Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 89. Magistrate Patrick.
“Yeah,” Laien supported with a laugh. “But first, let’s eat our food. We can’t let it all go to waste,” he pointed out, then stirred the meat and vegetables in the large pan in front of him with the long and thick wooden spoon. “Seems ready to me,” he mused aloud. They had been talking for quite a while, so despite the flames being fairly mild the mix had been fried nicely. Also, since he had boiled the water for the rice through the Principle of Energy beforehand and only used the fire to maintain the high temperature, the rice was just about ready too.
“Okay,” Luca said and chuckled a bit helplessly. He didn’t remember the last time he was agreeing so obediently with someone else’s words time after time in a matter of minutes, however, he was quite surprised to find out that he didn’t mind it at all. Was it because Laien was younger than him and yet had defeated him so thoroughly or was it because Laien was lending him a hand when he needed it? As he wondered about it, he concluded that it was probably due to both of those things.
“Taking the rice out…” Laien murmured, feeling like it would be too much of a bother to drain the rice manually. He would need to stand up too so all the water from the pot wouldn’t end up at their feet… so instead of making it hard for himself, he used a little spiritual energy and took control of the water inside the pot. He grabbed the rice with it and pulled it out, then made a portion of the rice float over the bowl in his hand. He released the rice into the bowl and flicked the superfluous water behind his back, letting it splash onto the ground a dozen or so meters away.
Yin, Arslan and Johan smiled at Laien and as if it was the most natural thing to do, they waited with their bowls in their hands. Laien, in turn, filled their bows with rice all at once, controlling the water and splitting another three portions of rice from the batch in a fairly effortless manner. He flicked the needless water over his shoulder once again and at the same time, pushed the mix of meat and vegetables into one side of the large pan. He raised the pan by a level and placed the rest of the rice in the empty space he created, leaving it as potential and very probable seconds.
While this scene wasn’t anything strange to those four youths who played it out, nor was it surprising to the four White Guards, it most definitely was flabbergasting to everyone else. Just how exquisite was Laien’s control over water for him to use it to carry rice over and drop it into the bows while leaving just the right amount of moisture inside the cooked grains? As ignorant of the matters of spiritual practice as they were, they had never seen any spiritual masters handle their food in a similar way. Still, they couldn’t be sure… perhaps it was because doing something like that was considered a faux pas amongst spiritual masters, or maybe it was too bothersome to be worth the effort?
“It’s not normal,” Jasmine mentioned with a smile, having noticed the consternation of their companions from Lugna. “Laien can do it only because he controls water as if it was an extension of his own limbs. A skilled spiritual master could do the same, but he would need to concentrate to pull it off. In comparison, it’s simpler to get your food ready manually or like it ends up being in most cases, have someone else prepare it for you,” she explained calmly and when she finished, she glanced at Laien. When their gazes intersected, the cheeky kid only shrugged his shoulders while munching on his food. His expression seemed to be saying ‘Well, that’s right, isn’t it? There’s no point in making a fuss over every small thing.’ or something along those lines.
Truly, this attitude of Laien’s was beyond redemption… but since it was backed by true skill, Jasmine couldn’t bring herself to complain about it.
Julien, Luca, Lea and the rest of their group didn’t know what to say as they watched the four youths eat their fill. Those powerful and talented practitioners would from time to time be reminded how different their lives were compared to those of common people, for example when they strolled the streets of a city or when they visited a new place for the first time. However, it was the first time that the lot of them felt as if the positions had been reversed. Maybe it was silly of them to claim so much just because they saw Laien display his strength, then casually use magic in a manner they had never seen before, but they all had a weird feeling that Laien was somehow detached from reality.
They wondered, would a peasant feel the same when gazing upon the majestic figure of a King for the first time in his life? It was hard to describe and even harder for them to admit, but the air about Laien and that green-haired friend of his, Yin if they heard correctly a moment ago, was somehow different. It was akin to what a commoner would call ‘aura of a royal’… but just the fact that they were feeling like that while they themselves were practitioners was making them a little depressed, especially in Julien’s case.
