15 Warning & Enlightenment

Ian Grier stumbled back as he fell to the ground, his nose hadn't broken thanks to the resilience of his low bone refinement, however, his skin had been cut and slight amounts of blood flowed down the surface of his face.

He looked more angry than pained.

"You!" Ian spoke slowly with anger. His fists began to shine ever so slightly, there was an almost orange like hue permeating from them.

Kai, who had been smiling despite the throbbing pain in his forearm, instantly noticed this change.

He quickly brought his arms up in preparation to defend himself. With each passing moment, Kai quickly distanced himself from the boiling youth.

'Not only has he already achieved resonance, but he seems to be able to harness the technique of a refiner manual… and he's really mad now.' A look of concern surfaced on Kai's face.

Ian's anger hadn't subsided at all. Each second the pain from his nose increased, so did the humiliation he felt. He was about to rush forward with his fists ready to strike, however.

"Strike Ian… The duel is over, Kai lost."

Illinor casually strolled in the middle of the two youngsters, he was calm as usual. But, there was a coldness in his eyes as he looked at Ian Grier.

The livid Ian stared back at the knight until he slowly calmed himself down.

As his breathing returned to normal "Tch, fine, next time there won't be no knight to save you cousin. You better remember that before you recklessly try something like that again."

Kai breathed a sigh of relief, but his expression didn't calm down, he was still confused by the result of the duel.

Once the young Ian departed from the small training area, Kai turned to the ever silent Illinor. He spoke with an annoyed expression.

"Why did you announce the duel in his favour, I clearly landed the last strike…"

Illinor didn't turn to look at his young student. He simply began walking away.

"Boy if this was a real duel, the strike you thought you defended against with your very mortal forearm, would have cut both your arm and your neck. If anything, you very clearly lost the duel… Take some time to think about what happened today rather than question me about it… I'm sure you'll come to understand how big the gap between the two of you really is."

Kai could sense a bit of disappointment in his teacher's words.

Illinor exited after he spoke, only a disconcerted Kai stood in the empty training area, his face was filled with frustration.

His eyes even held in the beginnings of unwanted tears.

But, soon, after a while of pondering, the frustration began to disappear, leaving only the ever resilient tears to flow down his face.

He wanted to do better, but he still lacked a great many things, he wasn't about to give up, but he felt helpless nonetheless.

Evening arrived promptly in the City of Aurora, the Keep had been busy lately, it seemed the Council of Lords were to convene soon, and most lords and their families were due to visit the Capital.

Naturally Damien had many duties keeping him busy. However, Kai rarely saw him leave the kitchen, he reckoned it was related to the arrival of the Griers, especially considering the recent encounter, where his father faced Anton Grier.

There was no method to meet with Theodan as well, even if Kai desperately wanted to, he needed to wait a weeks time at the very least.

Unfortunately, the depressed black haired youth was desperate for answers. Only after gleaning a bit of truth regarding the mysterious chant would he be able to determine which path would bolster his strength the most.

An aimless Kai walked around the market place, he'd observe the different stalls and small buildings specialising in their own goods and services. He'd constantly pay attention to the shops focused on refining material and equipment.

Perhaps, this was all in attempt to distract himself from his recent failures. He'd trod about the wide path with a lost expression, the scenes of his duel would repeat themselves in his mind.

Eventually Kai stopped in place, he turned to look to his side, with a slight sense of enlightenment. To the right stood a large and imposing building, ornately decorated, with a large, red, open door to welcome the many customers entering and exiting.

Kai had recently familiarised himself with this place. A small smile emerged on his face as he walked towards the entrance.

The words 'Sirbius Palace' was etched into the middle of the wall above the entrance in a grandiose manner. The merchant house was bustling today, and the staff was busy tending to the customers.

The boy made his way through the room and slowly stepped towards the stairs. But he was stopped by the burly man standing in front of the hall, he was tall and had a rough face, his beard was long and unkempt, "Where do you think you're going little one?"

The man spoke with a look of annoyance, his armour was well decorated, and he held a commanding voice.

"I wish to meet with… Uncle… Martin." Kai spoke haltingly, still not used to referring to Martin as such.

The man chuckled when he heard the boy's words, "That worthless chump of the Sirbius family has a peasant boy looking for him, how fitting."

The remark caused Kai to frown, "and who might you be?"

"Me? You don't know me? Hah! You must be living under a rock." The man looked at Kai with a mocking smile.

"I'm Victor Sirbius, the rightful heir to the Sirbius family, an honourable man and victorious warrior of the Kingdom." The man spoke boastfully, yet Kai had no reaction to his words.

"My words fall on deaf ears, I have no time to waste on you… Now get lost."

Before the man could say any further, a voice was heard from the hallway leading to the stairs.

"A idiotic braggart is all you are, now move away from the boy, he's my guest." Martin entered the room with a serious expression, with a hint of unpleasantness in his eyes.

Victor turned to face Martin, his mocking smile only intensified, "Oh at least I have things to boast about, not like the disappointment of the Sirbius family, still serving in this rotten place-"

"And what is it that you're doing in this so called rotten place Victor, does father know you're here?" Martin interjected seemingly tired of the burly man's words.

