It was late in the night before his father and uncle came back to the manor looking haggard and out of place, unlike his usual self which was very put together.

“Father what happened why do you look so haggard “shouted James in surprise when he saw sir, Eric.

As far as he had known sir Eric and as the memories he got from this body’s owner sir Eric has always been a prim and collected man and would never let affect his image because he thought the way you present yourself is how much respect others give you and he always tried to enforce this behavior on James so he was very surprised when they came back looking at how they looked.

“Son the worst has happened the snow empire has attacked us and viscount Carey has ordered all his baron’s to come together in order to find a way to defend against their assault and at such a bad timing the emperor has gone into closed-door seclusion and has come out since the past five years and the fight for the throne has been intensifying between the prince so that moving forces around could ignite a civil war the sky empires is at its weakest right now and this is one of the worst things to happens to us right now" .

The only good news that came out of this is that we were always prepared for the snow empires assault so the tools to fight them are already prepared” uncle said while looking soberly which somewhat surprised James because he knew that his uncle was a very jovial and carefree man and for him to be so sober about the topic showed that the situation wasn’t as simple as he just said and James understood why he was so sober all the other empires have been in existence for a minimum of 19,000 but the snow was just 500 year’s old but it was now the fourth-ranked empire and when it first came into existence there were not just five empires but seven but the snow empires was so strong that it conquered the other two empires in such a short time that the two empires couldn’t react before they were conquered.

So James was also pretty scared because this war could make him lose everything even if he didn’t die then they would have to move away from here which would lower their status among the nobility as a defeated nobility is almost not a noble anymore and since his family are just knights under baron Edwin it is more likely that they are going to die in service because they don’t have that much support in either provincial or duchy capital so nobody would support them there so their only path was to fight and pray this war is won.

“Father you don’t have to worry am sure that viscount Carey has a very good plan on how to win this war since we have been preparing for years and am sure they are quite ready to fight, “ said James jovially although he didn’t feel like that inside,

Anyway there was nothing meaningful that he could do to help the war as he did not understand the dynamics of war and especially the dynamics of war which involve cultivators who possess supernatural power and cataclysmic weapon the war could change drastically because of the addition of one person so even if he was sun Tzu if he didn’t have the necessary information there was nothing he could do.

“James don’t worry I don’t think that the war will be serious it not like 500 years ago when the world was not prepared for the snow empire and we won’t be caught unawares like the last two empires even though they are extremely formidable we are not going to lose this war” Sir Eric said encouragingly.so how your day have you chosen the martial arts you want to practice.

“Yes father I have chosen the art of refining to practice I would like to ask you for the spiritual herbs to practice it and if you can I would also like it if you can get a practitioner in it to instruct me on how to practice it and I also chose a simple fist art to complement it”

“Okay son and I hope you are careful while practicing the technique because even though it’s the strongest mortal martial arts it’s also the most dangerous so take care and I will tell Bernard to mentor you on how to practice it he has already refined three organs at the second stage so he will tutor you on how to prepare yourself and the circulatory route for practicing it” said Sir Eric

“Okay father thanks for your support,” James said while smiling, at last, he will start doing something because the last few days was disconcerting without doing anything because on earth he was someone who always had a plan and being idle and without direction made him uncomfortable.

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“Sure son the herb will be here in a week I want you to use high-grade herbs for it the high the grade of the herbs the better the result will be as I am sure you know I think you should go and sleep I and your uncle still have something’s to iron out, I will tell Bernard to come and see you in the morning to go and rest I know the past few days must have been very stressful for you “said Sir Eric while trying not to yawn anyone looking at him could see how tired he was James then said goodnight to both him and his uncle and then went to bed because he wanted to be ready tomorrow for the start of his training.

The next morning James woke up to find out that his father was already gone and he left orders for him to have breakfast and then meet Bernard at the training field, he then freshened up and went to see Bernard as he came to the training field he saw a hulking muscular man backing orders to the knights in training as they were running and throwing stuff .

As he saw these he couldn’t help but sigh as their level of athleticism is comparable to top athlete on earth and they were not even houtian experts as houtian experts become knight squire, xiantian experts become knights and transcending mortality experts become barons and so on and so forth but it doesn’t usually happen like that because if you don’t have good backing you couldn’t get this position.

As the clan has grown so tremendous as they have over a 100 million in population and the positions and titles are scares and without connections you wouldn’t get your own fief it would even be hard for you to break into the next realm in your cultivation like sir Eric he has been a half-step transcending mortality expert for fifteen years but because he couldn’t get the necessary resources he couldn’t break through into the next realm.

“Good morning Mr. Bernard I came on my father’s orders, “said James with his back straight trying to look prim and proper.

“Good morning young master so you have dined to join us, at last, I expect you to be here by the break of dawn” Bernard growled roughly.

“Yes, sir” saluted James although he was surprised he understood the need for discipline in every everything thing someone did.

When Bernard saw this he couldn’t help but be surprised and impressed by James decorum as most young master or people in power are mostly arrogant and wouldn’t listen to good advice even if it is for their own good so the way he talked to him was a test and if he was unwilling to take criticism then he wouldn’t teach him because mortal martial art is dangerous especially the art of refining if he was someone who was arrogant without having the necessary to back it up you could die so he didn’t want to be the cause of death of someone.

So he was very happy that he could listen and exercise patient they spent a few minutes with Bernard ordering the knights in training on how to continue with their training then he asked James to come with him to the north side of the training field this had weights, a track and a weapons training pit like the south side where the knights in training trained but it could be known at a glance that the training gear was better after they came there Bernard went to the shelf and brought out a pair of weight.

“So young master the first part of the training is for you to carry this pair of weights effortlessly and then we can move on to other parts of the training,” said Bernard while slightly smirking.

When James heard this he was so surprised because due to the presence of heaven and earth energy even ordinary mortal bodies are strengthened to extraordinary level makings children’s strength the equivalent of fully grown men on earth and because he was a noble he has been fed spiritual herbs since he was young his body has been strengthened to an extraordinary degree even though he couldn’t cultivate his body was already at the threshold of the houtian stage so this was why he was so surprised when he tried to move the weight.

“Surprised huh the weight has been inscribed by a few arrays which increase the weight of anything it’s inscribed on so this thing is actually five times the weight so once you can lift it effortlessly then you are ready for the next level of the training, “said Bernard while smirking.

So for the next week James spent most of his time using the regimen that Bernard had set out for him while this was happening the flames of war was starting to ignite through the region and there was widespread panic but James tried not be distracted by whatever was happening outside so wonderfully he was able to finish the first stage of the fitness training in two weeks which was formidable and the only reason he could do it that fast was because of his single-mindedness and his determination to get his life back on track.

so he powered through the hardship and did it the second stage of the training was carrying weights like the one in the first stage all around the body and run throughout the track. through this, the practitioner of this will learn how to control their body strength which is what is needed the most in the art of refining as the medicinal aura will need to be tightly controlled so as to cause the least amount of damage to the body while strengthening it.