Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 90. Unfair Trade.
“So, do you have any other silly questions?” Patrick asked and raised an eyebrow. He had been feeling fairly annoyed with Luca a second ago, but now his tone and expression returned to their normal, fairly unconcerned and slightly dismissive state.
“I…” Luca wanted to say something, but the shock the sudden understanding brought upon him by his teacher proved to be too much. This whole rollercoaster of emotions he had been going through since early morning finally crashed, causing him to be at a complete loss at what to feel or think. At the moment, his mind was much too chaotic. He needed some time to calm down and think it all through, else he feared he would truly cause his own downfall and this time, for good.
After Luca leaned back on the sofa and withdrew from the conversation, Laien let out a quiet, helpless laugh. They had all thought Luca’s master was some kind of an evil person or at the very least, someone with a grudge or bias against Luca, but reality proved to be very different to their expectations. Patrick was no holy man, but he certainly wasn’t a truly detestable person either; or so Laien came to think, having witnessed this brief exchange of words between Patrick and Luca.
“You could have told him something…” Arslan brought up grudgingly. Although it looked like Laien accepted Patrick’s reasoning and Yin seemed to have followed in the same footsteps, perhaps because in the end, he didn’t care as much about this whole thing, Arslan himself wasn’t as prone to sweeping the whole matter under the rug. He still thought that Patrick was a bad person.
“I could have,” Patrick agreed. “I could have also spent ten minutes a day or an hour a day teaching him. However, why do I need to do that? He’s had every opportunity in the world to improve himself, but he never stopped to look around and only kept running forward blindly. I already gave him the opportunity to help himself, I don’t see why I am obliged to do anything else if he can’t do even that much,” he elaborated, the hint of annoyance once again making itself heard in his voice.
“I could give an advice or two to someone who is trying,” he added after hesitating for a second or two on whether to vocalize his thoughts or not. “Yet, I’m not going to waste my own precious time on someone who can’t see more than the tip of his own nose,” he stated in a strong and harsh tone, which was suggesting that he had had enough of this subject.
“…” In spite of feeling that Patrick was being unfair, Arslan was much too young and inexperienced to find any sensible way to rebuke his arguments. Thus, even though he wanted to keep arguing, he said no more as he simply had no idea what he could say to convince Patrick that his behavior was wrong.
“So,” Laien spoke up calmly. “The reason Luca didn’t know about the compression training for so long is…” he began saying and gave Patrick a meaningful glance.
“As you suspect,” Patrick nodded his head, the tone of his voice changing into an almost amiable one. For some reason, his attitude toward Laien was much better than that toward Luca or Arslan. “A little more than three years ago, he came to this fortress-city and immediately began pestering me to become his teacher. Three months later he fulfilled the condition of reaching the top three in the national tournament that I gave him and he became my disciple. Back then, he was still at the early sixth mortal realm in his spiritual cultivation and he already had a very high level of insights into the Secret Arts, so his faults weren’t nearly as apparent. I think only someone at the level of us Magistrates would have noticed anything without directly witnessing him fight.”
“However, they certainly became easy to notice as his cultivation kept climbing, especially since his insights hadn’t improved as much. But, do you think anyone would dare to point out to him that maybe he is doing something wrong in his training? It would be the same as offending me in those people’s eyes. That’s why I kept telling him it would be bad for him to become my disciple and that he should look for some other person to teach him,” he finished with a sigh. He had been focusing on his own research and training during all those years, so he hadn’t given this matter much thought… but now that he was explaining everything to those youths, he couldn’t help but feel slightly unhappy with himself.
“Eh,” Laien sighed a little. He could argue with Patrick about the sense of helping other people out, but he felt that this discussion would be entirely counterproductive. He looked to his left, at the corner of the sofa against which Luca was leaning. “He doesn’t seem like he wants to argue anything else with Patrick either. I don’t think he will be bringing up the whole disavowing of his teacher anymore, so our part here is pretty much done,” he mused quietly, wondering if this meeting was going to end in this awkward manner after their two parties would exchange a few more sentences.
“If that’s done,” Patrick said after a moment of silence. “Then, how about we shift to a more pleasant subject? I must say, I’m interested in you two in particular,” he mentioned while looking at Laien and Yin with a slight smile on his face, his black eyes gleaming with anticipation. Since those kids have already come here to disturb him, then he couldn’t come out empty-handed.
“What do you mean?” Laien asked warily. He wasn’t exactly getting dangerous vibes from Patrick, but his instincts were telling him to be careful.