Victor froze at the mention of their father, "ahem, I come at his behest, to gather supplies for the family. My men will pack whatever we need and I'll be happy to be out of this shit hole after."

Anger seeped onto Martin's face, but given Kai's presence, he controlled his outburst. "Finish up and bugger off… with me Kai." Martin turned as he spoke and headed back towards the stairs.

Kai gave Victor one last stare before he followed after Martin.

The two made their way to Martin's office. Martin entered and sighed deeply, he seemed tired. "I'm sorry you had to see that Kai. Families are often difficult, and mine can be considered as complicated as yours if not more."

Kai looked at Martin with a sympathetic smile, "I understand si-uncle, if anything, as of late, I've only come to understand you and father more and more."

"Hahaha, I can't say I'm happy to hear that." Martin replied with a pitiful smile.

"Anyway, what is it that I can help you with this time? Do you need armour, or a weapon, perhaps you'd like to re-sell the refiner manual you bought, I knew it was always a bit of a risk with that one."

"No… not at all, I simply came to… talk. If that's alright with you… sir." Kai spoke with slight nervousness, he feared without any business involved, Martin wouldn't entertain his questions.

However, Kai's words caused Martin's eyes to light up.

"Oh! Quite the contrary lad, I'm more than happy to chat with you, even your father nowadays only meets with me when he has urgent demands… in fact most people only visit for business, I'm just glad to see you came to chat with your uncle." A smile emerged on his face, his attitude had completely shifted from before.

"Well sir, I was wondering if you could tell me a bit more about refiners and in particular origin fragments." Kai looked at Martin with a hint of expectation.

"Oh yes I can! I love to research this stuff, well it's part of my business, but I've always been obsessed with it... Now, now, where should I begin? Origin fragments, they're mined from areas with high density of world energy. Rare places these are, hard to know about, impossible to find."

"Ah, but seeing as you're attempting the hardened path of a refiner, you must want to know about how refiners can use origin fragments for their benefit?"

Kai nodded, "I know about resonance, but I was told there is a secondary purpose as well."

Martin smiled hearing the boy's words, "oh not secondary Kai, primary. Resonance is secondary technically… You see, as men refine their bodies, they eventually reach certain bottlenecks, so by absorbing a copious amount of the world energy directly through origin fragments one can actually boost their progress, at least if they aren't lacking in the other pre-requisites."

"and how exactly does one absorb world energy… from origin fragments?"

"Well you'll know when you reach your bottleneck that's all I've been told… oh and that you'll probably need more origin fragments than you can afford even as a noble. Otherwise we'd be seeing a lot more high level refiners around us."

Kai pondered upon hearing this, he hesitatingly asked his next question, "does absorbing world energy have anything to do with a chant?"

Martin's eyebrows furrowed, "Um, a chant… never heard of such a method. Why?"

"Oh no never mind, just a thought…" Kai avoided answering Martin's question. He was about to voice his next query, when Kai suddenly stopped, a strong hesitation surfaced on his face.

Martin naturally noticed the boy's expression, he smiled at him in a comforting fashion, "there is no need to be concerned, whatever you talk to me about will stay within this room, not even Damien will hear of it, that much I swear."

"Well, sir, I just needed to know if you've ever heard of the term, 'Spiritual Energy'?" Kai spoke as he looked on with a nervous expression.

Martin's smile froze in place, his eyes turned serious immediately, "Where did you hear of that name?"

"I-I just did." Kai looked down as his nervousness got the better of him.

Martin realised his mistake belatedly. After a moment of silence, he spoke with an embarrassed expression. "Well, boy, there isn't much I've heard of, or read about regarding this spiritual energy… but, there is one thing… hmmm"

Martin got up and headed to the bookshelf situated to the right of his office, he scanned through the various books neatly stacked there. Eventually he removed a book carefully from one of the corners.

He opened it and began reading through it. "Aha!" He turned to Kai and paused before speaking.

"I'm going to have to sum this up for you, essentially, this matter relates to the Lost Empire of the North. The very same Empire that we discovered the art of refining from. So much is still unknown about that part of our history, so many questions, I've forever wanted to know the answers to." A look of longing appeared on Martin's face as he got lost in the plethora of research he'd done over his lifetime.

"Ahem, anyway, excavators documented everything they possibly could when they visited this place, but there was simply too much to go around, and too many unknown dangers lurking in the ruins.

So whatever they did document sometimes got lost or would be disposed of if deemed unnecessary… this is one of those records that I just so happened to get my hands on."

"It's mostly jargon about the tunnelling systems of the Empire, something that's not very useful to us anymore, but there is an odd entry in one of the sections of this book. It always stood out to me even if no one else cared about it. It states the discovery of a channel that helped transfer world energy from one section of the land to another, something such as this is simply unheard of. Unfortunately it's only a mention, no feasible methodology can be found to achieve the same.

But what I find even more peculiar is that the entry ends with a strange message. Apparently the researcher who'd penned this particular entry came across markings in the tunnels, markings that were written as a message, as a warning. Although it's a bit rough, since it's been translated and all…"

Martin put his finger on the page as he prepared to read out loud.

"Wretches of the land, beware, reckoning will come… The Immortals shall take back their precious spiritual energy, they shall take back all that you stole."