A few days after my duel with Lord Asher, I sat on the grass near our impromptu training area, watching Lorelei train. Some refreshments sat on the ground next to me. It was a bright and beautiful spring day. The sky was clear, with nary a cloud in sight. Just an endless blue vista as far as the eye could see. The sun bathed the world in its life giving energy. A gentle breeze blew through, feeling delightful against my skin.
Aurora, rather than napping in my dantian as usual, napped in my lap. She flopped about in a rather undignified manner, with her tongue lolling out.
It had been a rather relaxing past few days. After the damage I sustained during my duel with Lord Asher, I spent it resting and recuperating. Healing potions took care of my injuries, but after my loved ones witnessed the beating my body endured, I took it easy to ease their worries.
The day after the duel, House Griffin sent a retainer to deliver the twenty thousand mana stones. Unlike mundane currency, we couldn’t store mana stones at the Solarian Imperial Bank. They were valuable because they were used to power magic circles, certain magic items, and they aided in forming threads/cultivation. This made keeping mana stones at the bank pointless.
However, it wasn’t the mana stones themselves that excited me. I mean, they did, but it was how they were delivered that made me salivate. House Griffin delivered them to us using holding bags, with each bag containing about five thousand mana stones. Best of all, we got to keep the holding bags, which made me very happy.
The first thing I did was hand two of them off to Father. He protested, saying that I earned them so therefore they belonged to Clan Sturm. I pointed out that I was a member of House Sturm as well, so giving half of the mana stones to him wasn’t that big of a deal to me. It was part of my filial duty as his son. Father accepted them after that, though he still seemed reluctant.
The House Griffin retainer also delivered a letter from Lady Diana, addressed to Lorelei, which she read in private. While I was tempted to spy on her as she read the letter, I decided to respect her privacy despite my curiosity. I also refrained from bugging her to tell me its contents. If I needed to know what it said, Lorelei would tell me in her own time.
Corie, her best friend, had no such compunction and pestered her about it for days. However, Lorelei refused to divulge the letter’s contents.
It must have been something important, however, because Lorelei looked both troubled and thoughtful in the days after receiving the letter. It must have weighed heavily on her mind, yet I didn’t sense any worry or urgency from her.
Before the House Griffin retainer left, I made sure to send a message of my own to Lord Asher, inviting him to the little social gathering/training session I had planned. I also sent invitations, using House Sturm retainers, to Lady Isabella and Annabelle, setting a date that I thought would suit everyone.
In even better news, we received word from Mother about what was going on in the Icefall Region. To our immense relief, all of our loved ones were fine. In fact, they had contained the beast tide and were starting to push it back. With Grandfather Gabe keeping the Walking Hill occupied, the rest of the beast tide wasn’t much of a threat, given how powerful our loved ones were.
It was the number of magic beasts that they had to deal with that was the problem, making it difficult to keep the beast tide contained. As powerful as Mother, Lord Icefall, and Guildmaster Sinclair were, they couldn’t be everywhere at once. At least they were all right, though we still worried about them. I made sure to pass the message along to Lady Calla.
One of the positives that came from my duel with Lord Asher was that the number of vultures eyeing House Sturm had dropped. News of the duel was making the rounds in House society, and me defeating both Lord Wilbur and Lord Asher had made quite the impression. No one knew the specifics, only that I had won. That, combined with House Thorne’s public support, was enough to scare most of the vultures away.
Still, almost getting crushed to death was an experience I didn’t care to repeat.
Another positive was that Kaylee no longer viewed martial arts training as a waste of time. The night of the duel, before she had to return to the Solarian Imperial Academy, my little sister told me that while she would still focus more on wizardry, she would take her training more seriously. A regular wizard wouldn’t have been able to defeat Lord Asher. As I demonstrated during the duel, someone who practiced both wizardry and cultivation had a significant advantage over someone who practiced just one.
Speaking of training, I focused on the present once more and watched as Lorelei went through the stances of the personal fighting style that she was starting to develop. It was still rough and unpolished, but with time, she would refine and perfect it. This style, which remained unnamed so far, mixed elements of the Sky Breaker Style and Guildmaster Sinclair’s personal fighting style.
