Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 50. I’ll Do Anything.
Although Flora was incredibly happy to find out that Laien was strong enough to easily overpower Darcy given the right circumstances, the mood in the underground meeting room was pretty much the exact opposite of her current feelings. It didn’t seem like a fight would break out just yet, but if one were to go by the expressions on the boys’ guards’ faces then he would conclude that the slightest provocation could result in a complete breakdown of any negotiations.
“Not only good-looking, but also strong!” Amber said all of the sudden, her tone bright and a wide smile present on her face. “I think I’m going to fall in love~” she said jokingly and chuckled, paying the groaning Darcy no mind. Who told her to attack their guests? She could only blame herself for kicking right into a steel plate with her bare foot.
“You aren’t angry?” Laien raised his eyebrows in question. “I would have thought you would all be mad at me,” he added with a laugh, having had his fair share of encounters with unreasonable people. There were many of those who would attack you first and then act as if they were the righteous ones; they would cry out in pain as they struck you and then promise revenge after you had mopped the floor with them and their allies.
“I think everyone is more surprised than angry,” Amber said with a smile, returning to her original position with her legs tugged close to her chest.
“Is that so.” Laien laughed and quickly looked at the women’s expressions. Indeed, it was like this girl was saying. Flora and Claire weren’t angry at all, while Lucinda still appeared not to care about anything. This was quite a pleasant surprise.
Yin smirked a little and relaxed, allowing the tension in his body to disappear. He glanced at Laien with a smile; he had fully expected another affair to emerge and was ready for a battle to break out, but somehow they managed to avoid this unpleasant outcome.
“Lucinda, could I first ask you to patch Darcy up?” Flora requested with a slight smile that both a bit amused and a bit frustrated. Amber’s words caused the mood to become less tense, but a proper explanation was still required.
Lucinda nodded emotionlessly, stood up and walked up to Darcy. She mumbled words of a spell and covered her body in a layer of water, which soon caused her burns to disappear and her hair to regrow. It was impossible to remove the shock that had been applied to the brain with the aid of healing magic though, so after she was done Lucinda simply walked back to her armchair and sat down, leaving Darcy laying there on the floor.
“You could have at least…” Flora murmured, but shook her head a little and laughed inwardly. She then turned her gaze to Laien and said apologetically. “I’m sorry for what happened. I intended to stop Darcy earlier, but when I saw you don’t need my help I couldn’t help myself and wanted to watch how everything was going to play out. I apologize.” Having said so, she lowered her head and closed her eyes, waiting for Laien’s response.
“It’s fine,” Laien replied with a calm smile. Talking with someone reasonable was a nice change of pace.
“I must say,” Flora brought up, leaving the uncomfortable subject behind. “I was already impressed when I found out you were a dual practitioner with both of your cultivation bases at the eighth mortal realm, but to think you were so exceptionally strong on top of it! Simply amazing. Even your friend with his great achievement of reaching the ninth mortal realm in his martial cultivation pales in comparison,” she praised openly, having a feeling that Laien was the one making the choices from how the conversation had gone so far. However, her lips trembled slightly when she saw the look in Laien’s eyes turn absolutely cold.
“Yin is stronger than me, so don’t speak about things you know nothing about,” Laien said angrily, very much annoyed by the ridiculous was this old woman was trying to court favor with him. What, did she think being praised over Yin would make him feel happy or bring forth some narcissist tendencies? If so then she couldn’t have been more wrong.
Flora smiled awkwardly and tried to explain. “It wasn’t my intention to make you angry. I only wanted to say that your potential is superior to your friend’s.”
“Oh, is it?” Laien snapped back. What was this woman that couldn’t tell apart a cat from a tiger blabbering about? Was she trying to make him angry on purpose for some reason?
“Laien,” Yin said with a quiet laugh and grabbed Laien’s shoulder. The two of them looked at each other; he smiled at Laien, who in turn sighed and calmed down.
“Just stop, okay?” Laien said in a fairly calm manner while glancing at Flora. “Drop this formal tone you started with and stop saying stupid things. You want us to help, right? At least have the decency to be honest about your intentions,” he scolded, causing Flora to smile helplessly. She was over eight hundred years old, but she ended up being reprimanded by a child that was probably twelve or thirteen years old! What an embarrassment, especially that she realized the youth was right and she was the one in the wrong.
In the moment of awkward silence, Ruan, Liza and the others with the exception of the black-cloaked man sighed quietly. They knew those two boys were like a magnet for trouble, but it was the first time they were seeing the trouble arise before their own eyes.
