Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 218. Before the First Round of Duels.

Early in the morning, Laien and Yin sat cross-legged on the sofa in their room. With their eyes closed, the two of them were wholeheartedly cultivating in their Soul Realm for the first time in a week. Having taken the past seven days to rest their bodies and minds, and having spent that time, with the last four days in particular, in a very satisfying way, they consistently made significant progress with each passing moment. Truth be told, although the two of them knew they had needed some time to rest and recover, even they hadn’t expected their cultivation to become so fast and easy thanks to it.

Within their Combined Soul Realm, they made full use of the distorted sense of time the dimension provided ever since their Spiritual Bond evolved into Spiritual Link. As soul avatars, working on their ethereal insights was what they long since knew to be the best course of action. Thus, in the last two hours in reality, or roughly eight hours in their Soul Realm, they had been focusing on improving their insights into Elemental Laws, the one Principle of the World they were familiar with, and the multitude of insights into the Aspects of Humanity the two of them had recently acquired.

As their understanding of Water and Lightning grew, the mutated Phantasmal Worlds of Water and Lightning that surrounded their joined souls became even more realistic and powerful. Whenever they felt like they were beginning to slow down or get bored, they would work on the Profound Mystery of the Inferno that was imprinted upon their souls or switch to forming the seventh golden rune of the Principle of Energy, which had already started assuming a consistent shape. Lastly, they would spend their time on the Aspects, many of which had developed three-fold foundations but still needed to be properly contemplated and nourished to reach their full potential.

In regard to the Aspects, behind Laien’s soul avatar, nine points of omnicolored essence slowly rotated in a two-layered circle, with Tranquillity, Wrath, Awareness, and Compassion forming the inner one. The outer circle, in turn, was half-merged with the inner one through the properties of the Aspect of Compassion, exchanging the essences with the inner circle in this way. The Aspects which it was made of were Humility, Pride, Love, Desire, and Empathy. Out of those nine Aspects, only Pride formed a half-complete cluster, and only Compassion remained at the primary full orb stage.

The other seven, however, had all experienced the third foundational breakthrough and now, instead of presenting themselves as stable orbs, they appeared to be pulsating with power. With each of those pulses, the usually slow-moving strands of essence that the orbs passively released and shared would increase in power, as if being fuelled by the eruptions of the orbs themselves. Needless to say, the boost in strength those essences could provide at this stage was hardly comparable to before.

In a similar fashion, behind Yin’s back too were nine spots of omnicolored essence. One of them was a cluster, two of them were full orbs, while the remaining six formed the unstable, enhanced orbs. In that order, they were Wrath, Compassion, Tranquillity, and then Pride, Humility, Awareness, Love, Desire, and Empathy. Out of them, Pride, Humility, Awareness, and Compassion formed the inner circle, while the remaining five were in the outer one, connected by the Aspect of Compassion.

With all those insights to work on, no matter how fast Laien and Yin made progress, they knew they wouldn’t be done within the next four months in Academy City. For that matter, since they intended to cultivate the Nine Refinements of Mortality to its utmost and to work on their Weapon Arts at the same time, they wouldn’t be anywhere close to done by the end of their time in the Holy Union. Perhaps if they sat here for three years, then they would be able to more or less advance all of their insights and abilities to next bottleneck points. However, doing so would be anything but efficient.

“Heh.” Laien laughed inwardly. “It would take three years, but only if we abused our Combined Soul Realm all the way to the four-into-sixteen hour limit every day. That, and we’d have to spend the other twenty hours of the day cultivating, too. At a more normal pace, it would take thirty or forty years, though it would still be painfully inefficient. Especially with the Aspects that made the third breakthrough; it got easier to improve our insights into them, but the goal moved from 81 to 729, if expressed in numbers,” he mused while resting his mind for a little bit. As far as he could tell they had spent about eight hours of distorted time within this place, so they still had another four before keeping the Combined Soul Realm active would start being overly taxing on their souls.

