Book 1. Shifting Winds. Chapter 16. One Year of Time. (Part I)

His breath slightly ragged, Shire sat down on the wooden floor at the training field in his house. He rested his spear against the column, then turned his gaze to the black-haired youth who was laying on the ground and gasping for breath, so tired that he was barely conscious.

“It’s only been a month, but his technique has progressed at a monstrous rate,” Shire murmured with a disbelieving smirk on his face. If he kept improving at this pace, then this stupid disciple would surpass him in spear arts in merely five to six years; and that was while considering that he had also gotten back to training regularly and no longer slacked off or spent the whole days drinking.

“Talent… that’s not at the level of talent, he was born to wield the spear,” Shire thought with a sigh, regretting that he hadn’t taken Laien’s training seriously from the very beginning.

“That being said,” he murmured as he closed his eyes. “I’m getting tired of this,” he grabbed his spear, then jumped a few dozen meters high.

He kicked the air mid-flight and abruptly changed directions, striking through the darkness of night at an incredible speed, heading right to one of the nearby roofs.

He thrust his spear, aiming at a seemingly empty spot. The blade pierced right through, drops of blood spraying outwards, forced out by the blow.

A figure of a black-cloaked man appeared as the shadows around him began dissipating. The man stared at Shire, failing to understand how or when his chest had been pierced through.

Soon, the remnants of life left the man’s eyes; a martial master of the second rank died, just like that.

“That old goat and his little puppies are getting too ahead of themselves,” Shire murmured discontentedly and yanked his spear out of the man’s body. He left the corpse where it was and headed back to his house, walking on the air, slight gusts of wind concentrating below his feet every time he took a step.

“I wonder how many will I need to kill before they finally get the message,” he mused with a scary smile; a silent, frightening killing intent emanating from his body. “I think it’s the highest time to pay the big puppy a visit,” he murmured to himself, his gaze drawn to a certain part of the city.

“I will need to find a chance to repay that boy in the future, though…” he thought more calmly, a slight smile appearing on his face. “Were it not for him, I might have lost such a talented disciple,” he murmured with a smirk, wondering what that little puppy’s face would look like if he learned how badly he allowed himself to be played.

---

“Seriously, are they still sleeping or what?” Tin’Long said angrily, hurrying over to the siblings’ private quarters. Today, Cran was leaving for the Royal Capital and they were supposed to send him off with everyone, but despite it being nearly the time, the two were nowhere to be seen!

“They are always so crazy about training, but when they get this one free day per month, they start being so lazy…” Tin’Long thought with a sigh, then after hesitating slightly jumped over the wall surrounding the siblings’ quarters. He didn’t quite feel comfortable with behaving in such an inappropriate way, but since Laien had told him not to waste his time as he was tired of walking up to open the gate for him each and every time, and since he was in kind of a hurry now, he just went ahead and jumped onto the grounds.

Even before he landed, he noticed the two siblings laying beside one of the trees near one of the two spacious training fields of their quarters. Yet, what he saw made him fail his landing and trip, although he somehow managed to regain his balance and not fall flat on his face.

Simply, the sight of the two hugging each other and actually kissing lightly, as if lazily, was a bit too much for him to handle.

“I know siblings can sometimes be really close together but isn’t that a bit too much…?” the resigned thought crossed Tin’Long’s mind. The luck just so it had that he came here a minute or two after the siblings woke up after falling asleep outside, so he ended up seeing what he saw. “Eh, whatever. It’s not up to me to be butting in. As long as it’s just snuggling and kissing…” Tin’Long sighed in his heart and decided not to fret over the whole thing.

“Oi, you two! You’d better hurry up, Cran is going to be leaving in fifteen minutes!” he called out, startling the two siblings out of their half-asleep state.

“Already? Wasn’t it supposed to be later?” Laien asked loudly while Siana was getting off him and the two of them were trying to collect themselves.

To Tin’Long’s surprise, neither of the two were perturbed by the fact that he saw them in this situation. “Maybe I really was overthinking it?” Tin’Long wondered. After all, those two had no real family to speak of apart from themselves. It wouldn’t be so strange for them to be closer than most of the other siblings.

For example, he wouldn’t be able to imagine himself hugging and kissing his own little sister. One part of it was the eight years of age difference between them, but the other part surely was the simple awkwardness of the idea.

“Weren’t you listening yesterday when I told you it’s going to be one hour earlier?” Tin’Long asked resignedly. He just knew that he shouldn’t have tried talking to Laien when he was doing his spiritual training; he would always respond ‘yeah, yeah’, but would never truly listen to what was being told to him. “Next time, I will just leave him a note,” he smiled at the thought; he had a feeling that it could unexpectedly work out quite well.

