William had learned many things in his second and third life. How magic works, how to fight with a staff, and somewhat how to interact with people. Many of these were learned through failure. In his third life, he had learned how to use ki, and obtained personal experience that not all families were good. One thing he was becoming more clear on the longer he lived was that there were certain confrontations that couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t be backed down from. This was the choice that he made upon noticing Yu Chao waiting for them outside of their rooms one day. Yu Chao couldn’t have been around for any other reason than them. Their rooms were out of the way, so there wasn’t any other reason for him to be nearby. “I’ll handle this, Big Sister,” William said as they walked around the corner, into Yu Chao’s sight.

Yu Chao strolled toward them, trying to act as if he had just been walking by, but it took him a few moments to start moving. “Yu Li. I see you’ve been attempting to train again. I hope you know you’ll never amount to anything with your talent. Actually-” Yu Chao stopped approaching, because William was standing directly in front of him. “Move out of my way, brat.”

“You’re not allowed to talk to my sister like that,” William stated, glaring at Yu Chao’s much taller form, “In fact, you’re not allowed to talk to her at all. She doesn’t talk with trash.”

William’s provocative words garnered the exact reaction he expected from a young bully. It was really too easy. A punch came straight toward his head. William could easily dodge it, of course. He had plenty of time. However, he didn’t. Instead, it hit him directly in the face, with a loud thud. Truth be told, William wasn’t any good at fighting with his fists. He’d been in a couple fistfights in his previous life, and learned how to throw a proper punch training with the knights, and that was it. Thus, William didn’t think he could keep proper footing if he dodged. So he didn’t.

The fist impacted his face with a thump. That was it. There was no further reaction. William didn’t move. On the inside, he had wanted to dodge, even though he knew… that he could stop the attack with a layer of protective ki. William wouldn’t have been so confident if Yu Chao had attacked with ki as well, but just a normal punch from a twelve year old child didn’t have the strength to defeat William’s ki. Then, William threw a punch. He at least knew how to throw a proper right straight, unlike his improvised uppercut in the previous encounter. In addition, William used significantly less ki in his attack this time. Less ki, but Yu Chao still folded over like a chair… or bent like a bow, since folding chairs didn’t really exist in William’s current world.

William had now learned to sense ki. He could easily recognize Elder Shaozu and Big Sister. William had sensed various levels of strength from people he met around the Yu household. He even recognized Yu Chao from a distance… but not from too far away. This was because Yu Chao was weak. There was a reason he was at the bottom of the barrel of those who used ki. His talent wasn’t any better than Big Sister. It was just that Big Sister felt pressure to not practice, since she wasn’t good and was female, while Yu Chao got the opposite. This wasn’t all bad for Big Sister, since it really would have been a waste of her time. It was also a waste of time for Yu Chao.

William rolled over Yu Chao’s groaning body with his foot, then leaned down to talk in his ear. “Just because you don’t have talent doesn’t mean nobody else does, even if it doesn’t look like they do. For your sake, I hope nobody finds out you lost to a six year old.” Then, William dragged Yu Chao around the corner out of the siblings’ hallway. “We don’t need to look at this kind of guy, Big Sister.” William grinned. Big Sister just shook her head and faintly smiled.

William couldn’t say that what he did was entirely fair. For one thing, William was over a century old, and not six. Even if you counted the time he had been training in ki… although he had been doing a terrible job in his second life, he still managed to train somewhat over twenty years. Somehow, that had transferred over to this life. Perhaps ki was attached to the soul? In fact, William had started with a greater collection of ki than Yu Chao had now. Now that he could control it decently, he had an unfair advantage in training time, even if some of his previous training had been less effective than even a halfhearted attempt.

Hopefully, Yu Chao would keep quiet and not cause trouble for a while. William didn’t think his troubles would be over, however. As he grew older, his presence in the family would become more obvious, and people would start noticing him. Likewise, Big Sister was already older, so she would have her own troubles to deal with. Still, the family wasn’t completely full of terrible people. Elder Shaozu was quite helpful, and William had his eyes on a few others who would by sympathetic. In addition, there were some others among the younger generation that could use their own allies. It would, however, be hard to convince them that William and Big Sister were helpful, without showing all of their cards. William might do well, since he would appear like a genius, but that could also backfire, since he was currently ostracised. Big Sister would have no real way to explain how she learned magic, however, so her abilities being found out would have very unpredictable, but almost certainly negative, results.