George turned out to be right. The moment they stepped out ‘The King’s kitchen’ Fan Lia arrived with the intention to join them.
“Tag! You’re it!” George grinned and disappeared.
Fan Lia finally looked like a real young lady. She wore a short, white dress that slightly showed her thighs and her black hair was weaved in a beautiful braid decorated with white flowers. Obviously she didn’t spend this time by reporting to elder as she promised, but took a real bath returning to her regular looks. For some reason once again Leo felt she looked familiar, but couldn’t understand why.
“Let’s do something about those cultivation questions of yours.” Fan Lia said with a sigh and after grabbing Leo by the arm like George earlier did, took off.
For dozen breaths Leo could experience the exhilarating feeling of fight again. Fan Lia brought him to one of the largest floating islands and the moment she arrived, immediately landed and went on foot just like George did in the restaurant.
“This is the Combat division of the Golden Hand society. While the sect is focused on crafting, we need our own protectors, you know.” Fan Lia explained, “I’ll bring you to the practice grounds and if you’re lucky, you can ask someone a tip or two about cultivation or swords. The tradition of the Golden Hand society is for masters to guide disciples regardless of their social status and you should try to use it. There are two rules though – don’t cause trouble and be polite. No one will dare to do anything to you if you follow those. In the worse case scenario just say I brought you here and you should be fine.”
If Leo didn’t know for sure, he could’ve never guessed this was a floating island. Everything – walkways, buildings and even grass fields and trees seemed to be constructed in order to create an illusion this was normal piece of land. George once said that the Golden Hand society does that ‘not because they need, but because they can’, but to Leo it didn’t make much sense.
After walking for quite some time, they arrived at a place where large crowd was gathered. Most were youths around the age of fifteen to eighteen and even though there were several fighting arenas in the vicinity, everyone was focused on a particular one.
“Oh?” Fan Lia was surprised, “You’re in luck. Master Zaraki is giving pointers today. Watch and learn and don’t forget the two rules! I’ll be back later – I really need to report to elder Tillert otherwise the old man will get angry.”
Leo found a spot to sit where he could freely observe what the others were looking at. There were no seats available near that particular arena and at the current distance he couldn’t say what the master, a middle aged man of tall and thin stature, dressed in black robe was saying.
But he didn’t even need to hear – seeing the way master Zaraki was slowly lowering his sword made Leo’s feet grow cold. It seemed that with that slow motion the man could easily cut the floating island and the whole Golden city in halves.
The rest of the onlookers had a similar impression and many kept staring at master’s movements while covered in perspiration. Everyone, except Leo, has witnessed the show before, but the boy finally realized that everything he experienced up until this point, including the war and destruction of the Voodoo sect was a child’s play. His dream of one day wielding a flaming sword became a laughable joke in comparison to a true master making a simple slash in slow motion while giving pointers to a junior.
Leo didn’t know that everyone below the Nascent soul stage got this impression when watching master Zaraki and that even the process of observing him was an incredible boon for everyone’s future prospects. He stared just like the rest and after master went to sit at the side, just like the rest pulled out his weapon trying to imitate the move master showed earlier.
The sword Leo inherited from Brandon was incredibly heavy, in fact it didn’t suit him at all, at least for now. He obviously knew that, but it was not like he could go somewhere and pick a sword he liked. His idea was simple – he needed to get stronger and then the sword would be lighter. With this thought in mind he already practiced back on the island while George and Fan Lia were working and now he could at least make over twenty slashes before his hands began to hurt.
Unfortunately Leo had arrived at the very end of the lecture and soon disciples began to disperse. Master Zaraki sat down at the side and a weird young guy dressed in gray linen shirt, short trousers that didn’t even cover his knees and sandals began to discuss something with him. From the side it looked as if a bum was molesting the master, but no one dared to go up to the two.
Since there wasn’t anyone he could talk to and there as nothing better to do, Leo continued to fool around with the longsword engrossed in the memories of the master Zaraki explaining the slash. Despite the physical burden he found the exercise relaxing and pleasant.
“Excuse me!” Leo heard someone calling out to him, “My name is Kevin Shaw. May I ask where you bought the sword?”
The youth who approached him was around fifteen years of age, dressed in plain white shirt and black trousers, but the expensive looking sword handle and scabbard at his side proved he was not from a simple background. Of course, the fact that master Zaraki was earlier giving pointers to him personally also kind of pointed at that.
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He was followed by a small crowd of both girls and boys of similar age, but none tried to hide their contempt for the boy in torn clothing and disheveled hair he spoke to.
Already before coming to the Golden city Leo refused George’s offer to get him something decent to wear since he would go back to Aurora realm anyway and what passersby thought of him didn’t matter. Of course, when the small crowd of youths stared at him in disdain it wasn’t particularly pleasant.
“I … My name is Leo Renaud.” Leo quickly recovered and following Fan Lia’s advice politely introduced himself, “This … I didn’t buy. It’s a simple sword from a mortal world, nothing special.”
