Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 221. Expected Results.

“This seems… pointless.” Laien sighed inwardly. It had been roughly a minute since their duel began and he had been patient until then because of his fairly high expectations for John. Regrettably, no matter how much advantage and initiative he allowed John to seize, the youth refused to even try to use more advanced skills and attempt to finish him off. Objectively speaking it was a good tactic, but it showed Laien that his idea of the two two-minute blocks was flawed. Perhaps changing it up to seizing advantage but showing openings would be more beneficial, just like he had usually been doing when training with Mikaela? At the very least, resisting enough to show their opponents that they had to try harder if they wanted to win seemed more sensible from the perspective of time.

“Whatever,” Laien said out loud. Despite having spoken in a quiet voice, he was sure that John heard him, as the subtle change in the slightly older youth’s expression indicated. Unfortunately for John, before the delusion sprouting in his brain could take shape, just as a wry smile was beginning to form on his face, Laien stopped holding back so much. Consequently, the air around the two of them rumbled as Laien’s flooding aura ripped apart the will contained in the surrounding spiritual energy, robbing John of all and any control over his Guardian Magic. With the layer of frost that had gathered on Laien’s hands and forearms crumbling into nothingness, all before John’s wide-open eyes, Laien changed the movements of his body and spear, finally executing his Water Flow Spear Art.

As Laien’s aura flooded outwards, John ended up feeling as if he had fallen from a dream into a nightmare in but an instant. He had been holding the upper hand since the very beginning, steadily suppressing Laien magically and physically, but after Laien murmured that one word of depreciation, everything turned upside down. No matter how badly he strained himself and willed the surrounding natural energy to obey him, Laien’s residual aura was like a flame to paper, rendering his efforts meaningless. To make matters worse, he felt his own spiritual energy going out of control, suddenly feeling as if it no longer belonged to him. And finally, when Laien’s rippling aura shredded the last barriers around his body, John’s already pale face turned pure white.

He shook, and his muscles started spasming. His body, contrarily, was overcome with a wave of irresistible weakness. Despite being a practitioner at the Realm of Heroes’ cusp, he felt as if he was going to suffocate. He desperately tried to breathe in but couldn’t; he was paralyzed with awe and fear just like a small herbivore faced with its natural predator. With the sensation seeming to originate from his very soul, he was about to go mad. The awareness that he could be turned into a pile of bones and gore with but a thought from his opponent was too much for his mind to take.

Thankfully, this absolutely terrifying sensation went away almost as soon as it appeared, momentarily making John wonder if that experience hadn’t been just a hallucination. Yet, when the sword slash he was executing was somehow ‘engulfed and thrown’ by Laien’s spear, he shivered once more, adding another layer of cold sweat to his body. That movement of the spear seemed simple, but it was anything but. The biggest problem was that… he couldn’t understand it. Not at all. As reckless as he was, he wasn’t delusional. He didn’t want to accept it, but he immediately realized that Laien’s Spear Arts were at the very least at the Grandmaster level, if not even beyond it.

And yet, he couldn’t help but made excuses before himself. That he had been startled by the sudden surge of Laien’s aura; that it was all an accident; that it couldn’t have been real as it made no sense. However, he managed to disperse all those thoughts, in large part thanks due to the instinctual fear that was still lingering within his body and soul. Underestimating an enemy was still an acceptable mistake, but he would have had to be an utter fool not to recognize Mount Tai when it walked up and smacked him in the head after he had been courting death with it for quite a while.

“Come,” Laien said indifferently. “Fight like you mean it while you still have the time,” he added a few more words, seeing that John was too shaken to attack him at the moment. He was a bit worried that he had impatiently released too much of his strength and made the duel pointless, but fortunately, he soon saw John grit his teeth and tighten the grasp on his sword. With his Qi and spiritual energy surging wildly once more, John attacked, this time holding back nothing.

