05. Training
Noah's life kept going.
His long black hair kept growing, so his mother would often comb it for him.
Lily kept managing the first floor of the guests' building, occasionally meeting Rhys deep in the night.
She would often beg him to do more for his son, explaining Noah's interests in cultivation and martial arts, but Rhys would always refuse, hiding behind the rules of the main family.
"I can't do anything about him, Lily. The rules are fixed: his position only allows him to get access to the low-level techniques, and that is only permitted if he shows some merits in the family guards and completes some missions. You can send him there and see how it goes."
Lily's face darkened after she heard those words.
The truth was that Noah wasn't spending his time in the library anymore since he had turned eight, he would instead go to the guards building doing chores in exchange for some combat tips.
With the most pleading voice Lily could muster, she asked Rhys:
"Our son is smart, he has already figured out that he cannot find anything relevant about cultivation in the library and shifted his attention to the guards hoping to obtain something valuable. He is only ten now, he must be thirteen to join the guards officially, but he has been doing chores for them for two years now only to get a better starting point! Can't you give him anything? You did that with your other two childr----"
SMACK!!!!!
A slap hit Lily's left cheek.
She yelled lightly, and then she recomposed herself in a half-kneeling position with her head lowered and a metallic taste enveloping her mouth.
"Remember your position! Remember that it was me who allowed you to give birth to that bastard, and that is only because you can ease the grief I feel for my dead wife. Don't you dare compare the son and daughter Rebecca gave me with the son of a lowly whore anymore, you should never forget that I'm the one allowing the two of you to live."
Trembling a bit, Lily answered:
"I'm sorry, my lord!"
And then she completely kneeled with her head touching the ground.
"Tsk, you better stand up and make up for making me angry."
.
.
.
At the same time, in the guards' building, a kid about ten-eleven years old was carrying two large buckets of water to a group of guards sweating under the sun.
This kid was, of course, Noah doing chores for the soldiers.
Since he had understood that he could not achieve anything by reading books, he started searching for other ways to come in possession of cultivation techniques.
Apart from breaking into the inner building and stealing the books, which was impossible, the only option he had was to enter the family guards and obtain enough merits to be granted access to the inner circle.
His teacher scolded him for half a day before giving up on him and going back to the inner circle while his mother only hugged him and said:
"Be careful."
Even though Noah could see a trace of disappointment in Lily's eyes, he could not help but follow his decision.
He didn't want to give up and live another worthless and unappealing life now that he had seen hope to be more than a normal man.
'Yet, she really loves me. After all this time, she still keeps seeing that father of mine. It's probably for my sake that she endures his behavior.'
Lately, whenever he went back to his quarters, he would find some new bruises on his mother's body, and yet, he had never seen Lily without a smile when she looked at him.
'I guess I should try a little harder in this life. I don't think I can live happily if I don't do my best to take care of her.'
A slight smile appeared on his face after that thought.
Sadly, it was interrupted by a guard yelling to him:
"Hey, whoreson, the fuck are you doing, smiling like an idiot while still carrying our water?"
He snapped back to reality and hurried himself to the group of guards to deliver the buckets.
"I'm sorry honorable sirs, I hope your training went well. Maybe you want to ease your mind ranting about how hard your workout is, which are the harder positions to maintain, how to--"
"Shut your mouth, the last guy you scammed was sent by the captain to clear the latrines for three months. No one will tell you anything, yet, if you like helping us the usual way… I bet that there will be more than one candidate!"
The guard interrupted Noah's facade before it even started.
He was right though, in the previous two years, Noah had managed to obtain some techniques by faking innocence in front of some lonely and tired soldiers.
He would usually choose the ones that seemed excluded or bullied so that he could start some kind of connection with his status as a bastard, and then he would ask them to show their forms and techniques to be "impressed" and boost their morale.
In the last year though, the higher-ups of the guards' building started to notice his true intentions and chose to punish the guards revealing important information.
They didn't dare punish him since he was still a young kid and, even if he was a bastard, he had the blood of the main family in his veins.
As for the "usual way of helping", it basically consisted of the guards hitting Noah a couple of times till he was on the ground as a form of "combat training".
It must be said that the combat training was still Noah's idea after he could not manage to scam any more of them.
After all, during his previous life, he had gained almost no fighting experience, so he had to make up for that.
"I guess there is no other option. Let's go for a round, should be fun."
The group of guards cheered when they heard Noah's answer and started playing some hand games to decide who would have been the lucky one to teach that shameless kid a lesson.
In the meantime, Noah went to the training swords deposit to pick a short saber out of habit.
The guards' building featured a large courtyard at the center to provide for a spacious and private place to train.
Noah had only managed to get in there thanks to his initial fake innocence and his diligence in doing chores.
The deposit was on the side of the yard, so after a couple of minutes, he came back to the group with a steel blunt short saber.
The guards were, by then, used to this kid able to skillfully wield a saber with his left hand.
"HAHAHA! Kid, today it is my turn, I'm still mad about the last time."
The guard standing at a distance from his group was almost two meters tall and had a burly musculature.
He was bald and had a long curly beard, a hairy chest, and bulging muscles.
Being manly as described and shirtless too, he could easily be depicted as the archetype of the perfect soldier.
"Oh come on, Micky, it was just a sword form and not even that well done!"
Hearing this, a tinge of anger appeared on Micky's face as he started to get closer to Noah.
"Using a weapon won't be fair since you are still a kid, so I will limit myself to these arm guards. I know you are training the Ice-Fire revolving technique, so don't expect me to go easy on you."
Micky sprinted toward Noah while using his arms in a crossed guard to cover his head and chest.
Noah went in a position he had learned from a sword style and waited for the right opportunity, shifting his weight on his front leg, ready to sprint at any time.
When the guard was one and a half meters far from him, Noah sprinted, lowering himself to dodge the guard's charge and hide from his line of sight.
He was basically half the guard's height after all.
While he was sprinting, he slashed his saber diagonally to the right leg of the guard.
CLANG!
The sound of metal against metal sounded as an arm guard appeared in the saber's trajectory, the opponent had anticipated his move.
Without waiting any further, the soldier pushed himself toward Noah, aiming to hit him with his already lowered shoulder.
Contrary to the expectations, Noah did not dodge but he strangely twisted his left wrist holding the saber.
The saber disappeared for a second only to reappear on Micky's neck without him noticing at all.
'I finally did it in real combat, I guess it's time to lose.'
Thinking this, Noah let go of the saber and the burly man hit him in the chest.
He flew for two meters before landing on the ground.
Then, he fell on his knee and coughed a bit of blood.
"You are lucky I went easy on you. If I used my whole strength, you would have been bedridden for at least six months."
After that, Micky cheered, happy to have triumphed on a ten-year-old kid.
"You are super-strong, Micky, now I should go home and rest. Your mighty strength is hard to digest."
Noah said, getting up and hurrying toward his building.
When he was on the exit, he heard the group of guards laughing and yelling something that resembled his name…
In a room in the guards' building, two figures were staring across the courtyard at the group of men that were mocking the bald soldier.
"So, what do you think of him?"
One of the figures asked the other one.
"He clearly won the round but still faked his loss. He is conscious of his position in the family, so he tries to lay low as much as possible, yet he can't give up on his search for power. He's surely a genius, the rumors were not fake. I didn't think that he would have learned the snake-wrist technique in less than two years..."
****
Edited by: Alessandro Sica