“Oh, I simply have a few questions I’d love to see if you can answer,” Patrick said amicably. “If you can actually answer them, I’m willing to give you any one of those precious books you can see for each of the answers,” he explained in a friendly tone.
“…” Laien frowned a little and asked. “What kind of questions do you have for us that you are willing to pay up to thousands of platinum coins for each answer?”
“You needn’t worry,” Patrick said with a rare, honest laugh. “Laien Valius, or perhaps Laien of the Red Dragon School? It won’t be anything about the behind-the-scenes political situation in your Sarkcente Kingdom nor anything about your personal life, I’m not interested in the struggles for power,” he said with a smile that could only be described as very disturbing, his words and his mannerism both causing a restless shiver to run down Laien’s spine.
“On the other hand,” Patrick continued in the same manner, his gaze moving slightly to the right. “Yin, the unpreceded genius who appeared out of nowhere. I’m very much interested in your homeland and I hope you can provide me with the answers to a few dilemmas which I was unable to resolve on my own,” he stated, this time around causing Yin to tremble slightly. This man, did he know he was from the Forbidden Lands or was he just suspecting it? Either way, it was something to worry about.
“So how about, will you answer a few questions of mine?” Patrick inquired lightheartedly, though with the exact same, scary smile on his face.
Laien and Yin both looked at Patrick with grim looks on their faces. They were feeling too anxious to leisurely exchange a glance like they always did; although they knew that Reian, Jasmine and a bunch of strong experts were waiting near the tower, it didn’t give them much sense of security. Against a spiritual master at Sirius’s level, they would still feel confident in their ability to flee; however, they could tell Patrick was many times stronger than Sirius. If Patrick truly intended to capture them without regarding his own face and reputation, then they would likely be unable to resist him.
“I’m not going to force you if you don’t want to,” Patrick said with a laugh, seeing how stiff the two youths became. Did he unintentionally come off as threatening? He only wanted to avoid the necessity of explaining everything in a slow, boring manner… maybe he became somewhat oblivious to such things since he hadn’t interacted with people all that much during the past century.
Laien and Yin didn’t respond immediately. It was hard for them to read Patrick, even for Yin; being able to see through one’s heart and lies was a useful ability to have, but it wasn’t close to being an omnipotent solution for all human interaction. In cases like this one, when the person in question had unclear intentions and his definition of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ wasn’t known, this ability was fairly useless. However, the two of them needed to come to a choice of some kind despite that.
“Fine, but under some conditions,” Laien replied after a moment of consideration, a playful sparkle appearing deep within his pupils. “If we decide the answer isn’t worth the prize, we won’t answer. As long as we do answer your question we will do so truthfully and we won’t hide any details, but only if you can’t back out afterward saying that what we said was too vague or unsatisfactory. Finally, you need to promise us not to use our answers in a way that would be detrimental to us. If all of those conditions are met, then we will trade one answer for one of your books,” he offered with a slight smile. Since they were going to play a game of a kind, he wasn’t planning to be the one to lose out.
“Hooh.” The smile on Patrick’s face widened. “I was planning to lay out similar conditions as long as you agreed to this exchange, but it seems you’ve done it for me instead,” he said with a quiet laugh as a certain amount of respect appeared in his gaze. Yes, this kid was much more to his liking than Luca; it was a pity that Laien wasn’t his disciple in place of this stubborn child. “Still, giving me far-fetched conditions like that last one… aren’t you being a little too naïve?” he asked wryly, unintentionally revealing another side of his character as his opinion of Laien rose.
“Maybe,” Laien replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “But it’s not like there’s any other way than to clearly request that of you, no? Whatever you do later… we can only act accordingly,” he said with a meaningful smile, having calmed down considerably during the last few minutes. It was true that Patrick’s strength was great, but he was used to talking with people who were much stronger than him; he found it fairly easy to regain his usual composure and to not behave in a weird, unnatural way. Most importantly, however, in his experience those strong people disdained the forced politeness and preferred when one was more straightforward with them… and judging by the amused smirk on Patrick’s face, this time it proved to be true too.
“Very well, I agree,” Patrick said with a merry laugh, causing the downtrodden Luca to be shocked; was his teacher a person to laugh so easily? He had never seen him do more than to smile ever so slightly, much less laugh out in such a pleased manner! “Luca, go to the waiting room and stay there. And you… what do we do about you?” Patrick glanced at Arslan. “Well, you guys should decide on your own,” he said after a second. To him, it made little difference if Arslan stayed or left.