Thanks to the metaphorical bucket of cold water Laien had poured onto his head, John’s mentality towards the duel underwent a drastic change. He initially looked at Laien as someone weaker, someone who ought to be carefully suppressed to avoid unnecessary mistakes. Now, however, he dared not consider Laien as someone weaker than himself. Even if Laien could only pull off that one defensive manoeuvre at the Grandmaster level, that other ability to control water element was enough to kill him countless times over, without as much as giving him a chance to resist.

Naturally, the conclusion John arrived at was that he had to attack Laien with everything he had, do his best to seize even the smallest advantage and exploit it in hopes of Laien making a mistake. This mindset deeply conflicted with the pride deeply ingrained in his bones, but he forcefully suppressed the uncomfortable feeling. As a result, without him knowing it, his insights which had been for the most part stagnant for the last year grew more bountiful and started growing. New essences of Aspects emerged within his soul, and even his ability to use the water element began inching forward alongside the budding knowledge of the Principle of Energy.

As John rushed at him with his sword in hand, the sense of growing pressure caused a slight smile to return to Laien’s face. Finally, this duel went back to being somewhat amusing. “Let’s see what he can do. This time no holding back too much, though.” Laien chuckled self-depreciatingly. In a way, he was responsible for making the first minute of that duel boring by giving too much of an impression that he would fall in due time anyway. So, learning from this lesson, he shattered all the Guardian-based manipulations of John’s before they could hope to assume their form.

Much to Laien’s satisfaction, he saw that John didn’t lose his newfound cool just because his Guardian had been rendered powerless. He could sense the Qi in John’s body circulating in a manner very different from the one before when the older youth had been simply enhancing his bodily strength with it. Moreover, he could easily sense the surrounding spiritual energy fluctuations as half-silent words escaped John’s slightly open lips. Without a doubt, John was preparing to use a martial art and a magic spell in quick succession.

“Hm?” Suddenly intrigued, Laien unconsciously opened his eyes a little wider. “This flow of energy… It’s almost as if it’s not his,” he thought in realization. Lately, he hadn’t had the leisure of heart and mind to pay attention to the shifts in the state of Qi and spiritual energy of his enemies. Of course, he had sparred with Mikaela a lot, so it wasn’t that he hadn’t had opportunities to pay close attention to the a fellow water-element practitioner’s energy flow before, but this time something was different.

And, once John’s sword clashed and was once again swept sideways by his spear, Laien was able to confirm his suspicion. Admittedly, the attack itself was rather impressive for the standard of ordinary geniuses, but that was about as much praise as it could be given. Be it the curtain of water formed from the Qi that exploded outwards after the clash of their weapons or the subsequent freezing of it into hundreds of sharp ice shards, neither could possibly endanger him. All he had to do to defend was to swipe his spear once and smoothly twist his body while sidestepping, shattering a good half of the shards and moving out of the way of the remainder of the attack.

However, the key issue was that the important thing for Laien wasn’t the quality of the attack per se, but the ‘skills’ within the martial art and the spell which John shouldn’t have comprehended yet. Since John shouldn’t - or rather, certainly wasn’t - be capable of employing such insights, then where had they come from? How had he been able to manipulate his skill to take a form as it had and then move as it did? The answer was so obvious that most cultivators would scoff at it indifferently.

Be it martial techniques, spells, or any kind of ‘advancement-allowing’ skills, they all contained insights that practitioners could use without truly understating the principles behind them.

It was such an obvious thing it couldn’t have been more obvious to anyone who had learned a martial art or had ever been properly taught magic. Only Laien and Yin, who had never undergone standardized education and were freaks capable of instantly comprehending whatever abilities they came across, would be capable of forgetting this basic principle of cultivation. Admittedly, Laien himself ended up feeling somewhat embarrassed after he understood that his ‘eureka moment’ was akin to rediscovering the wheel, but he was pretty happy regardless. Had it not been for this timely reminder from today’s duel, they might have missed some opportunities to push their prowess and insights even further in the following months, before they arrived at the Eclipse Academy.