In the end, both he and Yin knew that cultivating in seclusion would lead them nowhere, at least not when considering their ambitions and goals. This time around, they had simply obtained too bountiful a harvest, so they had to take their time and digest it before moving forward. Forgetting the insights they had gained for the moment, they still needed to learn how to better control and exploit their Phantasmal Essence in battle. Furthermore, as far as merging all of their insights into one river-like wave of essence went, much like with Phantasmal Essence, they required time to master it. The same went for their Weapon Arts, though in this field Laien had an advantage, having formed his Water Flow Spear Art sometime before Yin had created his Thundercloud Sword Art.

“Right,” Laien said out loud, noticing that Yin’s focus lessened as he too took a momentary break. “We can’t keep calling the merger of all our insights ‘river-like wave of insights’, can we?” he brought up with a laugh. It was still fine when they were in the middle of the war with Yimar Maar, Abdain, and Arakar, but now that they could cultivate in peace, they needed some proper way to call it.

“You’ve got an idea,” Yin stated as a matter of fact, having just opened his eyes. He had gotten used to Laien sometimes ‘realizing’ how something they newly created or came upon should be called, so it no longer surprised him. The two of them had a few guesses as to where those weird realizations came from, but since it was all only theory, they had chosen to keep it to themselves.

“Dao Essence,” Laien admitted without beating around the bush. “I think it’s the right way to call it, and personally, it sounds cool,” he added with a grin. By this point, both of them could control four streams of the ‘river-like wave of essence’ without issues, while he could control five if he strained himself thanks to his soul being a bit more powerful than Yin’s. He suspected that this limit would go up by at least one for both of them once they mastered the soul-related part of the Nine Refinements of Mortality. Then, adding the natural strengthening of their souls coming from their ever-growing insights and from the mutual nourishment of their Spiritual Link, yet another strand would be added before they would have to leave Academy City and the Holy Union.

What Laien looked forward to the most, however, was the day he became powerful enough to turn those strands of Dao Essence into a bona fide Dao Domain. He had no idea how many hundreds of thousands or perhaps even millions of strands that would require, but he was determined to one day reach such a level. Once he did, how amazing would it be!

“You’re daydreaming again,” Yin pointed out casually. The two of them had never been hiding their thoughts from each other, so now that their relationship got even closer, they weren’t about to start doing so. This naturally meant that some things didn’t need to be said, like Yin’s own agreement that calling the river-like waves of insights ‘Dao Essence’ would indeed be far more convenient.

“Let’s finish it up here,” Yin suggested with a smile. “Then we can talk later. No point wasting too much time,” he added. They had to make the most out of the time they had in their Soul Realm, so now that their break was over, it wouldn’t be good to chat needlessly for too long. They could talk just as well in the real world, and they wouldn’t be wasting the benefits the Combined Soul Realm provided.

“Sure.” Laien nodded in agreement and closed his eyes. He was highly motivated, and he wasn’t a person who tended to laze around in the first place, so it wasn’t hard for him to once again immerse himself in cultivation. In fact, be it for him or Yin, the remaining four hours passed in the blink of an eye, as time always did when they wholeheartedly meditated upon their insights. After all, they were doing something they enjoyed and found interesting, so how could time not flow fast for them?

Once they had finished their early morning cultivation session, the two of them headed underground to pick up their cart with breakfast and afternoon snacks. On the way there, they leisurely exchanged some of the more curious points which they had discovered about their insights. Admittedly, they could have learned most of those things from each other without talking at all. Still, they found verbalizing their thoughts, emotions, and experiences to be more beneficial in terms of understanding and improving upon their strengths and weaknesses.