“I will leave,” Arslan said resolutely. He had already been feeling pretty uncomfortable in Patrick’s presence, but more importantly, he didn’t want to pry into his friends’ secrets. As such, he welcomed the opportunity to leave early with open arms. “I’m going to wait for you with Luca, okay?” he half-asked, looking for a permission from the two before actually leaving.
“Now that’s interesting,” Patrick mused to himself as he watched the three youths interact. The relationship between those two twelve-year-olds and Mustafa was something he couldn’t figure out at all, but seeing Arslan treat those two like… hm, like a younger sibling would treat his older brothers? It was quite surprising, considering the kind of position Arslan had as Mustafa’s son.
As for the youths themselves, though, they were unaware of Patrick’s thoughts and went on as normal.
“You can stay if you want,” Laien said and chuckled a little. He indeed would rather not reveal too much to Luca, but neither he nor Yin would mind if Arslan stayed and listened.
“To be honest, I’d rather leave…” Arslan mentioned in a slightly embarrassed manner. “You can tell me everything later if you want to,” he requested with a calm smile.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Laien and Yin exchanged a quick glance, then the two of them nodded at the same time. Since Arslan was saying so, they wouldn’t force him.
Arslan smiled at the two, then stood up and looked at Patrick. “Thank you for your time, Magistrate,” he said politely and bowed his head a little.
“It was my pleasure,” Patrick said and nodded back at Arslan, then gave Luca an urging glance. Was this boy planning to keep sitting until someone reminded him to leave?
Startled back to reality, Luca got up hurriedly. He hesitated slightly, then bowed to Patrick. Severing his relationship with his teacher at this point would be nothing else than cutting the branch he himself was sitting on. Instead, he decided to do his best with what he had… and he quietly promised himself that during those years he would need to spend on compression training, he would attend his teacher’s chambers every day and study properly.
After Luca and Arslan left and the door closed behind them, Patrick turned his gaze toward Laien and Yin. “Shall we begin then? Or would you like something to eat or drink beforehand? I’ve received some really good grape wine recently from the Council of Elders, want to try it?” he proposed amicably. It was in his best interest for those two to be in the best mood possible, so as long as they had any reasonable requests before they began, he wouldn’t refuse any of them.
“Grape wine?” Laien blurted out before he could bite his tongue, then chuckled helplessly. He really was too weak against wine, especially the high-quality grape wine. Ever since he started drinking that grape wine he got from Cran a few months ago, he pretty much got addicted to having some of it once every few days. Thankfully, it was quite low in alcohol and as a practitioner, he wasn’t influenced by it much to begin with, so he didn’t risk anything by being frivolous with drinking.
Patrick chortled and extended his hand. He took out a fittingly large and high table from his interspatial ring along with three crystal-clear glasses and a single bottle of wine. He poured the wine into the glasses, then used a strand of pure spiritual energy to push two of them across the table.
Laien didn’t hesitate at all before picking the glass up and taking a sip. However, when the inside of his mouth and his throat began burning up, he coughed a few times. The taste was really good, but this wine was way stronger than what he was used to! “Are you trying to get us drunk?” he asked with a laugh, but took another sip regardless; and at the same time, Yin tasted the wine too.
“If only it was so easy,” Patrick said with an honestly amused smile on his face. With the cultivation of those two, even two or three bottles wouldn’t do much to them. What were a few glasses? The most important part was whether they liked the taste or not and whether their mood became better or worse in consequence… and if seeing those two drink more at a slow, steady pace was any indication, taking this wine out was a good idea on his part.
“Want me to order my servants to prepare anything?” Patrick offered with a smile. “They reside up above us, so it won’t take long at all,” he mentioned amicably.
“We’ve already eaten,” Laien replied lightheartedly. “Let’s get those questions and answers done with,” he added with a little smirk.
“Very well,” Patrick nodded in agreement. “As agreed, I will ask my questions and you can decide whether you want to answer or not,” he said amiably and after exchanging a glance with each of the boys, he went ahead and got to the point. “Allow me to take it in turns to avoid getting distracted by unrelated topics. First, Laien, I’ve heard quite a bit about your combat prowess, especially about your affinity to the water element… so my first question is, where is the place at which you obtained the so-called Heavenly Water? Even if the treasure is long gone, I’d love to have a chance to research the conditions in which it was born,” he asked with a confident smile and was pleased to see the surprise paint itself on Laien’s face. The boy was probably quite startled to hear that he had figured out so much, or so he thought before Laien shook his head and laughed.