“Heh,” Laien chuckled self-mockingly, though he made sure not to show his emotions on his face. Baiting and aggravating John on purpose was one thing, but he’d have felt bad if his feelings were misunderstood, especially since John was finally giving his all instead of wasting their time. “I’d have remembered that martial techniques and spells are a shortcut for leaning the insights sooner or later, but it’s nice that it happened sooner rather than later,” he told himself. Meanwhile, he started wondering if they should ask Azuresky and Emeric to include some of those water-element and lightning-element skills in the rewards they were bound to get from their little deal-like bet.

“Probably yeah,” coming to such a conclusion, Laien smiled more brightly while fending off John’s repeated all-out onslaughts. Having finished his musings, he returned his attention to the duel and suppressed a wry smile. “Anyway, that’s why I told you that you’d be better off fighting Yin if you wanted to win. Even if I’m giving my best to restrain myself, I’d have to intentionally remove my defences for you to injure me with water-element abilities,” he thought absentmindedly. In the first place, unless there was a massive gap in their cultivation, he and Yin could easily dominate their elemental counterparts. There were likely very few people on the Starlight Continent who could put up a meaningful resistance against their Absolute Water and Heavenly Lightning cultivation bases.

Without it needing to be said, John wasn’t included in that group. For John to be hoping to beat him when his cultivation wasn’t even a full minor realm higher, and his insights were incomparably worse, wasn’t at the point of wishful thinking. It was close to an average person picking up a pebble by the roadside, throwing it at the wall of a castle, and waiting for the entire construction to collapse from the impact. It was so ludicrous one would have to wonder if the one trying hadn’t gone mad.

“Two minutes!” Fortunately for John, just as his reserves of Qi and spiritual energy were beginning to run dry, the Spiritual Department Head’s voice rang out loud and clear. This finally prompted Laien to shift into a more offensive style, resulting in John quickly finding himself grasping at straws under the frighteningly steady, stream-like suppression of Laien’s spear. Within seconds, John was forced to abandon all attempts at looking for openings in Laien’s attacks and had to thoroughly focus on defence just to keep up. However, in his desperate struggle, he continued to unwittingly advance his abilities as they were all polished by Laien’s attacks, much like a rusty sword by a grindstone.

On the other hand, this timing wasn’t quite as lucky for Ivan. With Yin improving his control over the deceitful, ghost-like movements, Ivan felt like crying for the first time in his life. The helplessness he was forced to endure every time he thought that the sword was about to pierce into his eye, slash at his thigh, or aim at his fingers, only for the reality to repeatedly prove him wrong, was the closes thing to despair he had ever experienced.

At first, it wasn’t so bad, with only his instincts sending him slight wrong signals from time to time, but as the two-minute mark approached, everything steadily transformed into a nightmare. By the time the Spiritual Department Head called out the time, he was beginning to see Yin’s figure blur with his eyes and no longer could even focus his gaze on Yin’s body. Whenever he attempted to do so, Yin would turn illusory in his eyes, becoming almost ghost-like. Then he would inevitably get wounded by a slash of one of Yin’s twin swords, adding another small wound to his collection.

The berserk-like attacks of his hit nothing but air and with his senses sending him wrong signals all the time, he had tripped over his own legs and fell down more times than he cared to count. The ferociousness he had shown early on was long since gone, exchanged by fear, awe, and more than anything else, helplessness. Before clashing swords with Yin, he had always thought that hard work and spirit would be enough to overcome the difference in talent. His efforts had never betrayed him in his life, and he could tell that those around him appreciated him for his attitude.

Alas, he was proven wrong. Against this emerald-haired youth, who was a few years younger than him, he felt absolutely powerless. Hard work? No matter how much he worked, he didn’t think he would ever reach a level necessary to see through Yin’s skill. Spirit and bravery? What did they matter if he didn’t even know where to swing his sword to attack or defend? He was no better than a blind beggar desperately swinging a stick in a dark alley, trying to purge the demons from his mind.

