They said goodbye to the old man and, when the youths from the other side reluctantly left together with their elder, Zia looked around sneakily and whispered, “Nicky! Do you by any chance have some … pizza on you?”

To her great joy pizza appeared in Nick’s hand and with a loud cheer Zia instantly grabbed it and started wolfing down.

“Tell me what exactly happened in the Nestri empire? I only got some superficial news from mom and my sisters.” Zia asked with a full mouth.

Nick sighed and gave an overall description while Zia kept cursing for being ‘left out’ from all the fun and that they should’ve left some pirates over for her to deal with. Nick on purpose avoided the parts of fighting wolves and the rank five snake as it would cause even more displeasure from his friend.

“But how did you become a Qi master so early? I had the Sword sect’s Qi ground to practice in and YunYun obviously is a talented girl from the Li family.” Zia was perplexed, “All you do is run around and swim. We all knew you will become a Qi master, but not so early!”

“It’s actually a funny story.” YunYun carelessly explained, “We became Qi masters at the same time on the Eastern continent.”

“You went to Eastern continent as well?” Zia was almost angry, “While I’m locked up in that damned sect, you guys are having all the fun! It’s not fair!”

“If you don’t like it, why don’t you just go home for holidays for a month or two and then go back?” Nick shrugged. It wasn’t a rocket science – everyone needed to relax from time to time.

“I’m not allowed to leave … kind of.” Zia suddenly turned sad.

“It’s not a prison, you know.” Nick commented.

“No … you don’t understand. Few months after I entered the sect I sneaked out to go home for a vacation, but that old fogey sect master caught me.”

“So?”

“I was furious at that time and carelessly made a bet with him … but now I’m not allowed to leave without his permission.” The more Zia spoke, the softer her voice became. She was sad, ashamed and desperate as well.

“Sigh, I thought you learned to never agree to any bet from the Taio incident.” Nick sighed.

“I know, but he tricked me!” Zia punched the ground.

“Well. He is old, may be he’ll die soon.” Nick grinned, “He has to let you leave at least for the Olympic games – it’s your baby after all and Meyers are already building the new arena. We managed to hype up the Lethe kingdom and I think your sister will stir up the Styx kingdom as well. And Andrew definitely will bring some strong youths this time … you just have to supervise the event.”

“I know … wait! New arena? It’s great!” Zia’s mood changed instantly, “Actually my bet expires this winter, so after the New Year I’ll be free! But you … hahaha! You’ll be married! Hahaha! I still can’t believe you’ll get married!”

YunYun wasn’t really clear on how to comment her cousin, but Nick just shook his head – on this subject no one cared about his opinion and it was safer to not say anything. There were two women with Li family’s blood present and that not only doubled his risks, the danger was potentially even quadrupled.

“YunYun, I understand anyone could fall for you, but why did you agree? You might be even prettier than me!” Zia smiled at her cousin being already back in her good mood. She was probably the only girl in the world who could carelessly say that another girl was more beautiful.

YunYun was confused at her being so honest, but she already started to like her cousin a lot. No wonder Zia was Nick’s best friend.

“Actually it was I who proposed … Nick saved my life and … he is special … you see.” YunYun blushed beet in red color.

“Oh? Good! That’s the way it should be!” Zia nodded in understanding. ‘Taking matter in to your own hands’ was her way of dealing with almost everything, “But why is your hair so short? You could probably have long black hair like me.”

“Nick likes it this way.” YunYun whispered and got even more embarrassed.

“Then that’s good.” Zia attentively inspected her cousin and nodded. “May be he’s right, you really look cute this way, no, even adorable.”

Seeing that YunYun couldn’t let out any sound from embarrassment, Nick decided to change the topic.

“Where is Ling? And what are you guys doing here? I understand that Sword sect is not far, but this is too much of a coincidence.”

“That guy left few days ago and went back to the capital when the elder brought a bunch of us out for a practical training or something like that. I think he was not allowed to protect me anymore, I don’t know for sure. Anyway, there are weird events happening and we came to investigate. Are you here for the same reason?” Zia turned to Nick and left her embarrassed red colored cousin be for a while.

“Sort of. But mostly we are looking for activities of those bastards from the Holy Order.” Nick explained.

“Hmm. Then you should probably speak with Andrew first. We met him the other day – their camp is not that far from here.”

Nick almost started to curse out loud. If he hadn’t started to talk about this, she probably wouldn't even think of mentioning it.

“What is he doing here?” Even though he wanted to curse, Nick knew Zia was the same old Zia and there was no reason for her to change thus he couldn’t get angry, “Shouldn’t a prince sit comfortably in the capital and not sweat in the stinky jungle?”

