Braiten let his thoughts drift, but was soon interrupted by the feeling of being observed. Just as he was about to open his eyes, he felt two pairs of extremely tiny feet land on his left thigh, and another two pairs landing on each of his shoulders.

Then, one of the beings spoke with a voice that tinkled like a bell, “This Human’s aura is so pretty.”

“Shhh! Quiet, or you’ll wake him up!” A slightly deeper, but masculine sounding voice sounded out, as he felt one of pair of legs shift towards the other on his left thigh.

“Why do we have to be so sneaky? This Human seems to be quite harmonious with the beasts of the forest.” A lilting voice questioned and commented beside Braiten’s left ear.

A tiny foot stamped on Braiten’s thigh, and the same deeper voice scolded, “Hibiscus, you can’t be trusting Humans! They have betrayed both our kind and their benefactors in the past, and deserve to be treated with constant suspicion!”

While all this was happening, the being on Braiten’s right shoulder was constantly poking his right cheek. Curiosity beamed from that very being’s beautiful sapphire eyes.

Braiten did not want to disturb the curious individuals, seeing as they did not mean any harm. If they belonged to the race that he thought they were, it was better to let them get accustomed to his presence and let them initiate conversation instead of being the one to initiate it. Of course, if he has other connections to these people, he can take the initiative instead. It seems they also followed some customs from his previous world by being named after flowers that only immortals knew.

After more poking, prodding, curious eyes and one of them impatient tapping its toe, the deeper sounding individual muttered, “Seriously, how can this be? His qi aura is so pure. His features also match that family… It’s been millennia since the Celestine family has disappeared due to those traitors…”

At that mutter, Braiten was so surprised that he let out an involuntary jerk, which startled the small beings and caused them to flee and hide. Braiten quickly stood up, sensed their location with mana and turned towards them. Surprisingly, out of the four presences, one of them blended in with the natural mana very well. If it were not for Braiten’s precise mana perception, he would never have found the minute differences between the presence and the mana in the air.

In accordance to the Faerie customs that he had learnt in his previous world, he touched his middle three fingers of his right hand to his lower belly, closed his eyes and bowed in their direction and spoke, “Excuse me, I am Braiten Celestine, son of Ingram and Amellia Celestine. May I know who you are, friends?”

The four creatures’ eyes widened at Braiten’s words. They came out of hiding and started circling around Braiten before the most senior one among the rest stopped in front of Braiten’s face.

The being with the deeper voice sounded out, “Brat of the Celestine brats. You seem to know our old customs. However, you’re supposed to touch your left hand to your upper belly now, not your right and not the lower belly. Your grandparents probably taught you all of that, right? Did they tell you of their close relationship with the forest people? Uh… never mind that, open your eyes and let me show you how our greeting is done.”

Braiten opened his eyes to see a tiny person in front of him. That person looked like a battle-hardened warrior with greyish-blue skin. He had two bat-like wings flapping behind him to keep him afloat and had two tiny horns on his head. This man was of the Imp denomination of the Faerie race. More mischievous than harmful, they are often mistaken for little wicked beings by other races. However, they were one of the protectors of the Faerie race. They often used strategic pranks to wreck their enemy’s logistics and morale. Despite their size, they were fast and could carry out their covert attacks over such a wide distance that a small platoon of imps could completely sever a whole country’s supply system.

Making sure that Braiten had his eyes on him, the Imp sharply placed his left hand on his upper abdomen, slightly below his heart and bowed extremely gracefully, which contrasted with that intimidating look of his.

Braiten imitated the Imp as he observed his surroundings. Circling around him were three beautiful miniature female figures. One was an Imp, while the other two were similarly small, but had small bird-like wings behind them and no horns. These two are of the rare denominations of the Faerie race. They were Peri.

Peri served as royal messengers amongst the Faeries. They were much, much faster and agile than imps but possessed a very kind disposition. Back in Braiten’s old world, they doubled as highly skilled scouts in wars. They could easily cover long distances, ahead of time and act as a cartographer to observe the lay of land and provide an advantage for the faeries.

It was amazing how the many different denominations of Faeries all worked together without discrimination. They were very aware of their varying traits, but embraced the differences instead of rejecting the variety like other races. In fact, the Faeries highly respected what other denominations were able to do when their own could not. Therefore, the Faeries back in Braiten’s old world were never to be trifled with.

The male Imp gave a snort of approval, as he looked at Braiten’s changed posture. He flew closer towards Braiten and started studying him from different angles.

“Shimmering blue hair. Clear, sky blue eyes. Delicate features as which runs in the of all Celestine’s. Frail looking body, but that’s because your cultivation is too weak to learn your family martial arts. Hmm… oh! Where are my manners when I was just preaching about customs? Lift your head, brat,” the male Imp gathered himself and gave a Faerie greeting of his own.

The male Imp introduced himself as Gladiolus. Then, he introduced the other Faeries one by one. First up was Wisteria, the female Imp. The two Peri were named Hibiscus and Daisy.

Wisteria looked like an elegant, calm beauty. She had a rather expressionless face, but her eyes held a steadfast look. Hibiscus, befitting of her name, looked like a delicate beauty. While Daisy constantly cast curious, innocent gazes everywhere, as if there was always something new to look at.

After the introduction was made, Braiten could not hold back his curiosity and asked about his family circumstances, starting with who his grandparents were. However, when the question came out, Gladiolus had a hesitant look on his face. Braiten could feel Gladiolus probing his cultivation level again and had seemed as if he was deciding whether to divulge some sort of secret.

With a minute of deliberation, Gladiolus shook his head.