“A peak martial master of the fifth rank feeling inferior to a hairless boy…” Julien laughed inwardly. An experience like that, it was the first for him and it didn’t feel good at all.
“Interesting,” Sirius, who had so far been staying silent, said with a slight smile. “I didn’t know the folks of this country are so prone to becoming dispirited. Aren’t you all still very young?” he asked and laughed a little, in moderation. He had come to favor Laien greatly during the brief time he knew him and had already decided to leave Makarash and follow Laien in the future as long as the circumstance allowed such a leisure. In his old age there was little that could make him happier than to obverse an excellent youth grow and develop; thus, he couldn’t help but be amused when a mere display of Laien’s superficial abilities seemed to cause all those people to become depressed.
For a moment, it didn’t seem like there would be anyone to try and refute Sirius’s point. Still, it was only for a little while.
“Who is dispirited?” Luca asked wryly, then moved his gaze from Sirius toward Jasmine. “I received a precious advice, so I’m not going to give up so easily. As long as I can fix my spiritual energy, I can become the strongest. That favor from today, I will be sure to repay it,” he said eagerly and bowed his head to Jasmine. He had been overcome with worry, then with relief and happiness, but now that he calmed down a little he came to thoroughly understand how much he owed this foreign woman. Had it not been for her, he would have probably continued to train blindly and destroyed his own future. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that Jasmine had gifted him with a new life as a practitioner.
As for Jasmine herself, she hid her mouth behind her hand and laughed in an incredibly alluring manner, one which could easily cause one to forget that she was over nine hundred years old. “I can only wish you luck. You have a great potential, so give your best and don’t let it go to waste,” she said with a smile, feeling very satisfied with the attitude Luca displayed. Yes, it was a good thing when young people aimed high and still knew how to be mindful of the favors they received from others.
The brief exchange between Luca and Jasmine caused Sirius to laugh inwardly and made him look forward to the future of those two boys. At the same time, this exchange also managed to lift the spirits of Julien, Lea and the rest of their group. They had been overcome by a strange mood for a bit, but no more. Regardless of their age and level, all of them made silent vows to become even stronger and without saying anything useless, they went straight to picking up the food from over the fire. For the time being, they didn’t want to think about any depressing things and preferred to concentrate on filling their bellies with warm food.
From this point onward, the breakfast progressed quickly and smoothly. As they ate, everyone started chatting about more or less random things and extending the time it took for the meal to finish. However, since none of them saw a need to adhere to the planned schedule so tightly, they didn’t mind the delay in the slightest.
The five thousand people of the caravan appeared to be similarly relaxed after finally having entered a safe territory. Sarah and Albert came over to inquire about the time they would be leaving and they learned that Laien, Yin and Arslan were planning to pay a visit to someone inside Lugna. It was then decided that everyone would take their time and enjoy some proper, warm food. As a result, the departure that was planned to happen in an under an hour was smoothly postponed.
“So, do we go yet?” Laien asked at one point, seeing as everyone in their group had finished eating. He was enjoying the leisure chat that was going on, but he also wanted to go and see Luca’s teacher. He was quite curious why someone so strong would act against his own disciple, so he wanted to talk with the man a bit and understand his personality and reasons better.
After all, the plan was to have Luca disavow his teacher, but Laien didn’t believe that the conversation would end with only that much.
“Fine, let’s get it done with,” Luca agreed and rose to his feet. He was nervous because of the prospect of confronting Magistrate Patrick, but above that he wished to server his connection with him and if possible, never need to interact with him again; or at the very least, not need to interact with Magistrate Patrick until his own power rose enough to stand on the equal ground with Patrick’s.
“We will accompany you to the tower,” Julien said to no one’s surprise. In the meanwhile, they had decided that Julien would gather his officers and wait in front of Magistrate Patrick’s dwelling place. The Four White Guards of Arslan’s would also accompany them just to be safe. In case the man lost his reason while talking with the four youths, their presence would be enough to deter him from doing anything rash and stupid, else he would be forfeiting his own life.
