while their inn was the property of a powerful man from the House of Coin. Those people might complain, but no one would actually dare to put his threats into practice unless he was tired of living.
Laien, Yin and the others were quite surprised to see how boorish the customs amongst Ikarians were. They had all thought it would become an affair if the prayer was interrupted… but they worried for nothing. The only case in which they really would have gotten into trouble was if they happened to be extremely unlucky and disturbed someone with high social standing who whimsically decided to pray on the streets instead of his house or in one of the local Maraaks.
“Oh, so here they have one large stall for horses instead of separate ones,” Laien mused when he saw the stables behind the inn. “Bellicose, make sure there is no ruckus while you are staying here, okay?” he leaned forward and hugged Bellicose’s neck while whispering close to his ear.
Bellicose snorted in response. It would normally be hard to tell whether he was agreeing or ignoring his master, but Laien was sure it was the former one. Laien then jumped down from the saddle and took everything off Bellicose and into his interspatial ring. The rest of their group did the same thing and were quickly led into the inn through the back door in the accompaniment of the loud prayer clearly audible throughout the whole City of Palee.
“This way please,” the Jiran-clad woman led them through a long corridor, passing by the area where the inner restaurant was and heading upstairs.
Laien and Yin exchanged a look, both remaining moderately cautious of those two women and more importantly, of the owner of that powerful aura. They both wondered why Ruan agreed so easily to the offer those two women had made too, but they didn’t yet ask any questions.
When they arrived on the fourth, top floor one of the Jiran-clad women closed the door behind them and removed a glove from her hand, then slid her finger across the door. The door’s surface lit up with white light which quickly spread outwards, revealing a complicated formation of runes which spread throughout the entirety of the walls on the floor. The white light dimmed and disappeared a few seconds later, once again hiding the runic formation from the naked eye.
“Liz, why would you return now?” one of the women asked with a mixture of joy and worry. She put the Jiran back into her interspatial ring as she asked, revealing her back-long brown hair and slender figure.
“I was passing by anyway,” Liza removed the black cloth from her body and answered while shaking her head. “I was worried if you were all okay so I came to see you. Claire, is teacher fine?” she asked first and foremost, concerned with the fate of the old woman despite her outward lack of fondness for her.
“She is,” Claire answered, her words quite saddened. “Teacher was the one who noticed your group. You were lucky we were just heading for the meeting and she took the risk to probe you all with her spiritual sense. She recognized you instantly and told us to bring you over,” she explained, seeing no reason to hide this information from Liza and her companions.
“Irresponsibly, if I might add,” the woman with short black hair beside Claire said angrily. “What was she thinking allowing all those people enter here? Does she trust none of them will sell us out to the Ikarians?” she pointed out with a strong frown on her forehead. She swept the group with a gaze that was just as angry as her words had been; and without paying any mind to courtesy, swept them with her aura of a spiritual master of the third rank.
Claire pursed her lips, but she needed to admit that Darcy had a point. It was one thing for them to help Liza, but inviting those eight? She couldn’t comprehend what her teacher was thinking, but she trusted her enough not to doubt the decisions she was making.
“Darcy? What is it?” Claire asked in confusion, noticing how her friend fell silent and how her expression turned pale. Was there an extremely powerful expert in this group? She couldn’t help but wonder so she also released her aura, which was a bit stronger than Darcy’s due to her being a spiritual master of the fourth rank.
“!” Claire’s throat clenched and unclenched a few times in a row when she understood what shocked Darcy so badly. Yes, it was a bit surprising to find out that Liza was already a martial master and it was slightly worrying to find a martial master of the third rank in the group she was in, but the truly frightening part was that she couldn’t sense the existence of those two boys at all! To her aura it was as if they didn’t exist; was she not seeing them with her own eyes, she would have suspected the youths were some vengeful ghosts or remnant spirits!
“Liza, what… who are these two boys?” Claire asked cautiously, finding the background of those two kids hard to imagine. She could still write it off as a lucky chance if one of them had this frightening ability to hide his presence, but two of them? That was too abnormal.
“They are two southern kids we are escorting to the Eclipse Academy,” Liza answered with an ironic smile, aware that this kind of answer wasn’t an answer at all. However, she herself didn’t know the answer to Claire’s question; all she knew was that those boys were little monsters.
