Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 214. Endless Road of Cultivation.

“That reminds me,” Yin added right afterwards. “Are we going to share the Aura Manipulating Art we got from Ulric with the others?” he asked. They were yet to share the manual with anyone, while Raphael and Mikaela had only been partially successful in mimicking their aura manipulation from hands-on experience. Originally, he wouldn’t have suggested spreading this dangerous manual, but they had already shared the Ancient Tomes with those three and had revealed one of them to Mustafa, too, so those inner restraints of his were no longer as tightly bound as they used to be.

“Sure,” Laien said with a smile. “But only with our friends. It should be fine to spread it to our allies on the whole later on since advanced mastery of aura manipulation requires a lot of skill and a powerful soul. We won’t have to worry about assassinations and robberies becoming too common because of it. Moreover, since Altair knew how to use aura manipulation even better than us, the Guild of Shadows must already have knowledge of it, too. So, we won’t have to worry about making them stronger by accident,” he mused aloud, trying to look at the matter from as many angles as possible. As for his original pondering about times past, he had already chosen to leave the topic for later. Once an opportunity appeared, he would make sure to seek the answers.

“Let’s hurry up,” Laien said once they left the cart in the designated hidden room. “I’m tired of walking,” he added with a playful smile. It was nice to take it easy on their way down, but he could tell that they no longer had anything they wanted to chat about all that much. It wasn’t their first time walking through those dimly-lit corridors, so it wasn’t anything super interesting, either.

“Mhm, let’s go,” Yin supported the idea, breaking into a light jog as soon as Laien sealed the pathway to the Training Quarters. As far as he was concerned, resting was also a skill in its own right. Forcing yourself to do something just because it was supposed to be ‘relaxing’, while you’d grown tired of it in the meanwhile, would only be counterproductive. There was also the issue of finding the right opportunity to rest. If there were pressing matters hanging above one’s head which required immediate attention, resting for longer than a day would also be impossible. This was one of the reasons he and Laien had been putting off any true rest until now.

Soon, the two of them emerged from the underground complex, left the villa, and began grooming their horses. They first bathed them and made sure that their hair and hooves were perfectly clean, then they spent some time scratching and rubbing them all over with large brushes. They fed them some sweet treats and high-quality vegetables they had gotten here and there, then, making use of their own powerful bodies, they engaged their mounts in a game of tag. With Bellicose’s and Arion’s recently increased intelligence, they were able to set some proper rules to the game, which made the whole thing far more amusing than either of them expected.

Thus, when the villa’s runic formation released a soft pulse of harmless energy, the two of them were surprised that an hour passed so quickly. To Bellicose’s and Arion’s disappointment, they called an end to the game early but promised their mounts that they would spend time together tomorrow, too. Thanks to that, the two stallions didn’t grumble much when they headed towards the villa.

“I think it went like this?” Laien said while putting his hand on one of the seemingly normal large, round stones laid out alongside the path to the entrance. He poured some of his aura and spiritual energy out, connecting to the entire runic formation. He easily identified the stream of energy awaiting entry and guided it towards one of the pre-designated points of contact. “Did they expect all their top-class talents to be eccentric, or did they have too much money and no idea how else to spend it?” he asked with a grin. Personally, he loved the idea of making this random stone into a runic communication device, but most people would have considered something like that an utter waste of resources. Still, maybe they gave their Rune Masters free rein since they really didn’t care about coins and only wanted them to gain as much experience as possible?

“Both.”

The stern voice of the guard from the other side of the connection first startled Laien, then caused him to laugh out loud while Yin revealed a slight smile.

“Seven people calling themselves your old batch of bodyguards. They were supposedly told by you to visit at this time. Do you confirm?”

“Yes,” Laien answered, not sure if the guard he was speaking with had a good or bad sense of humour. Given the man’s overly formal tone, he leaned towards the latter option.

“I’ll lead them in then. Let me remind you that they’re not allowed to leave the boundaries of your mansion unless they’re accompanied by at least one of you. When you want them to leave, either call for one of the guards on duty to lead them outside or bring them to the gate yourselves.”

“Yeah, got it, understood,” Laien said with a laugh, glancing at Yin out of the corner of his eye. It was Yin’s own fault, okay? Reprimanding him for being too informal in the middle of the sentence, what else but an awkward shift in tone and a chuckle on top of it did he expect to happen? Too bad that the man on the other side didn’t appear to be as amused as he was, since he had just cut it off.

“I mean,” Yin began saying with a sigh. “Eh, forget it. You’ll make friends with those you can get along with and you won’t bother with the rest, was it? I just don’t get it. Why bother leaving a bad impression when all you have to do to prevent it is hold your tongue a bit?” he asked a bit begrudgingly. There were few things about Laien that got on his nerves, but his tendency to randomly irritate random people without minding the possible consequences was one of them. It couldn’t be that Laien expected everyone to be as overly logical as Emeric and agree with his reasoning? And, even if some of them did agree, he refused to believe that Laien would ever feel like going through the hassle of explaining himself to every one of the people he tended to randomly piss off.