While Kevin’s eyes lit up with desire, the crowd behind him began to discuss the subject with ‘I told you it was crap’, ‘an obvious scrap metal’ and ‘why is the young master interested in that thing’.
“Listen, Leo. Please sell me the sword – I’ll give you a good price!” Kevin politely said, but Leo’s expression turned weird.
He knew that the offer was made on a whim, but he had no use for the local currency. He only needed a sword and this was the one he liked. Even if he gave it away in exchange for something of equal value – there was no telling when he could get his hands on another one.
On the other hand he really didn’t want to pick up a fight with this bunch who already hated his presence. They never even tried to hide the looks full of superiority and scorn – except for the guy who spoke, of course. But even if he was different, in the current situation it didn’t really matter.
“I’m sorry.” Leo said awkwardly scratching the back of his head, “I also kind of like this one. I can’t sell it.”
“How dare you to refuse the young master’s offer!” Immediately one guy from the entourage barked.
“You don’t realize the difference between your status!” Another one added, “Don’t you understand you’ll be able to tell your descendants that once young master Shaw bought a sword from you?”
“Hahaha! To not mention that scrap of metal doesn’t cost anything to start with!” One more piled in.
Leo’s skin was quite thick, but even his nostrils began to flare at the insults. He clearly knew he was nobody here even though once the Renaud family were considered aristocrats in Farrand, but he was not willing to allow someone to blatantly humiliate him. Of course, not willing and doing something about it were different things and unfortunately this was the time he had to swallow the insults.
The Kevin guy apparently guessed what went on in Leo’s mind and tried to calm the furious crowd down.
“Stop that.” He angrily said to his entourage, “Even you have to obey the rules.”
“Young master! Allow me to duel him for the sword! I promise I’ll win!” One of the followers suddenly got a ‘bright’ idea and took a couple steps towards Leo, “You! Duel me! I’ll stake my sword against yours!”
From what it seemed dueling was according to the rules around here, but while Leo was insulted, he clearly knew his own limits.
“Sorry. Not dueling!” He plainly said shaking his head.
“You … coward!” The challenger snorted, “According to the rules of the Combat division a disciple has to accept the challenge!”
“I’m not a disciple here.” Leo shrugged, “But your friends seem to be fired up – maybe some of them want to fight.”
“Alright, it’s enough!” Kevin stepped and sternly said to the crowd before more insults made the deal impossible, “I’d like to speak to him alone.”
After the bunch took few steps back Kevin said, “Sorry about that. Normally they are not like this.”
Seeing no reaction he added, “Where are you from?”
“Sigh. You know very well I’m from a mortal realm.” Leo helplessly said.
“Ye, but which one?” Kevin awkwardly tried to make small talk.
“Why would that matter?” Leo asked.
Before Kevin could answer the guy that looked like a bum along with master Zaraki leisurely arrived at his side.
“Shall we?” He said to the youth while the crowd instantly fell silent, “Zari agreed to join us for dinner and afterwards you’ll get to ask few more questions. Maybe then you’ll get through that bottleneck.”
“Dad, you go. I’ll need to persuade him to sell me the sword.” Kevin said, but the crowd gasped at someone calling master Zaraki ‘Zari’.
Of course, everyone knew that probably the guy in sandals was the only one who could allow himself to do that, but Leo was stupefied by something else. He stared at the at the youth in front of him and the bum trying to make a connection. They carried some resemblance, but in that case Leo with the disheveled hair and torn clothing resembled the guy even more. The most shocking was that Kevin didn’t look much older than fifteen and the bum was at most twenty five.
‘Adopted!’ Leo quickly ‘fixed’ the problem.
“Why would you need that … oh … I see! As the thousandth it does make sense. Not a bad idea.” Meanwhile the adoptive father said, “Fine, we’ll wait. But I really don’t like crowds!”
Only two of them knew what they were talking about, but after the last sentence everyone quickly dispersed. Even Leo understood that despite the outer appearance the guy was some big-shot and it was better for him to leave.
But the moment he picked up the backpack, the adoptive father deeply inhaled and furrowed brows in displeasure.
“Where the hell you steel those?” He angrily said and Leo for the first time in his life felt he could die from someone’s stare. This guy was much scarier than the sword master!
“I …“ Leo stuttered, “Jamie … Jamie gave me those … for taking care of Geroge and Fan Lia.”
“Jamie?” With every word the guy spoke Leo had less and less strength in his legs. He even wished he could faint and wake up when everyone was gone no matter the embarrassment.
But the adoptive father pressed on while both Kevin and master Zaraki watched the proceedings in confusion. “Who the hell is Jamie?” He said.
“From … from The King’s kitchen … the second best chef …” Leo continued to stutter covered in cold sweat.
“Kitchen?” this time even the bum got confused, but then, after deeply inhaling one more time, he cursed, “You idiot! I’m not talking about the wine! The fruits! I’m talking about the fruits!”