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Chapter 11: I Love Peace I

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He took one last deep break, and he kept it in for a while before exhaling. Val then opened his eyes and stood up.

He woke up about an hour before that and directly started his deep meditation, and he couldn't help but notice the difference between practicing at home and most other locations.

When practicing in prison before, he noticed that the Ether variants were quite chaotic and scattered, making absorbing them that much harder.

In here however, the Ether variants are peaceful and calm with very little movement. They're also very dense to the point where he deemed that practicing here is ten times easier and more beneficial.

That's another benefit that attracts talents to the powers of this world. The concept called Ether formations, a set of complex runes and shapes designed specifically to produce a certain effect in the ether.

Val practiced until he reached his limits as his body entered the integration state.

He then started his second part of meditation, just normal meditation. Inhale, Exhale, and so on for five minutes.

"Hmm, the room needs some changes." He looked at the simple room with a large white bed, a desk at the far side of the room, and a small side table next to the bed.

The only thing even slightly interesting about this room is its window, giving a wonderful view of all of the castle's surroundings, including the massive city far away.

The view was fabulous, especially since his quarters are on the fourth castle floor. His brothers also live on the same floor while his father has the whole fifth floor for himself.

Speaking of his brothers, he found himself meeting one of them right as he started heading to the lower floor.

He came back home yesterday, and he headed straight to his room, so it's his first time meeting any of them.

His brother from another mother looked quite different from him. He has crimson hair falling to his shoulders and black eyes, and he seemed strangely attached to the color red as all of his clothes are of that color.

He is the anomaly of the family of calm people as the moment he saw him, an excited smile surfaced on his face.

"Vall! You're back!" He then basically jumped at him with his arms extended as if he wants to hug him.

That's a sort of ritual of his, hugging all of his brothers even though none of them are close to each other.

Well, except for the two eldest, they're basically always together due to their special circumstances.

Val easily evaded the hug and jumped back even further, keeping a safe distance. He frowned and instructed his clumsy brother, "You reek of alcohol, go clean yourself up. Most importantly, the sun has yet to rise, and you're drinking? Or did you sleep like that?"

Rhys was stunned at the unexpected turns of events, happening right before his eyes as he ignored all of his brother's questions. His eyes even began to tear up as he spoke.

"Y-you can speak??????" Excuse his exaggerated speech because the previous Val spoke no more than ten thousand words his entire life and paid little to no attention to any one of his family.

So Val here has a lot of things to discover for himself because he noticed an ever more absurd thing. The previous Val spoke more words to prostitutes than his dear brothers.

Val just shook his head and continued on his way to the third floor, ignoring his meatball of overreactions of a brother. 'Now that I think about it, that description suits him quite a bit, he's quite the meathead after all.'

Val made his way to the dining table, passing by several servants who gave him either curious glance or ones of recognition.

He paid them no heed as he opened the large door to the massive dining table. Yet, as massive as it is, all he could see within is a small six-seater table with five chairs around it.

As always, there will always be a servant in the dining room, waiting for orders, and Val gave one interrupting the servant's usual formal manner of bowing, "Call Louis for me."

The servant still bowed and responded, "Right away, young master... Also, welcome back."

Val nodded and took a seat until the head butler arrived as he found him standing right next to him.

The previous Val never cared about formalities or stature, well, he cared about very few things, and perhaps Louis was one of them. in fact, he talked to him more than his father, so that says a lot.

"Let's see, give me the third-floor library key back and all my other stuff. Also, since father wanted me to train my skills, prepare someone for me who won't waste my time, the best if possible."

Val instructed before wondering to himself, "Did I forget something? Hmm, Oh right, instruct someone to redecorate my room to be a bit more colorful. I find it quite tasteless, almost like a prison cell."

"Though tell them not to overdo it, black, white, purple would be enough, red would also be welcomed."

'So many words.' Thought Louis to himself though he hid whatever emotions he's feeling and respectfully bowed, something he hasn't done in a long time, he did so now just to show his heartfelt emotions.

"I'm glad you're back, young master."

Those words meant more than what's shown as what he wanted to truly say was, 'I'm glad you're finally a bit more normal.'

After the servant came back, he instructed him to bring him breakfast. He ate slowly and was soon joined by Rhys, who sat opposite to him and just kept looking at him.

Val closed his eyes, put down the spoon, and the knife, then said, "Can you stop being weird? You're seriously driving me to go back to how I was. I won't have to deal with so much annoyance that way."

His choice of words was perfect as that got him exactly what he wanted. Rhys nodded hurriedly before acting as normally as possible.

'Hmm, a bit naive, almost like a child despite being in his late twenties. Hmm, does he act that way to hide his emotions or to bring life to this family, to make it what deems a normal family? Oh well...'

It wasn't long before Louis came back, bringing Val's stuff with him. He handed it all to him before saying, "Young master, Karstro shall be responsible for your training. You can use the Hexagnal to contact him though he said you can only train with him in the morning. Also, his number is 4."

Val nodded and stood up while picking up the artifact called Hexagnal. A hexagonal flat blue ember engraved with similarly hexagnal inscriptions.

This is the most widely used communication artifact due to its inexpensive price and simplicity. That also comes with a shortcoming, it can only send signals with no clear message.

Within the hexagnal inscriptions were several numbers, each referring to another hexagnal.

You see, the hexagnals are ordered as a set connected together to allow communication only with each other, without the risk of any other artifact receiving that signal.

Of course, the artifact is used by certain forces in such a way as to allow detailed communication.

When one sends a signal towards another connected artifact, for example, Karstro at that moment received a signal which made his hexagnal vibrate a bit and a certain number in the artifact flash.

That number is Val's number which is 75. People use that to send signals in a certain order to form words. A certain number of subsequent signals form a word or general meaning. (Similar to Morse Code)

Val headed straight to Kastrov's training location after sending the signal. The castle walls are extremely vast, giving plenty of space within those walls to the point where most of it remain vacant to this day.

Val walked in the direction of one of the massive buildings within. That's the location of the Blood Legion, a specialized legion trained personally by Alvion and Karstro.

From afar, he could already see thousands of them training, either simple training like running, mock battles, etc. Or specialized training in weapon arts and ether arts.

The closer he got, the more overwhelming the scent of blood was. He could even see blood blades flying everywhere and several similar blood arts being performed everywhere.

The metallic dummies were being decimated, their defense seemingly unexistent against most blood arts, sure it takes time but in the end, they all share the same fate.

Supervising them was none other than Karstro, the blood legion's leader. A simple glance can determine what kind of person he is, to a certain extent, a cold and strict man.

His hair was his most striking feature as it's prominently white, the same as his skin which appears to be bloodless. His eyes similar to Alvion is crimson for the same reason.

He was like a ghost, scary and cold. That's the plausible reason why no one in the blood legion would likely never think of betrayal and their undeniable obedience to him.

Val walked up and stood beside him, then...