“Brat, I can’t help you there. Your cultivation is still too low to know of your family history. I am guessing that is also the reason why your parents kept your family history a secret from you. Know that the Celestine family is known as the greatest enemy of the entire Human race that was said to have perished in the great war several millennia ago. This history is lost to your race, but is passed down in other races as a huge lesson.

Outside of the Celestine family, no other Human is to be trusted. Your lineage was responsible for the rise of the entire Human race. They created so many cultivation methods and dispersed it among your people. They created powerful martial arts and spread it so as to allow your race to gain the power to protect themselves. However, these same people were the ones who took those weapons and pointed it back at the Celestine family in greed and envy.

This is all I can tell you of your family at the moment. Seeing as you don’t know of your grandparents, your family must be in dire straits,” Gladiolus solemnly answered Braiten.

Disgruntled by this reply, but undaunted, Braiten questioned further, “how much stronger do I need to be to become worthy of the information?”

However, Gladiolus could on shrug. He mentioned that > would be the key to that knowledge. Once cultivation deviation has occurred, that is when Braiten is worthy of knowing. All that Gladiolus knew beyond Braiten’s knowledge of > was that it followed a different path than his did at some point. Then, Gladiolus went over the cultivation levels of stronger cultivation methods. There was beginner, then intermediate, followed by advanced, which Braiten already knew. The expert cultivation tier comes after advanced cultivation. After that, there is the flesh, mind and spirit cultivation tiers. Gladiolus was of the hundredth level of spirit cultivation but he did not know of what tier comes after that.

After all of the explanations, the conversation steered onto a lighter note. Braiten spoke of his experiences of his family, their parting, and his eventual journey throughout this continent. The four Faeries listened attentively. The three females paid more attention to Braiten’s recent adventures in Aermagh which was notably more exciting than his hundred years of wandering. However, Gladiolus nodded several times at Braiten’s prudence in those hundred years.

The sudden separation would have made anyone foolish with grief, and may let the Celestine family name slip. That could lead to that person being hunted down by the hidden ancient elders of the Human race. However, Braiten managed to keep a relatively cool head and chose to quietly look for clues to his family by himself while observing the type of society that existed around him. Of course, Gladiolus did not say a thing as it was still too early for Braiten to know of this.

Braiten was also very lucky that the Human race was unable to sense other people’s cultivations from a distance. They were one of the few races that had a horrible qi-sensing capability. If they wanted to accurately probe for another human’s cultivation or qi quality, they had to have direct contact with the individual. Therefore, Braiten was able to mingle among the Humans for so long without being discovered by any enemies.

The conversation between Braiten and the Faeries eventually moved on from his experiences to the forest and its beings. Braiten wanted to make his way deeper until he reaches the outskirts of the inner forest danger zone. Going there partially blind to the creatures that existed there was nothing short of foolish, and the knowledge would definitely save him from more than a few troubles.

From there, the conversation then steered to a wide variety of topics. There was a bit of Faerie history, which for some reason, gave Braiten a familiar feeling. There was a bit of Faerie culture and its changes throughout the years, and there was much lighter conversation about Gladiolus and his mischievous youth.

The other three Faeries were not poor conversational partners either. They shared a bit of their circumstances as well. They were actually Gladiolus’ trainees, charged with looking after this sanctuary, as other Faeries looked after other pockets of peace. It turned out that the Faeries took turns to ensure that the beasts of the forest always had a place to go to for relaxation without the stresses of wild life. Each race may have their specialty, but they still worked together for shared duties such as these.

The Faeries were tasked with preventing Humans from entering or finding these sanctuaries. They were the culprits of the “spirited away” phenomenon that happened in the forests. Faeries were quite hostile towards Humans due to history. However, so far, Braiten has been an exception because of his friendly attitude towards the beasts, and the fact that his qi aura was so pure and harmonious with the heavens itself. Word had quickly spread amongst the Faeries when Braiten had stepped into his first sanctuary. That a Human had such a unique aura and gentle attitude towards the beasts was something that made many Faeries curious.

Eventually, twilight faded to dusk and then night. The four Faeries were totally exhausted from the lengthy conversation, but seemed satisfied. On the other hand, Braiten’s initial mental exhaustion before the Faeries disturbed him was completely blown away. His mind was sharp from organizing the new information that he had obtained. Talkative company had done a lot to alleviate the stress from the parting a month ago.

Braiten let the Faeries rest in silence, as he practiced >. As he did so, he manipulated mana into the basic runes of each element and gathered them in front of him. He did this so that he could study the way each element interacted with each other in much greater detail than he has already known. He had found that this was the most effective way to speed up his cultivation right now. The runes quickly formed and gathered in front of him. When he was about to start his observations, he heard a gasp from beside him and a tiny but firm hand gripped his shoulder.

===

Author’s notes and replies:

Thank you guys for your continued support of this fiction and the positive comments. I wanted to introduce a new concept here, but the chapter was becoming too much information heavy. There is, however, a hint to that new concept in this chapter. I wonder if you guys can see it. *wink wink*

I’m glad you replied, archetypenecro. I did not need to go through the extra mile in this chapter because of that. I had actually had a rough idea of how to craft this chapter should you not have understood my explanations, though it would take a longer time to craft this chappie should it have been done in that way.

Ashurh, dialogue doesn’t help too much in world-building, but it sure does liven up a story and helps greatly with developing characters (: . The ten-year time skip did not occur as you expected, but there’s going to be some important things that will be happening during the upcoming ten years of Braiten’s journey.

Scotlandforscythe, this will not take 50 chapters to complete the 10 years. I promise not to drag the upcoming arc for too long. Braiten will be learning a lot and will be polishing his covert magic fighting style in his journey.