“Who knows?” Laien said evasively, then gave Yin a troubled look. Had he not been able to tell that Yin was genuinely worried for him, he would have gotten annoyed by the constant nagging. “Maybe it’s not worth trying to get on the good side of every person you meet? Sure, more often than not people appreciate it if you stick to being polite, but it’s not like they’re going to risk their arm and leg for me just because I was all nice and proper with them when we talked,” he pointed out. At the same time, he was beginning to wonder why Yin kept bringing this same topic up time and time again, with some subtle changes in connotation. After all, it wasn’t like they had failed to come to an agreement the previous times they had discussed it.

“On the other hand,” Yin said calmly. “If you are ‘nice and proper’ with them, then they’ll be less likely to kick you when you’re down, too. And who knows, perhaps that one pleasant exchange of words might result in unforeseen benefits,” he argued. That guard from just now, even. Couldn’t getting on his good side or at least not annoying him result in something good happening in the future? What if they needed help one day and only he happened to have an inkling that something bad was happening and informed Sebastian of his suspicions? Or if his positive opinion one day convinced Sebastian, or even Azuresky or Emeric, to make a choice favourable to them?

“You sure?” Laien asked, his troubled expression shifting into a grin. “You’ve still got too much faith in humanity. I will admit there’s truth in what you’re saying, but I’m not a fan of relying on such random miracles, especially if I have to behave while hoping for them all the time. Moreover, I’m not you, you know? Being polite and mindful of others doesn’t come naturally to me. If I force myself to act against my nature, then I’ll end up appearing fake to those who matter, merely to suck up to those who don’t. As for changing my nature… I don’t want to since I see no good reason to change this part of me,” he explained patiently. At times like these, he was very grateful for the existence of their Spiritual Link as it allowed them to share more than just words and expressions.

He didn’t need to say it, he didn’t even need to think about the words, and Yin would know it full well. Even though he was refusing Yin’s request, it wasn’t that he didn’t see merit in the way Yin liked to act. Himself, he understood that he was a bit too arrogant, too brash, and too dismissive. Yet, he also knew that Yin was a bit too naïve, too accommodating, and too scared of what others thought of him. That being said, he was of the mind that they made up for weaknesses in each other’s characters well and that, by being together, they reinforced their strengths, too. So, he saw no need for either of them to forcefully change what was a part of their most fundamental nature.

“… That’s not fair,” Yin grumbled, his face flushed red. How was he supposed to continue this discussion if Laien could share such embarrassing thoughts with him at the same time? He once thought that as time went on, he would get more used to Laien’s teasing and would no longer get embarrassed as easily, but it was actually getting worse with each passing day! At this rate, he would soon no longer be able to calmly look Laien in the eye. It would be terrible, in more ways than one!

“You know.” Unwilling to concede so easily, Yin pressed his point. “We met a lot of good people on the way here, so wouldn’t it be better if we gave everyone a chance to get along with us?” he argued somewhat absentmindedly, no longer able to come up with anything else to say. He had originally wanted Laien to mellow out a little bit more towards others, mainly those he wasn’t interested in, but to be fair, he no longer felt like it was something that needed to happen. The only reason he was refusing to give up was… well. He simply felt that it would be too shameful to do so.

“Good people?” Laien pointed out with a wry smile, knowing full well what Yin was thinking about. “We met a lot of good people? I think that you are forgetting about how many people we killed on our way here, and how many people wanted to kill us. If we add that to the people who didn’t particularly feel anything about us, it’d make for almost all the people we’ve met up until now,” he said with a laugh. Then, seeing as Yin wasn’t about to rebuke him anymore, he smiled happily and proceeded to enjoy watching Yin’s embarrassed expression, which soon earned him a half-scornful, half-playful look from Yin himself.

“Forget it,” Yin conceded, letting out a sigh as he did so. Yet, a refreshing smile bloomed on his face right afterwards, one which caught Laien thoroughly off-guard. “I’m no longer going to bring it up, but I’m glad we talked about it. You know, I think you’re very much right about us making up for each other’s weaknesses and reinforcing our strengths. Be it the good or bad events, the way each of us acts influences them in different ways. This always worried me worried since you tend to be so reckless and carefree, but I think that there’s no right or wrong way to act between our two approaches. So, like you were saying, it’s fine for us to remain as we are,” he concluded, undisguised happiness present in his voice, in his expression, and his emerald-green eyes.