“Your first question is a total miss,” Laien said with a laugh. “I didn’t obtain a Heavenly Water or anything alike, so I can’t tell you what you want. Thanks for a free book though, I will take it happily,” he explained with an amused grin on his face. He had expected Patrick to ask his questions more carefully, but the man seemed to be so confident in his own assumptions that he missed the point by a mile. Well, he couldn’t really be blamed; in his mind, the stakes probably weren’t all that high anyway.
“How can that be?” Patrick asked with a heavy frown. Were those stories about Laien freezing Ulme Village with his magic and stopping a water-element Grand Spell on his own all lies? But Laien had defeated Luca in an effortless manner, so he thought… “No, that’s impossible. My Heavenly Flame reacted so strongly when the two of you got into my tower that it can’t be a mistake. One of you needs to be carrying a Heavenly Element within his body… don’t lie to me!” he reprimanded the boys angrily and for a moment, stopped suppressing his aura. He was intending to play it nice and fair with those two, but if he didn’t get the same treatment in return, then he would really get angry with them!
“I’m not lying,” Laien replied with a snort, refusing to allow himself to be pressured by Patrick’s aura. Although it was immensely strong, he and Yin weren’t at the level where they would be crushed by aura alone, no matter how powerful it was. “If you want an explanation, ask the second question,” he stated stubbornly, not backing down by an inch.
Laien’s unyielding attitude shocked Patrick immensely, but at the same time, it caused his head to cool down by a level. “Fine! Tell me how come your control over water is so unnaturally high,” he said in a tone that was pretty much like an order, far from being a question. However, he realized this problem himself soon enough and added. “My second question is, why is your control over water so impossibly high if not because of a Heavenly Water Essence?”
Laien snorted quietly at Patrick’s attitude, but since he was being rewarded for answering, he swallowed his comments. “You should be familiar with the varying levels of elemental affinity people have, no? That’s even more true for spiritual practitioners who rely heavily on their affinity to use magic. In my case, I possess an extremely high water-element affinity, so the influence I can exert over water is similarly high,” he began explaining, all the while internally wavering whether he should mention what he and Yin had learned from those two youths about the levels of Spiritual Domains. He didn’t quite want to go through the bother of explaining all of that… but then, he recalled his own promise to tell truth and not to omit details. He could refuse to answer, but he didn’t want to go back on his word and provide only a portion of the whole piece of information known to him.
As such, he proceeded to briefly explain the levels of Spiritual Domains, including the various varieties of Heavenly Domains and the unique Absolute Domains. He mentioned offhandedly that the same rules applied to Martial Realms, but didn’t go into detail about them; after all, the question was about his control over water element. It didn’t require him to go through everything that was related to the subject in any slightest way… or at the very least, that was his understanding.
While Laien spoke, the originally hardened expression on Patrick’s face began softening up. After a moment, his face smoothened perfectly and even some surprise and bewilderment appeared on it. The things Laien was telling him were pretty ridiculous, but he didn’t feel like Laien was lying to him. Still, he could recognize that Laien’s answer, while being intriguing, wasn’t of any particular use to him. That meant he had already given up two books out of his shelf for almost free; he didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry, though he was leaning closer toward the latter option.
“Okay, that’s enough questions for you,” he said a bit helplessly after Laien finished his explanation. “Then, Yin…” he began saying, this time taking care to weigh his words in a more careful manner. He didn’t want to keep asking questions that would be of no benefit to him. “Over the years, I’ve learned from here and there that the Forbidden Lands would often secretly take in young talented practitioners of both genders into their lands. I’ve also learned, after paying a hefty price to one of the families that work with the Forbidden Lands, of the existence of the Blood Pacts,” he elaborated first, but he couldn’t help clicking his tongue when the boys showed no reaction to his revelations. It looked like he would no longer be able to obtain any hints for free.
“Well, so here goes my question,” he began saying, his voice containing a not so well hidden hint of nervous anticipation. “How could I make contact with the Forbidden Lands without endangering my life in the process?” he asked, hoping to obtain more knowledge and with some luck, perhaps even the benefits the Blood Pact brought thanks to establishing contacts with the Forbidden Lands.