“My brother also sweats at the southern border.” Zia shrugged, “May be sweating is what all princes do. These earthquakes made quite a disturbance and too many people from the Lori kingdom came over the river. I think his father, the king, is weary of their presence and needed someone trustworthy to deal with the situation.”

“That makes sense. Let’s meet him later, I’ll try to persuade elder to let you come with us.”

As it turned out, there was no need for persuasion and master Jerold happily agreed to let Zia leave. Old man was wise and knew that there will be more trouble if she was forced to stay after meeting those two.

They had a light lunch under angry and dissatisfied gazes of the Sword sect’s male disciples, while the few females seriously considered changing the way they carried their sword, because these two beauties looked especially heroic and inspiring with their swords on their backs, except, of course, Zia was carrying her blade ‘upside down’.

Hearing the whispers about swords, YunYun finally asked a question that was bugging her since dawn, “Zia, why did you choose such … sword? It … looks more like a knife.”

“Oh, you don’t like my ‘Pig sticker’?” Zia raised her brows in confusion. Up until now she was of very high opinion regarding YunYun’s tastes.

“No, don’t misunderstand me, it looks very impressive.” YunYun quickly tried to explain herself, “I just feel that for a girl like us it is hard to use.”

“Exactly! That’s the whole idea!” Zia nodded in satisfaction, “If I can’t wield the heaviest sword, how can I become the most powerful Qi sword master in the world?”

“You want to become the strongest in the world?” YunYun was surprised. She never even considered such goal even though she was excellent with sword.

“Mhm, Nicky made me understand it. Before he helped me, I never even thought I should have a goal or any aspiration.” Zia seriously explained, but then squinted looking at her cousin, “Do you have a similar ambition?”

“Me? Hahaha! No.” YunYun shook her head, “I just practice Qi cultivation and my sword because I like it.”

“Oh, no wonder you chose Nicky – you both are similar in that way.” Zia nodded while YunYun blushed again. Her cousin was much too direct in her way she expressed herself.

“Let’s go, otherwise I’m not sure what kind of silly things you will spew out next.” Nick sighed and got up, “How far is it to the Andrew’s camp?”

“If we get going now, we’ll be there before the nightfall.” Zia got up as well and took her blade in hand, “At least I’ll get to exercise a little.”

“You will, but not the way you think.” Nick grinned back, “We developed a new technique. We call it – ‘monkeyrun’! Time for the agility and speed training!”

“Yey!” Zia jumped up in joy, then turned to her sect mates and without any care for their feelings said, “You, boring people, can stay! I’ll go have fun for a bit.”

Nick spread his hands and said apologetically to the elder Jerold, “We’ll be back later in the evening and update you as well.”

Then, under the eyes of annoyed male disciples of the Sword sect, trio quickly disappeared.

“Elder!” One of female disciples asked, “Why did he claim they will be back tonight? They can barely get to the prince’s camp till dark.”

“Sigh,” Elder Jerold shook his head, “Let me put it this way. You all here are the proud disciples of the Sword sect, while that youth is an orphan who has never had any real teacher. Would you believe me if I say that none of you are his opponents? And even if two or three of you would battle him at the same time the result highly likely would be the same?”

“That can’t be right.” Another youth shook his head, “I admit he is a very young Qi master and has enviable skills in picking up girls, but he didn’t even carry a sword. Obviously princess Li Yun is the one covering him.”

“Listen up! All of you!” Elder’s expression changed and he clapped his hands to gather everyone’s attention, “This could be one of the most important lessons in your life! Gather up!”

The disciples quickly gathered around elder and sat in cross-legged positions.

“Now then.” Elder instructed, “Close your eyes and visualize Nick before you, remember what you thought about him just a moment ago and listen to what I will say.”

Disciples unwillingly followed instructions – most of them would prefer to visualize any of the two cousins, but the years in the Sword sect have thought them that the skills and knowledge of their elders was immeasurable. This strange type of meditation was a teaching technique elder Jerold preferred as it allowed student to turn off at least one sense and concentrate more intently on what he was saying.

“Every single one of you has the same problem – because of your arrogance stemming from being the Sword sect’s disciple or born in aristocratic family and your emotions like jealousy or hate, you failed to recognize a powerful individual who spent almost an hour with you. More importantly, you didn’t even try to understand who he was or how powerful he was! You only saw the two beauties laughing with him and your minds stopped working and that includes the present girls as well. Your jealousy at Zia is no secret and can be seen in your eyes, but all of you are forgetting that you are trying to become powerful Qi sword masters, not some courtesans. Why are you even having such stupid thoughts? Do you have too much free time?”

Elder took a deep breath and continued, “Now that you are visualizing the person in front of you, try to understand his strengths and weaknesses without all these emotions being in the way.”