A bit out of it, Laien could only nod absentmindedly, failing to realize that this time it was him who was blushing and showing a silly expression. Of course, he was happy that he was able to work out the issue with Yin, but even more so at the moment, he was mesmerized by the look on his face. The two of them had pretty much spent the entirety of the past three months together, and yet it was the first time he was seeing Yin make this kind of refreshed, happy expression. It was so mesmerizing that, for a good while, he lost the ability to think and only felt glad for having had a chance to see it.

Surprisingly, what brought Laien and Yin back to reality a few seconds later wasn’t the arrival of their expected guests, but the sensation of one of the Aspects within their souls experiencing rapid growth. “Awareness?” the two of them muttered at the same time, startled to discover that it was this Aspect that experienced a breakthrough, seemingly out of the blue. But, their insights into the Aspect of Awareness hadn’t yet reached a bottleneck so how come they were suddenly increasing at such an astonishing rate? The strength of the essence contained within their orbs had increased almost twice over within the last few seconds and the process was still ongoing!

If they had to compare it to something, then it was just like when Laien experienced a breakthrough in his Aspect of Tranquillity, back when asking Casimir for help. At that time they hadn’t thought much about it, simply assuming that once they reached a bottleneck, a strong Aspect-related stimulus was required to progress any further with it. However, now that their Aspects of Awareness, which already had complete foundations, suddenly exploded in power, they could only reconsider.

“Just how far…” Laien murmured, only now realizing that his old assumption about ‘seeing the limits’ of cultivating an Aspect was nothing short of ridiculous. Five years? Ten? Twenty? If he were to gauge by the Aspect of Tranquillity and the Aspect of Awareness, in both of which he had exceeded the two-fold ‘complete orb’ stage, he would have to say that… he wasn’t sure. He had still been able to see the road ahead of him and the end-goal when those two Aspects had complete foundations, but now that those foundations had been further reinforced, he no longer had any idea where those paths led. It was as if… no. It was precisely that both the scope of the insights and the potential power of those Aspects increased exponentially with each major, ‘foundational’, breakthrough!

“If…” Yin said quietly. “If we try to use numbers to get the rough idea…” he continued, feeling just as overwhelmed as Laien was. “Then the half-complete essence orb has a limit of nine. The complete one would be ten times that, so roughly ninety. Then, the one reinforced by the third breakthrough would be close to nine hundred… To master that, that’s just…” he trailed off, then swallowed hard. It was frightening enough that when cultivating Principles and Elemental Laws, he and Laien felt as if they were staring into a bottomless pit or climbing an infinitely tall mountain. If Aspects were equally hard to comprehend, if all the insights were indeed so boundless, then who in the world would have enough lifespan to master them all?

“No,” Laien said, appearing fairly absentminded. “The first one is nine, but the second one is eighty-one. Then the third one is… seven hundred and twenty-nine… it’s multiplicative,” he stated, pretty sure that those numbers were accurate. Yet, once he finished speaking, he shook his head in confusion. Just where did he pull this piece of information from? Could it be that just like he had instinctually known the correct names of many insights, this was also…?

Alas, before Laien or Yin could dwell upon their thoughts much longer, they noticed the gate leading into the mansion’s grounds open. The familiar bunch of people led by one of the Heaven’s Quarters guards was still a few kilometres away, but since they had started running after being dropped off, they were bound to arrive sooner than later. As a result, with their contemplative mood broken, Laien and Yin opted to leave any further pondering for later. They didn’t feel pressed for time to have that talk, especially since there wasn’t all that much unclear stuff left between them.

Thankfully, it still took Ruan and the rest about two minutes to arrive, so they had more than enough time to regain their cool. As such, while sitting on the large stones next to the main path, they greeted their seven old guards with smiles on their faces. “Well then,” Laien began, intending to get straight to the heart of the matter. “We wanted to talk to you about two things. First, the rewards for helping us in the war with Yimar Maar and Abdain,” he stated in lighthearted tone and grinned at the seven. “So, tell us what you want,” he added straightforwardly.

“We can pick?” Liza asked with a bright smile. “Then, I’m not going to hold back. Truth be told, I don’t want to risk my life like that ever again. I’ve had enough. I want one thousand southern crystal coins and if you ever need someone to do a safe, cosy job in the future, I call dibs on the position,” she said without missing a beat, apparently having decided what she wanted some time ago. And, while in other situations this request coming from her, a mere above-average martial master of the first rank, would have been outrageous, those gathered only smiled knowingly. Even though to an average ‘rich noble’, one thousand crystal coins was still a small fortune, on the scale of the wealth Laien and Yin had accumulated, it was but a small sting that mattered little in the long run.

