In the dining hall there was an eerie silence with Rogun standing in front of the table and deeply sighing while Sheina and Shalmoon looked at him with confusion.

After some time, Shalmoon addressed his teacher.

“Explain yourself… What is the matter? What happened?”

Rogun started waving his hands not knowing where to start and looking guiltily at Sheina he pushed his left hand over his beard, then his forehead and finally it went over his hair to behind his head.

“The boy is a genius.” He finally let out.

Shalmoon smiled but was still confused. Sheina had a look that said, ‘I told you so.’

“Actually Jorgun was a genius. The boy is a monstrous genius.” Rogun continued.

“Jorgun’s talent pales in comparison and his was one in a thousand. I don’t even know how to describe him.” Rogun continued while breathing heavily.

“What gave you that conclusion?” Shalmoon asked with disbelief.

“I gave him a book from the inheritance a friend left me. He was a very well-known spear master. You might have heard of him by his moniker Shadow spear. This late friend asked me to find a successor for his family's spear art after all of his lineage died. I gave the same book to all the new recruits in the fortress over the last five harvests. The best of them only made the same progress as the kid after three months. The kid did it in one afternoon. His learning ability is monstrous. I have not seen anything like it ever.” Rogun explained.

Shalmoon was all smiles and Sheina was turning her head away from Rogun waiting for her father to realize the other part.

“So where exactly is the problem?” Shalmoon finally came to the crux of the matter.

As Rogun was hesitating Sheina turned to Shalmoon and said, “He beat the living daylights out of him while he should have thought him.”

Shalmoon was flabbergasted. “You what? Why?”

“The kid was even cockier than you were. But at least he has a reason to be cocky. Damn it had I known.” Rogun said while waving his hands in helplessness.

“How bad was it?” Shalmoon turned to Sheina and asked.

Sheina thought about and replied, “The physical harm Roberts sustained was not bad. He had him over his knee and spanked him so hard I could hear it from the front yard while yelling do you respect me now. Roberts told him to do unspeakable things to a monkey and that he is a gray monkey, so he continued to beat him. I think psychological harm is the biggest problem. Rogun destroyed any feeling of safety and loyalty he might have gotten from us in the last few days. I already owed him for saving my life and I even introduced him to such an unreliable teacher.”

“Was it as she says?” Shalmoon asked.

Rogun, feeling ashamed, replied, “Yes. But you have to understand the kid told me he learned to fluently do the basic swordsmanship moves people don’t get proficient in after years of practice in four days. Four freaking days. Could you believe that? Could anyone? And he said he learned it from a book. I was sure he was lying to my face then, so I confronted him to show me that book. He went and got it and showed it in my face and then I lost it when he told me I have to earn his respect.”

Shalmoon shaking his head only said, “What?”

“He said respect is something you earn. It is not something that is given freely.” Rogun said while gnashing his teeth.

“So you spanked him to earn his respect.” Shalmoon facepalmed as he was saying this.

“And now you don’t know what to do because the kid turned out to be telling you the truth and you basically went with the preconception of him being a liar and based all your actions on the preconception. No wonder he was getting annoyed with you. I could already see the start of this fiasco at the breakfast table but I thought you had enough experience to handle a 12-year-old.”

Shalmoon let out a sigh after raising his voice at Rogun.

“I have enough experience to handle one hundred 12-year-olds but zero experience in handling a monstrous genius like him.” Rogun yelled back.

“You were warned. I told you he learns really fast and you ignored me.” Sheina interjected.

“You were talking about language. That is something else entirely. But this. He learned to combine the early movements almost seamlessly. If he continues at this pace tomorrow, he will master the first book. It’s too scary to think that such geniuses exist.” Rogun shook his head.

“Anyway, how do you plan to resolve this issue?” Shalmoon asked, looking at Rogun.

“I was planning to apologize to him in front of you two, but he is not here and hopefully he accepts it. I also plan on giving him all I can in the next two weeks that I am allowed to stay here.” Rogun said dejectedly.

“He skipped lunch and dinner probably because he doesn’t want to sit with a sore behind after the thrashing you gave him.” Sheina said pouting.

“Can you talk to him?” Shalmoon said, while Rogun looked at Sheina with expectation.

“I will try. I was not really gentle with him either after the incident, so I don’t know how he will feel about me asking him to trust you...” She said and let out a sigh.

Meanwhile, Harrison walked out of the mansion and meditated on the way. Nobody stopped him, and he went out of the town and reached the underwear marker before disappearing into the woods.

Walking along the markers he found the way to the little waterfall without any problems and was finally able to relieve his biggest concern of the day.

If Shalmoon and Rogun knew what the most pressing matter for him was they would facepalm themselves and Sheina would die from embarrassment. .

Harrison was well aware why he got smacked on his behind, but he was not really psychologically hurt from it. He was angry first but upon introspection he knew he had partly himself to blame and took it in stride.

He took one shitty healing potion and quickly disappeared into the thickets.

As he left the woods after defecating he jumped into the small creak leading from the pool.

‘Ah, finally. I would die doing this in the mansion. Even the memory of the smell makes me feel like retching.’ Harrison shuddered as he thought about it.

Cleaning himself off he went back to the little cave and started a fire.

He checked his energy and it was at four units. Luckily with all the meditation he was doing he progressed to level 7 which in the short run felt like a curse but in the long run would be a blessing. To get spearmanship to level six from level one he spent twenty units of energy. To get meditation from level five to level seven he spent another 13. In between this massive energy consumption was the masochist skill which went from level one to level seven and took 27 energy points automatically.

Luckily he was getting energy a lot faster now than in the beginning. The process was a lot slower when he was not sitting down, or he was multitasking but it was still a lot faster than in the beginning.

As soon as he had enough energy, a skill he already memorized would automatically use it up. The masochist and spearmanship skills were still waiting for enough energy. According to the not enough energy messages he got every time they upgraded he believed they were still not finished upgrading.

He took out some more roasted ferun and the batch of clothes he used for sleeping as he decided to spend the night in the cave. The darkness already crept upon the woods, and he didn’t feel comfortable walking to the town alone. Especially now that he knew what kind of fauna he could meet in these woods.

The trauma he suffered from the beating had disappeared along with his bloated stomach after drinking the healing potion, so he could once again lie down on his back.

He started meditating again before he dozed off.

In the meantime there was panic at the Donaron mansion.

Sheina made her way to Harrison’s room after dinner and after receiving no reply after knocking on his door she entered his room only to find him gone. After looking for him around the estate she asked the guards, and she was informed by them that he left hours ago.

Her heart was racing as she frantically ran looking for her father and Rogun asking herself if Harrison left for good.

By the time she found them she was already crying with an unfamiliar anxious feeling stabbing her insides. She ran into her father’s arms while sobbing.

“He is gone.” She uttered before fainting.

Shalmoon could only hold her up and stared at Rogun while doing so.

Rogun knew what it meant even without hearing it and promptly left.

‘You screwed it up, you fix it,’ was the meaning he understood from the angry stare.