“You need to tell me how it went later, okay?” Johan said with a smile. The plan was that he would go and hang around Sarah and Albert for the time being and with for Laien and the others to return. Meeting a Magistrate was one thing for his three friends with their status and talent, but he was a simple kid from a small village. He was a little sad that he had been excluded from the group, though since even Reian and Jasmine weren’t planning to go and talk with Luca’s teacher, he didn’t let it get to him. Ultimately, he was vaguely aware that he would be friends with Laien, Yin and Arslan only for a little bit. It wasn’t a conscious thought of his, but he understood that he couldn’t accompany them everywhere they went as the worlds they lived in were simply too far apart.
“We will, we will,” Laien assured with a laugh, then glanced at Julien, wanting him to lead the way, what Julien quickly caught on.
“Follow us,” Julien said and headed toward the gate with his two officers to his left and right. Along the way, he grumbled to himself something about being ordered around by a hairless brat, but in the end, he chose not to bring anything up. For some reason, he felt that he would be digging his own grave if he got into a verbal argument with Laien.
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The tower at which Magistrate Patrick lived in wasn’t far away from the gates of Lugna, so it took Julien just about twenty minutes to lead their group to the tower’s entrance.
“The rest is up to you,” Julien said while looking at the four youths. “Have a blast… just don’t overdo it,” he said with a slight smirk. He had been furious with Patrick at first and he still was angry with the man, but during the past hour that anger subsided considerably and was exchanged for the worries similar to those of Lea’s. He had been enthusiastic about slamming Patrick’s reputation, but the longer he was thinking about it, the less he liked the idea. However, it was far too late for him to change his mind; and most importantly, Luca needed to sever his ties with Patrick either way.
“Yes,” Luca responded simply, perhaps too simply for Julien’s liking. “Come. Magistrate Patrick never closes the outer door, so we can go in just like that,” he told Laien and the other two. He steeled himself once again, approached the door, pulled it open and entered the place to which he had grown fairly accustomed to during the past three years. Before meeting his master, he would always need to wait a few dozen minutes inside this small hall filled with an unnatural dim red light.
“Using elemental stones for light…” Laien commented after the door closed behind them. He was feeling rather speechless. There were windows higher up to their left, along the circular stairs that led to the higher levels of the tower, but this small hall with a few sofas and armchairs in it was illuminated mainly by the dozens of low-grade fire-element stones that were attached to the walls. Using those stones which cost dozens of gold coins each for lighting up an empty hall… it was way too wasteful considering that each of them would last at most a week when used in this manner.
“Do we go up now?” Yin asked, guessing that a powerful spiritual master would have set his residence up at the very top of this tower.
“No,” Luca shook his head slightly. “Teacher…” he began saying but wavered for a second. What was he supposed to call Magistrate Patrick now? He wasn’t quite sure, but he didn’t want to change the way he was addressing him to an impolite one. Something so shallow couldn’t count as getting back at his teacher and finding another polite was to address him was just a pain, so he made a quick choice to stick to his old habits. “Teacher lives at the ground level of this tower, just behind this door. He always says that walking the stairs is a pointless waste of time,” he explained with a bittersweet smile, the positive and negative emotions he bore toward his teacher causing him to feel rather odd.
“So, do we just go in?” Laien asked with a slight smile. They weren’t here for a friendly visit, so he saw no need to be polite and knock to wait to be allowed inside.
“Uh.” Luca didn’t feel all that comfortable with this idea. Yes, he was here to end his relationship with his teacher, but the respect for him had been engraved too deep in his bones. Even though he was greatly resentful towards his teacher now that he learned the truth about his spiritual practice from Jasmine, he had trouble discarding those old habits. He had admired Magistrate Patrick ever since he learned how to talk and he had looked up to him greatly his whole life; it was no easy feat to throw all of those feelings out of the window and forget about them.
Yet, just as he was hesitating, the door to his teacher’s chamber opened and Magistrate Patrick himself, clad in fiery red robes, appeared on the doorstep.