Meanwhile, Darcy groaned loudly as she finally regained enough strength to get up. She was a spiritual master, but her martial cultivation was at the pitiable level of the second mortal realm. The shock from the explosion and the crash with the floor had pretty much knocked her out cold for a minute or two. However, now that she woke up her mind seemed to be more clear. At the very least, she didn’t appear to be so overcome with emotions as previously. She only glanced at Laien briefly, then swapped her clothes for undamaged ones and without a word of complaint, went to pick up the armchair.
“The matter of threatening you to help us…” Flora brought up after Darcy sat back down. “That option was never viable to begin with,” she said with a smile, laughed and explained when the boys sent her questioning looks. “So what if we threatened you to help with force? You could just tell everything to the guards of the Grand Palace after the plan began. There would be countless ways for you to destroy whatever plans and preparations we made.”
“Well,” Laien said with a little smirk. “That’s only if you were capable of threatening us to being with,” he said somewhat arrogantly, feeling pretty confident after winning against a spiritual master of the third rank.
“Trust me, we are more than capable of killing you all,” Flora said with a confident smile. Knowing that mere words wouldn’t be enough to convince Laien, she released some of her spiritual energy and almost instantly formed it into a large fiery rune right in front of her. The rune emanated power over a dozen times stronger than the fireball Darcy had tried to create with the aid of a full chant, but most importantly… it was brought forth without any delay!
Claire laughed heartily when she saw how surprised the boys were. “You would do well if you didn’t come to underestimate spiritual masters. The average ones like Darcy have no means of dealing with martial masters or any kind of sudden attacks, but rune masters like teacher or me don’t need chants to unleash the full strength of our spells. And if you think you are capable of withstanding a direct hit from a magic of a spiritual master of a fifth rank… then I wish you luck in the other world,” she spoke with a smile, very much purposely reminding Darcy of her own weakness. After all, it wasn’t that Darcy lacked the talent to study the runes… she had never put in the effort since she preferred to have her own little carefree life over working hard to become stronger.
“Are you?” a man’s voice rang out behind Claire, startling her heavily. Even Flora grew nervous; she was barely able to follow the movement technique of that black-cloaked man’s with her eyes! If she wanted to reliably kill him, she would need to use a powerful area-of-effect spell… but then she would also kill all of her comrades in this room. “Are you sure you are capable of killing us all?” the black-cloaked man asked with a laugh, but was secretly a bit embarrassed by his behavior. Watching those two boys act wild and confident reminded him of his own youth and he had suddenly felt an urge to show off a bit; in the end, however, he came to think what he did was quite childish.
Laien smiled wryly and commented while glancing at Yin out of the corner of his eye. “I guess movement techniques are just as troublesome to deal with for all spiritual practitioners.”
“They indeed are,” Flora admitted resignedly. When she saw the black-cloaked man going back to the spot behind the sofa she dispelled the fiery rune and returned her attention to the boys. “As you asked me to, I will be completely frank with you. If what you told me about your friend being stronger than you is true, then with the help of you two we could have a real chance to save my grandson and Claire’s nephew. As long as you are willing to help I promise to give you anything you want; anything that is within the ability of this old me, I will do to repay you for your help,” she said honestly, very much meaning her words. Whatever those boys demanded, she would give them!
“Teacher, you can’t be serious!” Claire couldn’t help herself and blurted out loud. She should have been happy that Flora was willing to go so far as the rescue involved her own nephew too, but the shock of Flora’s statement was simply too big. Flora wasn’t a person to sugarcoat her words or break the promises; when she said something, she meant it! She might have lost the position of the Mage Protector after the Faren Republic crumbled, but the amount of wealth and knowledge she had accumulated in the past five hundred years was simply enormous!
Laien and Yin remained silent for a few seconds, their gazes only half-present. None of those present would be able to guess though that they were vaguely discussing whether they wanted to accept Flora’s offer or reject it through their spiritual bond.
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“What can you give us?” Laien asked, having come to the conclusion with Yin that they would ask and see if there was anything they would be willing to take the risk for.
“Apart from vast amounts of money,” Flora began with a calm smile. “I possess many high-level spell formulas of various elements that are suited for spiritual masters at the late stages of the Realm of Heroes. Of course, I also have normal mid-level and low-level spell formulas suited for the Realm of Heroes too. There is my knowledge and research in the art of runes and information about the various powers and organizations scattered all over the continent. I have many top-grade weapons and armors, even shields and I also have a few complete top-level martial arts scrolls. Right, there are also five top-grade interspatial rings in my possession,” she elaborated with a level head, her words enough to cause almost everyone listening to suck in a mouthful of cold breath.
Those resources were absolutely enough for Flora to set-up a medium-sized country on her own. With enough support from experts willing to join her, she would be able to single-handedly provide a stable foundation for a country! The wealth accumulated by a Mage Protector that had occupied his post for five centuries was enormous. Claire had had a vague idea of her teacher’s wealth before, but even she was surprised, not to speak of Liza and the other people from the boys’ group. Even the black-cloaked man was rather impressed!
