Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 3. Farewells.

Laien pursed his lips ever so slightly. He kind of understood what Rune was getting at and even though he really wanted, he couldn’t deny it. Even though the comparison might sound a bit arrogant, it was pretty much as if a King wanted to be friends with one of his servants at the palace. The two could talk and get along, but in the end, their lives would revolve around different things and the difference in their standing would always be pushing them apart.

What’s more… Laien as a talented dual practitioner could expect to live even up to three thousand years. Rune, however, would grow old much more quickly and even if he worked his way up to the later stages of the mortal realm, his lifespan would at most increase to around two hundred years. When Laien’s appearance would still be youthful, Rune would be long since dead. This kind of thing wasn’t perhaps impossible to overcome, but it made any kind of relationship harder to sustain.

Finally, Laien very much desired to explore the world and experience everything it has to offer. When he was a bit younger he still prioritized his friends and the city he lives in; he wouldn’t have wanted to move around. However, he would have had left the Sarkcente Kingdom regardless of the exile imposed upon him as a result of the trial at the Royal Court. He wanted to grow strong and do as he pleased! For someone to accompany him on this journey… the person needed to be just as talented as him, else that someone would forever be the fifth wheel.

“Rune, right?” Rudford approached the two boys, seeing how neither of them could bring himself to speak properly. “As you are saying, it will be unlikely for you and Laien to remain friends. Even before Laien’s life stabilizes you will likely grow to be an adult, perhaps even an old man, while he will still be a youth. He will be roaming the heavens and ruling the earth, while you will be but one single man who can only gaze upon the vast skies,” he spoke bluntly and harshly, taking on a tone no one expected of him; especially Laien who was used to Rudford’s pampering and ever-calm attitude when dealing and talking with him.

“I doubt Laien would abandon you after you would have confronted him like you were trying to do now,” Rudford continued, speaking roughly and harshly, not coating his words with sugar. “Such a strained relationship, however… would only be detrimental to Laien. Neither of you would be satisfied by this kind of acted-out, shallow friendship and more importantly, your weakness would become his weakness. You’d become the most obvious target for anyone who wished to harm Laien or get something out of him,” he finished with a resigned sigh and shook his head. He looked at the nine-year-old who was already trembling and crying, though still giving his best to keep silent and maintain a strong façade.

“Aren’t you being too harsh on the kid?” Injar asked with a slight frown. “They can still be friends, they just need to accept they won’t be as close as they were before,” he said consolingly, failing to understand why Rudford would choose this time to be so cynically realistic with one of Laien’s old friend.

“I’m not being harsh without purpose,” Rudford replied with a snort while glancing at Injar, then turned his gaze back to Rune. “The point is, are you satisfied with being Laien’s acquaintance, or do you want to change it?” he asked with the intention of saying more but ended up being surprised by Rune suddenly looking up at him and declaring strongly.

“Five years!” Rune practically shouted, clenching his fists strongly and fearlessly looking Rudford in the eye despite being shaken by his words and scared of the pressure of a Great Master emanating from him. “Big brother will return in five years, so if I won’t find a way to stand on equal footing with him by then, I will give up!” he stated with great determination shining in his eyes. He didn’t want to just be Laien’s acquaintance! He wanted to be his friend! Even if his talent was lacking, he refused to believe a miracle wouldn’t happen if he worked hard enough to get what he wanted!

Rudford smiled warmly, the look on his face becoming very content; even somewhat admiring towards the boy’s courage. “As long as that strong conviction doesn’t waver, you are welcome to stay and train in my Red Dragon School. I will personally make sure you are provided with the best tutelage and environment, so if you fail you will have none other than yourself to blame,” he offered, causing Injar to smile helplessly. Did he really need to first make this kid cry before lending him a hand?

“T-thank you very much, Master Rudford!” Rune called out in shock and bowed deeply; in fact doing so enthusiastically enough to lose balance, just barely managing not to fall down. He would have never dreamed to become a part of a Great Martial School and to even be taken special care of by it! With a chance like that he really would need to work day and night to make his dream come true!

