Book 1. Shifting Winds. Chapter 15. A Serious Talk.

“Did something bad happen?” Laien asked, perturbed by the extremely serious expression on Genzie’s face. “Could it have something to do with the Cail family?” he wondered silently, recalling that Garon told him about Genzie being one of Fohan Cail’s people.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” Genzie suggested, not wanting to have this conversation on the street and moreover, in front of the main gate of the Valius mansion.

“Sure, where to?” Laien agreed promptly, at the same time thinking when he could find some time to come here again to see Rune.

“There’s a good restaurant I know, we can chat in private there,” Genzie said and started walking, then glanced at Laien to see if he was following him.

“I assume you already heard the news?” Laien brought up with a wry smile, trying to lighten up the atmosphere. “But still, it makes me sad to get no comment at all and no reaction at all. At least praise me a bit!” he said jokingly and pecked at the black dragon sigil on his shirt.

“I heard,” Genzie forced out a smile, not even trying to pretend that he was overjoyed for Laien’s success. With what kind of consequences it had, he just couldn’t be happy for him. “You remember how you always hoped there was some great treasure on the bottom of the Lake Blueside?” he asked out of the blue, causing Laien to feel rather confused.

“Yet,” Genzie picked up with a resigned, slightly mocking smile. “When you finally were able to check what was on the bottom of the Lake Blueside, you found no great treasure,” he said with a sigh and seeing how Laien still appeared to be dumbfounded, explained properly. “It’s actually pretty similar now as it was with the Lake Blueside. You got accepted as Rudford’s disciple, so did your sister. However, will there be a great treasure at the end of this path?” he asked rhetorically, not expecting Laien to answer this question.

“Personally, I worry that unless something is done, it will end up being just like with the Lake Blueside. Just like this little dream of the Lake Blueside which ended with nothing,” Genzie mused aloud, then looked Laien in the eye.

The two of them gazed at each other for a good few seconds, as if trying to feel something out. In the end, Laien smirked and looked away as the first one.

“Lake Blueside, eh?” Laien shook his head. “Are you sure it will turn out exactly as you worded it? Aren’t you over exaggerating?” he asked with a sigh and glanced at Genzie.

“I’m not,” Genzie replied sternly, although an unnoticeable flash of satisfaction appeared deep in his eyes for a split second.

“Does it have something to do with the Cail family?” Laien asked straightforwardly. It was kind of ironic, considering that Duaran’s acquaintance had just warned him to be careful.

“It does. That’s what I came to talk with you about,” Genzie confirmed and right afterward, added. “We are almost at the restaurant, so let’s talk after we are inside.”

Laien nodded, having no objections to this plan. He also didn’t feel like discussing something of this importance while walking down some street.

A few minutes later, the two of them sat down at one of the screened tables in the corner of the restaurant. The place put a lot of stress on privacy and served only those who could pay well for the food and services provided, so it was unlikely for anyone to be overheard if he had his conversation in a low voice.

“So, what is it? Does the Cail family intend to cause me some trouble?” Laien asked while flipping through the menu. Before coming here he didn’t realize, but he was actually quite hungry.

“Trouble…” Genzie muttered and shook his head. Luren might not have instructed him in detail, but it was more than obvious that he wasn’t allowed to tell Laien too much. For example, there was no way he could say ‘your life will be in danger if you don’t ally yourself with the Cail family, so bear with it and come over, it will be best for you and your sister’. In case he revealed too much and Laien ended up running straight to Rudford and then holed up in the Red Dragon School for a few years… it would be a disaster.

“I’m sure you’ve already heard from Garon,” Genzie spoke after a moment of consideration. “Our Cail family is going to sooner or later suppress the Valius family and take the clan over. However, our superiors are worried about the possibility of the Red Dragon School intervening. I was sent to talk with you to make this option less likely to happen,” he said, weighing his words carefully as to not even hint anything that could cause Laien to become too worried.

“Yeah, I get it… but what do you exactly want me to do?” Laien asked with a sigh. He had decided to live at the Red Dragon School permanently, so his connection to the Valius family wouldn’t stay strong forever. However, he had also promised Garon that he would repay the debt he owed to Tei’ru. Now that he hopefully had enough influence to at least delay the takeover of Valius family for a period of time, he really felt obliged to not betray his promise.

