‘Wait! May be I’m looking at this the wrong way all along. I came to this world at the age of twenty, so basically I’m not that much older than her. The most important thing is for her to reach adulthood so the child’s dreams and passions can mature or may be disappear. She looks at me as her peer, but I’m trying to push her away all the time, because I’m playing a grownup of the 21st century even though I was a youth there! If … if we feel the same way after few years ... we can see how it goes.’ Nick had sudden realization. May be he just had to wait a bit? In addition, there was no need for him to push her away all the time.

“YunYun, I said something like this before, bet let’s agree so we don’t need to return to this subject.” He smiled at her, “After you turn eighteen, we can start dating if we both still feel the same way, alright?”

“So you mean that now you … feel ...” Her eyes lit up. Of course, the mind of a young girl works differently than Nick’s pragmatic brain and for her the main meaning from his last sentence was different as well.

“It doesn’t matter. Please, agree to this request. I haven’t really asked you for anything up until now, have I?”

She kept watching his face all this time and saw some subtle changes that she really liked.

“Alright!” YunYun finally smiled. There were reasons for him to act this way that she didn’t understand, but now she was convinced Nick actually liked her.

They watched the Aurora bay for some time. The earlier conversation was a bit awkward, but now both of them finally felt inwardly peaceful and comfortable.

“How do you feel? Does it still hurt?” YunYun remembered Nick’s main predicament and got worried.

“Don’t tell it to that old hag, but I feel like the technique we performed last night healed even my fractured bones, to not speak about bruises. Just to be safe, I won’t exaggerate with the practice today, but it looks like we have something miraculous on our hands.”

“Does it mean that we are somehow special? Others don’t resonate …” YunYun felt embarrassed and asked in a weak voice.

“To not confuse ourselves, let’s agree to consider it like it as a simple technique, that can be performed only by the two of us. If we start thinking that we are special in some way, it can negatively influence our training and the future prospects.” Nick smiled, “There is a lot to learn for us and to test out as well, but let’s take one step at the time.”

“There is another aspect.” Nick continued after a short pause, “If I am really cured after practicing for one night, it confirms my theory about Qi being a universal panacea. If that is the case, we will have to do much more research and make more preparations before becoming Qi masters. What if we can think of something revolutionary to propel us high above others?”

YunYun liked this idea. She loved training to begin with and ‘unique’ and ‘special’ practice was even more enticing.

Soon both of them ran to meet Ben. Nick missed the morning patrols and wanted to finally take a leisure stroll around the Royal woods. Ever since he returned, he had been busy, stressful and even got badly beaten up. The next hour was quiet, but pleasant time for all three of them.

After the breakfast Nick went to the palace and, under the stunned eyes of YunYun and the men who were present yesterday, unloaded a huge amount of valuables as well as books that could be used in their investigations. He had no use for precious gems, art items and antiques, and the expensive weapons and jewelry was kind of a junk to him as well. During his travels he mostly used real currency, he had plenty of it and if at some point he needed more, he could just craft few alchemy products that were in high demand.

In the return king gave him a thin book, “This is all we have on the ‘Trinity’. As you can see it is not much, but at least it’s something and may be you can figure out more as well. Let Simon Den know in case you a have ideas or some findings.”

Nick looked at the book in his hand, in fact, those were just a few pages glued together. Throwing a glance inside he saw … quotes? Each page had only ten or so sentences which seemed to be taken from different texts.

“Don’t look at me like that!” King said seeing Nick’s questioning gaze, “This is all that Simon could find on ‘Trinity’.”

“So we basically don’t know anything?” Nick asked.

“Sigh, you can put it that way. It seems like it might be a governing institution of the Holy Order or may be only a group of deities they pray to. But to know for sure we would need to interrogate at least an elder of that sect, but you know how unrealistic that is.” King said.

“Then I doubt I’ll need this. I’ll let Simon Den to continue his investigation and if I find out something in the future, I’ll just let you know.” Nick put the booklet on the small pile of books he just unloaded. The kingdom had the institution that dealt with investigating the Holy Order and if they only had guesses about something, it was a waste of time for him to even think about it.

King sighed again and then glanced around the small mound of treasures on the floor.

“This is worth a lot, do you want something in return?”

“Not really, I have everything I need.”

While everyone already predicted his answer, YunYun was shocked. Everywhere in the world he could buy a city or even two for what he just simply gave away. Even for her, a princess, it seemed too much of a waste.

“No, wait. There is something you can help me with.” Nick’s eyes lit up. After the discussion with the queen he didn’t manage to ask her for an important advice before she ‘ran’ away, “I want some advice on how to properly prevent me from becoming Qi master unwillingly or on accident.”