“By the way,” Laien brought up when the two of them returned to their room and started eating. “I wanted to ask, but do you remember the deal we made with Emeric and Azuresky? I mean, we could slap those Earth Quarters students and be done with it, but that would be boring. Since they’ll give us better rewards the better we stir them up to train, why not make it more amusing?” he proposed, smiling playfully at the thought. For example, if he came to dislike some of those students, he would do his best to anger them so much they’d puke blood and faint. He had done exactly that to many stuck-up young masters back in Neil City, and some of them started training hard to beat him. Back then, it was an unintended side-effect, but this time around, it could prove to be useful.

“Why not,” Yin agreed with a nod, knowing what Laien was thinking about; literally. “We could also try to make it worthwhile for us at the same time. I doubt we will learn much from those guys if we fight them normally, after all,” he elaborated without berating Laien for his intentions to stir up trouble, instead going along with it without batting an eye. “We should set up some plan for everyone apart from your idea for the annoying ones. How about we give them two minutes to display their abilities first? We will hold back to their level and won’t actively attack in that time,” he proposed, still wondering if two minutes wouldn’t be too short. For Laien and him, they could decide most battles within seconds, but those students weren’t them, so they couldn’t be judged as such.

“Sure.” Laien nodded happily. “We will just treat it as training them, huh? How about we do the first two minutes as you said, then the next two minutes, we still restrict our strength to their level but go on the offensive. Then, if they’re still standing after that, we trash them into the ground,” he suggested with a grin. In terms of fighting itself, this kind of plan suited his tastes well. Incorporating his idea of thrashing those he wouldn’t find likeable would be easy, too.

“Why not,” Yin agreed once more. This was supposed to be a fight and not a sparring match, so they were polite enough by not ending every fight in an instant. Sure, the thought that they might be a bit too overconfident crossed his mind, but it soon disappeared. With how strong they had become, he doubted there was anyone their age in the world who could fight them on equal terms, much less the youngsters of Academy City’s Earth Quarters.

“Let’s not tell them, though,” Laien added with a chuckle. “We will ask Sebastian to measure time and let them figure out what’s going on. Of course, we won’t tell Sebastian or the instructors he’s supposed to bring, either,” he said with a playful look in his eyes. They would still have to figure out the non-combat parts of ‘encouraging’ those students, but that could be done on the fly.

Seeing that Yin didn’t appear to disagree as he simply returned to eating, Laien also returned his attention to the food. As he ate, he couldn’t help but think that he would miss the luxurious meals of the Ruishi Federation and Academy City once they started heading to the Eclipse Academy. Especially in recent days, after his body entered the realm of a magical beast, his appetite had grown exponentially. Whereas before that, he would be satisfied with one meal of decent quality a day if need be, he doubted he would find it pleasant to not eat at least one full-course meal a day. Of course, that meal would have to include the meat of strong magical beasts and other ingredients of the highest quality, but if so… then perhaps he should start saving money for food right away.

After an hour, at roughly nine in the morning, the two of them finished the last bits of their breakfast. As usual, per their new habit, they left the mansion to play with Bellicose and Arion. The games of tag and tugging with the war horses did for a nice exercise after eating, was fairly enjoyable, and most importantly, deepened their relationship with their mounts.

When the time of the duels was approaching, Laien and Yin gave their companions a few snacks and headed to the underground training space. The standard meals of the two horses were provided by Academy City and would, as they had later learned, be left in the designated space in the wall around the villa where a secondary stable had been built. Thanks to that, they could allow their two mounts to run around as they pleased and didn’t have to mind the small details. If anything, they had to give credit to whoever designed those villas with the residents’ privacy as the top priority.

The stairs towards the main complex of Training Quarters of Academy City were very straightforward, so it took them just a few minutes to get all the way down. Laien then used a bit of his spiritual energy to control the runic formation at the entrance and opened it, wondering if Sebastian and the rest weren’t already waiting for them. Yet the person who greeted them as soon as the two parts of the large stone doors disappeared into the walls turned out to be someone else.