“It would be best if you joined our Cail family…” Genzie said with an awkward smile. “But it would be enough if you publicly severed your ties with the Valius family, too,” he suggested despite not knowing if his uncle would be satisfied with such an option. He just felt that Laien would be much more likely to accept something along these lines rather than to jump out of the frying pan right into the fire.

“Eh,” Laien scratched the back of his head. He thought about an appropriate response for a short while, then spoke up. “I don’t know much about the Cail family and I don’t like the Valius family… but I won’t join the Cail family,” he stated outright, seeing no benefit in involving himself in this dispute. Since he didn’t have enough personal strength to influence the outcome, it was much safer to simply not get involved at all. As for the debt? As long as Valius family wasn’t wiped out, he would be able to repay it in the future.

“This struggle between the families…” Laien began saying, then sighed heavily. “I don’t think elder brother would stand up against the Cail family even if I asked him to. The Great Martial Schools have since forever avoided getting involved in the politics of any country they are in,” he explained briefly, then got to the point.

“So, even if I tried to help the Valius family, it wouldn’t amount to much. I don’t want to do something that could place me or Siana in a compromising position, so I can at least promise you not to get involved. I won’t be doing any public announcements, though,” he said and shrugged his shoulders. He wouldn’t act irrationally for the sake of some ‘pride’ of his and seek a pointless death like the main character of some novel. Those who liked to read such things saw only the story of one main character who climbed the stairs to greatness, but they often wouldn’t see the enormous number of people who were equally talented but fell along the way due to stupidity, recklessness or simple misfortune.

“I wouldn’t want to become enemies with my friend, either,” Laien added with a laugh and smiled at Genzie.

“Yeah,” Genzie said with a sigh, showing a rather troubled expression. He was planning to have a whole argument with Laien and point out the benefits and negatives of him joining the Cail family, but Laien basically concluded the whole talk with a few sentences. Without telling him that his life might… no, that his life will undoubtedly be in danger, Genzie saw little to no way to prolong this discussion.

“And you won’t change your mind?” Genzie asked, knowing he would regret it if he didn’t at least get Laien to reaffirm his position.

“I doubt it,” Laien said with a resigned smile. The little information he had about the Cail family might have been biased as he had learned it from the various members of the Valius family, but if as much as one-quarter of it was true, he wouldn’t be willing to join them. Keeping his neutrality, in this case, seemed to be the most reasonable option.

“Too bad…” Genzie closed the menu and gave Laien a regretful look. “I will be acting on behalf of the Cail family more often now, so as long as you are a member of the Valius family… I doubt we will be allowed to remain friends,” he said bitterly and suppressed a sigh.

“Come on, why so dark,” Laien said with a smirk. “We will always be friends, even if we won’t be able to meet as often from now on,” he said confidently, perhaps being a little too optimistic.

“If only it was so easy,” Genzie said resignedly. “Remember, I will have my birthday in two months?” he brought up a bit randomly.

“I do,” Laien said and nodded, wondering why would Genzie talk about his birthday out of the blue.

“We talked about this interspatial ring, right? I wanted to give it to you after getting the present from my father, but I don’t think I will be able to anymore,” Genzie said and gave Laien an apologetic look. The situation has changed, everything has changed. Neither of them could afford to stay the same as before.

“The Cail family is that strict?” Laien raised his eyebrows and asked with a laugh. Either way, it wasn’t like he needed an additional interspatial ring anyway, not after receiving so much from Rudford.

“More or less,” Genzie shook his head, then threw a white towel on the screen behind him, signaling the waiter that it’s fine for him to walk up and take their orders.

“I will take noodles with chicken meat and one green tea,” Genzie ordered casually after the waiter approached their table.

Laien flipped through the pages of the menu one more time while keeping a straight face despite hearing how Genzie ordered the kind of food he absolutely hated. Sighing in his heart, Laien made his own order. Since this dinner would most likely be one of his last meetings with Genzie for quite some time, he at least intended to enjoy the food and the atmosphere. For a bit, they could chat casually and as for what the future would bring… it remained to be seen.