Claire was pretty speechless to hear this kind of response, but she was familiar enough with Liza to realize she wasn’t making fun of her. Darcy, on the other hand, was about to speak up angrily, but then realized something all of the sudden. So that was why Flora took their whole group in so readily! As expected of that old woman, she could recognize a chance to succeed even in the worst of circumstances and had enough confidence to immediately act upon the chance given to her.
Laien and Yin both smiled under the white cloth covering their heads. They looked at each other and chuckled soundlessly. That powerful aura before had taken them by surprise; they were fairly confident in being able to hide from it if they were focusing properly! The reason being that even though that aura was very strong, its usage was crude and it contained no Aspect of Awareness. Be it a supreme spiritual master, if he wasn’t skilled enough they could still hide from him. As for those two women here? They most likely would have failed to notice them under their passive aura cloaking, not to mention when they were actively erasing their presence and hiding their cultivation bases.
“Thanks for helping us out,” Laien said with a smile. His voice sounded merry and quite amused, but even though his eyes were laughing a little, one could see a fair dose of seriousness in them. “I guess you are the people Liza wanted to see? I’m glad to meet you, but can we trust you?” he asked straightforwardly, his gaze shifting between Liza, Claire and Darcy. He originally hadn’t been worried about meeting Liza’s acquaintances, but that spiritual master from before caused him to put his guard up.
The brown-haired woman, Claire, smiled in understanding. She had been dealing with young nobles for the greater part of her life so to her Laien’s words sounded very polite. Darcy, however... if the look on her face was any indication, she appeared to be offended by Laien’s question and thus spoke up.
“If we had any ill intent towards you, you wouldn’t be standing here and asking that,” she said with a snort. Now that the runic formation had been activated, no one from the outside would be able to recognize what was going on within it. No sound, no image and no aura would leak out! To merely destroy the walls of this floor an all-out attack from an expert at the fourth or fifth realm of heroes would be needed! Their teacher’s skill in employing runic formations was that frightening.
“I wouldn’t make such threats if I were in your place,” the black-cloaked man said unexpectedly. He smiled wryly when everyone’s eyes turned to him; the only good thing coming from being relieved of his duty as an examiner was that he could now act much more freely, what he fully intended to do. “You are both fairly strong and that teacher of yours who scanned us with her aura is pretty powerful too, but if you were to start a fight against us, a group of martial masters, in a confined space like this… let’s pretend for a second you aren’t fugitives this city’s new rules would gladly slaughter, but even then you would be hard pressed to win against us without casualties. At the very least, you two would absolutely end up dying regardless of the outcome,” he spoke mockingly, his gaze fixed on the woman with short black hair, Darcy. Out of all types of people, those who overestimated their own ability and acted arrogantly without the necessary strength were the ones he couldn’t stand the most.
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Darcy barely held herself back from interrupting that black-cloaked man mid-sentence, but the slight killing intent that appeared in the man’s eyes caused the words to become stuck in her throat. She was a spiritual master of the third rank, true. She had some skill in the runic arts and her talent was high, but she had never taken a part in a proper battle where her life was on the line. That period of civil war from the spring too, she had only hidden with closest family and friends and avoided any danger. She had been forced into dangerous situations a few times, but she never stayed to fight
As for that black-cloaked man before her… she didn’t want to admit it, but just that little bit of his killing intent caused her whole body to grow numb in fear. Her throat made a swallowing motion, but her mouth was too dry for any saliva to appear. She only now understood how dangerous of a person they had let in! Apart from their teacher, it was unlikely for anyone to be able to deal with him!
Laien smiled to himself, pretty satisfied with the way the black-cloaked man brought this woman back to the ground. “Ruan told us it was him who led them away when Altair came with his people. He is affiliated with the Cail family too; and this killing intent! He gives me a similar feeling to Altair’s subordinates, he even used the same movement technique back then when we surprised him. He’s almost certainly a member of the Guild of Shadows,” he mused silently. Was them passing the Trial of Strength the reason this black-cloaked man started involving himself more? Did he recognize them as worthy befriending, or was simply curious?
“You can trust us,” Claire said despite the really heavy atmosphere after the black-cloaked man’s blunt words. “I apologize for my friend, it wasn’t our intention to make threats,” she apologized genuinely, raised her hand to her chest and bowed slightly. To everyone’s surprise, she addressed Laien with her apology as the youth who had spoken up previously and not the black-cloaked man.
“I don’t know about trusting,” Laien said with a laugh. “But since you are Liza’s friends and your master went out of his… or her way to help us, I guess we can give you some credit,” he said openly, glancing at the black-cloaked man in the middle for a brief second. It didn’t escape his notice that the black-cloaked man had referred to those women’s teacher as ‘her’.
