63 2-03

As he finished his dinner, Thirteen thought back to a problem he recognized with his self-made bloodbond technique, and looked to Forty-five who sat across from him.

"Hey Forty-five, are any of your illusion's doable without qi?" He asked.

"Illusions?" She repeated, a fork still in her mouth. "To do what specifically?"

"Just something simple. My weapon stands out too much and I want to make it appear normal. Even if that means just changing the colour of its hilt and guard or something."

She blinked in thought for a second before smiling.

"Sure. For simple things? You could do it with nothing more than a cultivator's will, but it'll take a while to get the hang of."

She tapped her forefinger on the table a few times before continuing "Want me to... teach you?".

Thirteen was glad. His bloodbond was completely crimson and stood out too much even when sheathed. He had thought about wrapping the handle in cloth, but to do the same with the cross guard and pommel wouldn't be any less conspicuous.

"That'd be great, thanks."

Thirteen then continued his meal as Forty-five pushed her food around in thought, and Four looked at him briefly.

When dinner was over, they all made to go their separate ways, returning to their dorms, when Forty-five grabbed his attention.

"Do you want to start now? You can follow us back" She said, gesturing to her roommate Ten.

"Sorry, not tonight, I made a discovery earlier today I want to work on."

"Oh, okay. Later then."

Forty-five turned away after a while, moving back towards her dorm as Thirteen split with four to head for their own rooms.

As he walked, Thirteen turned to his side and found Ten following him.

"Cultivate?" She asked simply.

"Sure." He replied with a smile.

It had become something of a frequent occurrence for them to cultivate together. Honestly, Thirteen had tried to find a logical justification for it, but it brought no difference, and so could be considered meaningless. But he never brought that up, happy for the company.

He still had not confessed to Ten. He had come to understand a great deal about relationships from a scholarly point of view, being instructed on the matter. He especially knew the many rules and regulations regarding the social etiquette of nobles of opposite genders. But when it came to his own confusing feelings as a 13 year old boy, he hesitated on how to act on them.

What would even change if he confessed? Even if she felt the same. They were already together most days, already spoke on every occasion. Was there even a point? Of course there was, but excuses were easier.

After returning to his dorm and letting Ten in, the two each took seated positions on the bed, and spoke for a short while before closing their eyes.

It was hours later, after having finished cultivating and speaking some more that a cheerful Ten left, returning to her own dorm in time for sleep.

Thirteen found himself smiling even after she left, and decided to calm himself down with some hard work. Sitting back on the bed, he began to condense the blood in his body once more, relying on his incredible healing to replace what was lost before continuing.

Like this, the night passed slowly, Thirteen waking the next day.

When Thirteen's martial training reached its usual midpoint, the class ended early, the mentors introduced a few days ago filing out onto the clearing to collect their individual students. Among them, Fane, still cloaked in dull black and grey clothes approached Thirteen.

"Well boy, have you recovered?"

As soon as he saw the grey haired man, Thirteen felt an urge to ask what had happened to Ron, but he was no longer as interested as he had been. Instead, he willed the thought away, remembering his conclusion from that day.

'I can't let them bog me down.'

"Yes sir." He replied, full of vigor.

"Good, then let's get started. For context, I will tell you now that your first assignment will be a crucial one. You will act as an aide, agent, and protector to an important individual, roughly your own age.

"For this, you will need to learn to act as someone else's shadow. You will need to temper your personality, to not let frustration overtake you when things are controlled by another. You must learn to hone yourself as a perfect blade and shield, without allowing your presence to dominate your master as you did to Ron.

"We have just two years to work on this, and I expect you to give it everything you have."

Thirteen was conflicted. He wanted to be a champion, like the Blades of Demia. He wanted to be an elite warrior, sent to the battlefield to hunt the best of an opposing army, or to explore the world and battle colossal monsters.

Acting as a bodyguard? While he saw it coming he still felt disappointed.

Fane must have read this from the change in Thirteen's gaze, as he was sure he had made no expression of disappointment.

"You think yourself greater than this assignment? Boy, I'll only say this once so listen well. I know exactly how you feel, having been in your position myself many decades ago. But understand that no matter how it may sound to you now, Magnus will not waste talent on a meaningless position. He is a wiser man than that, even still."

Thirteen nodded solemnly to match his mentor's intense look, and then spoke.

"You worked a similar assignment sir?"

"I did, it was my first job out of the Estate and in the end I devoted my entire life to it willingly."

Thirteen's expressionless facade crumbled in an instant.

