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Chapter 12: I Love Peace II

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Val walked up and stood beside him, then just stood there in silence.

Karstro gave a few more instructions to his men before he paid attention to the calm Val.

"I believe you trained in swordsmanship and other close-range combat. And before you can cast ether arts, that's all I can teach you until you reach a satisfactory mastery."

The middle-aged man spoke in his usual emotionless tone. The Helious family is special that way, very few of its people show any formality, even against the head's children.

In front of Alvion however, it's a completely different matter. In fact, he was the one to set such rules for some specific purposes.

"No, I changed my mind. I had a lot of time to think for the past few months, and I decided to train in archery." Val shook his head before responding to him.

Karstro raised his brows at that and questioned, "Oh? Why the change of mind? You know that blood arts shine best when in close-range combat, right?"

Val didn't even bat an eye and answered as if his answer was prepared long beforehand.

"I think it's unlikely for my aspect to be blood. My brothers should be an example of that. Also, I think blood is disgusting. I'd rather not have any close contact with it. And even if my aspect is blood, I'll just specialize in long-ranged blood arts."

Suddenly, everyone that's close enough to hear their conversation froze as if they've heard an absolute blasphemy to their god. Cold sweat was flowing down their back.

"You think... Blood is disgusting??" The only one that had little to no reaction to those words was Karstro. His emotionless eyes landed at Val's inky eyes.

A strange look surfaced in Val's eyes as he eyed Karstro from top to bottom and questioned, "You don't?"

Kastro looked intently at his friend's son for a few seconds before turning his attention.

"I'm quite bad at long-range weapons, so go to your elder brothers. They've been training in archery for years. When you can cast ether arts, come to me."

And just like that, he just sent what he considered an absolute heretic to someone else.

Val shrugged his shoulders, not wanting to stay in such a place either.

He considers it one of the most revolting places he ever set foot on.

'It's not like I have anything against blood, and to be fair, blood can be beautiful... If looked at from afar.'

Val made his way towards the two eldest brothers' usual spot while wondering to himself.

'I won't actually have blood aspect, right? Why do I feel like I will? I guess I should go with the other method no matter how low its success rate is.'

Val went back to the castle and headed directly to the third floor.

Then he made his way to a specific secluded room with a large metallic double door, engraved with a large hexagonally shaped inscription.

Val brought the door key from his pocket and inserted it into the keyhole, thus opening pandora's box.

It was actually just a small library with two people within. It had two small bookshelves with no more than fifty books.

Not far from the shelves was a rectangular table with several comfy chairs surrounding it.

The two people were his eldest brothers. One of them has long black hair, sky blue eyes, and seems to be a bit skinny, that however doesn't take one bit of his handsomeness.

The other one needn't be described because he looks exactly the same, they are twins after all.

In fact, the entire Helious family is a collection of beautiful people, provided there are only five people in it.

Alvion for some reason carefully cherry-picked their mothers, and this was the result.

Val gave each of them a glance before looking at one of them and nodding, "Nious." Then he looked at the other, "Noah. Long time no see."

To say their surprise was immeasurable was an understatement though not because of his change but an entirely different reason.

They have the same hair, the same eyes, the same build, even the same clothes, so they couldn't help but wonder, "How did you know?"

Even when sometimes, people get it right, it's usually by chance. He on the other hand seemed to figure it out after looking at them for a bit.

"Don't mind the details." Val for some reason chose not to answer and started looking through the bookshelves.

'Yeah. it's probably just a lucky guess.' They both thought at the same time.

He picked up a few books before joining the twins at the table. He found them already back to their usual business which is reading books.

They're the polar opposite of Rhys. While he spends most of his time in physical training, they spend most of their time in the library.

"By the way, I'll be training with you in archery starting from tomorrow, if that's okay with you two." Said Val, gaining the twins' full attention.

However, they still agreed without any question. They're people of few words, "Okay, just don't be annoying and it's not going to be a problem. We start our training approximately at sunset."

Val couldn't help but raise his brows and questioned, "Oh? Why sunset?"

"We start with a warmup and by the time of nightfall, we do some more challenging exercise... Night makes it even more challenging."

"I see." Val nodded at that, and he could certainly see more benefits to such practice, for the masters in the field of course. He's still a newbie so that might be a bit too challenging.

'Well, I should be okay. I was a master of gunmanship so it shouldn't be too much harder than that.'

Val then turned his attention to the stack of books before him. He picked the one he wanted to start with, 'Ether Seeker fundamentals.'

He opened it and started reading through it. The old Val did read this book but he paid the most attention to the first two phases and skipped through the other two.

Right from the start, the book introduces the concept of ether seeking which is the first sequence for seekers.

As a sequence, it's naturally divided into several phases with those being: Deep meditation. Soul Curtain Awakening. Output Runes. Aspect Seed.

It's a linear process with each phase making the next one possible.

Deep meditation allows one to interact with the ether and absorb it thus making one's body more ressistant and familiar with the ether.

Since the relationship between the soul and the body are synchronized, once one of the two benefits, it also brings benefits to the other thus making one's soul stronger.

That makes a seeker's control over the ether better and better thus they become able to control the ether in their meditation state to perform a certain movement which allows one's soul curtain to awaken.

Of course, the vaster one's soul curtain the more control one needs to awaken it and get conscious control over it.

The awakening is a bit complicated as it involves unknown concepts none in this world has ever figured out.

Scholars all around the world have been researching them since the disappearance of the ancient gods, to no avail.

In fact, no one really knows why they were even called that way. Well, except for one that is, Spiral Curtains which is named that way simply because seekers need to move the ether within the soul curtain in a spiral movement.

Though why it has that certain effect remains unknown. Spiral curtains excel at offense and defense and other related fields.

They naturally fail at some other fields such as reconnaissance and stealth. Those are fields where elliptical Curtains excel.

They have better ether control and perception than Spiral curtains while the latter have better ether output.

The last Soul curtain type is called Lenticular Curtains. This type is quite special as it's basically the combination of the previous two types.

However, this type is special because it takes the advantages of both without the disadvantages.

The previous Val had the last type, making him special, thus why Alvion put a lot of focus on him and one of the reasons why he took such extreme measures.

The current Val is a completely different soul, meaning a completely different soul curtain thus why his curtain is vaster than the previous Val, he still has the same type of curtain though.

It's quite easy to find out one's curtain type. When a seeker enters deep meditation, the ether within their soul curtain moves at an incredibly slow rate.

If one observes that tendency for a long time, they'll be able to determine their curtain type through an already mapped out process and knowledge left by the ancient gods.

Strangely, that movement is nothing like the three curtain types. Scholars researched those tendencies for ages and always came to the same conclusion.

That movement leads to the same paths as the three types but is nowhere near as optimal, in fact, they're incomparable.

The new curtain types and movements seem to be a result of advancement. It's almost like... Well, that's a story for another time.