“I’m happy to hear that,” Claire said amiably, her experience as a teacher and instructor of magic showing its fruits. In contrast to Darcy who still had a sour look on her face, she had already let the bygones be bygones, or perhaps at the very least removed them from the way she was acting.
“You two really like to stir trouble,” Liza commented with a sigh. He had obviously wanted to say something during this little argument just now, but she had trouble finding words that wouldn’t escalate the situation further. She knew that especially Laien could be ill-tempered when he didn’t like someone or something, but it wasn’t like Yin lacked a strong temper either. With that black-cloaked man getting involved she had no idea what to do; thankfully Claire was better than her at dealing with such unpleasant situations, so everything turned out all right.
“Why am I getting scolded too?” Yin asked playfully, exchanged a look with Laien and laughed alongside him, the tension of the situation completely washing over them. Compared to the stress they had gone through during the Trial of Strength, the current circumstances couldn’t even count as a crisis, at least not at this point.
A very warm and natural smile surfaced on Claire’s face as she watched the two boys laugh with each other. However, there was also a mix of extremely sad, anxious and resentful emotions in her eyes and in her heart. “Teacher told me to bring you all down to our meeting. Come,” she said with a smile and pointed down the corridor, at the door leading to one of the rooms in the back.
Darcy caught herself wanting to protest bringing this bunch into the hidden chambers, but then quickly remembered about her guess. Yes, their teacher was a wise person; she was also strong enough to take care of any unexpected developments and in the underground, the battle wouldn’t alarm anyone thanks to the powerful runic formation that had been set up there. It was perfect.
“Detestable woman,” the black-cloaked man thought to himself. Others might have missed it, but he noticed the subtle changes in her expression; from indignation and anger to grim satisfaction and sense of superiority. From his vast experience, he knew emotional shifts of this kind didn’t bode well, but he only laughed in heart and kept this observation to himself. He would happily lend those two a hand, but it wasn’t up to him to be leading them by the hand. They needed to learn about the world on their own! If they died while doing so it only meant they weren’t destined to reach the pinnacle.
“Well, let’s go and see that teacher of yours,” Laien said with a laugh. He didn’t need to ask if Yin agreed to go; he knew Yin had nothing against the idea.
“Then let us go,” Claire said contentedly and led the group to the furthest room on the floor. When they entered Laien, Yin and the rest of their group failed to notice anything special; the room appeared to be a normal bedroom in a high-standard inn. However, Claire put her hand to the inner wall and released some spiritual energy, activating the hidden runic formation. The wall dissolved into a whole lot of particles of natural energy and revealed a small, dark opening leading down below. The opening wasn’t big by any means, it was about one meter long and fifty centimeters wide; just enough to fit an adult.
“No need to worry about falling speed,” Claire brought up while looking at the two youths. “The formation will slow you down towards the end. The fall is about two hundred meters long,” she informed and laughed in her heart when Darcy jumped in without waiting for her to finish speaking.
“Mhm, thanks for the explanation,” Laien said casually and jumped in without hesitation, soon to be followed by Yin.
Claire raised her eyebrows a little. She expected the boys to be at least a bit suspicious and hesitant, but they did nothing of this sort and went along with the flow. She didn’t know if it was because of their confidence, bravery or if it was simply because they were immature; that remained to be seen.
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“Those runes sure are mysterious,” Laien murmured after walking out of the small passage and entering the underground cave. “They appear to store, amplify and transform natural energy. In essence, they are just like a magic chant but more permanent,” he deduced, ignoring Darcy’s presence as he walked up to the cave’s wall. The runes that produced the light were active, but it wasn’t what he was curious about. He touched the dark place on the wall and closed his eyes, pretty sure that the cave was protected by a similar runic formation to the floor from which they came from.
“It’s there,” Laien smiled happily. He wasn’t using the power of Aspects nor his aura, but he could feel the runic formation pulsing with life ever so slightly. “This structure… doesn’t it resemble a miniature spiritual domain? This one isn’t element-specific, too bad… I feel like I would have been able to control it a little if it was a water-element formation,” he smirked, feeling pretty good about himself. If he could learn more about those runes then maybe not straight away, but in the long term, this knowledge would bring him immense benefits.
“Well, it’s not like anyone is going to give his secrets away arts for free,” he laughed quietly and removed his hand from the wall.