“Uh, there was something like this?” Laien scratched the back of his head. Ever since he had gained insights into the Aspect of Tranquility, his spiritual training turned into something closer to meditating than simply repeating the process of releasing and recovering his spiritual energy, which by now he was doing automatically, without concentrating on it at all. Basically, he was doing the same thing Rudford had been for the last one hundred years; gaining deeper insights into the Aspect of Tranquility.

“Yeah, there was. Now, hurry up!” Tin’Long gestured the two siblings to follow him, hurrying towards the main gate.

---

“Right, I keep forgetting to ask,” the fourteen-year-old youth brought up in the middle of a chat with Laien. “You are at the fourth rank as a martial practitioner, but you are also a spiritual practitioner, right? How strong are you at that?” he inquired as for some reason, people in the Red Dragon School weren’t sure of this information.

“I only learned recently after elder brother got me a spirit stone,” Laien said with a laugh. After his sudden increase in power, he hadn’t been able to tell at which level he was. However, the whole thing didn’t bother him too much and both him and Rudford ended up forgetting about it for a few months. “I’m at the middle stages of the seventh mortal realm,” he revealed with a rather cheeky smile and was pleased to see both the youth in front of him and his elder martial sister look quite surprised to learn that.

“Isn’t that pretty amazing?” the sixteen-year-old girl said, gazing at Laien with a mixture of praise and playfulness. “I heard spiritual practitioners advance much slower towards the later ranks of the mortal realm. Given how talented you are, I guess you will be leaving our country to study at an Institute? Or maybe in an Academy?” she asked, letting the chat flow smoothly. She might have praised Laien a lot, but she herself was one of the disciples of the Grand Elder; she obviously was very talented. She had reached the eighth mortal realm half a year ago and her mastery of the Red Dragon Arts was only slightly inferior to Cran’s. Amongst her peers, there were very little people who could be called equal to her.

Thus, even though she heard ‘seventh mortal realm’, she pretty much failed to understand the weight of these words.

“I want to keep practicing martial arts, too, so it will be one of the Academies,” Laien responded with a smile. He had talked this matter over with Rudford and since most of the Academies accepted students only at the age of twelve or older, they settled for the idea of enrolling into an Academy in two years of time. Well, now it was closer to one year and a half, though.

“A dual practitioner, huh?” the sixteen-year-old girl smiled at Laien and gave him an alluring look. “If you were a bit older, this big sister might have fallen for you~” she teased, but she was unable to hide her shock when Laien simply laughed it off and appeared not to care or be embarrassed by her suggestion. She might have been only joking, but being ignored by a ten years old boy seriously hurt her confidence!

“Elder sister, don’t you think such jokes need a right time and place for them to be funny?” the fourteen-year-old said poutingly.

“And who said I was joking?” the sixteen years old girl replied angrily, not in the mood to be lectured by her younger martial brother.

The youth’s face sank and he looked away. He wanted to say something but decided not to. The last time he had pointed out that his elder sister was a bit too fond of partying and playing around with guys, she had snapped at him and they ended up not talking to each other for a week. Really, he would never understand what girls were thinking about.

“And you weren’t?” Laien asked wryly. “I was pretty sure you two are going out. Can it be that you aren’t?” he asked ‘innocently’, pretending to be oblivious.

Never having expected the tables to be turned on her, the sixteen years old girl was a bit flabbergasted. She wasn’t the one to get frustrated easily, but she still blushed a bit. “Perhaps we would have if this dumbass wasn’t so dense…” she thought silently, wondering how to respond to Laien.

“W-we aren’t,” the fourteen-year-old managed to utter. In his case, he got much more nervous than his elder martial sister because of Laien’s sudden remark. He had very much liked Shei ever since he met her six years ago at the competition organized by the Grand Elder to select new disciples but never had enough guts to tell her. He was scared of being rejected and ended up thinking that it would be fine if they at least remained as friends… and that he would confess later… but this ‘later’ never seemed to come.

“You aren’t? Why not? To me it totally looks like you are into each other,” Laien pointed out a bit bluntly, trying to get the two to be more honest with themselves and at the same time, amusing himself with their funny reactions.

“I wonder,” the sixteen years old girl, Shei, said with a sigh. “Maybe if Kuan wasn’t such a chicken, then we would,” she said before she could bite her tongue. Faced with junior brother’s flabbergasted gaze, she could only look somewhere to the side while blushing strongly. Yes, she liked him too! So what?! If Kuan wouldn’t ask her out first, she wouldn’t make it easy for him…! In her opinion, a man who couldn’t even confess to the woman he liked wasn’t a man at all!