---

Early evening, within the residence of Luren Cail.

“Master,” a black-cloaked man appeared from within the shadows and kneeled on one leg, his head lowered as he waited for a permission to speak to be granted to him.

“Report,” Luren said and flicked his hand slightly by the force of a habit.

“Genzie established contact with the older of the siblings, with Laien. He didn’t reveal anything potentially dangerous to us but didn’t manage to convince the boy to join us either. The two of them settled at having the siblings take a neutral stance to the conflict,” the black-cloaked man reported, as always describing purely what happened and keeping additional explanations or his thoughts to himself.

“Ho?” Luren appeared to be quite surprised with this result; not because he expected Genzie to convince the siblings or thought the opposite would happen, but because it was the only option which resulted in both his nephew and that boy, Laien, going back to their homes with their heads intact. “Anything suspicious in their behavior?” he asked, unable to shake off the feeling to which he didn’t want to admit to; the feeling that he was being played.

“Nothing that I could see. They didn’t whisper to each other nor did they exchange any notes. There was no apparent gesturing, either,” the black-cloaked man answered respectfully.

“Tell me the content of their conversation, word by word as they said it along with their reactions and mannerism. The usual thing,” Luren ordered and leaned back in his armchair.

“Yes, master,” the black-cloaked man acknowledged the order and began speaking. It took him a good hour before he finished, but he delivered an incredibly detailed report. It was quite apparent that he had been trained to do this kind of job since a very early age considering how much he managed to remember.

“Strange,” Luren clicked his tongue, for some inexplicable reason feeling quite annoyed. He had complete trust in the accuracy and genuineness of his subordinate’s report, so he could tell there indeed had been nothing wrong with the conversation this nephew of his had with that boy… yet, he still felt there was something he kept overlooking, something very important. However, he just couldn’t quite pinpoint what he was feeling so worried about.

“Contact the agents we have placed at the Red Dragon School,” he said sternly, reluctantly accepting the possibility of losing the few precious spies they had there. “We must know if that boy, Laien, will tell Rudford anything out of place. If he does, then we will have him, his little sister and this nephew of mine eliminated immediately,” he ordered and flicked his hand, dismissing the man.

After his subordinate left the room, Luren allowed an annoyed expression to surface on his face. He cursed quietly, but shook his head right afterward and took a deep breath.

“I’m probably overthinking it,” he murmured to himself. There was no evidence at all to support his premonition. Had he been dealing with a serious, experienced opponent, he might have gone as far as to go to Fohan and consult the matter with him… but he was dealing with two brats. Asking others to lend him a hand just because ‘he had a feeling something was wrong’ would be nothing short of a humiliation for him.

“Ah, whatever. I have more important things to take care of,” he said angrily, turning his mind to the tasks which had been assigned to him in Neil City in preparation for what was about to come.

---

“I wonder if he will even be awake,” Laien thought with a resigned smirk on his face as he entered Shire’s house. It was only about two hours past the daybreak, so it wouldn’t be strange for Shire not to wake up in another half a day. “I hope I won’t need to be waking him up,” he murmured, knowing first-hand how dangerous it was to force his master awake.

“He isn’t here?” Laien frowned slightly as he looked around the training field. Shire would more often than not be sleeping around here… strange.

Left with no other option, Laien started looking for his master around the house. The whole time, something seemed to be wrong, different. “Why is there no dust at all? Doesn’t it all look quite clean?” he finally noticed, slowly getting worried if Shire hadn’t sold his house yesterday and if the new owners didn’t happen to already start cleaning it.

“Finally here,” Shire called out, startling Laien as he was passing by the living room. “I told you to come in the morning, stupid disciple. How long are you going to make me wait? The tea is getting cold,” Shire said sarcastically and poured a cup steaming hot red tea for Laien and himself.

Laien froze in place and stared at his master, completely slack-jawed. Shire was sitting at the low table, his beard had been properly shaved, he must have washed as he looked fresh, his clothes weren’t creased and most importantly, he appeared to be sober!

“Who are you and what have you done to my master?” Laien asked in disbelief, then smiled cheekily. The person in front of him was definitely Shire, but his appearance changed so much…! It was unbelievable!

