With loud splashes Nick and YunYun dived in Aurora bay’s waters. They decided to dive in the reef while it was still summer before proceeding westwards few days later. It was highly likely another such opportunity will arise only the next year.

They arrived yesterday in the afternoon and, even though queen Hu provided them with an incredibly fast ship, Aurora already had the first signs of autumn approaching. The pair rushed to the palace and the surprised king received them immediately despite being busy with several ministers.

Nick found it hilarious how Alexander Maxwell, after hearing that his father, Simon Den and general Sanders should also be present, refused to sit down at his table until the report was finished, finally cherishing his furniture.

Of course, Nick’s story was shocking enough, but the four men got even more surprised when he requested a large room and unloaded all the materials he brought with him from the Holy Order’s secret base. Simon Den felt a huge headache and happiness at the same time when he looked at the pile of boxes with books that finally gave a realistic hope of uprooting the scourge of this continent. Although it was alarming to hear the Holy Order had such strong backup archives around the world, this time it turned out to be their weakness.

The king was also impressed by Nick becoming a Qi master, but when the latter expressed his intent to go north to find his friend and then look for the Holy Order’s main base, king thought for a bit and suggested to wait till the spring. There were few good reasons for that. First – the pile of documents Nick brought back could provide them with vital information that could be used while looking for or fighting the Holy Order. Next – there was no guarantee Nick could find Angel in one or two months and then he would have to spend the harsh winter in The Northern mountain range. Even if he didn’t worry much about himself, he had to take care of his companion and YunYun didn’t have the cold resistance he did. And the last reason might not be considered that important, but few days back king got a report of the Holy Order’s activities in the west of Nola kingdom, not that far from the Sun kingdom’s borders.

These activities were very peculiar as they seemed to look for something in a large area while trying to remain hidden and not committing any of their usual atrocities. Simon Den already sent a small unit to investigate, but all the present felt that for some reason Nick had a mysterious fate with the Holy Order and would have much better results if he investigated himself.

Nick discussed this proposal with YunYun and they both found it to be reasonable. They will be traveling the world and continue their training while still fighting the Holy Order – there was no downside. And they will proceed to the north in the early spring, because both of them wanted to witness the next year’s Olympic games.

Regarding those Nick had another idea that got approved by the king. It was not possible to realistically hold the competition in the ‘small’ arena that Aurora had. Thus, while the kingdom’s treasury could not afford to build a bigger one, there was one family that could and most likely even would love to.

Few hours earlier Nick met Mason in the “Sunshine” while having lunch and voiced this idea. His friend was skeptical at first, but a short while later his eyes shone like gold coins. If he could build arena that allowed twenty thousand or more spectators and each of them would pay a single silver for watching the games, he would almost cover his expenses in three, may be even two years. And that was not including the sales of water and light snacks the during events!

Mason barely managed to finish his meal before running off to consult his father. There was a bit less than a year left till the Olympic games and it was almost impossible to finish construction of such grand project in time, but the word ‘impossible’ was not allowed in Meyer family if the subject was money.

King also saw how lucrative this project will turn out to be, but the lack of funds and the headache coming from the southern border during the last years didn’t let him with enough free time to even dream about it. He only had one condition – the arena will be named ‘Maxwell Olympic arena’ and, when Nick mentioned this to Mason, the latter didn’t care at all. He just said that a real merchant doesn’t take pride in such silly details and the true worth lies within the amount of the money earned.

There was another headache bothering the king – some months ago queen Hua came up with an interesting Qi cultivation technique and suggested for them to try it out. Being a cultivation maniac himself he agreed while all fired up. It turned out to be not as effective as his ‘solo’ cultivation, but extremely pleasant to say the least.

Unfortunately, after few short weeks of ‘practice’, queen Hua got pregnant and now was not letting anyone near her. Pregnancy of any queen was received with an overall joy and festivities, and the prospect of king Alexander finally heaving another son shone hope across all the palace and other queens were incredibly happy as well. Many people watched their reaction in confusion, but only three queens knew that the joy stemmed from their hidden wish for the youngest queen to finally loose her incredible Qi master’s body and looks while bearing the second child.

Queen Hua didn’t care one bit and mostly shut herself in her quarters or practiced in the courtyard as usual, but king cared a lot. She ‘hooked’ him with this new Qi technique and now refused to ‘cooperate’, but there was no use of trying to teach other queens since they had only general understanding of Qi training.

When king threatened her to take another younger wife, she laughed and shut the door in his face once again. Even though king seriously considered it, he was already over forty and couldn’t afford public opinion of him as an old lecher. Thus he could only curse and ‘torture’ his other wives with unending energy of a genius Qi master, but they didn’t mind at all after being neglected for so long.

