After they completed their laps, they came to a predesignated place near the older children who were sweating profusely while exercising. They always gathered at that place after finishing their laps.

Usually, they had to run two before gathering there. But today, they had to run three because captain Aadan was the instructor.

Everyone including Jacob was panting while bowing down and holding both their knees. Nobody dared to sit down on the ground. They were already a bit exhausted.

After giving them three minutes of rest, the instructor commanded them to do some sets of pushups. After pushups came the jumping jacks. Then they had to squat for a few minutes in regular intervals.

In the end, they had to do a cobra stretch for another few minutes. They were not given breaks in between any of those and had to do them back to back. Their bodies were already aching.

Their exercises were light as compared to the older children due to their young and growing bodies. It took them almost half an hour to finish everything.

After that, they were told to spar with each other lightly. They formed small groups of two. Jacob found one of his friends and they started sparing with each other.

During their spars, one person kicked and punched while the other tried to block it. It did not involve any complex moves. They were children after all.

Aadan was observing and guiding both of the groups at the same time. The older group was holding wooden weapons including swords, sabres, spears etc while the younger group was barehanded.

Children younger than eleven years old were not allowed to hold any kind of weapon. Even if it was not real and a wooden one made for practice.

Aadan was patiently guiding the younger group despite their repeated mistakes and blunders. The older group was not that fortunate.

Their first mistakes were forgiven. But if they dared to repeat the same mistake, they had to suffer from the captain's spittle on their face and loud shouting. They were terrified of him. Half of the mistakes they made were because of their nervousness.

Jacob was also trying to learn as much as possible. He was one of the hard-working trainees. Aadan took special notice of such kids and went overboard with their guidance.

He spent more time explaining things to them than he spent with others. He considered them good seeds and did his best to guide them.

He seemed like a dangerous and strict person but in reality, he was very loyal to the clan by heart. He did not want to waste children's potential by being kind and friendly to them during the training.

He knew that other guards that he appointed as instructors used to slack occasionally. As a result, he personally came to teach the children sometimes.

He taught the children how to exercise properly. He taught them how to kick, punch, block etc. He also taught the older children the use of various weapons along with some tricks in addition to how to tackle each other during the spars.

During his training, Jacob noticed a couple of gazes at him a few times. When he looked back, he found that those gazes belonged to two older children.

Both of them were wearing noblemen clothes. One of them belonged to the older group and was twelve years old while the other one belonged to his group and was ten years old.

He knew all that by observing them during the assembly. Though, the one in his group never approached him but used to keep staring at him.

Both of them had blonde hair. But the older one's eyes were blue and the younger one's eyes were black in colour.

This was not new. They used to stare at him since he started coming to the evening training when he had turned five years old.

At first, their faces used to remain blank. But he felt that their gazes were not that friendly. When he started getting attention from the captain and other instructors, the older one's face turned from blank to hateful and angry whenever he used to stare at him.

And the same was happening with the younger of the two today. He was also making faces toward him. The older kid even made a strange movement today.

It seemed like he was cutting his throat with his thumb while making a threatening expression. This seemed like a silly thing to do but Jacob was old enough to understand that it was a blatant threat to his life.

He did not know what was their problem. He did nothing to them. In fact, he never even talked to them in the past two years. Even if the younger one had been in his group for more than two years, they never approached him, and neither did he approach them.

When he had asked his friends about their identities, he was told that they were the two sons of the youngest son of clan lord Rokas, James.

He was deeply disturbed by their actions. So he informed his mother about them. His mother became sad and angry all at once for some reason and started looking at him with eyes full of worry,

"Never ever talk to them and stay away from them. And don't worry, I will talk to their father."

After that day, they ceased staring for some days but they started doing it again a few days later. He stopped caring about them and kept on with his life.

He did not want to worry his mother much. And that was not big deal. They cannot eat him by just staring at him. But today was different. They were threatening his life now. He had to inform his mother today.

The training finished at 7'o clock in the evening. They all separated from the field and went towards their quarters. Jacob reunited with his friends and came back to his room.

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After his mother returned to the room, he told her about the happenings today. She became angrier than before and quickly went out of the room without saying anything to him.

He started waiting for her in the room. After about half an hour, she came back and this time there were no signs of anger on her face.

Without saying anything, she took him to dinner After having dinner, they came back to their room to end their day. She did not say anything to him during the whole time. So Jacob thought that problem was resolved and did not bother asking her about it.

As usual, he had worse pains and aches than normal tonight due to the captain being their instructor. He remained awake for half an hour trying to sleep and started snoring soon after.

The next day, while playing with his friends, he informed them about his mighty goal of becoming a cultivator and flying in the skies. His friends gathered around him and oohed and aahed while listening to him as he told them about the cultivators

Almost all of them also chimed in to become cultivators after he had finished speaking. They became excited while thinking about their future. Some smaller kids even started jumping in an attempt to fly away. Jacob stared at those little kids as if they were idiots.

He was not aware that he was also a kid albeit a year or two older than them. All of them were excited at the prospect of being cultivators in the future except two of them. Those two were staring at Jacob sceptically

"You think my goal is not exciting enough?" Jacob asked them while looking at them. This attracted the attention of all the excited children. They all calmed down and started looking at them with curiosity.