“Stop fooling around and sit down,” Shire said with a laugh. He was in a good mood; he had been looking forward to seeing Laien’s reaction and it certainly wasn’t any less amusing than he imagined it to be.

Laien did as he was told and sat down, positively dumbfounded by the change in Shire’s attitude. He took a sip of the red tea, then glanced at his master. Shire was supposed to start teaching him spear techniques today, but why did it look like he wanted to have a talk with him?

“How should I even begin, I wonder?” Shire said aloud and sighed a little. He wasn’t a social person to begin with; after one hundred years of straying from people, he certainly didn’t get better at talking to them in a serious manner. “I guess since I’m going to start taking you seriously as a master, I should at least tell you more about my past? I bet you were curious about it,” he said with a wry smile, having gotten over the anger he had felt yesterday. It had been one hundred years, after all… it was the highest time to stop grieving over the past and focus on the future.

“Can’t say I wasn’t,” Laien admitted and a slight smile. He really was curious, but so much had happened during the last twenty-four hours that he didn’t even have time to wonder about Shire’s past. Yet, if his master was offering to tell him the story, he wouldn’t refuse to listen.

“Well then,” Shire drank the whole cup of hot tea in one go, then breathed out heavily. “Shut up and listen, no interrupting; I hate it,” he warned, but paid little attention to whether Laien confirmed that he understood or not.

“Fianne… eh, she was an incredible woman,” Shire began saying, his gaze wandering to a faraway place. “I won’t be telling you the snotty details, I will keep it short. Basically, everything happened during the ten years of the Great War between the Sakrcente Kingdom and the Ciene Kingdom one hundred years ago. Towards the second half, after the strongest of our generation started making name for themselves, was the first time I met Fianne… and Rudford and their whole bunch of ‘comrades’,” he added with a snort, the mere memory pissing him off greatly.

“I always thought that falling in love at first sight is a huge load of horse crap, but when I saw her…” Shire shook his head resignedly. “I fell for her instantly. She was a very lighthearted, carefree woman. She had a good heart, too; she even approached someone with my reputation of a ‘crazy berserk’ at the time and started a chat. After talking with her, I knew I wanted her. I wanted to be with her, love her, make her safe…” he groaned, then shook his head again.

“If only I told her so back then…” Shire murmured, barely loud enough for Laien to hear him. “We got assigned to a few missions together with Fianne, Rudford and the others. Towards the last months of the Great War, we became the true elites; allies revered us while enemies feared us. We faced death together more than once or twice, many of Fianne’s and Rudford’s friends died back then,” he covered over four years in a few sentences, not planning to bring up each and every little even which had happened back then.

“Yet, I still didn’t tell Fianne how I felt about her. I was young, scared of rejection like an idiot,” he said and laughed bitterly. Would those events had turned differently had he confessed to Fianne sooner? Maybe, maybe not. It was hard to say; this damn woman was just too stubborn…

“Then, during one of the great battles, Rudford saved Fianne’s life as she was being assaulted by an elite team of martial masters from the Ciene Kingdom. After the battle was over, he did what I couldn’t and confessed to her,” Shire smiled self-mockingly, wondering what Laien was thinking of him at the moment. Indecisive? Pitiful? Pathetic? Surely enough he himself was thinking just that.

“As you can probably guess, she accepted his confession. As we were in the middle of a Great War, they married very quickly; literally the same day,” Shire said in a pained voice but laughed at another thought. “You should have seen Rudford’s face when Fianne told him she wants to get married right away; he was speechless,” he commented, but kept to himself that his own face had been quite ugly at that time.

“Eh,” Shire groaned, barely resisting the urge to bring out a bottle of vodka. “What I did at their wedding was probably… or rather certainly the second most stupid thing I did in my life,” he forced himself to say. Since he already started blabbing about Fianne, he might as well tell Laien everything.

“Long story short, I disrupted the ceremony and told Fianne that I love her. Rudford and everyone else was furious, but Fianne kept her calm,” Shire smirked, then breathed out heavily. “At first her behavior made me feel some idiotic hope, but she soon squashed it flat. She told me that she likes me, but for her, I am nothing more than a little brother. She said that she had long since fallen for Rudford and was only waiting for him to man up and confess to her,” he explained helplessly. To hear that he was just a little brother to her, to learn that his love has never had a chance to be mutual… it truly had felt terrible.