“I don’t know,” Laien said uncertainly and scratched the back of his head. “I don’t really need any of those things,” he added with a shrug of his shoulders, causing the five women in the armchairs to become absolutely flabbergasted. The seven companions of his, on the other hand, revealed helpless smiles. They had already known the boys weren’t interested in money; and as for the things that couldn’t be bought with money, they probably didn’t lack them anyway.
“I don’t really need any of them either,” Yin said casually, not interested in those items in the slightest. Unlike Laien who surely was a bit curious about the runic arts, he found everything that Flora could offer to be of little use. At the very least, those things weren’t enough to make him want to risk his life needlessly.
For the first time in centuries, Flora stared blankly at someone with her mouth hanging open. She could still understand if an old supreme expert pretended not to be tempted by what she could offer, but she could plainly see those boys were very honestly disinterested! Forget the wealth and items, but she found it unimaginable for Laien to be so stoic when faced with high-level spell formulas and detailed knowledge of runic arts! These things were what almost all spiritual masters would pursue with mad desire; many wouldn’t think twice before killing in order to obtain them!
“What kind of background do those two have…?” Claire wondered silently. There was no way a young spiritual practitioner wouldn’t be tempted by Flora’s offer, unless… no. That was too scary to think about. For a dual practitioner to have access to all the things he could possibly need would require him to be under the tutelage of not only a supreme martial master and a spiritual master, but also to be protected and groomed by a powerful organization. To recruit somebody like that for a mission where he could lose his life if anything went wrong… it would be impossible.
“Eh,” Laien sighed, feeling rather guilty when looking at the women’s expressions. He could sympathize with the situation of having someone dear to you in danger, but he didn’t want to jump head-first into danger anymore. “Maybe try telling us more about that Grand Palace and your plan first?” he suggested, intent on making the final choice when everything would be known to him.
“Right,” Flora snapped out of her shock and said with a weak laugh. “We should have probably started with an explanation anyway…” she said with a little sigh. She would never have expected the boys to not be enticed by her resources and knowledge; she had thought it would have been easier to make them join if they already desired the rewards while listening to the plan, but now it seemed like she would need to be happy if they weren’t negative towards the idea from the very beginning.
“I shall flesh out the main points then.” Flora leaned back in her armchair and crossed her hands on her lap. “The rebuilt Grand Palace consists of five districts. Three of them belong to the houses; the house of coin where merchants and their mercenaries stay, the house of sword where martial and spiritual masters reside, and the house of faith where the lower-ranked Yimars and other priests reside. The fourth district serves as the residence of the Yimar controlling the city, and since it’s the capital city the Yimar is also the leader of the country. Until now it was the place where Yimar Sharu lived, but I suspect the arriving Grand Yimar is going to take it over for himself.”
“And finally, what they call the Holy District,” she said with a heavy sigh. “It’s the middle district of the Grand Palace and it’s basically an equivalent of our red districts. In there are harems, bars, casinos, brothels and everything else you could imagine. The Ikarian faith technically prohibits all of those things, so they are being kept well away from the public eye. The main harems are located in the Holy District, one for males, another one for females,” she explained briefly, then added grimly.
“All in all, the Grand Palace holds well over ten thousand martial masters and around one thousand spiritual masters; and that is after one-third of them left. Thankfully ninety percent of them are at the first and second Realms of Heroes. By rough estimation we know there is five to six hundred martial masters of the third rank there, two hundred of the fourth rank, and about ten of the fifth rank, one of which holds the position of the Sword of Rala and holds an equivalent authority to Yimar Sharu. As for spiritual masters, we know there isn’t anyone above the third Realm of Heroes.”
Laien frowned at this news. He was fairly confident in being able to fight off and flee a large number of low-level martial masters, but if they needed to protect two weak kids at the same time… and given the number of stronger experts in that Grand Palace… Forget being swarmed by martial masters of the third rank or hit by a combined magic of hundreds of spiritual masters, if just two of those martial masters of the fifth rank stayed behind and attacked them, they would be done for.
Yin wasn’t too optimistic about their chances either. He and Laien were each at most capable of putting up a fight against an elite martial master of the third rank who had absolutely no high-level insights. They could put up a fight, but to kill him? It would already be fairly hard for them to kill an elite martial master at the second Realm of Heroes; they also needed to remember that monsters like Altair existed in this world. What if one of such monsters was among those Ikarians? They wouldn’t be able to put up a fight at all! They would be immediately slaughtered.