The Sky Breaker Style focused on aggression and building momentum in order to overwhelm one’s opponents. Once a practitioner of this fighting style got going, it was difficult to stop them. This appealed to me, which was the reason why I bothered to memorize the style, even if I didn’t practice it much myself. One of its main weaknesses, however, was that it lacked when it came to defense. Not only that, if a practitioner of this style lost momentum, they were at a disadvantage.
Guildmaster Sinclair’s personal fighting style, which she taught to Lorelei, shored up these weaknesses. It was better for defense, and wasn’t as reliant on building and maintaining momentum. It was still pretty aggressive, which was why it meshed so well with the Sky Breaker Style.
Watching Lorelei now, I imagined what she would look like in the future, once she reached an acceptable level of power. Lorelei Sinclair, Chosen of Terra and disciple of Celestial Thunder. The earth would tremble at her step, and the wind itself would give way beneath her blows. The mountains themselves would prostrate themselves before her.
It was something I very much looked forward to.
Lorelei practiced the stances of her fighting style, until she was out of breath and sweat streamed down her skin in rivulets. She performed some cooling down exercises, before walking over and plopping on the ground next to me. Without a word, I handed her a bottle filled with water, which she took with a grateful look on her face.
We spent the next few minutes in silence while Lorelei drank water and caught her breath.
“Where are Celestial Arrow and Celestial Sword?” Lorelei asked.
“Out on another date,” I said with a grin. “I pushed Celestial Sword to take Celestial Arrow to one of the restaurants we saw during our outing to buy gifts.”
Their first date had turned out to be a huge success, and the two of them were now courting. However, they were still very awkward around each other at times, so sometimes Lorelei and I needed to push them forward.
Lorelei nodded and took another sip of water.
“Is this your way of saying that you want to speak with me alone?” she asked, turning towards me, a serious look on her face.
I snorted.
“I’m giving you the opportunity to speak to me without an audience,” I said. “It’s clear that something is on your mind, but if you’re not ready, then there’s no need to push it. We can just spend this time training, just the two of us.”
It was Lorelei’s turn to snort.
“I don’t know if Lady Annabelle would appreciate that,” she said. “It’s become obvious to me just how…territorial she is when it comes to you.”
I shook my head.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “As long as she doesn’t consider you a threat in that regard, she’ll be the same Annabelle you’ve always known.” I grinned at Lorelei. “Unless, of course, you’re harboring romantic feelings for your Master.”
My disciple’s expression twisted with disgust.
“No offense, Master,” she said. “You’re not my type. I prefer my men muscular, not feminine and slender.”
“I’m plenty muscular!” I protested.
I spoke so loud that Aurora twitched in her sleep and let out a snort, but she didn’t wake up.
“Not to the degree that I prefer,” Lorelei said, before taking another sip of her water.
Rather than continuing to act offended, I switched tactics and gave my disciple a ghoulish grin.
“Oh?” I said. “Is someone like Lord Asher closer to your type? He is pretty big and beefy, if I do say so myself.”
Lorelei choked on her water for a moment.
“Mas-Master!” she said, her face a scarlet red. “Don’t tease me like that.”
Huh. While I meant to tease her, I hadn’t expected Lorelei to react this strongly. Maybe there was something there. I mean, I didn’t blame her. Lord Asher was handsome, as well as big and muscular. Plenty of people found that attractive.
“Fine, I’ll show you some mercy,” I said, before my grin softened into a warm smile. “Are you feeling better?”
Lorelei glared at me, before nodding.
“Yes,” she said. “I do.” Several seconds passed by in silence, before she let out a sigh. “Lady Diana invited me to Griffin Manor. She said that she wanted to discuss my future.”
“Ah,” I said. “So Clan Griffin is making its move.” I chuckled. “I thought they would wait until after Lord Asher met with you here, but I guess Lady Diana felt too impatient.”
After I met with Lord Asher during the welcoming party at the Solarian Imperial Academy, I told Lorelei about my conversation with him. Since it involved her future, she deserved to know. I also told Lorelei why House Griffin had been so interested in her mother, and why that interest extended to her. Lady Diana’s interest, on the other hand, was of a more personal nature.
“Mama warned me that something like this might happen,” Lorelei said. “When House Griffin found out about me. They would try to make me one of their retainers, and that Lady Diana might even try to get me to marry one of her sons.”
