Growing Renown

Early in the morning, on the road to the mountain-rock building structure.

Vrruuum!

"Ciemnosc, we're arriving!" Valeria said, almost shouting. With Ciemnosc, who was hugging her very tightly as she requested and how she wanted, nodded his head and gave her spine a bit of a massage with how damn monstrously powerful every single part of his body is. "Hmm, what are those? And isn't that the blondie, Fu Lan?"

Ciemnosc suddenly said, and after squinting her eyes, Valeria did indeed see all that Ciemnosc pointed out. She became silent while still being a few tens of kilometers away before saying to him under her breath, "It appears I will have to leave early. Work well little boy. You still have to learn a lot. Do you hear me?"

"What little? Who woke up with half a huge one in-between their thighs rubbing slowly to wak-" Ciemnosc was lashing out at Valeria when she turned her torso around, and with a blushed face she gave him deathly glares. How dare he be so tongue glibbed so early in the morning? Besides, she just thought and dreamt that such a cold yet incredible feeling was- cough.

“Aiyo! Stop it now. We are arriving there already. I don’t want her hearing…” Valeria shrunk more and more the more she talked, down to a whisper by the time she was already sliding her motorcycle into the garden and destroying it despite how cute it looked today. There was even a small yellow flower budding out of its way to the sky- and then it was gone.

Crghrgrhhh~~. Thud thud.

Ciemnosc and Valeria got off her motorcycle at the same time. Ciemnosc gave a random look at Fu Lan, the damn beauty with bright azure eyes with her very bright creamy skin beginning to contrast extremely with the already gray sky that was beginning to give down rain to the living beings below.

“Mwah, mwah. Okay bye then, come pick me up later.” Whether he appeared like a spoiled pretty boy or a kid left to kindergarten, Ciemnosc gave Valeria’s cheeks each a cute, long lasting, and sonorous kiss with his cool, goddamn lips. Leaving her startled, and somewhat speechless, she recuperated 2 moments later as she straightened her back with Fu Lan walking over to her side, her gaze furtively glaring at Valeria’s face.

While Ciemnosc was on his way to the door, from which he just took out a little glass-like tablet and raised it in the air to open the door, Valeria and Fu Lan stood side by side. Fu Lan had her arms crossed but lowered them when she stood right next to the left of Valeria, who in turn already had them to her sides.

“It’s been not even 12 hours and yet, that kid is so famous~.” Exclaimed Fu Lan sarcastically with ostentatious mannerisms. Valeria responded no and still stood with her straight back while facing forwards. Fu Lan added in just the same way, “So famous even you went to his bed and made love for many hours.”

“...” Valeria looked at her this time, her face with slightly frowning eyebrows and squinted eyelids to a pair of serious eyes. Fu Lan had a face of annoying people, but when looked by that look, turned blank for a few seconds that she only reacted when Valeria decided to take her leave by walking with her motorcycle being stored in her Cover Space bag and one step behind herself.

“Everyone is talking about him,” Fu Lan said while cutting off at her last spoken word, turned around, and then began walking behind Valera and to the left of the sidewalk while Valeria was on the right. When walking ‘together’ like this, and Fu Lan sped up with her left arm swinging fast, she added. “He is being investigated, not to see if he’s a role model disciple who kills upon insubordination, but to see if he can be taken away and have as a cute little, growing weapon.”

Step, step- step step step… step step, step step step.

“...tch.” Clicking her palate with her teeth closed but her lips semi open, Valeria frowned once again with her hair barely fluttering despite the medium-strong wind, she turned her eyes to their left corner before stepping to the left of the sidewalk, and only when she used her Spirit Sense to read her being at the right side of the sidewalk did she began slowing down.

“As for you, they barely hold themselves from messing with your little playtoy,” Fu Lan said, a bit closer to walking side by side with Valeria, but none of the two of them stopped or slowed down anymore, she added with her voice trailing off wind and even somewhat pitifully, “Did you really- hey- eh-hey, did you really began sleeping with him? I know you’ve always kept to yourself. Hey, talk to me!...”

. . .

Within the mountain-rock building, in the small study room.

“...Uuuuuh…” Ciemnosc was stunned. He just entered the place, closed the room politely, and turned his body around to place his already prepared ‘what the fucking’ face upon seeing a new person within the building. A young man was being aided on the desk, he was building a Synergized Equatrend Mobilizer step by step under the old man’s guidance.

“Ah, Ciemnosc, is that you?” Elder Apegos’s voice sounded from his position, echoing mainly due to him facing the wall on the other side of the desk as he didn’t even bother moving his head away from aiding the other young man. His voice sounded out again as Ciemnosc was standing still where he put on his wtf face. This time, his tone was ‘meh, okay’. “Come here, then. Let me present to you this young, talented genius of the sect, Enaro. Say hello to him.”

“...Err, old man Elder Apegos?” Ciemnosc said instead, tilting his head to the left. Slowly, before suddenly letting it hang down to the left even more. Old man Apegos looked on and saw Ciemnosc’s confused state. His stance softened as he patted the young man’s back and murmured something. But which Ciemnosc heard clearly. “I’ll be back to you. Just letting the kid have some stuff to be busy with.”