“The visit of the Grand Yimar plays in our favor though,” Flora said before the boys could voice their doubts. She what kind of looks they had on their faces and understood they would refuse her if the plan of hers didn’t soon being looking more sensible. “Yimar Sharu and the Sword of Rala must both be walking on the tips of their toes with a Grand Yimar coming over from Arkaria. The moment we start trouble with the fifty other experts I’m in contact with they will surely send out the bulk of their forces including their top experts. As long as I expend all my resources, I alone will be perfectly capable of holding off their five martial masters of the fifth rank. There’s a large bounty on my head too. The number of experts who remain in the Grand Palace should be negligible.”
“Should be,” Laien repeated with a somewhat mocking smirk. “And if it’s not, if they leave behind one of their experts, if someone stops us before we can leave the grounds of the Grand Palace and that expert attacks us, what are we supposed to do?” he asked and shook his head. He wasn’t someone who avoided risks, the past few months of his life being a prime example of that, but this plan was too flawed. Moreover, a failure almost certainly meant death or slavery. It was too much to do for someone they just met half an hour ago.
“It will work out, I will make sure of it,” Flora said strongly, clenching her first unconsciously. “I just need you to find Nathan and Louis and hand them over to the people we have in the Grand Palace. You don’t need to worry about escorting them out. The time is too important there; the window is going to be small, who knows if we will have enough time to find them without your help?” she pleaded, the tone of her words shocking the three women who had known her for a long time. For Flora to be willing to bend her head like that before two younglings, she really needed to see their help as invaluable to the plan’s success and obviously, she needed to care for her grandson a lot.
“It would make things a bit easier…” Laien said quietly, then exchanged a look with Yin. “Adults are too heavy, but I’m sure I could raise four of us a kilometer up into the air and descend somewhere in the city…” he mused aloud. Now that he had advanced to the eighth mortal realm in his spiritual cultivation and more importantly, could merge Qi with the spiritual energy he should be capable of creating a stable platform for flight. Long-distance or fast travel was still beyond his abilities, but getting out of the Grand Palace should be manageable.
“That’s not an option,” Claire said with a groan, seeing how Flora couldn’t bring herself to disillusion the boys. “South might be different, but all major cities in the rest of the world have basic runes engraved into their walls. Be it the outer walls or the city or the inner walls of the Grand Palace, the moment someone tries to fly over them the runes will react to the energy in the air and lit up. You will be found out and chased down immediately,” she explained unhappily. She would have rather it not be true, but there was no point keeping the pivotal information away from the boys.
“So we would need to run out of there on our feet…” Yin said with a sigh. He might have considered agreeing if they could fly out of there and if Laien really wanted to help, but since flying wasn’t an option then everything once again became very dangerous.
“Eh,” Laien shook his head in disappointment. “I guess you don’t have anyone high-ranked enough to simply lead us out of there once the diversion starts?” he asked, perhaps a bit too hopeful.
“Regrettably,” Claire replied straightforwardly. If they had someone like that they wouldn’t have needed to ask them to help; they didn’t have anyone with the access to the main harem, not to mention someone with enough authority to take the slaves away on a whim during a grand battle.
Well, technically their ally was a person with access to the Holy District… but he wasn’t willing to blow his cover for them. He was the one doing them a favor by working with them, not the other way around. They weren’t in a position to ask him to help more than he was already doing.
“I don’t think we can help you then,” Laien said resignedly. He was feeling sorry for Flora and Claire, and those two boys, but it wasn’t just his own life at the stakes; he would never forgive himself if Yin ended up dying because of his choice to help those women.
A grim, deathly silence followed Laien’s refusal. The guards behind the sofa mostly sighed with relief, with the exception of Liza who didn’t quite know what to think about this whole thing. The young Amber appeared to understand Laien and Yin’s choice, Lucinda was unmoved, Darcy’s face was expressionless… Claire looked sad, but she appeared to have expected this outcome. Only Flora seemed unable to accept the failure of the negotiations.
“It’s an incredible risk,” Flora said quietly, her head lowered and her eyes focused on the ground. “It’s not something I should be asking two kids who are the age of my grandson and have bright futures ahead of themselves…” She grabbed the armrests of the armchair with both hands and raised to her feet, then looked first Laien then Yin in the eye. She walked up to the two of them and stopped a few meters away from the sofa they were sitting on. She closed her eyes and after a few seconds of silence, under the women’s disbelieving gazes, got down to her knees, put her forehead to the floor and prostrated herself before Laien and Yin.
“I beg you,” she said in a trembling voice. “Help me save my grandson and Claire’s nephew. I don’t care what it is; as long as those two are free and can live their lives happily, I will do anything. I will hand you over everything I have and become your servant until the day my life ends. I’m already old, but I should still have three hundred years left in me… please, I beg you, help me save those two.”