“Considering your reaction earlier,” I said. “My intuition told me that you’re not opposed to the idea.”
Lorelei’s face turned beet red. This time, it didn’t stop at her cheeks, and extended all the way to the tips of her ears.
“Master!”
I laughed. Aurora twitched in her sleep again.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t resist.” My expression turned serious again. “There’s also a possibility that Lady Diana will take you in as a disciple. In fact, I believe that to be the most likely scenario. Not only are you the daughter of her dear friend, but you’re also a cultivator as well as a wizard, with elemental affinities that match her Clan’s.”
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I needed to come up with a name for people who practiced both wizardry and cultivation, because this was starting to get awkward. So far, sage was in the lead since it was a term that could apply to both cultivators and wizards, though for different reasons.
I pulled thoughts away from that tangent and focused on the present once more.
“If…,” Lorelei started to say, but trailed off and looked away. She wore a guilty expression on her face.
Rather than push her to continue, I remained silent and studied the sky above. The sight of the boundless blue sky soothed and relaxed me.
“Would you be angry if I accepted such an offer?” Lorelei whispered. “Assuming that Lady Diana made one, that was.”
Ah, so that’s what she was worried about.
“Why would I be angry?” I asked.
“Because I’d be turning my back on you and House Sturm!” my disciple said, raising her voice. “Lady Terra chose you to be my teacher, and you’re the one who introduced me to a whole new world. Not only that, but you’ve given me so much. From magical items and resources, to all sorts of powerful techniques. You made me a retainer for House Sturm, an opportunity plenty of people would kill for. If Lady Diana asks me to become her disciple, and I accept, then wouldn’t that be the same as spitting on everything you’ve done for me?”
Lorelei wore a conflicted expression on her face. She looked angry and sad and ashamed, but I also saw a deep yearning in her eyes.
“Despite all that, you still want to become Lady Diana’s disciple?” I asked.
Lorelei’s expression tightened, and she hesitated before answering.
“Yes,” she said, as if admitting something shameful. “I do. You’ve taught me so much, and I want to keep learning from you, but I also want to learn from Clan Griffin. During your duel with Lord Asher, I saw that their techniques and way of doing things are more suited to me, if he’s anything to go by.” Tears pricked her eyes, but she wiped them away before they fell. “You must think I’m being greedy and selfish. Instead of picking and choosing, I want to have it all.”
“No, I don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “At least, you’re not more greedy and selfish than any other cultivator.”
Lorelei stared at me in disbelief, tears in her eyes.
“Come here,” I said, patting the ground next to me.
Lorelei continued to stare at me for a few more seconds, before she scooted closer. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, and pulled her into a side hug. Lorelei stiffened up at first, but relaxed soon after.
“During the course of your journey towards immortality,” I told her. “You will meet several people who will help you along the way. You will have several teachers and mentors. It’s what happened to me, during my first lifetime.” I turned and grinned at her. “For you, I just happened to be the first and most important one.”
Lorelei snorted at that, but I saw the smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
“If Lady Diana offers to take you in as her disciple,” I said. “Feel free to accept, if you believe it is what’s best for you.” I poked her side with my free hand. “For the record, I believe it is. They’re a Clan that focuses on body cultivation and physical prowess. Their elemental affinities also match yours, so they’ll be able to teach you more than I could in that regard. Just let Lady Diana know that you already have a Master.”
While I knew a bit about the natural laws pertaining to Earth and Metal, I wasn’t an expert by any means. I also didn’t know that many Earth techniques, and I knew even less Metal ones. That was one of the reasons why I had neglected that aspect of Lorelei. Becoming Lady Diana’s disciple, or even just a retainer for Clan Griffin, would shore up that deficit in her education.
“As long as you don’t turn against me or Clan Sturm,” I said. “I won’t view that as a betrayal.”
“Do you truly mean that, Master?” Lorelei asked.
I nodded.
“Yes.” I shrugged. “Of course, you won’t be able to work as a retainer for House Sturm anymore, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop teaching you. You’ll just have to find a way to balance your time between learning from me and learning from Lady Diana.” I paused. “I’ll always be your First Master, just remember that.”
Lorelei pulled away from me and wiped her eyes again.
“I will,” she said, smiling at me. “Thank you, Mas-…” She stopped and shook her head. “No. Thank you, First Master.”
