Gladius: The Swordsman
There was a clear blue sky without a cloud in sight, and a bright sun that was shining so bright the ground would be hot to the touch. And if one were to focus their attention down below this bright blue sky, a shirtless young man who appeared around 1.83m tall (6' 0") could be seen swinging a longsword that was around 1.40m long (4' 7").
The young man appeared to be around 20 years-old, he had long curly black hair that reached the center of his back, caramel skin, sharp angular features, sword-like brows, clear dark brown eyes that held a determination that could almost be felt, as well as an indifferent expression that only seemed to light up when it would glance at the sword within his grasp.
"997, 998, 999," a deep, baritone voice rang out from the young man's mouth. The voice sounded both exhausted and determined, as if the tiredness he was feeling wasn't enough to break his determination, his spirit unshakeable.
With one final swing, the young man dropped his hands to his sides while still gripping his sword tightly, refusing to let it fall from his grasp. Heaving heavy, deep breaths, the young man sat cross-legged to rest his aching muscles, his hand coming up to swipe away the sweat that was pooling down his forehead, exhaustion clear from the strain of his previous activity.
The young man's voice rang out with exhaustion clearly evident, "Haa, haa, with that, I've finished my reps for footwork, straight swings, diagonal swings, and horizontal swings, both two-handed as well as one-handed. All that's left is to practice balancing my sword," the young man said.
After a moment of rest, the young man got up once more, his posture rigged. Getting up in an almost mechanical fashion, the young man began to hold his sword out horizontally from his body, planning to hold the sword outward for ten minutes before switching to doing the same but one-handed.
Around the five-minute mark into this exercise, a teen who appeared to be around 16 years of age could be seen rushing at his fastest speed toward the young man who was holding his sword out.
After reaching around ten feet from the young man who was holding the sword, the boy took a couple heaving breaths as he bent over, his exhaustion seeming to vanish in an instant however, as he anxiously spoke up,
"Young Master, the Song family has come here to annul the engagement!" the young man nearly shouted out, worry clear within his voice. The young man who was holding out his sword, turned to give the boy a single raised eyebrow before giving a one-word response filled with indifference, "So?" he said, eyes not moving from the sword within his grasp.
His tone was calm without any fluctuations. With this simple statement, Glad went back to his exercise, paying no mind to the boy who was currently giving him a look of stunned silence, eyes widened as he stared at his Young Master as if he were some type of strange creature.
After a couple minutes of silence save for the occasional grunts of exertion from the young man, the boy seemed to snap out of his dazed state. Giving the man a look of consternation, the servant opened his mouth to speak once more but was interrupted by a harsh voice cutting off his words before they could even start,
"Save it, this can wait until I'm done training!" The young man stated, feeling a bit irritated at the interruption to his training regimen. After all, how could a girl that he had never even met before possibly be more important to him than the sword that was currently within his grasp?
The young man was summarily stunned into another bout of silence at this seemingly dismissive remark, feeling as if his Young Master truly only cared for the sword within his hands.
This was only further accentuated by the slight quirk of the lips his Young Master had as he stared down at the sword he was currently wielding, his eyes actually gaining a trace of affection for the object.
Concentrating his full efforts on the sword he was swinging, the young man seemed to enter into a state in which the only thing he could see was the sword in his hands. The world around him slowly faded; he swore he could almost hear the sword speaking to him, feel it vibrating within his hands as if resonating with him.
This wasn't something new to the young man, he had always had an unnatural resonance for swords; when he was younger, this was the only saving grace for him within his family. As someone who had mediocre talent for cultivation, being the young master of one of the strongest families within Violet City was more a curse than a blessing.
In his younger years when his family first found out about his talent, they originally planned to kick him from the position of young master and replace him with one of his many relatives; and that was only if his parents didn't have more kids.
If they did then have any more, they would automatically replace him as the heir. The only saving grace that the family had found, as well as the reason the young man had managed to somewhat keep his place, was the strange shape in which his soul had taken on.
In the world of Tarken, there are three main paths of cultivation, with many paths branching out from them.
The most commonly followed of these three branches being Spiritual Cultivation. This branch of cultivation consists of gathering worldly energy known as qi into the body to increase the strength of the body as well as use mystical techniques.
A less common but still prevalent method of the three was Body Cultivation. This branch of cultivation is one in which the cultivator gathers spiritual qi of planes higher than their own to slowly temper the body, this can be dangerous; however, as this method requires energy of a higher plane to enter the body long before that should become possible.
Aside from the danger, the other reason this method isn't practiced as much is the expensiveness of it. This technique requires the usage of a large degree of naturally formed treasures and the further one goes, the more expensive these treasures become.
However, what sets this method of cultivation apart from the others is that it helps the other two in later stages, allowing for smoother advancements in them and giving one more power than would normally be reached in them.
And the last of the three as well as the most mysterious and unused branch of cultivation - Soul Cultivation. Soul cultivation was a very esoteric version of cultivation; this caused it to become a lot harder to use, and as such people very quickly gave up on it.
This way of cultivation consisted of meditating one's state of mind to slowly increase the strength of one's soul.
This was found to have benefits in terms of the speed of one's cultivation, the strength of the foundation of one's cultivation, as well as allowing one to enter into mysterious States.
