Father had covered for me when I accidentally let a word slip.

Rather than being thankful for it though, I was confused and couldn't at all figure out why.

'Maybe his hearing isn't as good as I originally thought...' I speculated.

There was a chance that he might've just heard some noise coming from me but wasn't able to distinguish it into something more coherent, however this wasn't the first time he reacted oddly to something relating to me either.

I still remembered that at the naming section of the festival, when he saw me hold the sword, for some odd reason he looked mournful.

One would've thought that he should've been proud or happy that as a warrior himself, I would likely follow him down the same path, but clearly that wasn't the case.

The village leader on the other hand was beaming with joy when his son reacted to the sword, showing there wasn't any hidden meaning I was missing by holding that sword, so I was left stumped.

Mother and Armot, who were left very frustrated by father's 'false alarm' interruption to the story, started yelling at him before launching a full combined assault toward him.

Not wanting to leave himself completely open to the barrage of attacks coming his way, he turned his back to them and hunkered down in preparation.

As the mother-son duo continued to flail on him, drawn on father's face where the two couldn't see was a playful smile that, as time passed soon turned a bittersweet smile, and before long, strewn on his face was that same complicated expression from that festival night.

It was a face that once he realized was being watched by me, was hastily swapped with one of a cheery smile, making me think that I had hallucinated the image from before.

It was all too weird for me to process then, so I decided to leave it for a different time as mother was getting ready to continue with the rest of her story, and the information it held took precedence over father's enigmatic irregularity.

"Where was I at again?" Mother asked while gathering her breath from the beatdown she laid on father.

"You were talking about how Galmur became the first Shenrin," Armot reminded whilst being in a similar state himself.

"Right, so after becoming a Shenrin, Galmur went to challenge the Polma tribe, one of the four tribes that took part in the counter-Roka alliance.

When he arrived at their camp, he directly called out to the chieftain, hoping for a duel between just the two of them.

Not seeing him as worthy of his time or personal interference, the chieftain disregarded him and sent a group of his warriors to attack in his stead.

The main reason for this stemmed from the fact that Galmur's reputation had sunk to a terrible low, a consequence to his early flight before the Roka tribe's final battle, which the chieftain didn't want to repay with any show of respect.

People of the Polma tribe gathered to watch as their warriors engaged Galmur, expecting for him to receive the punishment of his 'cowardly' act in a brutal and gory end.

Unlike the expected outcome though, Galmur swiftly dealt with them using his newfound power in a spectacle that everyone of the Polma tribe was able to see.

His speed was as fast as the lightning of stormy nights, letting the only visible indicator of his attacks come from the aftermath.

His strength, matched only by the most dangerous of beasts of Cazelt, crushed all that stood in opposition to him.

And lastly, his defense so impenetrable that the deadly blows of Polma's finest warriors could only bounce off harmlessly after making contact to his body.

Without much delay the Polma's chieftain was soon called, who after seeing Galmur's power with his very own two eyes, unleashed all of his men upon him in fear of the might he displayed.

Galmur attempted to once again fight but not before coming to the critical realization that this new power did not come without certain restrictions and barriers.

Using Shensi continually strained his body despite its strength, and not to mention, it was also limited, something he also learned as he began to run out of it.

With his last bit of energy, he made a retreat after causing a great many devastating casualties to the Polma."

I had already expected that these powers were not limitless and came with a price, but now I could confirm it for sure.

Society in this world would likely have turned out a lot worse if people like that could only be taken down by others like them, so it did work out better that even normal people could combat them by banding together.

"At first Galmur tried to expand upon his power by continuing his ritual, but the results were not as impressive even though it did marginally increase his powers.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Then, he was struck by another great realization.

He was not alone in his fight, his companions who had escaped the Roka tribe with him had stayed with him through it all, and they similarly wanted vengeance for their tribe.

Galmur spent the next many months guiding them through the process of becoming what he soon began to call a Shenrin.

Unfortunately, out of his sixteen companions, only five of them reaped any benefit from the process while the others showed no progress."

"The five great kings!" Armot excitedly blurted.

"Correct you are," Mother praised.

"With their help, Galmur was able to defeat all the tribes that took part in the Roka's massacre.

His revenge was expedited as he spared those who surrendered and freed those from the Roka who were captured after the battle to help with his fight.

With a large number of followers, influence, and power under his hand, Galmur decided to re-establish the Roka tribe under a new banner.

Decades later, all of Cazelt was under Galmur's inescapable grasp, and since what he had built was no longer a tribe but something much grander, he gave it a new name:

'The Rokalan Empire'

The five great kings, whose aid were a major help in his conquest, were each rewarded with islands that they later formed into kingdoms under the Rokalan empire."