“Look at you,” I said, scoffing. “Getting all emotional over something that is still just a possibility.” I poked her side again. This time, she swatted at my hand but I was too fast. “That said, if you do want to repay me, make sure you never give up. Always keep moving forward, always strive to improve yourself. I’ll get very upset with you if you don’t join me in the heavens above.”
Concern colored Lorelei’s expression.
“Do you really think it’s possible?” she asked. “For me and your other disciples to become Immortals?”
“Of course,” I said, acting mock offended. “Who do you take me for? I am Celestial Thunder, the very heavens themselves once trembled in the face of my might. As my disciples, it’s not a matter of if you and the others become Immortals, but a matter of when. Have faith in your First Master.”
Lorelei started laughing. This time, the tears in her eyes were ones of joy.
“Thank you, First Master,” she said, wiping her eyes once again. “I needed that.” She frowned. “Celestial Archer isn’t going to be happy with me.”
“Well, that sounds like a you problem,” I said. “So leave me out of it.”
Lorelei clicked her tongue.
“What a useless Master,” she said, sneering at me. “You can’t even help me deal with this one little matter.”
“Yep!” I said, giving her a bright smile.
Lorelei continued to sneer at me, before she broke character and burst into laughter once more.
“Now then,” I said. “Let’s get back to training.” I looked down at Aurora. “Stop pretending to sleep, you lazy serpent.”
My familiar opened one of her eyes.
“I’m not lazy,” she said, speaking in a haughty tone. “I just didn’t want to interrupt a touching moment between teacher and student.”
“Uh huh,” I said in a skeptical tone. “Sure. Come on.”
With a sigh, Aurora flew up and the three of us resumed our training.
----------------------------------------
Later on that night, I stared at the tile puzzle in front of me, feeling annoyed and frustrated. Aurora and I had both reached the end of Stone Corridor, and now we were trying to solve our respective tile puzzles.
As before, the Stone Corridor felt so real despite being a dream realm. The air felt cool, and the stone itself felt even cooler. The dim lighting gave me a headache.
During the month where I couldn’t use my divine sense, thanks to the damage to my mind, I hadn’t once dreamed of the Stone Corridor. Even after my mind healed, my dreams remained restful. However, after my talk with Lorelei earlier today, Aurora and I once again found ourselves in the Stone Corridor.
We both rolled up our metaphorical sleeves and got to reading. We had both already almost finished learning everything we could in the Stone Corridor, so it surprised neither of us when it only took us a few hours to reach the end. Now it was time to solve the tile puzzles and figure out what came next.
Unfortunately, the tile puzzles proved more difficult to solve than expected. When I first saw mine, I thought solving it would reveal some kind of special spell or magic circle; a reward for putting up with all this bullshit. Now I wasn’t so certain.
Thanks to the lessons imparted upon me by the Stone Corridor, I knew a lot more about wizardry and the principles behind it than I used to. My tile puzzle related to that, but no matter how much I tried to solve it, nothing worked. I felt like there was something missing.
Looking over at Aurora, I saw that her annoyance and frustration mirrored my own.
“Agh!” she screamed out. “This is all so stupid. Why can’t I solve this fucking puzzle?” She looked at the Stone Corridor’s ceiling. “The next time I see you, Tempest, I’m going to throttle you!”
Despite Aurora’s outburst, Master Tempest didn’t respond. The walls didn’t light up. No lightning struck her. Nothing. It was as if her anger and frustration wasn’t worth paying attention to.
“Agh!” Aurora screamed once again, before kicking the wall with the tile puzzle. “I hate this.”
“Let’s take a break,” I suggested. “We’ll be able to think better after we’ve calmed down and cooled our heads.” I grimaced. “You’re not the only one feeling frustrated.”
Aurora nodded before sitting down, leaning against the corridor’s left wall, the one with all the cultivation knowledge etched into it. I sat opposite of her and did the same. Neither one of us said anything for the next several minutes, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
I glanced over at Aurora’s tile puzzle, just to distract myself. Despite the library’s worth of cultivation knowledge etched into the wall that Aurora leaned against, the answer to her tile puzzle was rather simple. To put it simply, cultivators gained power through knowledge and enlightenment. Their understanding of the universe’s laws and principles transformed them, fueling the internal alchemy that allowed them to reach higher and higher states of being.