“That alone felt bad enough…” Shire said with a sigh. “But at the very last battle, we were getting overwhelmed by the forces of the Ciene Kingdom. Our General was in a tight spot, while our elite team was trying to break through to the Ciene Kingdom’s backlines to slaughter their commanding General. We were being suppressed, we were too slow and we knew it… then, Fianne executed a forbidden art and broke out of our formation. We… we should have stopped her, but seeing how determined she was, we couldn’t bring ourselves to,” Shire clenched his fist with enough force to draw blood.

Even though it had happened so long ago, the anger within him hadn’t subsided at all. Rudford might have gotten over it with time and accepted Fianne’s choice to sacrifice herself, but he always regretted not stopping her. To him, the country was of incomparably lower value than her life…! Even if she were to be Rudford’s wife, he didn’t want her to die…!

“In the end, she exchanged her life for that of Ciene Kingdom’s Great General. Rudford and I went mad; we used the brief period of chaos in the Ciene Kingdom’s ranks to slaughter thousands of their people along with quite a few commanders in the span of just a few minutes. The battle… it ended with heavy casualties on both sides; neither side won. In consequence, the two Kingdoms worn out by the prolonging war and with no conclusion in sight agreed to a ceasefire,” he laid out, a clear grudge reverberating in his voice.

He had very seriously considered making the annihilation of both Sarkcente and Ciene Kingdoms his goal but reconsidered after realizing that he would be destroying what Fianne gave her life up to protect. Perhaps it was because he couldn’t vent his anger and couldn’t deal with it on his own… that he gave up on doing anything and started wasting away as a drunkard.

“That’s the whole story,” Shire said bitterly and poured himself and Laien more tea. “So, what do you think?” he asked, wondering what kind of comment Laien would have.

“What can I say…” Laien sighed, trying to put himself in Shire’s shoes. “I would have probably acted in the same way, but I have no idea how long would it take me to recover,” he said honestly and just in time bit his tongue as to not say that he surely wouldn’t have had stayed holed up in his house and did nothing but drink alcohol for a century. He had gone through one depression after losing his parents and reached the conclusion that they would have wanted him to live happily instead of mourning them forever. He felt like mentioning it to Shire… but felt that it wasn’t a good time to do so.

“Probably less than one hundred years, eh?” Shire asked with a laugh, easily reading Laien’s thoughts from the look on his face. “Let’s change the subject already,” he urged, having had more than enough of talking about unpleasant things for today.

“Envy and Lust…” Shire murmured, but he shook his head the next second. “We will talk about that later, there’s no reason for you to learn of these things so soon,” he stated dismissingly, seeing no point in telling Laien about the existence of the Secrets.

“Envy, Lust?” Laien repeated. “It does sound quite familiar to Tranquility of elder brother’s and mine,” he said in a slightly inquiring tone.

“He already told you about it?” Shire asked, appearing to be rather surprised. “Wait…” he frowned and gave Laien a serious look. “What did you just say?” he asked, unsure whether he didn’t just mishear.

“I said that it sounds just like the Aspect of Tranquility that elder brother and I have insights into,” Laien repeated with a smile, this time being his turn to be amused by the expression on his master’s face. He could tell that Shire still didn’t believe him, so he pulled onto the essence of Tranquility and released it along with his aura. As expected, Shire’s was thoroughly stunned.

“The same one… don’t tell me that’s why he so readily accepted you as a disciple and had you call him ‘elder brother’?” Shire asked, the whole thing with Laien becoming Rudford’s favorite suddenly beginning to make much more sense for him.

“More or less. It was me who requested to become his martial brother in exchange for helping him with a breakthrough, though,” Laien said cheekily, bragging just a little bit.

“Breakthrough? What kind of?” Shire couldn’t resist asking. Could it have been that Laien had a better understanding of the Secret of Tranquility, or the ‘Aspect’ of Tranquility as Laien called it, than Rudford?