"Yeah. My father is a cultivator. He cultivates on a daily basis in a separate room. But he never flew away even after cultivating for so many years. Are you lying to us, Jacob?" One of them said while looking at Jacob with doubtful eyes.

"Yeah, It is the same with me. My father even beat me once. I entered his room while he was cultivating. He had strictly ordered me not to enter but I forgot that day. He never told me or my mother that he can fly. He even complained of being tired due to excessive walking many times. You are making a fool of us, Jacob." The other one also gave his account and accused Jacob of fooling them.

Now the ball was in Jacob's court, grave accusations were laid down and he had to defend himself now. All the eyes were on him so he became nervous and replied with a stutter,

"No. I....I am not lying. My mother told me this. She can never lie. Come with me and we will ask her ourselves why your fathers cannot fly. You will know whether I am lying or not."

"Ok lead the way." The first accuser said and others also chimed in with their acceptance.

They searched for Rosa for half an hour in the entire manor. A group of little children running around in the manor in the early morning made quite a sight

Even the cleaners became curious about them thinking why a group of kids was running around this early before breakfast. But their curiosity was not destined to be sated.

The children found Rosa near clansmen's residential quarters and Jacob quickly addressed his mother, "Mother, they are saying that I was lying to them about cultivation and flying. Didn't you tell me all that yesterday?"

Rosa was surprised to find a small squad of children looking at her with anxious expressions.

She replied by nodding her head.

Jacob's nervousness disappeared instantly like it was not even there a few seconds ago. He turned back towards his friends triumphantly with a smug expression. He then looked towards the kids who accused him of lying while making an expression implying, (Didn't I say so.).

Those two became worried thinking that something was wrong with their fathers.

"Grandma, but my father cannot fly. He is also a cultivator."

"Me too. My father also cannot fly. Is there something wrong with him?" Both of them asked one after another in a worried tone.

After seeing the cute actions of his son and listening to the questions posed by the children, she became aware of what was happening and why they had blocked her way in the middle of the estate.

She could not help but burst out laughing. She kept laughing for a few seconds. The children became confused over her laughter. She controlled herself and looked toward the children.

She instantly became serious and remained silent for a few seconds as if thinking about something. The children knew that something was coming and focused on her eyes.

"They cannot fly because they are not strong enough. Cultivation is divided into levels by us. Whenever a milestone is achieved, we enter into the next level. So as we become stronger and our level increases, we become capable of great feats. Like lifting large boulders with one hand, running faster than horses, destroying walls with a single punch etc etc. So there is a level in cultivation where we can fly and soar up into the sky like the birds but faster than them. We live longer and become wealthy. There are also rumours that if we are high enough in levels, we can become immortal and live forever. Isn't it wonderful, little ones??"

As Rosa launched into a lecture, the children quickly became enamoured with her words. They started oohing and aahing at the right time and quickly became excited.

But they kept themselves from jumping up in excitement become many people were watching this little lesson including some clansmen. In addition, they were in the presence of the eldest maid Rosa who was of the age of their grandmas.

After Rosa finished her little lecture with a question, she waited for their reply but didn't get one. She chuckled and left them where they were standing.

The other watchers also smiled and went their way.

The children looked at each other with stars in their eyes. Their mouths were so wide open with astonishment that an egg could easily fit inside of them.

It was especially the case with Jacob. He was taking things lightly before but when he heard the details today, he vowed in his heart to become a cultivator and become strong.

He barely controlled himself from dancing due to excitement and his curious nature went off the roof. He wanted to know everything about cultivation.

Without uttering a single word, they slowly headed back towards the place where they used to play. When they reached there, they slowly looked at each other and started shouting in a loud voice while jumping around.

Some even started dancing with their little bodies. Jacob was also trying to dance. The scene of a few kids jumping and shaking their bodies strangely was comical and funny. Some of the content of their shouts was (I want to lift boulders. I want to fly. I want to kill beasts) etc etc.

Every one of them brought forward their imaginations and dreams with their shouts. Their loud shouts quickly attracted the people nearby. But when they heard the content of their shouts, they smiled while thinking, (Little kids).

Their smiles turned to sadness when they thought about the front lines and they all unconsciously looked in the direction of the clan hall.

They stood there for a few seconds watching the comical scene and went back to whatever they were doing before soon after that.

Jacob was dancing, or at least trying to dance like an adult by strangely shaking his body. As he was imagining himself flying in the clouds and hurling large boulders at the beasts from the sky, a thought came to his mind.

(Didn't those liars say that their fathers were cultivating? Aren't their fathers guards? So that's why guards are all very strong. I thought it was natural. They are all cultivators. Wowww.) Jacob quickly deduced many things while dancing.

He had seen the guards running at dizzying speeds in the past. The other servants at their maximum running speed could not match them at all. He had also seen two of the older guards sparring with each other once.

Whenever they struck each other, they struck so heavily that a loud sound was produced every time due to their colliding limbs. They applied great force behind their moves but even then, remained uninjured.

So Jacob quickly guessed that they were cultivators due to his newly attained knowledge. And he was correct in his guesses. All the guards were cultivators. Jacob became awed with the guards and decided to pester them in the future to satisfy his exploding curiosity.