With that being said, mother's story had come to a close.

I had learned so much from just this one story than all my time trying to piece together information, that it was sort of depressing even if greatly helpful.

Still, I didn't have much else to do during that time so I can't even call it a waste the way I chose to spend my time.

Before we could be done storytelling for the day though, father began to speak with his own story,

"You know what I think actually happened? He gave the five great kings those lands because he didn't trust them."

"Oh, not this again!" Mother shouted.

"Just think about it, they were the only people that could challenge him and he practically banished them to islands where they were powerless,"

"That's just a rumor Saruk, stop putting things into Armot's head."

Father seemed to have quieted down on the topic upon hearing that but not before leaving a final quip under his breath just barely loud enough to hear.

"I guess it's not suspicious at all that we have no access to the kingdoms and we hear nothing from them..."

This time mother smacked him in the back of the head, very hard, as if her previous anger for father's false alarm wasn't completely gone.

In response to being hit, father yelped very loudly in a comical manner, sending Armot off as he started wildly laughing at him.

Coincidentally, it was also then that father suggested that the two of them go off for spear training while mother went to go cook and I was put in my crib.

Normally I would've gone to sleep after the story telling was done, but I wanted to try something.

I got into a meditative pose and closed my eyes.

Then I waited...

And waited...

And waited...

And at some point, I fell asleep.

I had greatly underestimated how difficult this task would be.

*****

Eventually, winter came to an end with me having acquired a lot more information about the supernatural power of Shensi along with some more about this world's history.

In terms of history, I learned that the Rokalan empire continued for many years after Galmur's death but it eventually broke down.

Many different factors led to this but the main one that came up time and time again was the incompetence of the last official emperor.

After that, a huge civil war ensued that put all of Cazelt into chaos.

Father made sure to mention at this part that the five kingdoms who remained neutral in the conflict sent no explicit message that they would stay neutral.

Yet, before he was able to explain how it connected to his conspiracy theory, he got another slap to the back of the head.

At first, there were plenty of different sides to the war since the number of Shenrin had increased drastically but that did not last for very long.

Power started to cluster under two main groups.

The first was the "new" Rokalan emperor who claimed to be the heir of the last official emperor.

This fact couldn't be confirmed by anybody since he had never revealed the existence of any children to the world and was unfortunately assassinated very early on in the war due to not being a Shenrin.

At the same time though, it couldn't be denied either with all the wives he had and his less than virtuous reputation regarding women.

On the other side of the conflict arose a man who, for lack of a better translated word, I called the Shogun considering the factors of his position, a man who was said to be a very powerful Shenrin combatant and also a very wise battle tactician.

He was able to rise to such power by using both diplomacy and force to integrate many of the smaller groups into his own rather than staging direct takeovers.

Eventually, he founded what was known as the Taruan (for lack of a better word) Shogunate.

Seventy years later and these two sides were still at war with each other for supremacy over all of Cazelt.

Both of the original leaders of their respective sides had died, with their power being passed down to their children.

My village lied under the Shogun's power.

This didn't just mean we had to pay him taxes as most could probably guess, but we also had to give people over to the military every year.

From what I gathered, the amount usually differed from village to village, though for us it was about ten people per year.

In cases where more than twelve people could go, then a tournament is held and the top twelve get to go.

Now you might be wondering, why would anyone compete to go to war?

Well, I'd deduced it's for the simple reason of societal nonsense.

In other words, you are seen as a coward by the people around you if you don't, so you are pressured to participate.

Now what if you join the tournament but intentionally lose?

Participants who didn't win the first time still have the ability to rejoin next year.

Lose year after year, and people see you as someone very weak.

Weak is not much better than a coward to the society of this world I'd noticed.

Needless to say, with that kind of tag added on to you, a series of hardships were bound to come your way, ranging from simple social utilities all the way to difficulty in finding a partner.

Not exactly the biggest problem for me, but I knew a lot of people wouldn't share my point of view.

Knowing all that, I hadn't decided whether to abide by the norm and go to war or not, yet no matter what, I did want to get stronger regardless of my choice, which brought me to another very important fact.

Becoming a Shenrin had gotten much harder than it used to be.

Not for any reason like a shortage of Shensi, mind you, but because the information had been put under lock and key by law.

The law didn't outright outlaw normal citizens from becoming Shenrin, what it did was outlaw just the spread of information en-masse regarding how to become one, making it basically impossible for most without a trainer of sorts.

What this essentially meant for me was that if I wanted to be a Shenrin the only people I could turn to ask for help were the village leader or my father.

It wasn't an option at the moment considering I was a baby, but soon enough I could.

I only had to wait a few more years before I could ask my father all the questions I needed to become a Shenrin myself.