Yin sighed inwardly. Him answering this question in any way would be the same as telling Patrick that he was from the Forbidden Lands, or at the very least was fairly knowledgeable about them. Was it really worth just for a book…? Laien seemed excited about this whole things, he could tell it quite clearly, but he couldn’t quite understand what was there to be so enthusiastic about. Those books there, didn’t Patrick say they were at most worth thousands of platinum coins? If so, then they weren’t all that amazing as the true arcane knowledge, like the tomes about runic magic Laien had obtained from Flora, were almost priceless… and yet, despite knowing that he was in doubt, Laien seemed to be insisting on going through with the answer if possible.
“Eh, he already suspects I’m from the Forbidden Lands, so why not?” Yin thought to himself, then looked Patrick in the eye and said truthfully. “The only way that doesn’t involve endangering your life is for you to either have your own children and descendants and hope they boast a talent high enough to attract the attention of the Forbidden Lands. I guess you looking for and adopting or taking care of many talented kids below the age of around thirteen, fourteen years could work too.”
Patrick shook his head. He had hoped for a different answer as he could have thought of that much on his own… but at the very least, he had reaffirmed his opinion that the Forbidden Lands weren’t to be actively trifled with. Everyone who had tried to wander deeper into them would disappear for as long as the annals of history reached; he hoped for a way to exist, but that was only hope. Still, he was willing to pay up to ten thousand platinum coins to make sure no additional way existed.
“The next question will be the last one,” he said calmly and smiled at the boys. “You can count it as a bonus question I guess? It’s more about me being curious than anything else,” he said with a laugh, attempting to loosen up the mood. He had suffered some loses, but he didn’t mind; it could still count as establishing a good relationship with two young extreme geniuses. It was worth the price.
“Are you two bound by a Blood Pact?” he inquired simply and smiled at the two boys, looking forward to receiving the answer to this silly question of his.
Laien and Yin exchanged a glance. It truly could be counted as benevolence on Patrick’s part since the answer was fairly obvious. “Yes,” the two of them answered at the same time. It wouldn’t harm them in any way to confirm this guess of Patrick’s, so they weren’t too averse to revealing it to him. It would be a problem if Yin’s identity as a magical beast was revealed… but according to Yin, there were barely any people outside of the Forbidden Lands who knew that the clans of human-shaped magical beast existed in the world… and those who knew that certainly wouldn’t reveal this information lightly for the fear of offending the terrifying experts of the Forbidden Lands.
“As I thought,” Patrick chuckled. “At least I was right about something, hah,” he mocked himself openly. He had been trying to make himself feel better about this whole ‘trade’ with positive thoughts, but in the end, the loss of so much treasure did sting a little. “Go ahead and look for four books to your liking, if you have any inquiries about which books are where or if there are books about certain subjects, feel free to ask,” he offered straightforwardly. He wouldn’t want to have those boys use the excuse of ‘browsing for what they would like to take’ to stay here for months to study, so he attempted to prevent this annoying scenario from happening.
“Yes,” Laien said with a wry smile. “I do have a request with regard to that. Please take out all the books that you know would be of most use and value to the two us so we can choose from amongst them,” he said without beating around the bush, feeling quite pleased with himself.
“Fine,” Patrick agreed easily and stood up, but just as he was about to walk away and toward the shelves, the next words spoken by Laien caused him to freeze.
“No, no. I’m not talking about those books. Magistrate Patrick, don’t you remember what our deal was?” Laien inquired playfully, the smile on his face growing more amused by the second.
Patrick gave Laien a serious look, then attempted to recall the exact wording they had used in their conversation. “I said that I would give you any of the precious books you can see, then you laid out the conditions and you said that…” he mused aloud and as he came to this point in his memory, his face turned pale and he suddenly began feeling like he would start coughing up blood.
“I said that we will trade one answer for one of your books,” Laien finished in Patrick’s stead and chuckled happily. “I never said it would be one of the books on those shelves like you implied. Didn’t I say what I wanted clearly enough? You should have listened to me properly instead of never stopping to look around and only running forward blindly,” he added with a grin, rubbing the salt in the wound by turning Patrick’s own words from a few moments ago against him.
“You… ugh…!” Patrick wanted to refuse Laien’s outrageous demand, but his own pride prevented him from going back on his word. He really hadn’t been paying enough attention! He felt like smashing his head against a wall; if those two old skeletons learned that he had been played by a young boy in this manner, he would never hear the end of their mockery!
“Fine, fine! I lose!” he exclaimed along with a painful groan and sat back down abruptly. “Just do me a favor and never speak about it to anyone!” he requested bitterly and after a few seconds of consideration, he waved his hand and took out nine ancient tomes from within his interspatial ring.