“Are you interested in runes?” Claire asked, glancing at Laien with calm appreciation. The runic arts were one of the most mystical arcana of spiritual arts, just having a high potential as a spiritual practitioner wasn’t nearly enough to qualify one to become a Rune Master. Less than one in ten thousand talented spiritual practitioners had any affinity towards runic arts, and less than one in ten of those who had the required potential would go on to obtain any significant achievements in that field. It was thus no surprise that in the past eight hundred years no rune master stronger than their teacher had appeared in the Eulean Union, or for the matter of fact anywhere in the world.
“A little bit,” Laien said lightheartedly. From what he could see the runic arts could provide him with a strong secondary support, but they wouldn’t directly increase his battle power. As useful as they were, he wasn’t bewitched by greed to the point of wanting to obtain them at any cost. Moreover, he wasn’t in a hurry; he could learn those arts in the future, it didn’t need to be right away.
“If everything ends well, then I will teach you a few things if you want,” Claire offered, then sighed a little with a very apparent look of worry on her face. She had been suppressing the anxiety by the force of habit, but now no longer deemed it necessary. The boys already came down here; they would meet with their teacher and listen to her request… and to Claire’s own request, which was one and the same.
Since Darcy had easily guessed their teacher’s intentions, then how could Claire, who was very much directly involved in the matter, not do the same? She only hoped that the boys would agree to assist them. The higher chances of success their plan had, the better. They couldn’t afford a failure, so even if the help of those two only raised the stakes by a few percent in their favor, it was something they couldn’t pass on.
“Thanks,” Laien said happily. Although the allure of runes wasn’t that high to him, it wasn’t small either. He definitely wouldn’t discard the opportunity to learn something when it presented itself to him.
“The meeting room is behind that door, come,” Claire said after confirming that everyone who came with Liza descended to the cave. She led the group for the one hundred meters, then gestured them not to approach the door just yet. This time she released a fair portion of spiritual energy and took control of the whole underground formation.
“That’s…” Laien’s eyes opened a bit wider when he sensed the portion of the runic formation hidden within the defensive runes he had inspected a moment ago. “I thought it was only a defensive formation, but it’s actually a deadly trap! So much fire-element energy is gathered around this cave… if it was poured into this confined, sealed space all at once…” he shuddered at the thought. Unless one possessed formidable defensive abilities, even martial masters of the fourth and fifth rank would be directly burned to ash by this humongous amount of accumulated energy.
“As for me… I think I would be able to withstand it only after advancing to the Realm of Heroes,” Laien sighed in his heart. He was quite formidable for his age; hell, ‘quite formidable’ didn’t do his prowess justice. Yet, he kept finding out that the world was filled with many mysteries and powerhouses. Given his current strength, there existed way too many people capable of killing him effortlessly.
“I wonder what he sensed,” Yin thought quietly. He could tell that Laien was excited due to something, but it was too hard for him to guess what it was exactly due to lack of context. He himself didn’t notice anything strange, but it wasn’t like he was actively extending his aura to search. He wasn’t a spiritual practitioner either, so he had no affinity towards the runic arts. It wasn’t strange for him not to have noticed the coagulated mass of fire-element energy surrounding this cave and being kept in place by a separate runic formation.
“It’s done, come in,” Claire declared and pushed the door open with her hand. She moved to the side, intending to let their guests enter first. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes when Darcy went inside before them, but she didn’t feel like getting into an argument with her over something so silly; at least not at the moment, now when they had much more important priorities.
Laien and Yin looked at each other, then both walked forward and entered the room. The space inside was styled in an old-fashioned way and resembled a conference room an eccentric aristocrat might have in his mansion. The light here was fairly dim, there was no table or anything alike, but instead, there were five armchairs placed in a circle.
Two of those armchairs, the two closest to the entrance were empty. Of the remaining three, one was occupied by a girl who appeared to be sixteen or seventeen years old. The girl glanced at them with curiosity, tugging her legs to her chest in a rather childish manner. On another of the armchairs sat a middle-aged woman with an emotionless, almost dead look in her eyes; she spared them the briefest of looks before snorting and looking away in contempt.
Finally, an elderly gray-haired woman was sitting in the armchair right in front of them. She was restraining her aura, but one could tell at the first glance that she was a powerful spiritual master. She greeted the nine guests with a smile and spoke with a voice that inherently carried with it the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of many centuries.
“Welcome, to the Sun and Clouds Association.”