Silence enveloped the throne room. King did his best to hold back laughter while Hua continued to caress Zia’s head with a proud smile.

Prince was stupefied. Wasn’t she looking at him affectionately just a moment ago? Or was this just an act to not let him think she was easy to get?

“I am sure I can prove to princess I am strong enough!” Prince still could hold himself together. Royal education was clearly showing.

“Ye, right. In a few years when I grow up I’ll just go to the Eastern continent and grab a few stronger men to be my husbands. If you learn how to cook, I might take you in as well.” Princess wasn’t holding back at all. For some reason she despised him from the bottom of her heart.

This time prince lost his ability to speak, ‘Grab a few? Learn how to cook? What was going on?’

King looked at his queen his face painted in question marks, but she just shrugged. Although this answer was impressive, there was no need to murder the young prince with such heavy words.

In her own motherland, Lethe kingdom, matriarchy was popular and the strong women occasionally took two or three husbands. But she had no idea her daughter had this knowledge.

“My dear, it is fine to stab a man with your sword, but you shouldn’t stab him to death with your words.” She said to Zia while everyone around was listening, “Although my homeland has tradition of matriarchy, we are now women of the Sun kingdom, therefore we shouldn’t really take more than one husband.”

King’s expression turned a bit weird – it sounded as if the queen has taken him for the spouse and not the other way around. Only both of them knew how hard and bloody that challenge was back then so he could conquer her, but despite her loss, she still kept her dominating nature after all these years. And even their daughter was growing up to be the same as her mother.

“If you want to shoo him away,” Hua continued to teach her while still smiling, “do it with your sword.”

“Alright, I’ll beat him up with a sword then.” Zia seriously nodded.

Everyone was stupefied. This mother daughter pair was quite something. And most importantly there was no room for any arguments.

“Zia, but you never trained in the sword before. From what I know you never even held one in your hands.” King tried to save her daughter from embarrassing herself.

“Right, then we will fight seven days later!” Zia smiled to her father in appreciation.

Her thoughts were simple – her father just saved her dignity and gave her a little time to prepare. What a great father!

But prince felt as if he was paralyzed. She was going to beat him up? And has never trained in sword? He was already sixteen and has been practicing sword for years. Then suddenly he saw a light at the end of a tunnel – there was a chance! It was obvious that royal pair were helping him to win their daughter’s heart!

“I would gladly agree to exchange pointers with princess Zia. And if I win you would agree to marry me, right?” He gracefully said and smiled.

It was a cheap trick and any angry or arrogant child would fall for it. King already was shaking his head trying to think of a way to get his daughter out of it, but things were not meant to go that way.

“So you just want to beat up a small girl? Beat her up till she submits into becoming your wife?” Zia stood up angrily. Thank god Nick warned her! She knew this guy was a pervert, but never thought he would fall this low!

“No, I …” Prince got confused again. What did he say wrong?

“We can fight, I will beat you up, but there won’t be any talks about marriage!” Zia stated, “See you in seven days!”

And then quickly left. She had no time and had to train hard! And there was only one person she trusted to train her.

“My apologies, prince Taio. Zia has always been like that. Probably if you have spent a little time with her earlier you wouldn’t have come to propose today.” King tried to ease the situation.

“Thank you, your majesty. It’s fine. Since she is a descendant of the Lethe kingdom, it is just normal that I have to prove myself to her. I think it is even better this way.” Prince already recovered his elegance and replied while smiling.

His idea was simple and probably would work in most cases – he would gracefully win over her and at the same time win her heart. Unfortunately he had no idea how deeply Zia already hated him. She hated any pervert that would want to hurt a little girl, in this case – her.

“Do you think she’ll be ok?” King asked Hua when the delegation left.

“Whose daughter is she?” Queen laughed back, “Even if she looses the fight, she won’t like that boy. Looks like she honestly thinks he is a pervert and in some ways she might be right.”

“Sigh, I know you don’t like the tradition of arranged marriages. I haven’t arranged any marriage for my girls and I don’t intend to, you know that. If all of them will be as happy as Cira, I’ll be satisfied.” King shook his head.

“You don’t have to worry about your youngest one, I feel she really might choose a man on her own terms some day, hahaha!” Queen heartily laughed while hugging her husband. Once again king felt as if she brought him back home and not the other way around.

While her parents were not particularly worried, Zia was not as calm herself.

