During the following days, everyone continued their practice. The only new addition was Clayton teaching the girls how to act as young males.

It is hard to describe the deep disgust they showed when they had to learn the bearing alone, but when they had a lesson of lecherous topics that inevitably come up between drunk men, none of the seven even knew where to look or where to put their hands in embarrassment.

“Do you really act and think like that?” Conny in panic asked her husband.

“Conny! How could you ask me this!” Steven played the ‘sad card’ and seemed to be deeply disappointed, “It’s just how random drunkards act and speak. We might mix with simpletons on our way and Clayton wants you to be prepared to not get discovered because of a moment of shock.”

“You see,” Clayton came to help out the young husband as well, “despite what some women say, not all men are the same. Think of it – is your father or grandfather like that? They are people of an excellent upbringing and so is Steven.”

Conny almost calmed down, when Beata thought out loud, “Hmm, but father has four wives, may be he is a bit lecherous.”

“Is it a tradition in Mainland to have many wives?” YunYun asked nervously while blushing.

“It is, but mostly in the royal family and may be in some aristocratic families. My father has two wives, while uncle Clayton only has one.” Kate replied.

“So you also want to follow this tradition as well?” YunYun was almost in panic when she asked Nick.

The latter looked her in confusion, “Why would I? Of course, I understand why this tradition could exist, but I think it is more important to find someone you love and spend your life taking care of each other. I don’t believe a person has enough place in their heart for many partners and even less time for that.”

“I think Nick is right.” Conny agreed. She had already calmed down and gently caressed Steven’s hand, “Our royal father has all kinds of problems because of his several wives. Of course, the other queens are nice to us, but I think he has a lot of stress and can’t really deal with it. I am not sure, but I think few of his marriages were politically arranged as well.”

“Sigh.” Nick heavily sighed and looked like was conflicted with something.

“What’s the matter?” YunYun asked.

“Well, I’m not really sure how to put it.” He answered, “I understand that in this world it is fine to arrange the marriage of couples when they are young, but … but I think it is wrong to choose the destiny of a person when he or she is still a child. You can choose their education, but to choose the person they have to spend their life with is … way too much.”

“Why? The family can be very safe and stable from the start that way. Both people have time to get to know each other beforehand as well.” Kate was confused. It was planned for her to get married when she came back from the Eastern continent. Only this ‘little detour’ had postponed the event.

“I understand all of that.” Nick tried to explain his opinion in ways that wouldn’t insult his friends and their beliefs. In fact, even in 21st century tens of thousands of people every year got married in a similar fashion, “Please don’t take it the wrong way. I respect your choices and traditions as well. I probably think my way only because I do not want such life.”

“Then … then what life do you want.” YunYun was already blushed, but now became confused. In her mind she had chosen her man and the marriage was set in stone. There was only one way it could go.

“I …” Nick looked at the river in the distance, “I want to travel the world, explore and learn all its wonders and I want the person I love to come with me.”

She got a little surprised seeing this side of him for the first time, then smiled and nodded, “Alright!”

Nick was startled for a second and then understood her meaning. Laughing he pinched her nose just to receive a kick on his butt in return. A second later they fell in the water while wrestling and tense atmosphere was gone just like that. Laughter accompanied the rest of their day as well. The original topic was brought up the next day, but this time it didn’t spoil their moods.

They also finally men the first civilized people in days – three canoes with two people in each were paddling upstream. After exchanging the greetings they learned that these were merchants who traded with the jungle tribes. Turns out the group had passed several jungle villages which were on the riverbank, just hidden behind the trees. Aborigines definitely saw them, but since they didn’t know the newcomers, they stayed hidden on their guard defensively.

Two days later they really arrived at a small jungle town named Susha. It was mostly a trade post for hunters and the surrounding villages, but the only real route from it was down the river to Beliz. They already decided to not stay here, thus Nick quickly arranged the boats and provision. The rest stayed back to not create any unnecessary slip-ups.

Nick didn’t chat much with the locals who tried to squeeze every bit of information out of him and only spoke regarding the trade deals. But when he learned the price for the beast cores in town, after consulting with Clayton, he bought almost everything that was available. He even managed to gather two large chests full of cores and as a bonus servants carried those to their newly acquired boats. The core prices were not even one tenth of what they were in Aurora and Nick simply couldn't resist but to buy despite cleaning up the pirate warehouse one month ago in addition to the few chests in the emperor’s wristband.