“You are already at that stage, huh?” King touched his chin while trying to think of the best method. No one was too surprised by Nick’s advancement – all of them knew about his love for Qi practice.

“I think I should be the one helping you out this time.” Old king spoke up and they agreed to continue this conversation after the grand reception.

Following a short discussion Nick and YunYun left towards the city. He still needed to meet Clayton and Steven before the event and wanted to finally have a peaceful lunch at “Sunshine”. After everything was settled, they returned back to the cottage and practiced as usual.

To Nick’s great joy the next days were in his ‘regular’ schedule and the presence of the new addition, YunYun, didn’t bother him at all. On contrary, they had a lot of laughs while training. And he finally had time to explain his theory behind the ‘battle trance’.

The basis came from his old football training, more specifically, from the coach he had. The man who made him quarterback, drilled the whole team to practice same formations and movements over and over again, so the boys would be able to perform those during the actual match without thinking. Especially for Nick, as a quarterback, it was pivotal to be able to instantly judge the situation, give the best passes or even dash by himself to the front. There was no time to think or analyze on the football field and now Nick took the same principles and applied them to the battlefield.

They didn’t have to kill millions of people to get used to killing, they had to practice their movements and techniques millions and millions of times so they could perform those in the future instinctively, without thinking. And being able to continuously perform actions based on instinct or reflexes in succession for a long period of time will result in the ‘battle trance’. Normally a person could do few movements or attacks and then had to think a bit again even if it was for a split second, but if they trained themselves to the point where no such pause or break was needed, they would reach the desired state.

Of course, a real combat was needed to learn more efficiently, but Nick, with his pitiful battle experience, still managed to sink in to the ‘battle trance’ while letting his mind and body free when fighting tens of rank three black wolves, therefore he was confident that the key was ‘letting free’ and not ‘getting used to killing’.

YunYun found his theory logical and now they had to think of methods to achieve the goal. After a long discussion they agreed there was no real way to practice the actual combat, since their weapons alone were too deadly and no one was willing to risk the people’s lives around them. But soon they thought of a way out.

Each of them still wanted to develop and research their respective sword and dagger technique, therefore they would practice that for several hours daily and with time every movement would just become natural and instinctive. To increase the difficulty, they would practice on top of the small lake and it would let them train in Qi manipulation at the same time to make it a natural part of their life as well.

But to gain something similar to real battle experience, there were no other options and they had to involve other people.

Nick strictly refused any types of sparring since he saw the tournament in Olava when youths, who were used to harmless sparring, fatally suffered during the actual deadly combat in arena. Thus they both went to the training ground of the palace guards where the youths from the previous Olympic games were practicing as well. Each of them already had duties in the army or palace, but they still had to practice here every day.

Everyone, of course, recognized Nick and were glad to help, especially when they heard about the prize. The idea was simple. For an hour straight the groups of six with long poles will surround and try to hit Nick or YunYun while they will stay in the middle and evade.

At first everyone was reluctant to even wave weapon towards the beauty, but Nick soon found a solution. He made YunYun wear a head cover, similar to the their Southern mercenary group’s attire, and situation was mostly resolved. When some were still holding back, Nick reminded that there were other people in palace who would like to enjoy the prize – pizza, and youths furiously started to hit and poke towards the two agile bodies, that were covered in dust and dirt only after a couple of minutes of practice.

Thus the regular training program was adjusted and now included two more exercises, one more tedious that other, but Nick and YunYun were only happy at the increased difficulty.

The grand reception was planned to take place right after the festivities in the city ended. Thus, three days later, hundreds of people rushed to the palace to take part in it. King invited the most influential people in the capital, even some Qi masters, doctors and scholars besides the regular aristocrats and ministers.

Despite the huge masses, his majesty, or rather his aid, managed to calculate the number of guests to perfectly fill the large ball hall and even the seating around the tables was arranged to have people with common standings and interests. There were couple of hundred tables in the hall with one long, main table in front, obviously meant for the royalties.

Nick and YunYun arrived while the most people were still brought to their seats and, as planned, sat at the further end of royal table near Steven and Clayton who came just before them. Clayton was a bit nervous since he had an important role to play today, but when Nick and YunYun arrived and started chatting, he soon forgot all about his worries.

The feast was not as grand as some people expected. There were some snacks on the tables as well as a good alcohol while usually there was at least roasted meat or fish. But, since it was winter outside and the temperature in the hall was not too high, most people figured the real meal will be brought in later therefore didn’t think much of it.