However, as a downside to this, this branch of cultivation was a somewhat slow one for even the extraordinarily talented, and a painfully slow one for the ordinary of talent.
This was the field that the Yan Family, the family in which the young man was born into, had found him to have a uniqueness in. This uniqueness specifically being the shape of his soul; almost all cultivators have a round soul, with the young man's being unusual - it appeared in the shape of a sword.
This lead the Yan Family to the decision to keep him as their Young Master; however, they didn't believe this uniqueness to be enough for him to keep his position as the next clan head, choosing to instead pass the position on to someone else while making the young man a sort of back-up young master to ensure his future loyalty to the clan.
This all was still under the condition that as the young man aged, they would find that his unique soul would cause a great effect on his cultivation.
However, besides the young man's almost frightening talent with the sword, nothing unique had been discovered about him as he had aged, leading to the family practically abandoning him.
The only reason for why they hadn't fully done so was as a result of something that had been decided long before he was even born - he was engaged.
Not only was he engaged, but he was specifically engaged to the Young Mistress of the Song Family, a family that was on par with the Yan family within Violet City.
Typically in a case like this, the Yan family would just move the engagement onto whoever replaced the young man; however, in this case, that was not possible as the status of the other party was as high as their own, and changing who she had been betrothed to would be viewed as a great insult to the Song family's Young Mistress.
The situation would've been solved there if not for one small problem - the Young Mistress of the Song family ended up being a genius who looked down upon the young man and his average talent.
This had all culminated in the events that were occurring today, the Young Mistress having come to annul their engagement.
Most people would feel great shame by such a public humiliation; yet, from the young man's tone and demeanor, it could be determined that he truly couldn't care less about the events transpiring.
Not only did Gladius feel no attraction toward the Young Mistress of the Song family, he actually felt disgusted by her as well as a little disdainful toward her.
This was caused by her actions of viewing those around her as beneath her as well as the way she treated people who weren't gifted with natural talent as if they were trash that didn't even deserve to live.
~~Elsewhere In The Yan Clan~~
A young lady that could be described as rather beautiful could be seen sitting impatiently, one leg crossing the other while the foot that was resting on the ground rhythmically tapped against the floor aggressively in a clear showing of agitation.
This young woman appeared to be around 19 years of age with angular features that accentuated her eyes while giving off a hint of a dark aura, with dark blue eyes that seemed to contain a boundless irritation as if she disdained the very air around her.
Her skin was a beautiful clear color that was lightly tanned from sun exposure, with a rather curvaceous figure hidden behind a long dark blue dress that's color seemed to accentuate the malevolent beauty of her eyes, the dress ending in a skirt that was draped in a layered fashion reaching just above her ankles.
Her irritation finally getting the better of her, she glanced up at the servant standing upright by the door, asking, "Do you expect me to wait here all day for Gladius? I'm not someone who has enough free time to do something as useless as that," She nearly demanded, tone full of irritation.
The voice that appeared from the beautiful yet somewhat malevolent face seemed perfectly sculpted for her, a somewhat deeper yet still very much feminine voice that seemed to show scorn for whoever she was currently speaking to as well as a hint of disdain upon speaking the name Gladius.
The servant gave her an apologetic look before replying, "I've already sent someone to get Young Master Gladius; however, it appears they may not have accomplished this task. This servant will send a more trusted guard to go pick up the Young Master immediately!" he said, voice coming out a bit forced, with slight embarrassment within.
The servant sounded neither too humble nor too haughty as he spoke to the woman, as if the young woman before him weren't someone of a much higher status than his own.
His confidence could also currently be seen within this room, with a pair of husband and wife sitting opposite the young woman, each wearing an expression of indifference as they seemed to not even pay attention to their surroundings.
With that statement from the servant, he sent a look back toward the guard behind him; the guard gave a single nod in response before heading out to pick up their wayward Young Master.
~~5 Minutes Later~~
The guard returned to the room once more; however, this time there was someone trailing behind him at a seemingly leisurely pace. The figure behind him seemed to be a young man around 20 who held an indifferent expression, a long sword sheathed across his back.
His eyes seemed to be someplace else, as if the world around him wasn't even worthy of his attention
Noticing the stop of the guard, the young man came to a stop as well, his thoughts seemingly interrupted as he glanced indifferently at the figures before him. This young man was of course Gladius Yan, the young man who had just been completing his sword practice.
His eyes locked with the servant currently standing by the door, seemingly paying no heed to the figures that were currently sitting upon the very high-quality sofas in the middle of the room.
Opening his mouth, he addressed the servant that he was currently glaring at icily, the seemingly only break in his indifferent expression up to this point,
"How many times have I told you Gord, do not interrupt me while I'm in the middle of training. There is nothing in this world that can't wait for my sword to stop swinging," he stated. The arrogant statement, coming from the mouth of this youth, seemed to be only natural.
And with that, his eyes returned to their usual indifference; however, they now seemed to contain an iciness to them that wasn't previously there.
His indifferent eyes casually scanned across the room before they eventually landed upon the young woman who was currently giving him an impatient glare.
The young woman seemed to be tapping her finger upon her crossed arm repeatedly in a deliberate show of irritation, as if Gladius making her wait was a crime within her mind.