It was a little more complicated than that, but that was the gist of it.
“Feeling better?” I asked, looking at Aurora.
“A little,” she said, sounding tired and resigned. “I thought I solved it, but no matter how hard I try, nothing seems to work. It feels like I’m missing something, something obvious, and it’s maddening. It’s as if I have a splinter in my mind, and no matter how hard I try to remove it, nothing works.”
I gave her a sympathetic smile.
“I understand how you feel,” I said. “It’s the same thing with my tile puzzle. I thought I knew the answer, but nothing I do seems to work.”
Aurora blew out a breath, before playing with her hair. It was a habit she had picked up, while we studied in the stone corridor. In her usual form, Aurora didn’t have hair, so she liked to play with it here.
Actually, she had a lot of things in her human form that she didn’t have in her dragon spirit form, and she liked to play with all of them from time to time. I kept her from going too far, but she was like a teenage girl exploring the alien landscape that was her own body. There was no stopping her.
“Maybe we can talk it out,” Aurora suggested. “Perhaps that will jog our minds, because bashing our heads against the metaphorical wall isn’t working.”
I thought about it for a moment, before nodding.
“Fine by me,” I said. “However, we shouldn’t give each other the answers.”
Aurora gave me a frustrated look.
“Why not?” she asked. “We’re already at the end anyway. I know you said that it defeats the purpose of this whole place, but we can at least confirm if our respective answers are correct. Otherwise, I think I might go mad.”
“Eh, fair enough. You go first, since you suggested it.”
Aurora stuck her tongue out at me.
“The way I see it,” she said, gesturing to the tile puzzle. “The answer to the puzzle is the concept that cultivators gain power through knowledge and enlightenment. By learning more about the laws and principles of the universe, and internalizing them, cultivators can achieve higher and higher states of being. At first, they learn about the countless lesser laws, before moving on to greater laws; these ones generally have capital letters in front of their names to denote their importance. Fire. Air. Space. Time. So on and so forth.”
I frowned.
“That is the answer, as far as I see it. That should have solved your tile puzzle.”
Aurora just looked at me with a strange expression on her face, as if she couldn’t decide between vindication or anger.
“I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or not,” she said, after a while. She gestured to me. “Your turn. What do you think is the answer for your tile puzzle?”
I looked at mine and studied it for several moments, before answering her.
“Unlike what most people believe, including many wizards themselves,” I began. “Wizards don’t control the environment around them by using spells to impose their will upon the world. At least, not in the way everyone thinks. Instead, wizards attune their minds and souls to the world, guided by their elemental affinities, using mana as a medium. In short, they become aspects of the world around them, while simultaneously remaining independent and distinct beings in their own right. What people perceive as changes in the environment caused by wizards, are actually external reflections of the internal changes that wizards cause within themselves. Spells and magic circles are merely the structures that they use to do so.”
In that regard, wizards weren’t too different from spirits. For example, a spirit of Fire was an aspect of Fire itself; a shard of a greater whole. Greater spirits were bigger shards, therefore they had more power. When wizards formed threads and Circles, they became more in tune with the world around them and thus could have a greater effect on their environment.
That was why wizards were better at the mystic arts than cultivators. The latter was like a sculptor using tools to shape a block of stone into a statue, i.e. their knowledge and understanding of the universe, while the former shaped the stone block through an effort of will, as if it were an inherent part of themselves.
That was also why wizards were physically weaker than cultivators. Forming threads and Circles empowered their minds and souls, but neglected their bodies. In fact, I suspected that Ascension involved shedding one’s physical body in order to become a divine spirit. In that regard, it was the complete opposite of achieving immortality and godhood through body cultivation.
Aurora closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“You’re exactly right,” she said, before opening her eyes again. “So why isn’t it working? What are we missing?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “If our individual answers are right, then maybe there’s another puzzle that we need to solve, one that involves both of us.”
At this Aurora snorted.
“What?” she scoffed. “Somehow put our answers together?”
A beat of silence followed as we both realized the implications of her words.
“No,” I said in disbelief.
“It can’t be that simple,” Aurora said, speaking in the same tone.
We stared at each other for several seconds, before we both turned at the same time to look at our respective tile puzzles.