After Nick and YunYun finished their report, king asked Nick to stay behind and questioned him about his recent interactions with queen Hua and if he had shared some ‘new’ techniques with her. King still remembered Nick reporting about the Holy Order creating ‘the couple cultivation division’ those years ago and it was only logical for him to make Nick the first suspect.

Nick honestly told about his last encounter with the furious queen and how she beat him up till half of his bones were fractured. King seriously listened to this story and then kicked the confused youth out with the words “Good! You deserved it!”.

Nick didn’t care much about this incident, but he took to his heart to be even more careful in the future when interacting with royalties regarding private matters.

After the swim Nick and YunYun went to the “Sunshine” once again and then restocked their supplies around the city. As Qi masters they now could resist simple poisons and light injuries were not a problem as well, but they still needed regular provisions and even though they planned to be on the road for some time, they decided to not neglect their alchemy practice. Both of them clearly understood how great it was to train Qi manipulation and that was the skill that set Qi masters apart more than the amount of their Qi.

There was another thing they spent a lot of time practicing. Nick was waiting for years to start to seriously practice elder Sonor’s movement technique and now that he had become Qi master, he finally could. Unfortunately the biggest obstacle to learn it was the greatest boon they got on the Eastern continent. The purity and thickness of their Qi made the technique too ‘explosive’, at least with their current Qi pathways.

Nick already knew that the movement technique required strengthening those first and that was the main reason why he started the daily meditations back then. What he didn’t expect was for it to not be enough. His feet were bleeding quite badly after the first attempt to perform the technique.

This incident caused a prolonged serious discussion between him and YunYun and in the end they decided to practice meditation intensely for at least a year as much as they could before attempting the movement technique again. Of course, even when Nick got injured, he healed within one night of them practicing Qi together, but there was no way he would agree to damage himself repeatedly with the risk of side effects or maybe even risking to permanently cripple his feet.

After settling everything in Aurora, the pair ran at full speed towards the south west. Nick had a mixed feelings about him going that direction since it lead to mount Corbus and the Holy Order was somewhere behind it. Unfortunately those psychopaths had to wait for him another year since he was set on keeping his promise to clean up that nest of vipers together with Angel. Still, there were some Holy Order’s people ‘waiting’ for him on the other side of the border.

Nick thought back to the report king gave him. There were vast ruins hidden in the hills covered with jungle in the south eastern part of the Nola kingdom. Those were remains of some grand city or even civilization from long ago and there were many theories surrounding their origin and one of the most popular was that this place was once capital of the united Mainland continent, but today only some small tribes lived there hunting the rich wildlife.

Couple of months ago in that region some abnormal events started happening followed by countless rumors spreading about it throughout the neighboring countries. There were periodical underground tremors shaking the jungle and rivers, animals fled the deeper parts of the ruins as well.

Despite these obvious bad omens, hundreds of people swarmed the ruins in hope that the rumors about some ancient magical treasure reappearing or new natural treasure forming were true. Other than these treasure hunters, the priests from Lori kingdom started to cross the Eternal river en masse and spread their religion increasing the unwelcome religious influence from these southern enemies.

With all of this in the background, few people in dark red robes were sighted from time to time, but generally under the cover of twilight. The fact that there were no mysterious killings or kidnappings worried king even more and, since the Holy Order was never up to anything good and he couldn’t figure out their intentions, he couldn’t rest until some light was shed on these events. Nick was a perfect man for the job especially after becoming a Qi master and king graciously accepted him ‘volunteering’ for this task.

Since it was a travel and exploration mission, Nick was glad to be on it and YunYun was even more excited. Thus the two youths dashed along the roads, not bothering about startling travelers they passed on the way. Most of the people saw only two shadows swooshing by and disappearing in the distance and could only shake their heads, but some younger onlookers got more motivation to practice Qi under the new free cultivation education system.

There were few mountain ranges between Sun and Nola kingdoms and none of those were notably high or dangerous. In fact, most should be considered high hills covered in a thick jungle. This was already couple thousand kilometers from Aurora to south west and the climate was close to what they experienced in Olava. Nick was convinced that as soon as they went deeper in the Nola kingdom, they will have the pleasure to enjoy the ‘tropical sauna’ once again, but this time they won’t be able to relax on a raft, but will have to struggle directly through the jungle filled with poisonous plants, insects and reptiles.

There was no way to meet up with the team Simon Den sent before them, therefore Nick and YunYun decided to investigate themselves ‘a bit’ and then may be get some help from the forces of Nola kingdom.