“Eh? Then what’s the problem?” Laien asked happily and looked at the fourteen-year-old. “If you like her, ask her out. What’s so hard about it?” he questioned with a broad, cheeky smile on his face.

At first, Kuan felt like arguing with Laien; the ten-year-old obviously didn’t understand any of his countless worries! However, he soon realized that it would be petty of him to do so. He was still nervous if Shei wouldn’t reject him even after she said what she did, but he somehow forced himself to speak up. After all, if not now, then when?

“Shei, I like you, please go out with me!” he declared with flushed face and a very nervous expression, but somehow managed not to stutter.

Shei glanced at Kuan, then peeked at Laien. She was feeling rather helpless about this situation; her junior martial brother might not have yet realized, but she understood that Laien did all of that on purpose. She was happy with this development, but also pretty embarrassed to have needed a ten-year-old to push the matters between her and Kuan a step forward.

“Then,” Shei began saying and gave Kuan a teasing look. “I guess you need to train hard from now on,” she said with a chuckle and before Kuan could ask what she meant, added merrily. “If I’m going to be with a man, then I want him to be strong enough to protect me.”

Laien suppressed a laugh; the look on the fourteen-year old’s face was simply priceless. “Good for you, huh?” he said contentedly while swinging his legs to the front and to the back in a typical, child-like way.

Kuan finally laughed and relaxed a little. He gave Laien a brief look, then returned his gaze to his elder martial sister. “I promise to work hard,” he said seriously, albeit with a clear hint of amusement in his voice. He never thought that his party-minded elder sister would make a request of this kind. Honestly, it was surprising but at the same time, he didn’t dislike this side of her at all.

“Great,” Shei chuckled again, then after wondering if she should or if she shouldn’t for a second or two, leaned to the side and planted a quick, but deep kiss on Kuan’s lips; which to her surprise the fourteen-year-old returned instead of just taking it.

Laien laughed quietly, appreciating the nice thing he was shown by the two. When they glanced at him, he just shrugged his shoulders and showed them the tip of his tongue. He wouldn’t mind seeing them kiss in front of him more often; it was a fun thing to watch.

---

“You’ve advanced to the fifth mortal realm, I see?” Rudford noticed the moment Laien entered his private training hall. “You’ve trained hard for a whole year, it only makes sense,” he added contentedly, knowing how much effort Laien had been putting into his martial training.

Laien’s routine looked pretty much like that; he would spend two days training with Shire, two days training with Rudford, two days sparring with various disciples of the Red Dragon School and the other martial schools in the city and finally, he would use one day to recover and only engage in lighter exercises. The schedule was pretty hectic, but Laien had already been keeping up with it for a whole year. The reason of it was simple; he could see how much progress he was making from day to day and thus, was highly motivated to get even stronger.

“I did reach the fifth rank, but I wish my talent for martial arts was a little better,” Laien said with a sigh. Fifth mortal realm at the age of eleven wasn’t a bad result at all, but considering how hard he had been training, he really would have liked to be at least at the sixth realm by now. The only thing preventing him from pouting about his cultivation speed too much was…. well, basically every other aspect of his training.

“You are being too hard on yourself,” Rudford said with a smile. “You’ve really been overworking yourself lately, too. Hm, let’s do it like this,” he brought up and tousled Laien’s hair. “Today, instead of training normally, we will have some fun to celebrate your breakthrough. We will go swimming in the ‘Eye of Netherworld’ Lake. How about it?” he suggested, guessing that a trip like this one would be up to Laien’s preferences.

“The Eye of the Netherworld Lake? Really?” Laien asked excitedly. He had heard a few things about this humongous lake located on the plains to the west, but he also knew that the access to it was restricted. Only a few most important people in the country and those accompanying them were allowed to sail, swim or fish in the Eye of the Netherworld Lake. To be able to go there with Rudford was super lucky!

“I can take that as ‘yes’, right?” Rudford chuckled, happy to see how enthusiastic Laien was about this little trip.

“Of course!” Laien called out, already gesturing Rudford to hurry up and get going. It would take at least two hours to get to their destination by horse so if they wanted to use the day wisely, they needed to hurry up!

“Coming, coming,” Rudford said with a laugh and headed to the stables affiliated with the Valius family with Laien to retrieve their horses. The old William was the best person to entrust one’s steed to, so as a Great Master, Rudford, of course, kept his own horse in the old man’s care.