“Hey,” the black-haired and black-eyed fourteen-year-old greeted with a bright smile. He stepped away from the wall he had been leaning against and walked up to them, saying, “I’ve heard from father before he left that your fights will be starting now. I hope you don’t mind me tagging along to watch? I kinda wanted to speak with you guys later too. Could we?” As he inquired so, he appeared just as energetic and carefree as the first time they had met him. At this moment, he spoke and behaved just like the bright second Prince of the Kingdom of Bolan everyone knew and spoiled.

Had Laien not been absolutely sure that he had seen a glint of darkness in Alexander’s eyes a week ago, he would have started second-guessing himself. The youth’s acting was so natural that he was tempted to treat him as a pushy and somewhat annoying little brother of Casimir’s, but something was telling him that if he did so, he would suffer for it dearly in the future.

“Sure, why not,” Laien said, an amiable yet obviously fake smile appearing on his face. “Who am I to refuse the spoiled prince?” he added with a cheerful laugh, all the while paying close attention to Alexander’s expression. To his disappointment, however, he failed to spot any anger or frustration on the youth’s face, seeing only the wry and a bit ashamed smile that one would expect the youth to react with. This much didn’t discourage Laien, though, the whim he had had a moment ago suddenly turning into a small goal to achieve: to make Alex’s façade crumble, even if only ever so slightly. He felt that doing so could serve to get back at Alex for putting up such a silly act in front of them, but more importantly, it would be amusing in its own way.

In a way, Laien wondered if he hadn’t already achieved this goal partially since Alex didn’t say anything even after his rude comment. However, when he recalled the shameless behaviour of this fourteen-year-old from their first meeting, with Alex acting as if he couldn’t read the atmosphere all that well, he reconsidered. Maybe not minding the shamelessness would be in tune with Alex’s bubbly personality, after all. This would make winning this little game against him much harder.

“Oh, you’re here!” Just as Laien was beginning to consider having a random chat with Alex to get to know his surface personality better, Sebastian’s loud voice started all three of them. “We’re a bit late. I hope you didn’t wait long,” he said while quickly approaching through the spacious corridor. The entrances to the ten Heaven’s Quarters mansions didn’t lead directly into the main Training Quarters but were instead connected to a separate half-private path. This way, those visiting Heaven’s Order students and those students themselves could move while drawing less attention.

“Seriously.” Sebastian continued speaking, his tone shifting into a slightly annoyed one. “I told them three days ago to figure out which two between twelve and fourteen years old would challenge you guys first, but when we came to fetch the contenders today, they still hadn’t settled it! Since neither they nor their instructors could come to an agreement, I had them draw sticks to decide the order,” he explained, sounding quite indignant towards the end. On the other hand, two of the four men following him wore ugly looks on their faces, both because of the indirect scolding they had just received from Sebastian and the utterly silly, random method Sebastian had chosen to use for the selection!

Those were Heaven’s Order Seats that were on the line! How could they accept that the chances to obtain them were basically decided on a lottery? This was unjust, unreasonable! It was enough that Sebastian had agreed to do a favour for Azuresky and Emeric and give their two new pupils some benefits, but how could he screw up the promotion process with a game, just like that?! What if someone undeserving happened to luck out and beat those ‘talents in the rough’, as the two Kings had supposedly described and gained a spot in the Heaven’s Quarters out of pure, bullcrap luck!

“Huh?” Sebastian repeatedly blinked, stopping a few meters away from the three youths. “Prince Alexander, you’re also here? Why haven’t I heard anything about it?” he asked, trying to sound casually worried. His acting wasn’t quite as good as the Second Prince’s, though, so Laien, Yin, and Alexander all noticed the slight trembling of his voice. Was he worried what his secret disciple was up to by getting himself involved with Laien and Yin? Did he worry about the consequences of such an explosive matchup of characters that was the one between Laien and Alex? The three wondered about the same thing, and while one of them was fairly unconcerned, the other two were secretly amused.