“I see you’ve brought me some very interesting guests,” Patrick glanced at Luca briefly but soon focused his attention on the other three youths. Given his position as a Magistrate, he had long since learned about the presence of Arslan and those refugees, then heard of the story Jasmine told in the night. He had also quickly heard of Luca’s miserable defeat at the hands of the rumored ‘Ice Devil’, so he was quite thrilled, though at the same time warily intrigued, by this unannounced visit.
“Come in, let us talk for a bit,” he offered with a calm laugh, turned around and gestured the four youths to follow him into his chamber.
“What a powerful aura,” Laien thought in silent awe as he looked at the back and the waist-long, silky black hair of Patrick’s. The man was obviously very powerful; even though he was suppressing his aura, Laien could clearly tell how unnaturally strong it was. In terms of pressure alone, it felt superior to that of Mustafa’s or Rudford’s. “Is it because of his powerful soul and spiritual sense? It’s surely a part of it, but it can’t be everything,” he mused, aware that Yin was having similar thoughts. The two of them exchanged a quick glance, then followed Patrick into his rooms along with Luca and Arslan.
“Luca probably never felt Patrick’s aura… I doubt Julien and his officers have either,” Laien assumed. There were a few reasons that allowed him and Yin to sense Patrick’s suppressed aura, the most important of which was theirs full foundations of the Aspect of Awareness. However, as powerful as the Aspect of Awareness was, it alone most likely wouldn’t have been enough to allow them to so easily see through Patrick’s concealment. Their natural predisposition and high skill in controlling aura certainly played a role, but maybe most importantly, the two of them had very powerful souls.
It needed not be mentioned that as a spiritual practitioner, Laien enjoyed the benefits his cultivation provided to his soul for quite some time now. Coincidentally, even though Yin wasn’t a spiritual practitioner, as he had become aware during his Combined Soul Realm training with Laien, his innate Heavenly Lightning had both protective and nourishing effects toward his soul. However, apart from those original traits of theirs, there were two other major factors that played a role in both of Laien’s and Yin’s cases.
The first of those two factors was naturally the spiritual bond between the two of them that originated from the Blood Pact. It hadn’t been so obvious to them at first, but they recently realized that their souls were growing more powerful thanks to their spiritual bond. Those qualitative leaps were especially notable after each of their Combined Soul Realm sessions, but since the benefits of having stronger souls weren’t too apparent to them, they hadn’t been paying it much attention.
The second factor was, naturally, the prize the two of them had received from the fiery-haired woman back in the underground Holy Temple in the Anarchic Lands. The soul imprints contained the massive amount of knowledge of the Profound Mystery of Inferno and their main purpose was to allow them to easily study those mysteries, but the side effect of those soul imprints appeared to be a slow process of strengthening of the soul as one trained and unveiled the new insights.
“Anyway, that man’s character is one thing,” Laien mused quietly, sweeping the large chamber with his gaze. “But this place is great. I’d love to have a room like that for myself,” he thought with a sigh. He didn’t remember his first room back when his parents were still alive, the room he shared with Siana in the Valius family’s mansion was fairly bleak, while he never really made his place at the Red Dragon School all that personal. He didn’t have many things in there at all. In comparison, this chamber of Patrick’s filled him with pure jealousy.
After going through the door, they first needed to go up three marble steps to reach the level of the chamber’s floor. The ecliptic shape of those steps caused a clear distinction to appear between the small area around the door and the rest of the room, making the chamber seem a bit like another world in and of itself. The visual effect was only amplified by the deep crimson color of the walls and the abundance of various magical equipment, the purpose of which was a mystery to Laien. All those things were accompanied by furniture akin to that found in the private chambers of old, aristocratic families and paired up with a little whiff of various furs and pillows commonly seen in the far west.
In Laien’s opinion, the interior of this chamber was incredibly rich and abundant for sure, but not to the point of being extravagant. He couldn’t help but like it a lot.
Patrick noticed that his three new guests were intrigued by his chamber, so he didn’t immediately lead them to the sofas to their right and gave them a while to take a look. A moment later, when he decided it had been long enough, he told the youths to follow him to the corner of the chamber.