His desperation worsened all the more when, feeling that he had no other choice, he resorted to using martial techniques to try and hit Yin. It was all pointless. The small-scale, powerful techniques would miss by a mile, either by his mistake or due to Yin moving to dodge before he could even release them, without showing any signs of distress on his face. As for the large-scale attacks with his wind and earth, they proved to be too scattered to hit Yin in any meaningful way. A slash from a sword, a sidestep here and there, a jump and a leap; Yin avoided them all with little effort.

The vast reservoir of Ivan’s Qi bottomed out before the youth noticed, yet that reality only hit him when he tried to release another attack just for his body to cry out in pain. His Qi Origin trembled, his Qi Channels squelched as they were forcefully squeezed dry out of the remaining bits of Qi that flowed within them. Even his flesh and bones twisted, the Qi and even a little bit of life force within them leaving to fuel the recklessly attempted martial technique. Alas, as wasted as Ivan was, he inevitably lost control over the little bit of energy he had accidentally forced out of himself.

His vision first blurring, then growing dark for a moment, Ivan was overcome by a wave of powerlessness that spread throughout his body and, much worse, reached into the depths of his mind and soul. Having lost all strength, he fell to his knees, then with his innards twisting and throat clenching, he started coughing, throwing up one mouthful of blood after another. Perhaps it was just his imagination since he was in too much pain and was too weak, but he felt as if something ever darker than darkness appeared before his eyes for a split-second, then disappeared. Right afterwards, he shook powerfully and lost consciousness, falling face flat to the ground.

Soon after Ivan fell, John was similarly no longer able to hold on and had his sword smashed… no, as embarrassing as it was, it would be more appropriate to say that his sword had been flicked out of his own hand by Laien’s spear, ever so casually. Yet, once John found himself stumbling to his butt, his legs refusing to support him for a second longer, he strangely didn’t feel angry. When he raised his head and looked at Laien, who still had that confident smirk on his face, he didn’t grow mad either. Instead, he felt strangely refreshed and happy as even the way he looked at Laien ended up carrying genuine admiration and gratitude.

He was so exhausted that he would have liked better nothing but to lie down and fall asleep where he was, but he still forced his trembling hands up and them in a palm and a fist. Laughing weakly, he lowered his head, wishing that he could apologize to Laien for his behaviour. Alas, he felt his awareness slip the very second he let out that weak chuckle, and thus, he fainted with a smile on his face. Laien had made him mad before, but how could he not be happy? Those few minutes benefitted him ten times more than the last year of cultivation, so of course, he would be joyful.

“…”

“…”

“Wow.”

The eye of the Spiritual Department Head twitched when he heard Alexander’s quiet exclamation. What do you mean ‘wow’?! Was this all you have to say? How can you still be so calm after what we’d seen? He really wanted to shout all of that in Alexander’s face, but he was too speechless. No sounds were formed in his throat despite his lips moving a few times. He was shocked, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to be feeling beyond that mind-numbing surprise. Had the small hourglass in his hand not been such a rare item, he would have probably ended up crushing it from frustration. Alas, when the last few grains of sand fell through to its lower half, he ended up feeling that for some inexplicable reason the hourglass was making fun of him and snapped.

The crunching sound of the hourglass being squeezed into debris in the Spiritual Department Head’s hand woke the remaining four men out of their stupor. Subsequently, a peculiar scene of four men trying to swallow their saliva to discover that their mouths were dry as a desert, occurred.

However, it couldn’t be helped as the tip of the iceberg Laien and Yin had displayed was too huge, and the implications of what was still hiding below the surface were too severe. It was one thing to have heard about someone’s heaven-defying ability, it was another to see it with one’s own eyes. Thus, even Sebastian and is two Department Heads momentarily didn’t know what to do despite regaining the ability to think clearly. And, since the three of them were so shaken, it could be imagined what the two Vice-Heads’ mental state was like at this moment.