“Nothing complicated,” Laien shrugged his shoulders. “Elder brother had been cultivating the Aspect in a strange way instead of accumulating it in one place. It was making him unable to advance to the seventh Realm of Heroes,”

“That was his problem?” Shire chortled and raised his eyebrows. He had always seen Rudford as rather talented, although he would be hard-pressed to admit it openly, but to think that this training freak could actually be pretty dumb sometimes… knowing that was really making his mood better.

“Right, speaking about elder brother,” Laien brought up, only now having recalled what Rudford told him to talk about with Shire. He had been so excited about learning the spear that he had completely forgotten about it. “He said that I should have the affinity of my Qi checked when I reach the peak of the fifth mortal realm and if I’m more compatible with fire, I should learn his Red Dragon Arts and if with wind, then your martial arts,” he explained quickly and gave Shire a questioning look, wanting to know what his often unreasonable master’s opinion on this matter would be.

“His martial arts?” Shire snorted disdainfully. “If you have no guts, you can learn his Red Dragon Arts, go ahead. However, what I have can be much better than his arts… but can be worse too, at the same time. It all depends on your luck and potential,” he said vaguely and smiled at Laien, obviously waiting for him to inquire further.

“And what exactly is that?” Laien gave in and asked, intrigued by Shire’s words. Up until now, his master had never spoken about the details of the martial art he was cultivating, so could it be that this art was very special in some way?

“The truth is, my martial art is self-created,” Shire said proudly, his words sounding simple but being more than enough to shock Laien.

A self-created martial art that had the potential to surpass a top-level art…?! Something like this had never been heard of on the starlight Continent! For a Great Master, creating a low-level martial art was a child’s play. A mid-level one would be a challenge, while a top-level one bordered the line of impossibility. Were it not for the lack of joking look on Shire’s face, Laien wouldn’t have believed him either…!

“In my youth, I found an ancient legacy. I learned from the scroll which burned down the moment I gained its insights… and a path had opened before me,” Shire said while smiling all the while. “I was given a choice. To go down the safe path and try joining a Great Martial School somewhere around the world and learn their top-level arts, or… to try creating a martial art suitable for myself from scratch,” he smirked and gave Laien a meaningful look. He obviously expected Laien to do the same and not walk down the safe path, which would be unlikely to lead to the true greatness!

“I had chosen to take the risk and created something that surpasses top-level martial arts… if only the Great War happened a few decades later,” Shire sighed bitterly. At the last month of the Great War, he had been thirty-three years old and had reached the third Realm of Heroes, yet he was stronger than most of the martial masters of the sixth rank. Given twenty or thirty more years… he would have had more than enough strength to protect Fianne.

“You still have time to think about it,” Shire stated with a resigned wave of his hands. “I won’t hide from you that with your talent for martial arts, you won’t become an expert even if you learn a normal top-level art. You must be aware of that, too… stupid disciple,” Shire chuckled, thinking about something he would be too embarrassed to put into words.

To once again have some kind of goal in his life… to commit to something, it felt surprisingly good.

“Enough talking for today, we can chat again tomorrow morning,” Shire said with an uncharacteristic honest and merry tone to his voice. “You got a spear for yourself?” he stood up and asked. Hopefully, Laien didn’t intend to use one of the craps of steel Rudford had given him, did he…? He would rather gift him a proper weapon than to see his disciple swing around a weapon that was a gift from that training freak.

“Yup,” Laien got up and took out the white spear from his interspatial ring. “Got it forged yesterday, it’s a Living Steel weapon made from the Mountain God’s Steel,” he said with a smile, recalling how Duaran called this alloy of steel.

“Wha…?” Shire mumbled, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. This stupid disciple… how did he come into possession of something so ridiculously precious…?!

“Come on, let’s go, master,” Laien said with a cheeky smile. “Didn’t you say it’s enough talking for today? Teach me something already, I can’t wait,” he added brazenly, for some reason feeling more comfortable at Shire’s side than ever before. This master of his really has had a change of attitude, eh?

“Damn you, stupid disciple. You asked for it,” Shire smirked and withdrew a two and a half meter spear from his interspatial ring. They would talk tomorrow… as long as Laien had enough strength to get up from the bed and come to train with him again.