“I imagine you didn’t come here just to greet me and exchange some pleasantries,” Patrick said with a calm smile after everyone seated themselves on the three dark brown sofas. “Or at least, I certainly hope you didn’t,” he added and smirked a little. The two Devils and Mustafa’s son… he could potentially forgive those three even if they had come only come to meet him to sate their curiosity.
“We didn’t come without a purpose,” Laien replied in a tone that was somewhere between amiable, playful and provocative.
“Oh?” Patrick appeared to be a little intrigued. “So, may I lean what that purpose is?” he asked in a very much straightforward manner.
Just as he was about to answer, Laien swallowed his words back. Should he be the one to reveal the main goal of their visit? He looked at Luca, seeking to get an answer of some kind from his gaze or from the look on his face; and indeed, he quickly received one when the startled look in Luca’s eyes changed into one full of determination.
“It’s about me,” Luca said quite calmly, though with a fair dose of bitterness present in his voice. “To be precise, it’s about you and me, teacher.”
“Go on,” Patrick encouraged casually, the tone of his voice and the look on his face proving to be hard to read and discern anything from.
“Teacher…” Luca said with a slight groan. “Why didn’t you teach me about the compression training? Why did you lie to me when I asked you about the reason for my spiritual energy being so weak?” he asked, his voice containing a mixture of disappointment and resentment.
“So it’s about that.” Patrick let out a little sigh, then answered in a very surprising, unconcerned manner. “I didn’t tell you about the compression training because that wasn’t the agreement when I accepted you as a disciple. I also didn’t lie to you with regard to that question you brought up,” he stated unapologetically, appearing to be perfectly calm, if not perhaps slightly weary.
Truth to be told, Luca had no idea how he ought to respond to that. He had expected many scenarios to happen, including the ones in which his teacher laughs him out and tells him it’s his how fault for being so naïve and easy to trick, but he didn’t think that Patrick would deny everything. This development made so little sense to him he could hardly believe it was really happening.
Seeing the confused and perturbed expression on his disciple’s face, Patrick sighed once again. “When I accepted you as my disciple, do you remember what I said exactly?” he inquired. This disciple of his… did he never stop and think about anything for more than a second?
Luca took a brief moment to think about it but failed to recall the exact words. Thus, he shook his head in response.
“Should I remind you then?” Patrick asked rhetorically. “I told you that even though it won’t be good for you, I will accept you as my disciple and teach you the things you want to learn. However, I also said that I can’t be bothered to pay attention to you and I will only teach you the things you specifically bring up to me. I told you that you should learn the rest on your own,” he reminded indifferently and gave Luca a moment to digest what he just heard.
“As for your recent inquiry,” he added a few seconds later. “You asked me if there’s a reason why your spiritual energy is weaker than Raphael’s or Chris’s. I told you that the problem lies only in yourself,” he said calmly, then elaborated in a perfectly guiltless tone. “Had you asked me to give you a method to fix that, I would have introduced you to the compression training and told you about the option of using Core Compression later on. You didn’t though; all you ever do is ask me for the chants for new kinds of spells and sometimes for advice on how to use them.”
The more Patrick said the less Luca knew what he was supposed to think or how to react. He was thoroughly confounded and baffled by his teacher’s revelations.
“Why,” Laien spoke up, failing to understand the reasons behind Patrick’s actions. “Why would you accept him under such strange conditions?”
“I never wanted a disciple, and surely not a disciple that requires my attention like this one,” Patrick answered bluntly and without beating around the bush. “I even told him it wouldn’t be good for him to take me as his teacher and that he should study on his own. Yet, all he did was waste his whole time on training. Do you see all those books? Each and every one of the thousands of them contains enough knowledge to make a spiritual master go mad with greed, yet he never came here to read any of them,” he said while shaking his head, for the first time during this conversation appearing to be annoyed. He had told Luca how their relationship would work quite clearly; if the boy wanted to act against his own best interest, then why was it up to him to lead him by the hand?