Laien chuckled quietly and exchanged a look with Rudford. He was a bit worried about Rune when Rudford started berating him, but he didn’t interrupt their talk since he trusted his elder brother had good intentions. In the end, it proved that he was right.

Rudford laughed quietly and produced a black gold high-grade interspatial ring, then threw it into Laien’s hands. “There is not much more I can give you, but take those things. They should prove to be of some use to you,” he said with a smile, waiting for Laien to take a look inside.

“That’s…!” Laien gasped. The ring didn’t contain many things; just two of them, both of them were enough to make any man go mad with desire.

Firstly the fifty thousand crystal coins, which in addition to the ten thousand he already had made a fortune equaling the total amount of income the whole Sarkcente Kingdom produced within three years! It was one thing to collect sixty thousand crystal coins in taxes, but to actually have this much saved up… how ridiculously wealthy was the Red Dragon School? How rich was Rudford?

Yet, despite how staggering the amount of money was, Laien was more shocked by the second thing in that interspatial ring. There were actually eight perfect imitations of the original scrolls with the Red Dragon Arts, all the way to the eighth level of mastery! Although the scrolls would crumble the moment one took in the Qi and the knowledge contained within them, a skillful martial master would be able to replicate them endlessly; though the equality of such copies would be somewhat lower than of the ones taken directly from the original scrolls.

The Red Dragon Art was one of the best five top-level martial arts in the south and certainly was in the top ten of the martial arts of the Starlight continent. The value represented by those eight scrolls… some of the smaller countries would be worth less than them!

“Even if you end up attempting to follow that stupid idiot’s way, you might gain some insights from learning about those too,” Rudford said quietly, guessing Laien would at least need some basis to create his own martial art. Even though the Red Dragon Art was of the fire-element, there should at least be a few things Laien could take from it and transfer into his water-element martial art.

“Thanks, elder brother,” Laien said with a happy, but at the same time slightly sad smile. He spent the whole night chatting with Rudford and simply being with him, then slept with him for a few hours before waking up today. He knew he would be leaving him… he knew he would have done it anyway, but he couldn’t help but feel lonely already. Over those two years, he really had gotten incredibly attached to Rudford. The man became like a father to him… so he had a hard time being calm now that the time to actually part with him came.

“Oh come on, how long do you plan to be fidgeting there?” Sinra asked with a little smirk, took two long steps and pushed Laien on his back, sending him straight at Rudford. It didn’t take a genius to realize those two were as close as father and a son, so they shouldn’t be saying farewells just by shaking each other’s hands or exchanging a few words.

Pushed by Sinra, Laien staggered forward and leaned against Rudford in an awkward manner. However, he soon laughed at himself; what was he doing acting all shy now? He looked up at Rudford, then jumped up and hugged him tightly over the neck. Rudford smiled wryly and hugged Laien back, holding him like that for a good while without saying anything. They’ve already spoken enough, there was no need for unnecessary words.

After a moment, Rudford put Laien down and tousled his hair. “Be sure to return safely, okay?” he said warmly, really hoping Laien’s wouldn’t put himself in any unnecessary danger. Yet, knowing Laien’s character he probably… he almost certainly would do just that.

“I will be careful,” Laien reassured, quite sure what Rudford was referring to by this reminder. He and Rudford continued looking at each other for a while longer until someone lost patience.

“If you are done, take that,” Injar said and tossed Laien an interspatial ring, which Laien grabbed and inspected curiously just like he did with all the previous ones.

Subsequently, Laien opened his eyes wide and gave Injar an astonished look. He suspected Rudford would give him the scrolls with the Red Dragon Art, but he didn’t think Injar would gift him with the copies containing seven levels of the Heavenly Flame Art! He wasn’t even a part of the Heavenly Flame School, but he actually got those scrolls to himself?

