Chapter 27 – Prelude to the Storm

Aiden was again walking around the streets of the town of Cali.

It was already for Aiden a routine to walk every morning around the town to buy the daily needs and ingredients necessary in the house. Normally, Lia write a list for Aiden with the things necessary during the day and Aiden uses it to go at the marketplace and the different stores.

The afternoon when Aiden had the strange epiphany was already two days ago, and from then he had been unable of activate the saber manifestation again.

Despite it, Aiden felt the power of his saber arts increasing by leaps and bounds from then, and his saber intent became even purer with every day.

Aiden was even surer that he could breakthrough to the realm of saber manifestation at any moment, however he was unable of taking that step no matter what.

It made Aiden feel incredibly depressed. The feeling was like a starved man seeing a luxurious banquet and being unable of eat it.

For Aiden, who is unable of cultivate, breaking through his saber arts represent one of the few means he had to improve his combat strength, so he is even eager to breakthrough through it than most peoples.

After all, going from saber intent to saber manifestation represent a qualitative change in the nature of the martial arts.

Different from cultivation, martial arts proficiency is divided in four levels. They are intent, manifestation, domain and soul. In theory, proficiency in martial arts is completely unrelated with the power of cultivation and even a mortal could reach to the level of martial domain or martial soul. In reality however, only people who dedicate all of their efforts to understand a fighting style are able of having a progress in it, and normally only cultivators had the drive to do something like it.

Currently, only three people in the entire continent are known for comprehending a type of martial soul, and two of them are spirit emperors.

Based in it, it can be understood the difficulty of advancing through martial cultivation. Actually, only powerhouses at the spirit sage stage, already able of flight, are normally the ones able of comprehending a kind of martial manifestation, so for Aiden to touch the boundary of this realm could only be called freakish.

So, at the end, Aiden can only leave it to fate. After all, for things like martial arts, a moment of inspiration is many times more valuable than years of practice.

Perhaps, one morning he will awaken and discover he is already able of saber manifestation.

After thinking about it, Aiden continued following his path and browsing around the stalls in the path.

Seeing a few interesting things, Aiden decided to buy it and went to get some coins from his pouch.

But at that moment, a commotion sounded in the surroundings.

Hearing the sound of a stall being destroyed and a little girl crying, Aiden paused his actions and turned to look what was happening.

In a corner of the street, a group of people was surrounding a stall and whispering between them while pointing to something.

Feeling curious, Aiden walked towards them and heard even more sobs coming from the middle of the commotion.

Opening the way with his hands, Aiden searched for the origin of the commotion only for a wave of rage attack his mind.

Crouched in the ground, a little girl of around ten years was crying and trying pick the apples scattered on the ground while a pair of youths were smirking and kicking a stall that was already destroyed.

The girl was desperately suppressing her tears and doing her best to grab every apple on the ground only for the pair of youth smirk and kick the apples away, apparently enjoying her suffering.

According to the words of the surrounding people, the pair were the servants of a powerful young master that visited the city recently. Apparently, they were doing an errand for his young master when they decided to buy a pair of apples from the girl.

The thing is, the apples supposedly were wrong, so the pair of servants were enraged and began to cause destruction.

Aiden frowned deeply after hearing it and observed carefully. In that moment, he received another surprise.

The pair of youth that supposedly were servants both had a cultivation of the late core-forming stage, and though Aiden wasn’t able of determinate if they had spirits, they obviously had training using weapons based in the swords in their waists.

Aiden could no help but imagine the strength of their young master if the servants were already so powerful.

Seeing the situation and the people in the surroundings not intending to help, probably in fear of the youths’ background, Aiden hesitated for a moment before deciding help.

But in the moment when he was about interfere, he remembered the words of the old man.

According the old man, troubles were coming to the town and he advise him to maintain himself the farthest possible from them. Thinking about it, these peoples were probably related to it.

Wavering temporally between helping or not, Aiden finally clenched his teeth and walked towards the scene while thinking that the old man certainly knew him well.

“Hey, you two! stop with it!”

Hearing someone interrupting them, the two servants ceased his actions before turning and looking towards Aiden.

Gauging Aiden appearance and noticing he was dressed shabbily, one of them sneered and said provocatively: “Hmph, and who do you think you are? Go away and don’t interfere with the affairs of our young master.”

Aiden frowned hearing the young man, but remembering the words of the old man, he suppressed his rage and tried compromise.

“Two lords, she is a little girl. Though she sold you a defective product, I doubt it was her intention. Why don’t you forgive her already?”

Hearing his words, one of the servants sneered even more and asked.

“And why would I?”

Aiden frowned even more, but tried to suppress his rage to avoid making it worse. He took a gold coin out from his pouch and throw it towards them.

“Could you two take it like compensation and leave the little girl alone?”

The two servants were surprised with the gold coin before smiling with awkward faces. One of them, hearing Aiden’s words, thought of withdrawing and not making the matter worse, but the other, seeing it, stopped him with his hand before looking toward Aiden and speaking provocatively.

“Beg me.”

The expression of Aiden darkened seeing the taunting look in the servant face. Then, sighing exasperatedly, he smiled wryly as if the dark expression of before was a lie.

“The old man said I will be involved in troubles sooner or later, but even I didn’t think it would be this soon.”

Then, taking a step forward, he appeared before the sneering servant and throw a punch.

The young servant didn’t think that Aiden would attack. That combined with them underestimating Aiden after not seeing any weapon in his body, caused that neither of the servants were able of react before the attack.

The punch impacted against the face of the servant and the impact of it sent him flying. The other servant, seeing the state of his companion, unsheathed a sword from his wait and spoke enraged.

“You… How do you dare to attack us!?”

Aiden only shook his head before the other servant and spoke calmly.

“He is only unconscious, don’t worry. I advise you to take you companion from here and scram, I don’t want to have to fight you.”

The young man hesitated for a moment before gritting his teeth. Then, he said threateningly.

“Shut up! How do you dare to insult us!? Apologize and slap yourself ten times and I will let you go!”

Hearing it, Aiden sighed.

“Since that is so, then let’s fight.” Aiden shook his head again and spoke with a calm tone while adjusting his posture. Though he didn’t have his saber, he doubted he was unable of dealing with a single servant at the late core-forming stage.

But in the moment when they were just about to fight, a voice resounded.

“You two! Stop!”