What prompted the five men to stop hesitating over and over was the scene of Laien lifting John up from the ground with a layer of water and heading towards Yin and Ivan. While even Sebastian couldn’t be sure about Alex’s actual abilities, the five adults present were could tell that John and Ivan’s lives weren’t in danger at any point in the duels. However, it was only when Laien’s and Yin’s expressions changed into more serious ones when they noticed that Ivan’s aura was fluctuating wildly. The youth had no strength left, and so the residual aura of his Qi was hard to perceive, so from those hundreds of meters away, they had to focus their senses to tell the difference.

Unlike Laien and Alexander, who both opted to walk towards Yin and Ivan at a reasonably fast pace, the five men rushed to them at high speed. A few seconds later, the five experts stood beside Ivan, carefully examining his state with their aura with worried looks on his faces. The Spiritual Department Head, a water-element spiritual master, continued to frown but didn’t attempt to heal Ivan’s wounds. After all, even an amateur would be able to tell that they weren’t the problem. Yin hadn’t attacked any vital areas and hadn’t given Ivan any deep wounds, so even though Ivan appeared to have suffered a backlash from his own Qi at the end and was further weakened as a result, he would recover on his own and grow stronger for the experience.

“Did he fail a breakthrough?” the Martial Department Vice-Head questioned, his stern gaze temporarily moving away from Ivan and brushing over Yin for half a second. Yet, he shook his head and sighed as soon as his eyes once again laid upon Ivan. Even if this kid was pressured by Yin so much that he panicked, he should have surrendered. He couldn’t blame Yin for applying too much pressure to Ivan; he could only blame Ivan for making the most foolish choice possible. To attempt a major breakthrough with little to no Qi left in one’s Qi Origin was synonymous to seeking death.

“That’s not it,” the Spiritual Department Head commented soon after Laien and Alex joined their group around Ivan’s unconscious body. “I’ve been teaching youngsters longer than any of you, and I’ve seen a few similar incidents before. They usually occur when someone, usually a younger practitioner, experiences an emotion so extreme they can’t bear with it. Be it fear, anger, or anything else, once they lose control of their emotions, their energy goes out of control to a varying degree. They usually get better after a period of rest, so everything should be alright,” he reassured or at least attempted to do so. There was no way, however, that those present wouldn’t notice the shadow lingering in the last few words of his explanation.

“Usually?” Sebastian inquired. He wanted to say more, to share his own guesses, but out of care for Ivan’s well-being, he waited for his old friend to explain first.

“Yes, usually,” the Spiritual Department Head said with a sigh. “To begin with, cases like this one are rare in itself. Then out of them, one in ten will end up being truly bad. When they do, however, there seems to be little chance of recovery. I’ve personally seen one such case and had after-incident contact with four more and all of those five never advanced in their cultivation again. Three of them died forcing a breakthrough, one of them regressed into a mortal, and the last one died in battle after he froze mid-attack for seemingly no reason at all,” he elaborated, trying to maintain a neutral tone throughout. Yet, when the future of a promising disciple of their Academy City was involved, he unavoidably couldn’t prevent some worry from seeping into his voice.

“Sounds like a Heart Demon,” Laien commented a few seconds after everyone fell into a grim silence. He then shrugged his shoulders when their attention focused on him and explained, “Yin learned a few things about Heart Demons in the past, and at a time, Jasmine talked about them with us, too. We’ve both had our own issues to overcome, so speaking from experience, Ivan should be fine. As far as first impressions go, I don’t think he’s someone who will obsess over facing an obstacle he will never be able to overcome, so once he calms down a bit, he should be good to go.”

Once Laien was done, the five men all wanted to smile or to thank him in some way for reassuring them, but Laien’s straightforwardness was a bit too much for them to handle. Forget him knowing about Heart Demons and disregarding his claim that he and Yin had something to do with them, the matter-of-fact manner in which he stated Yin’s superiority was a bitter pill to swallow. To think that one of their best disciples from the Earth’s Quarters would be traumatized by his duel with Yin to the point of potentially forming a Heart Demon… they really had no idea how to comment on that.