“Be careful how you use them. They can’t get into the wrong hands,” Injar empathized, pretty satisfied with the thoroughly surprised look on Laien’s face. The Heavenly Flame Art was precious… but Laien was Sinra’s most important ally; he personally liked him quite a bit too, so he didn’t mind the risk which giving him those scrolls carried. Once he reached the peak of the fifth mortal realm, he would become capable of making use of those scrolls and would hopefully find them useful in one way or another.

“I will,” Laien reassured. He broke through to the late fifth mortal realm only two days ago, but he already felt he would advance to the peak of this rank in just a little bit. Soon he would be able to create a martial art of his own and the better fundament he had for doing that, the better the end result should be.

“I’ve had something nice prepared for you too,” Sinra brought up and raised his hand, then produced a golden signet and gave it to Laien.

Laien took the signet and took a better look at it; there was a sigil on it with a scepter surrounded by flames and ‘S.K.’ initials below it. The ‘S.K.’ obviously was a short for ‘Sarkcente Kingdom’, while the scepter and the flames symbolized… the position of the Grand Marshal!

“It’s not quite official yet since I’m not a King, but it means you are my highest representative,” Sinra explained with a somewhat troubled smile. He felt he was getting a bit too ahead of himself, but after what Injar told them yesterday he couldn’t help himself. “On the inner side my name is engraved, so this signet should give you some political power and influence no matter where you go,” he added but was beginning to wonder if this was a good idea after all. Those unfamiliar with the political situation in their Kingdom would probably be pretty confused by this signet.

“Let’s make this signet real then,” Laien said with a confident smile, allowing his mind to wander off just a little. Oh, how great it would be when he became strong enough to do whatever he wanted! However, to do that he needed to put in a lot of effort and most likely, would also need a bit of luck.

“Yeah… that’s the goal,” Sinra said calmly and nodded his head slightly. Whether having this signet made for Laien was a silly or not didn’t matter; most importantly, this one thing could become a symbol of their dream. Thinking about it in this way, he could be satisfied despite have gotten a bit overzealous with this idea.

“Oh, you are still here. I was worried we would be too late,” Roderick called out from further away, walking towards the whole gathering with Vatras and more unexpectedly, Einrah and Ninrah accompanying him. “We are all quite busy dealing with the aftermath, so we came only to say a quick goodbye,” he explained amiably and approached Laien, then simply shook hands with him and wished him a safe journey, ending his part at that.

“I heard you were the one who convinced my son to make a compromise,” Vatras mentioned contentedly, the way he was looking at Laien being very different compared to before. “I’m grateful for that. Here, there isn’t much I can give you what my elder brother surely didn’t fail to give you yet, but I know what’s nice to have when you are traveling and there are no cities nearby,” he said with a laugh and gave Laien a high-grade interspatial ring, which proved to be filled with many kinds of long-lasting tasty food and with quite a lot of various kinds of wine and other alcohols.

“I have no idea what my older brother is thinking, but here you go,” Ninrah said helplessly and glanced at Einrah, who threw an interspatial ring at Laien.

Injar chuckled secretly; if the contents of this ring were what he thought they were, then it was a correct choice to ‘mention’ what he and Rudford would be giving to Laien and why.

“That’s… wow… thank you, all of you,” Laien said disbelievingly. The gift from Vatras was already an unexpected surprise, but he never thought Einrah would give him the scrolls with seven levels of the Twin Phoenix Art! Didn’t he now have three out of four almost complete top-level martial arts of their Kingdom on himself? Adding up the kind of money he was carrying with a load of other precious items… if someone were to kill him, then it would bring a new meaning to the ‘make a killing’ phrase.

“I can’t believe how lucky you are,” Nila said with a resigned laugh. The way Laien was making friends out of all powerful people he was interacting with filled her with nothing short of total disbelief. Even though she wasn’t religious at all, she was beginning to wonder if Nasheira, the Goddess of love and happiness and her younger sister Laima, the Goddess of luck and fate didn’t both fall in love with Laien and weren’t competing to court his affection.