"The Estate? The Clarke Estate? Were you–"

"Yes, yes. All of the mentors were once like you. In the past, I was known as 2-03."

Thirteen's jaw hung open widely. The second generation? From what he knew, the next generation would not be adopted into the estate until the current one had graduated. There simply weren't enough royal instructors to go around. But that meant that Mentor Fane had graduated 58 years ago? So he should be atleast 73 years old! He looked nothing like it! Thirteen would have pegged the man for his late 50s if anything.

"Collect yourself boy. We'll need to hammer that out of you too while we're at it."

Thirteen pursed his lips at the mans scrutinizing stare before schooling his expression and straightening his back.

"Let's go. You have much to learn and little time to do it."

**

A few days after starting his lessons with Mentor Fane, Thirteen had started learning simple glamour techniques from Forty-five. To call them techniques might be a bit of a stretch, but with the assistance of her Qi, she helped him achieve a basic glamour on his weapon, making the solidified blood look like ordinary weapon materials of appropriate colour.

While she helped him cheat at performing the technique, it allowed Thirteen to get a 'feel' for it, which he then tried to replicate through only the application of his will. Whenever they both had some free time Forty-five would help him again, guiding his activation of the technique so he could get an increasingly accurate sense of it.

During this time they also sparred often. Thirteen didn't usually spar with Forty-five. They were good friends, having had a long time to grow used to each other's presence, but unfortunately Thirteen may have neglected her as a sparring partner, preferring to match with more pressing opponents like Ten and Four, or his tricky to deal with roommate Nine.

When sparring with Forty-five now though, he found himself in more of a senior position, advising her on her martial form and choices in battle. Like this, he helped her improve in combat and she helped him learn to perform minor illusions with will alone.

Two weeks later, when Thirteen had finally mastered that extremely basic glamour technique, he thanked Forty-five for teaching him, their little classes having come to an end.

"Wait, why stop at that?" She asked quickly. "You never know when you'll need something less direct to solve an issue, and most of your techniques are martial ones. How about I teach you to project simple illusions with your will? It would be hard, and it'll take a long time to learn, but I think you would benefit."

Honestly, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't intrigued. It would certainly be useful to learn, but he did not have much free time to learn even this incredibly basic technique. It was no easy feat to replicate phenomena with will alone, taking an incredible amount of hard work and talent.

Furthermore, there was another reason.

In his lifesense, Forty-five's surface emotions around him always flared, even more than normal recently. He really liked Forty-five, but not the way she did to him, and he wanted to make that distinction.

"Sorry, that isn't going to work, there's just too much to do every day. Besides we can still spar every now and again." He made sure to add those last four words to avoid sounding too eager.

Something about spying on his friend's feelings made him feel uncomfortable, but heated emotions were often felt without probing at all, something that would make itself known to him regardless. And he wanted to avoid hurting his friend.

"I'll see you at dinner?" He asked.

"...yeah. Yeah, I'll see you then."

Forty-five left first and Thirteen felt guilty despite believing himself to have handled it well, a confusing mix of thoughts.

Breathing out deeply, he expelled his internal turmoil, as he had become quite proficient at doing, and made his way back to the dorms to clean up.

**

Life in the Clarke Estate passed deceptively quickly. Thirteen gave his all every day and put a great amount of emphasis on developing new applications for his techniques, as most proficient cultivators would.

What he failed to recognize the significance of, was his creation of wholly new techniques, referenced from what he knew, like the Bloodbond and the condensation of bodily blood. If one wanted to nitpick, these could be considered extrapolations and mergers of his cultivation method and the Sanguine Control technique, but that was how most new techniques were born. Everyone needed a wealth of knowledge to draw from, and in Thirteen's case, these were not just the techniques he cultivated, but the incredible amount of research material available to him in the estate's library.

He went on three more missions during his final years at the estate, in the last of which he was paired with Ten alone. It was a simple, albeit rather long mission. They were required to stay in a large town for two weeks accepting and completing as many bounties as they could, whether for monsters or men.

During this time they were together from dawn to dusk and fought side by side every other day. During their way back, for the first time since they started being assigned these simple missions, they were attacked by bandits on the road.

They each yelled "Finally!" in exuberation, only to make short work of the attackers and be left disappointed. The fabled event had come too late and they were already too good at killing for an ambush of injured soldiers to excite them.

When they returned to the estate, Nicholas was once more waiting for them at the door, as if knowing of their arrival, and the two soon returned to their regular life of training and learning.

Like this, their final two years in the Clarke Estate blew by like a swift breeze, The day of naming growing ever closer.