Moving his wheelchair towards Ciemnosc. At last, Elder Apegos gave him a nod and ‘praised’ the little boy. “Congratulations on advancing to the 10th stage, Ciemnosc. You’re strong; very strong.”

“Aha…thank you, elder Apegos. But I am very concerned about learning whatever I lost time with, I almost lost my little life out there, you know? I really need to get up to date, and I only have 2 days before I have to go once again, so let’s get back to it!” Ciemnosc put on a nice face, quite cheerful even. He clapped his hands noiselessly and spoke out his urgency.

“Ah, Enaro, go to the back for a moment. I have something to speak of with Ciemnosc here,” Elder Apegos, seeing Ciemnosc’s impatient and ‘unruly’ behavior, spoke as he semi-face palmed himself and spoke to his back. In return, Enaro far behind nodded and took the tools he was using and to craft the very beginning of the Synergized Equatrend Mobilizer. And to Ciemnosc’s eyes, even doing it wrongly. He also wondered how many times he had to repeat the procedures so far.

“You see, Ciemnosc…” Elder Apegos spoke straightforwardly. Ciemnosc kept silent, his eyes darting around instantly left or right before returning to the center a couple of times. “I have something to tell you.”

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‘Eh~...” Ciemnosc was still the same, startled and just waiting for elder Apegos to continue, and so the elder finally did. “I have actually bought you 3 weeks' worth of time for you to take as a break. It was barely achieved thanks to whatever you went through, that you advanced a lot in your cultivation base, and that it has also been stabilized already. Though it still seems to have a few parts here and there needed to truly stabilize.”

‘Phew, aha.’ Since he wasn’t getting tossed to the side, Ciemnosc released a sigh of relief inside, he looked at the elder, and the elder looked back at him. Elder Apegos continued, his voice more calm and settled down, “In these 3 weeks, I’ll do all I really can to teach you all of what you can learn. I hope that you learn it all in just 3 weeks, but that’s more likely to be a stupid thought. Even then, I still want you to at least do this before you become really busy, which you mayhaps get to be.”

“Mnn…okay, teacher.” Ciemnosc nodded, his facade falling all over at once as he slowed down his thoughts and actions to employ. He looked down into his teacher’s eye and said impatiently, “When do we start?”

“...” Elder Apegos smirked at last. He glanced at the back where Enaro was destroying fine pieces of black metal plates, and became slightly speechless. Comparing the two of his students, phuuwsh, such a difference, wasn’t it?

“Enaro! Come here. It’s time you both meet.” Elder Apegos called out, Enaro felt his shoulders relax, which was clearly visible through his actions, before turning around and nodding cordially and taking his protective helmet on. Walking towards them, he stood elegantly and decently to the right of elder Apegos and looked down at the smaller boy, and thought: ‘Not as tall as they say.’.

But if Ciemnosc knew of his thoughts, he would just look pitifully with his eyes at the crotch of Enaro, really, really pitifully in return.

“Hi, I’m your senior brother. I’ll take care of you.” Ciemnosc cutely said, his left hand extended over to meet Enaro’s left hand, which he had to change to his right hand in the midst of hearing Ciemnosc’s words, and becoming befuddled by them one after another without a break.

Tililang~.

Then, with a strange sound, Enaro took his cell phone with his right hand and looked down at it. Elder Apegos looked at this and scowled before muttering lowly and turning his wheelchair around to move away. “Keep that thing away from anyone’s eyes! You are not here to chat!”

Enaro quickly put it away back into his pockets then. But he did so while looking at Ciemnosc with a ‘dignified’ expression and kinda an ugly one with how his nostrils flared up, forming a square shape as they opened. Ciemnosc looked at this and smiled, softly; his voice was very hushed. “She tasted like a warm kiss everywhere around on her skin.”

“!!” Veins popped all around his head, fists, neck, and even ears. He was fuming alright. Looking down at Ciemnosc, the only thing impeding him from beating and brutalizing this criminal thieving scum was the array which seemed to tremble the very same moment his flow of Power Energy began riling up, to which his flow of Power Energy ever so slowly went back to normal.

“See ya. I gotta see what my teacher will teach me, hehe.” Like a devil in the flesh, Ciemnosc hopped cheerfully towards the back of the desk. Whereas elder Apegos had already gone away and somehow disappeared, but Enaro didn’t know where nor how since all he had been seeing up ‘till now was Ciemnosc’s face and the door leading to the outside.

“Huh?- Huh?!” As such, he turned around, and before he could really understand it, his eyes traveled left and right over the whole place a couple of times, even once up and down just in case, but he found nothing. ‘What the?!’.

…Meanwhile, below the small study, the huge basement that was brightly illuminated and full of scriptures here and there on tables that were seemingly lined up long ago, a few days more or less. The moment Ciemnosc came down, and he set his eyes on them, he was already showing thirst, gula, greediness, lust, and predation.