---

“Whoa, I can’t even see the other end. It looks like a sea,” Laien said happily, marveling at the incredible sight before him. The waters of the lake were crystal clear and the shore had had enough sand brought over from the sea to form a great beach around it. Combined with the endless grassy plains stretching as far as the eye could see, the scenery was truly wonderful.

“We need to register our arrival first, then we are free to do as we wish,” Rudford said with a smile, looking in the direction of the reasonably large inn at the roadside, close to the lake.

“Surprisingly small,” Laien pointed out. He really would have expected a large complex of luxurious houses and small mansions to be around here. Instead, there was only one inn. It seemed pretty strange to him.

“To keep the waters as clear as they are, no one is allowed to live around here,” Rudford explained and urged his horse to go forward, speeding up to a quick trot. “As for those who stay here longer than one day, they usually bring their own houses,” he said when Laien caught up, then smoothly made his horse go into a gallop.

“Makes sense,” Laien chuckled, still getting used to the concept of having entire houses moved around per nobility’s whims and wishes.

After a few minutes of galloping, the two of them arrived at the inn. The royal innkeeper saw them from far away from the window of his room, so he walked out to greet them.

“Great Master Rudford,” the innkeeper bowed his head respectfully. “I’ve had a few chances to welcome your younger brother, Great Master Rudford. General Vatras always enjoyed his stay at the Eye of the Netherworld, I sincerely hope you will feel the same, Great Master” the man said courteously and seeing that Rudford and the youth accompanying him dismounted, walked up to take the reins of the two horses.

“Is the eye in a calm phase?” Rudford asked, making Laien curious as to what could he possibly mean by that.

“It has entered the calm phase three days ago, so for the next week there is virtually no danger,” the innkeeper replied, then glanced at Laien. “This must be one of your two disciples, Great Master Rudford? The whole country was elated by the news, people are still talking about it,” the man said with a slight smile. The strength of the Kingdom was closely related to the power of its greatest experts; for a Great Master to finally choose a successor after one hundred years of refusing to do so was naturally a joyous event.

“As you can see,” Rudford confirmed with a laugh. Both he and Laien had similar clothes and most importantly, they had black dragon sigils on their chests. It would very literally take a blind person not to notice who they were and what kind of relationship they had.

The royal innkeeper raised his eyebrows slightly, but he kept his thoughts to himself. From what he knew, Rudford had gone into meditation right after the Great War ended and rarely interacted with the ‘worldly matters’, leaving even the management of his Red Dragon School to his little brother and a friend who later became the Grand Elder. He had been said to have become a really stoic, uncaring person… but seeing the man in question now, the innkeeper had trouble believing it.

“What could have changed him so much?” the man wondered as Rudford and Laien headed off on their feet. His gaze laid on the youth’s back as he watched how the boy chatted with Rudford, laughed and even got his hair tousled by the Great Master.

“Rudford lost his wife in the Great War… so perhaps it was this youth who changed him?” the man wondered, planning to deliver his thoughts on the matter to the royal family. As an innkeeper, he would often see and hear many things, while those in power knew how precious any piece of relevant information could be.

“Come on, just tell me what was it about the calm phase,” Laien asked again, the curiosity getting better off him. He really wanted to know what Rudford meant!

“You will see in a bit,” Rudford said with a smile. “For now, get out of your clothes. We are going to swim,” he said and put his own clothes into the interspatial ring, leaving only the underpants. “How long can you hold your breath underwater?” he remembered to ask before they entered the water.

“As long as it’s just swimming casually, around forty minutes?” Laien took a wild guess, never having tried to test his limits in the past year. His advancement to the fifth rank as a martial practitioner surely increased his capability, but his spiritual cultivation would also influence how long he would be able to stay underwater. He was a water element practitioner, after all.

“Good,” Rudford nodded with a wide smile and after walking past the shallow part of the shore took a leap directly into the deep water.

Having a guess or two as to what Rudford was going to show him, Laien followed quickly.

After the two of them swam for about twenty minutes, Rudford stopped and looked up at the sky, checking the position of the sun.

“It’s about time if I remember correctly, just a few more minutes,” he said aloud, then gazed at Laien. “Just in case, don’t get too far away from me. It should be safe, but the Eye apparently likes to act up without warning, so better be safe than sorry” he warned with a smile, though with a pretty serious look in his eyes.

“I got it, no swimming away from you,” Laien said obediently. Both him and Rudford would usually be fond of jokes and overall rowdy behavior, but he could tell when Rudford was serious, and right now was one of such times.

“Okay, let’s go,” Rudford said and dove underwater. Laien did the same and thus, the two of them began going deeper and deeper.