“I was curious, so I came,” Alexander explained with a carefree smile, greeting Sebastian, the four men, and two youths with a nod. “They said it was fine, so I’ll be tagging along~” he added, appearing to consider the matter settled. This caused Sebastian to grumble that his student truly no longer cared about his prestige, as those instructors, without knowing the whole picture, would assume that he was again being a pushover to Azuresky. In the end, however, he still couldn’t refuse Alex since he understood that the boy had his own goals to achieve by coming here. Thus, seeing Laien and Yin nod in confirmation, he could only sigh helplessly.

“Anyway,” Sebastian waved his hand, pretending to ignore Alex’s matter entirely. This made the two instructors who had previously kept their calm reveal weird looks, while the two men who had been frustrated now appeared as if they were beginning to doubt Sebastian’s sanity. “Those two on my right are the Martial Department Head and Spiritual Department Head of the Heaven’s Quarters. The two on my left are their vice-heads. The blond one is from Emeric’s faction while the dark one is from Azuresky’s,” Sebastian introduced in a light-hearted tone. Despite that, the two vice-heads’ faces distorted momentarily as they realized that Sebastian knew more than he was letting on.

When they joined Academy City, the deal was that they would no longer be in their original Kingdom’s factions and would go under Sebastian. However, they had naturally been secretly feeding information to Azuresky and Emeric during the last year and a half. They had thought they were careful enough to fool Sebastian and his people, but even if they hadn’t been caught red-handed, Sebastian wanted to remind them that they didn’t have his trust. This was akin to a bucket of cold water being poured on their heads, making the complaints they wanted to utter, get stuck in their throats. Needless to say, their faces simply weren’t thick enough to reprimand Sebastian for giving ground to Azuresky and Emeric while they were doing the same thing.

“Hah.” The man introduced as the Martial Department Head laughed, tired of the awkward mood. “It’s nice to finally meet you two in person,” he said, and after sweeping Laien and Yin with his gaze, he shifted his attention back to the former. “It was an impressive speech at the Burial Ceremony. The killing intent was quite something too. It would be a pity if our students underestimated you guys just because you got in here purely based on the two Kings’ recommendation,” he said and winked at Laien, then gave Yin a meaningful look, too. Knowing his old friend’s tendencies, he most likely hadn’t told those two what the official story of their enrolment became, so he wanted to at least give them a heads up. That being said, everything would become clear in just a moment anyway.

“Instructor must be joking,” one of the two youths, who up until now were quietly standing behind the five men, said disdainfully. “There’s no way that killing intent was that kid’s. Everyone agrees on that, even our teachers and instructors. It must have been the Warrior-King, King Emeric, or maybe Grand Yimar Mustafa using this opportunity to help hype up his little antics,” he declared confidently, to which the two vice-heads nodded in agreement. The Martial Head, however, snorted silently and didn’t bother to reply, instead giving Laien and Yin a ‘yeah, there’s that’ look.

“Well,” the black-haired vice-head joined in. “Since Warrior-King Azuresky wanted to do those two a favour, he and King Emeric probably decided to show them the immensity of Heaven and Earth by giving them this kind of deal. Once they lose to others their age, they will become more humble and hardworking. As for our Academy, if we think about it, the extent of involvement is merely moving up the promotions for the remaining spots in the Heaven’s Quarters a little bit,” he explained, going as far as to nod to himself, thinking that he was being very reasonable.

“Of course,” he continued quickly, worrying that his careless words might be interpreted as a slight to the two Kings’ judgement ability. “I’m sure those two boys do have a degree of talent fitting the Earth’s Quarters. They definitely are capable of beating some of you in duels, so you shouldn’t underestimate them. Give it your all and seize the Heaven’s Seats for yourselves. Show them our Academy’s glory!” he lectured, directing the latter half of his words to the two students. Seeing the two youths bow to him and thank him for the reminder, he felt gratified. He still wasn’t quite used to playing the role of an instructor yet, but he was happy to have thought all of this up on the fly.