“The luckier he is the better for us,” Anatis noted happily and came forward. At first, he wanted to shake hands with Laien… but somehow, he ended up going for a brief hug. He himself didn’t quite notice when, but he came to like Laien a lot; just like a friend though, or so he reminded himself when he heard Laien holding back a chuckle.

“Oi, restrain yourself or I’m really going to start worrying,” Nila said half-jokingly and stepped in to shake hands with Laien.

“I couldn’t say it better, big brother,” Siana approached as the last one, her lips curving slightly into a helpless smile. “Be it Anatis or Yin, you really can’t keep away from them at all, huh?” she asked with a chuckle, then hugged Laien. She enjoyed herself for a few long seconds, then backed off a little and placed a light kiss on his lips before taking two steps back.

“I hope we will both be able to make up our minds when we see each other next time,” she said in a low voice and gave Laien a happy, but complicated smile.

“We surely will,” Laien replied rather lightheartedly; it wasn’t like him to keep worrying about the thing he had already figured out. They decided what to do, so was there really a point in being insecure about it? He didn’t think so.

“I’d love to keep this going, but your escort seems to have arrived,” Sinra mentioned, gazing at the faraway group of riders who appeared to be waiting for someone.

“Time to get going, huh?” Laien said with a sigh, but then took a deep breath and smiled. He looked at all the people who came here to see him off for one last time, then exchanged a glance with Yin and the two of them mounted their horses. Without getting overly emotional about it, Laien waved his hand to everyone and rode off, heading to the group of guards who were supposed to escort him all the way to the Eclipse Academy.

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“You’ve got great friends,” Yin said with a smile, then chuckled a bit helplessly. Because of the spiritual bond he shared with Laien he couldn’t even hide that he was quite jealous of him, but Laien didn’t seem to be feeling stupidly proud because of it, so, all in all, it wasn’t too bad.

“I do,” Laien said quietly, despite himself getting somewhat nostalgic. He really was leaving his whole life behind, wasn’t he? What awaited him was one big unknown.

Since Yin didn’t continue the chat, Laien started pondering about everything that would now happen to him. He very soon got lost in his thoughts, thus when an angered voice of a woman brought him back to reality about two minutes later, he wasn’t too pleased.

“Can’t you brats hurry up?” the only woman among the group of escorts called out in an irritated voice. She had heard about the two kids and their reputation as ‘prodigies’ when she was being employed to guard them, but she honestly couldn’t care less. In the end, brats were brats. They apparently had fought quite ferociously in some tournaments just a few days ago, but she couldn’t bring herself to see those two as anything but spoiled children who knew nothing about the real world. After all, what was a tournament compared to a true life-or-death struggle?

Laien frowned, but he felt it was beneath him to start arguing with that woman. He couldn’t be bothered to reprimand her either; he simply didn’t care about her enough to be bothered by her attitude. He could brag about his strength and position… but Rudford had long ago taught him not be overly arrogant and pompous. There were limits to everything, even though he would almost always choose to show off once an appropriate chance appeared.

“She’s displaying her aura so blatantly, I can tell she is a martial master of the first rank without using my spiritual sense… but is that supposed to impress me or something?” Laien wondered and laughed silently. Were those guards of theirs not told who they were escorting? Didn’t they recognize the Great Masters who were seeing him off? Or did they know but were simply so clueless they thought it would be a good idea to put him and Yin in place so they don’t ‘create trouble’ during their journey?

“What are you staring at like a retard? No one ever taught the young master any manners, eh?” the woman asked provokingly, annoyed by the way Laien was looking at her.

“Am I really supposed to be dealing with this crazy woman for two hundred thousand kilometers?” Laien thought resignedly. “How can Yin be listening to it with such a straight face? He is so calm too, does he not care about what she is saying?” he wondered, beginning to feel that he should approach this provocation with more cool; just like Yin was doing. He could clearly tell Yin was calm, so he came to think it would be pretty immature of him to get riled up so easily and by a few meaningless words at that.