After hearing the whole story, Nick laughed a bit, but then said, “May be it is really time for you to pick up the sword? How many books have you read up until now? Hundreds, thousands? Do you have some style in mind you want to use as basis to create your own technique?”

Nick was convinced that every Qi practitioner or master had to create his own techniques and fighting style which suited them the best. Based on this theory Nick developed the fourth Qi technique and was creating Wakizashi style as well. Unfortunately he was unable to improve other Qi techniques and the meditation technique even less so. May be it will become possible after he became a real Qi master, but there was still a long way to go.

“I want to learn my mother’s sword first, I think I’ll like it. It seems beautiful and graceful technique and later on I can improve it.” Zia said without thinking much.

During these years she already gained some understanding and studied the copy of her father’s commentaries on queen Hua’s style a lot. King described that as the most beautiful swordplay in the world and it was more than enough to convince Zia to learn it.

“Alright, do that. But first, let’s focus on this match. You won’t be able to compete with him in the sword techniques anyway. He is already sixteen, more experienced and much stronger physically.” Nick changed the subject.

“Then how do I win?” Zia asked in confusion.

“With speed, of course, hahaha! What do you think we have trained all these years.” Nick laughed back and then continued, “If I am not wrong, he will think of you as a total beginner and will try to win beautifully with some elegant move. Therefore, if you don’t recognize something he does, you just fall back.”

“I have to run away?” Zia pouted. After insulting that pervert, running away would be the last thing she wanted to do.

“No. You retreat couple of steps so he wouldn’t be able to reach you and counterattack when you recognize his next move or the one after that. I think it shouldn’t be that hard. Ling, may we have a moment of your time please? We have a small question that requires your expertise.”

Last two sentences Nick shouted out louder. During the years he practiced with Zia there were many occasions where they had difficulties or were confused. With time he learned to ask Ling for help. The man didn’t like to talk, but usually didn’t refuse his help either. This time he came over as well.

“Do I understand correctly that the two basic sword moves are slash and stab and, if Zia wants to beat the prince, she just has to counter one of those effectively enough?” Nick asked.

Ling thought for a moment, “Yes, you can put it that way. That is, if she is not caught in any complicated techniques.”

“My theory is that all she has to do is to evade anything she does not recognize and counter strike a simpler slash or a stab.” Nick explained.

“That might work.” Ling thought while toughing his chin, then nodded and slowly went away again.

Some time ago he stopped to ‘impressively’ appear near both of them because Nick once teased him that they already could discern his movements – ‘teleportation’ effect was there no more. Therefore he just came and went as a normal person, except for the fact that he was mostly hidden somewhere nearby to protect the little princess.

“Alright, now we have to settle your duties and then get us some help.” Nick smiled. Seeing Zia’s questioning gaze, he explained, “You still have to meet the young talents you invited to the palace yesterday and then we need someone who can help us with your training. I can think of many things, but I have never practiced the sword, you know? And, by the way, there is a perfect candidate for this.” He grinned at the end.

They went back to the palace to meet youths from Olympic games. Surprisingly not only those from the poor families showed up, even most of aristocrats came. Since they were short on time, Nick just explained, that princess is looking for loyal people to serve the kingdom and may be even her personally in the future if they could prove themselves worthy. He gave them a task to go back home and think of what would they want to achieve in the following years and what position they would like to see themselves in. In addition they could suggest possible training methods or goals and my be even carrier routes they could take. Basically it was a medieval motivation letter they had to write, except it would be an oral report that they had to make ten days later.

In case they didn’t want to work with princess, they should just say so and it was possible they would be contacted by his majesty’s representative at a later day.

There was a weird look on the faces of the young athletes when a kid who was head shorter than them seriously held a lecture, but seeing their doubtful faces, Nick took out the seal the king gave him. Result was better than he imagined – all the young aristocrats gasped in shock, many even taking a step back. The youths from common backgrounds didn’t have this reaction, but looking at their peers they understood that what they saw was something really important and impressive.

Already before they broke in the treasury, Nick clarified the worth and meaning of this silvery seal and his reaction was pretty much the same the aristocratic youths had today. He couldn’t believe king would grant a child almost unlimited command within the kingdom, in fact, no one could.

After they left the stunned youths, they visited the Nola kingdom’s residence. Prince Andrew and the rest of the delegation were about to leave in next few days, but it was immediately postponed when he heard Nick’s request.