The evening came and they started to prepare for the final climb from the tower. Luck was with them and it was going to be another cloudy night.

“Let me put that Katana away till we get to others, then …” Nick began to say when YunYun shook her head and hugged her new weapon with both hands.

“No! You gave it to me and it will accompany me till the end!”

“YunYun, it might interfere with our movement, especially under the water …” He tried to reason.

“Don’t care, it’s my engagement gift and I’m not parting with it!” She shook her head and hugged the sword tighter.

Nick felt a sudden migraine coming – how stubborn can one girl be? He thought for a bit and found an easy solution.

“Alright, but you’ll have to put it in this meteorite ring. Agreed? You can keep it, so technically the sword is still with you.”

She tried to think of any argument against it, since she really didn’t want to let the sword out of her hands, but Nick’s logic was in a way foolproof.

“Fine!” She unwillingly agreed and took the ring he got from elder Ernest few days ago. He emptied it back at the Riverside inn thus now it was just an empty cubic meter of space.

“You know how to use it?” Nick asked just in case.

“Hmpf!” She snorted in return and Katana disappeared.

“Damn! The signal!” Nick noticed Steven turning on the second light. While they were arguing the time for the next guard shift already arrived, “Quickly, hug me!”

This time YunYun didn’t argue but glued on to him even hugging him with her legs. Nick climbed on the windowsill and suddenly got and idea. YunYun was lighter than the other girls he carried down until now and with the way she was holding him he felt almost like he didn’t carry anything at all.

“Wanna try out something fun?” He whispered.

“Uh huh.” She agreed.

“Hold on tight!” Nick whispered again and started to crawl down head first like a spider.

YunYun’s eyes widened in shock, but as Nick increased his speed she became more and more excited. This really was fun! But when Nick felt her hugging him tighter and tighter, he thought that she was afraid and was satisfied he had found a way to punish this stubborn girl, at least a little.

They got to the bottom of the wall almost in an instant and, when Nick repositioned himself, the way he did previously with the other girls to be able to protect her better under the water, he saw how her eyes shone with excitement.

‘Sigh, seems she enjoyed it as much as I did.’ He thought to himself. If one disregarded the dangerous part of their descent, it was really thrilling.

‘Fine, let’s cool her down a bit.’ He smiled and silently submerged them in the river.

But after a minute he understood that may be he was too cruel to her after all and couldn’t let her freeze like Beata, so he started to infuse his Qi in her. To his great surprise she replied while returning Qi back to him and in accelerated speed as well. There was no way for him to stop it or loudly reprimand her to not joke around, so, a little upset, he continued this cycle.

While minutes flew by, both of them started to loose the sense of reality. The feeling was just too amazing – they felt like they were floating in clouds and it was comfortable, warm and extremely intimate at the same time. But this intimacy wasn’t the primitive physical one that people normally enjoyed. Both felt like their souls united in some dance which like a whirlwind carried them higher and higher. The time seemed to stop and they just felt ...happiness!

“Nick! Nick! Are you alright?” Nick heard someone calling from somewhere far, far away.

‘Huh?’ Nick was confused for a moment, ‘Clayton? Clayton! The river! We are still in the water!’

He managed to forcefully wake up and noticed that they already passed his friend who was in the water up till his waist, then suddenly concentrated, leapt up on the surface and started running towards them.

“We’re fine.” Nick shouted back and tried to get up and carry YunYun to the shore, but she suddenly stood on her own while still hugging him and looking him in the eyes. Then kissed him on the lips and ran off to the shore by herself while splashing around water and loudly laughing.

Nick’s head was in a total mess. Not because of that kiss, but because of what happened during the last half an hour. They didn’t even notice how they floated down the river all the way out of the city and who knows how far would they have gone if not for Clayton waking him up! And she probably felt the same! And the feeling was incredible and he couldn’t wait to experience it again!

Realizing that, Nick fell in the water face down to calm himself.

‘It was just a Qi training, just a training! As long as I keep my hands to myself for three more years I can live with it!’ Nick tried to hypnotize himself.

Clayton threw a glance towards YunYun and then ran over, and pulled Nick out of the water like a wet kitten, “What happened?”

He sounded really worried.

“Sorry, I needed to calm down a bit, this whole thing was a bit mentally taxing. Go get Steven, I’ll check on Beata in a minute.” Nick replied feeling a little guilty.

“Beata is fine, your medicine worked wonders.” Clayton sighed with relief seeing his young friend was all right.

It would be no surprise if he hit his head on some rocks while floating all the way down here. Even for Qi master like himself it was dangerous, but this kid managed to do it four times.

“Alright, I’ll get Steven. Conny is loosing her mind without seeing him all this time.” Clayton said and sped off.

“Stay stealthy in the city!” Nick shouted and started to slowly climb out.

Then, before getting to the shore, he sat back in the water for few minutes and kept splashing water on his face over and over again. He didn’t know if it was helping, but at least he hoped it would. His heart was still beating wildly and there was no real way to calm it down in an instant.