Finally they left the town and started their way to Beliz. But not even an hour passed when they got surrounded by five quick canoes that came from Susha. Every canoe had three men inside who probably hoped for a quick and easy income. Out of these seven people, only one was a real grownup and two bold ones looked like children while the rest were just green youths.

“Excuse us, please!” A man from one of the boats shouted, “It is really dangerous out here and we would like to offer you our help and guard those two chests with the beast cores while you are on your way to Beliz.”

The rest of the amateur bandits laughed and giggled at the ‘elegant’ words of their leader.

“Kill?” YunYun whispered.

“Nah, just scare them.” Nick smiled back.

When the men saw Nick, Clayton and YunYun slowly standing up, their leader shouted again.

“Don’t be panicked, we won’t harm you! We are gentlemen after all!”

But the next part almost made him choke.

The older man and one of the bold kids dashed in a lightning speed over the water towards the surrounding boats while the other baldy jumped up high and a second later landed on one of the canoes slashing it in two with his sword. Meanwhile the older guy and the first baldy broke two of the canoes each and went back to their boat with the small guy grabbing his friend even before he got his feet wet.

The whole process lasted two, may be three seconds and the fifteen men were already swimming, their faces full of shock.

“Qi masters!” Their leader shouted in panic, “Sorry, we are sorry!”

“Don’t do something so stupid again.” Nick smiled and waved towards them.

Actually their companions were not less shocked at this whole situation. While Steven was already expecting this, for the three girls it was the first time seeing their group in a real fighting action. And these guys were strong! No wonder they braved into the capital of a foreign country to save them.

To lessen the stress from the unpleasant encounter, short time later they stopped to have a meal.

“Uff! I was so scared! Our boat almost turned over!” Beata exclaimed sitting next to Kate. She was in one boat with Nick and YunYun while others shared the second.

“Sorry.” YunYun said embarrassed.

“Actually I expected for you to jump towards the boat right behind us. That way our boat would have been propelled forward a bit and not sway from side to side.” Nick analyzed their cooperation, “But I must say, you really are a genius. You were able to hold above the water already for half a second. Back then it took almost two months for me to accomplish that.”

“You two are like wild bald beasts!” Clayton laughed and then continued in more serious voice, “But I think we have to think of some defensive and offensive strategies. This situation was caused by the greed of few people and might repeat in the future.”

“But we can just avoid buying anything valuable.” Conny was confused.

“No.” Clayton shook his head, “These people might have attacked us even if we only bought a glass of water. Sometimes greed has no limits.”

“We should’ve just killed them!” YunYun was displeased.

“Again, no.” Clayton replied, “Nick analyzed correctly – killing fifteen people near such small town can cause too much of commotion, even if we did it in self defense. On the other hand this bunch will be too embarrassed to tell anyone what happened and the event will remain secret at least for a while.”

After the meal they continued on their way, but this time they kept boats side by side and discussed the best strategies in case of attack, defense on both water and on land. The three ‘flowers of Aurora’ started to understand the necessity of their training even more, because every strategy others devised revolved around protecting them. They were only young ladies and it was normal for people to protect them, but this was absolutely different situation from those they were normally in.

Luckily there were no unpleasant incidents during the next days. The river got wider while more and more smaller and bigger brooks and even some rivers joined it, at the same time the jungle villages became more common as well.

“Sharks?” One day Clayton suddenly shouted out in shock while pulling out his sword.

“No! Don’t hurt them!” Nick immediately tried to stop his friend.

The seas in this world had sharks, but from the king White’s books he learned that, possibly, this river was the only place in the world where dolphins could be seen. He knew the Amazon had two types of freshwater dolphins and one of those were in an amazing pink color. The ones Clayton noticed were not so fascinating, but their characteristics according to the description remained the same.

“They are friendly water animals.” Nick explained, “Lets see if they play around, may be we can see them even jumping out of the water at some point.”

“They do look like sharks.” Clayton remained skeptical.

“You only saw the fins on their backs. Trust me, these are friendly animals. There are even records of them saving humans in need.” Nick unconsciously added the last part from his old memories, but no one could prove him wrong, so it didn’t matter much.

Everyone was intrigued from this conversation and started to carefully observe the waters. From time to time they did manage to see a fin or two, but that was it. Soon girls lost their interest, but Nick froze in realization. Dolphins are great, but what if some other inhabitants here were similar to those in the Amazon river?

In a light panic he started to go through the books he had and didn’t pay attention to the annoyed YunYun who now had to paddle alone.