“To be honest,” Ruan, unable to wait any longer, began saying without waiting for Laien and Yin to give Liza a proper verbal answer. “I never imagined that our journey would end up being so dangerous either, but I think the danger’s been well worth it. I advanced to the third Realm of Heroes after the last battle, and I’m sure that, in just a few more years, I will be able to push two more ranks, becoming a martial master of the fifth rank. I already had a very stable foundation, so now that I made up for my lacking insights, I should be able to get stronger quickly and be useful to you. With that in mind, I’d like to stay under you two and serve as a courier. Additionally, if possible, I’d appreciate it if you asked Warrior-King Azuresky or King Emeric to have their Royal Stables instruct and aid me in trying to get my horse to become an elite mount,” he said in a hurry, almost as if he was worried that Laien and Yin would disagree if he didn’t vocalise his request as soon as possible. This behaviour of his, in turn, triggered others to dish out their requests, too.

“Personally,” Jin started saying in a tone that was neither happy nor sad. “I don’t want to stick with you any longer after this joke of an escort mission is over. It’s too dangerous. For my reward, I’ll be fine with two thousand Euleanian platinum coins. I intend to travel the north after we part at the Eclipse Academy, so it will be easier to pay for things using those coins than the southern ones,” he explained and shrugged his shoulders. He had expected that him being unwilling to serve under those two monsters would sour the mood, but he didn’t have a death wish like Ruan. He didn’t feel like doing some pointless job for those two like Liza intended to, either. Thus, he thought it would be for the best if they parted on amicable terms instead of forcing something that was bound to end badly.

“Haha!” Fortunately, Ethane’s hearty laugh eased the tension soon afterwards. “I must say that I don’t want to risk more than necessary, either. I’ll soon accomplish my life-long goal of becoming a martial master, so two hundred crystal coins and a job as a regular captain of a small guard squad in your future faction will suffice for me. I still want to enjoy the rest of my life with my wife and kids,” he said and laughed again, a bright smile present on his face. He had brushed close with death more times than he cared to count during the past three months and he was well aware that becoming a martial master of the first rank was the limit of both his potential and cultivation technique. Thus, he much preferred to settle with what he had rather than die an untimely death.

“I second that,” Dinne said with a grin. “I’ll work hard to advance too, so I’d like to ask for the same thing,” he said simply. He had been the leader of their small three-man team for many years, so it would be a bitter pill to swallow if he suddenly had to work under Ethane. Luckily, he had been a martial practitioner of the ninth rank for a long time before joining this mission. His breakthrough might not be guaranteed like Ethane’s, who was already half a step into the Realm of Heroes, but he was fairly confident in his ability to catch up to his friend within a year or two.

“I third that,” Rishe said as the last of the three former Valius Family guards. “Or so I wish to say, but you can cross out the guard captain part for me. I will be able to advance to the ninth mortal realm for sure, but I don’t think I’ll ever become a martial master,” he said with a bitter-sweet smile. On one hand, he was extremely happy to have made enough money for his family to live comfortably and for his kids to have a better start in life than he had. Yet, on the other, he was disheartened to be the only one out of their group of three friends to be stuck in the mortal realm.

“And you?” Laien shifted his gaze to Gahar, who, as always, was standing slightly apart from the rest, his figure hidden by his black cloak. So far, he had no complaints whatsoever with what the previous six requested, but perhaps except for Ruan’s revelation about advancing to the fifth Realm of Heroes in the future, everything was as he had predicted. Regrettably, this made for a slightly boring outcome.

“That’s a pointless question,” Gahar replied calmly, his voice containing no haughtiness at all. “I already told you I’m at your service, and there’s nothing I want in particular,” he said just as stoically as before. At this time, there truly was nothing he wanted from Laien and Yin. There might be one thing in the future… but he wasn’t foolish enough to speak of it now.

“Are you sure?” Laien asked again. Despite Gahar’s outwardly perfect act, he could more or less tell that the man was holding himself back. Moreover, according to Yin, his guess was correct. The only thing left was to see whether this ex-Shadow would be willing to speak openly or not.

“…” Realizing that he had been seen through, Gahar hesitated for a moment. “Then, allow me to ask you a question first,” he began saying, intent on making a compromise. “Was a message of some kind about the completion of the Shadow Trials delivered to you?” he inquired, then seeing as the boys nodded in confirmation, he suppressed a sigh and continued. “That’s good. As for my request, please wait a little longer. Once everything is a little more clear, I’ll bring it up myself.”

“Fine,” Laien said with a sigh. He didn’t like it when people acted all mysterious with him, but Gahar was a specific kind of person. He guessed that, if he were to order it, the man would tell them everything, but he didn’t want to force Gahar’s hand just to sate his curiosity. Either way, he could more or less guess that Gahar’s request had something to do with the Guild of Shadows and the business that was bound to follow their passing of the Shadow Trials. Having thought this far, he started feeling glad that Gahar chose not to bring the matter up just yet. After all, for him and Yin, there was a huge blood debt to be repaid to the Guild of Shadows and its Guildmaster.