“Hm, you haven’t. For real, that’s good. Keep that attitude up, and those 3 weeks will be enough to comprehend and learn everything inside these walls, under the small study…understood?” Elder Apegos’s words were taken seriously by a naive and simply innocent Ciemnosc who only wanted to study. He nodded as he took those meanings into his head and then looked at the scriptures as if waiting for something.

“Ah,” elder Apegos smacked his lips seeing this, his wheelchair began moving and with an array accompanying him to levitate in the air, he began presenting the scriptures.

“None of these have names, titles or any way to be recognized, really. These are the methods employed by our old ancestors who once envisioned the fact that this world would give up on all technology and Craftspeople to focus on raw power and enhance the dictatorship of the same.”

“Only authors and chapters are all that will be known to you; the first one for clearance and the second for putting your mind to the test. Now, this will be the first one you begin with, follow its instructions, and you will understand, Ciemnosc. I may have taught you practical knowledge and a little bit of theory.” Elder Apegos seemed to have become overly different, his focus no longer on ‘being the best’ but on ‘seeing his best self before he departs’; and Ciemnosc approved of it.

“Philosophy, ideologies, greater picture - not ‘good’; and matters of the heart.” Elder Apegos gestured, making a big ‘no no’ with his left index finger towards Ciemnosc and shaking his head with the words ‘not good’, before continuing. “Those are what matters for one to grow, talent and skill come with practice, but one’s thoughts are one’s own, and only when they can…materialize from people’s heads…can they truly be creators!”

“...” Ciemnosc wasn’t shocked from the outside. But his heart, which maintained indifference even in the face of ghosts and unknown death, had become heavy hearing these words, hearing such worldly conviction!

“This first one is called Mirror of Equinox. This one is from the only female author who took the alias of ‘Calisneia’.S he was once the most amazing alchemist in all of the world… She was killed by our sect in her prime. And half of our most powerful cultivators died then, slowing down our sect’s progress and evolution to this whole Region’s total domination…for thousands of years until it was too late!” Elder Apegos lamented. His voice hurt and seemingly turned depreciative of the past doings from this sect…which aren’t differing from lately nowadays anyway.

“...This one is the first knowledgeable of herbs and plants of the mortal and ordinary world, the pioneer of gardening.” Elder Apegos said. And though he remained with the same changed tone of his indicating the change in his life, he couldn’t hide the contempt for non-cultivators that he had. “He died unknown where and when, as nobody wanted to accompany him. But it is said that only about a hundred thousand years, these scriptures were found by our Sect Master back then, whose body was wrapped with the hide of a Creature…that was beyond the Obsidiafying Realm!”

“Its author, Esplendo, was naturally forgotten. His scriptures were to be burnt, but our ancestors once again… That is how this ‘Redecorating an Entirely Lost Heart’ came to remain after so long.”

Elder Apegos slowly related the author and the title. Some had a long way to be explained how they were given birth to and their story ‘till the day of today, with some having disappeared altogether; those had tragic stories from beginning to end or were just sadly accidentally treated with carelessness and nothing else.

Through the entire disclosure of each scripture one after the other as Ciemnosc picked them, he frowned, for as he couldn’t believe that even with such devotion to knowledge, these people still managed to lose so many treasures… And even most of them were with these ‘ancestors’ whom he now formed part of in this clique, were utterly careless. Leading to losing almost half of them; with each being so unique and of their own.

Even if elder Apegos thought otherwise.

First, Ciemnosc read through the scriptures of alias Calisneia, the author of the Mirror of Equinox. Her little unfinished ‘book’ was basically a teacher not in the flesh but as a set of pieces of paper instead. It detailed the ways to know any flora that one could find and that the most simple and honorable method of knowing their nature, be it to differentiate between poisonous enhancers and simply tasty ones or those with…grumpy, joyful, depressed, bully-like, and even up to lovely personalities.

It was the way in which Ciemnosc had once and for the first time in his life concentrated his Spirit Sense back when a sect was exterminated once upon a time and most recently used back at the basement of the mansion.

But what interested Ciemnosc, the only interesting fact about this, was how the author, Calisneia, acquired the premonition of how alive these ‘cultivating’ plants could feel, think, and even better…change!

This was by far the closest that Ciemnosc knows of. And as for the ‘guide’ on how to study them on one’s self-study session, which was already old fashioned by now - it was almost like Ciemnosc’s way of writing his notes in his notebook, yet nowhere as detailed and vehemently studied as he did it.

Yet, the views from this female alchemist ‘goddess’ gave Ciemnosc, even more inspiration than he thought he would ever have again just for the basics of ‘herbs and plants’.

Then, when he went over to study what was basically half the entire scriptures’ contents, which were about more than 500 pages 50 cm wide and 2 meters long, Ciemnosc could only agree with this big grandma, and felt sad that he couldn’t meet this fine granny. It would’ve been fine to have a better old teacher, cough cough.

Then, there was the herbs and plants author, Esplendo, with his ‘Redecorating an Entire Lost Heart’ scriptures…

…