But then he got an idea.

‘Let’s cook something delicious! They will be back in an hour and the girls have not eaten anything decent for over a month!’ Nick smiled and got out of the water.

In the distance YunYun was sitting on the shore waiting for him, still all wet.

“You were right.” She said when he approached, “Training with you is really fun!”

Then giggled and got up.

Few moments later they arrived at the small hut where the two princesses and Kate were already waiting. Seeing the duo arrive, they hugged the stunned YunYun and sobbed for a bit. They were dames of the capital after all and this experience was quite traumatizing. Seeing the sad and a bit awkward situation, Nick decided to lighten up the mood.

“We have a bit of time till the others come back. Do you want me to prepare something decent so we can finally eat a real food?”

Kate jumped up in joy and started to order everything that came in her mind, while Conny sat down near the door and kept looking through the gap in the darkness outside.

‘Sigh, it’ll probably take some time for them to become normal again.’ Nick thought to himself and started to cook a simple vegetable stew.

After ordering the whole ‘menu’, Kate actually didn’t expect Nick would cook all of it, but was simply looking forward to anything he made at the end. Seeing the confused YunYun at the side, she explained how Nick’s cooking alone could save the world.

Then, feeling that it was a bit exaggerated, Kate told in detail how he ‘invented’ a revolutionary ingredient and a new type of food everyone in capital was crazy about already for years. The magical ‘pizza’ was everyone’s favorite thing to feast on and any decent party was now held in one of the Meyer’s restaurants.

Seeing YunYun’s disbelief, Beata, who was still a bit pale, came to Kate’s help and confirmed her stories and told how Nick cooked for them and the whole ship during their trip as well.

“Why … why would you do that?” YunYun was almost disappointed in her fiance. He was an amazing Qi practitioner with an unlimited potential, but for some reason he was cooking for common sailors.

Nick looked back at her smiling while stirring the vegetables in pot.

“There are several reasons. I think you might guess one or two.” He smiled mysteriously, “Think, what do I like to do the most?”

“Training?” She immediately blurted out, but was confused again, “What does it have to do with training? Isn’t it easier to let the others cook while you practice meanwhile? Isn’t that just what old grannies do because they can’t do anything else?”

“You have a point there.” He nodded while still smiling. Then thought for a bit, “You have unique sensitivity towards Qi, come, put your hand on mine and try to feel what am I doing here.”

She came closer and put her palm on his that was holding the ladle. After a minute her eyes lit up.

“But why? Why are you infusing your Qi in the food? Isn’t that just a waste?”

“Alright, I can give you a full explanation then. It will be a bit long and may be boring, do you still want to hear?” He added few spices while still stirring.

“Of course!” She had seen his skills and was confident that there had to be a good reason for him doing even this.

“Ok, then listen.” Nick got serious and collected his thoughts. In fact, he never summarized all of this to himself either, just piled one useful thing on the top of other, “Do you understand what are we made of? I mean – our bodies.”

YunYun froze for a second and prepared to give the obvious answer.

“Exactly, the food!” Nick answered in her stead, “That means, the food we eat is crucial to our development and directly influences the development of our skills and abilities as well. Think of it, the poor people are thin and weak because they have bad quality food, but the rich have rosy and fat cheeks that show the high quality of their meals, especially if they eat the meat of high ranked beasts. But I got this idea to take this principle one step further – what if I infuse the food with Qi directly – it will make my growing body much stronger and will increase my potential.”

The four girls were listening to this explanation and, even if it sounded logical, it was something others never talked about. Usually people wanted better quality food because of its taste.

“You see,” Nick continued, “I am not as talented as you are and have to find any other advantage that I can. While preparing the food this way, I raise its quality and make it more beneficial for me. The other reason you already guessed.”

“Training?” YunYun asked.

“Exactly!” He nodded, “While I am doing something that is beneficial for me, in addition I am practicing my Qi control. Look at it like this – when we use a weapon and infuse Qi in it, it does require some level of control, but the difficulty is increased if I have to do it with a low quality ladle like this and even have to transfer Qi into stew like I do it now. Of course, a lot if it is wasted, but the food is still becoming richer and it instinctively tastes better to any living thing, including us.”

“But then you waste more Qi than you get back from food.” YunYun understood what he meant, but there were loopholes in his theory.

“Yes and no.” Nick smiled back. “Why is it that the Qi masters never really run out of Qi and only have to recover for a while? The nature of Qi is to replenish on its own in our Dantian according to the amount we initially have there. The whole Qi practice is a method of alternating laws of nature and to ‘cheat it’ in a way that the increased amount of Qi in our bodies always is the ‘initial maximal amount’ and it naturally will replenish itself after we spend it.”

“But!” He seriously looked at YunYun and continued, “We can’t indefinitely cheat the nature and at some point we have to become Qi masters – the Qi will condense in our Dantian and we will not be able to increase it after, at least not noticeably.”