Lazarus

Time past slowly as he trained his body, mind and energy. His control over qi, speed of refinement and quantity had greatly increased. Furthermore with all the body tempering he did his qi quality was also rising steadily. After 6 months since his 4th birthday he had reached the level of a high tier qi refiner, the 8th sublevel to be exact. He was close to having reached the peak of the qi gatherer stage.

He walked into the classroom and his mother was waiting with a long roll of an elastic fabric. He knew she had a new task for him to challenge and this would be the hardest of them yet. It was probably a test to see how well he was doing with his sewing practise. Although he enjoyed the benefits of comprehending how to better control qi, he couldn't help but feel bored of the monotonous and mundane actions of sewing. Lucius was a child who was only 4, not to mention he was brimming with energy and power from his training. He felt restless and uneasy not being able to output the energy or test his strength, instead he had to sit down and sew for 2 to 3 hours a day. He knew this was a day where he would have to do 3 hours, maybe even more.

"Today is a test, as I can tell you've already guessed. I want you to use this black spirit spider silk to make a full body skin suit for yourself."

Lucius sighed gently and then got to work. He cut, he stitched and he stitched some more. Since he would train his body everyday, he was quite knowledgeable about his own body, he knew his height, weight and measurements without having to think about it. However as he was making it he began thinking about wearing it. He began to realise that if he simply made a skin suit it wouldn't be that comfortable to wear so he starting making adjustments. He made certain areas larger, some places more stretchy, and overall easier to wear and utilise. As part of the general curriculum his mother had already taught him simple fighting methods, how to punch, kick, grapple and so on. He knew he would have to give way to certain parts like his shoulders or waist so he could twist and turn properly. Slowly he began to realise that this wasn't just a test of sewing but also a test of if he knew how to use his muscles well and proper. As he continued he started to put more and more care into it and he became slower and slower. He took 6 hours to complete the suit, double what he thought it would take to begin with, but the end product was much better than just a simple skin suit. It was more akin to a battle suit now.

"You've passed, congratulations on completing your first armour. Although it is crude and rough and there are no inscriptions, it is still made of spirit silk so it is even more durable and sturdy than some iron plate armour. You should wear it from now on. Get used to the way it feels and think of ways to improve on it. "

" Spiders Embrace! "

" Hmmmm? Is that what you want to name it? It's a good name but I think you should call it Spiders Embrace Prototype as your going to be improving it from now on. "

" Okay! Thank you for this mother, it was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. "

Acacia simply smiled and patted his head. The next day, as he did his exercises he now wore the Spiders Embrace Prototype, noticing a smoothness and ease of movement he wasn't able to achieve with his regular clothes. His sweat was also absorbed into the suit and he felt refreshed for longer. The suit had increased his comfort and thus he was able to push himself even further.

Time continued to pass on and by the time 9 months had passed since his fourth birthday he had already reached the peak of qi gathering, on the cusp of breaking through to qi refining. Lucius was already used to a routine that he had been doing for months now, training his body, then mind and then energy. When he trained his body he now used a punching bag to train his punches and kicks, the bag was filled with iron dust since a simple sand bag would burst at a single punch of his body. He usually trained in the nursery since he could just ask out loud and anything would be delivered to him, be it a desk, a shelf, books, pen and paper or even a punching bag. Lucius thought it kind of inappropriate to call it a nursery as from his studies he understood that a nursery was a place for kids to live in and learn and although he was still a kid, he didn't think that an all giving room that gave a child an iron punching bag and dumbbells and weights worth hundreds of kilos was still a nursery. But nevertheless, he wasn't the one who decided the names of the rooms and it ultimately didn't matter what the room was called but that it could fulfil its purpose successfully.

After finishing his morning training he would take a shower and have some meaty food to help his muscles grow and drank down a pint or so of spirit milk to help strengthen his bones, after all you could strengthen your muscles all you want but if you didn't have a proportional bone strength and density you wouldn't be able to unleash your strength properly. He then made his way to class and studied, whether it was math, literature, sewing or about the different realms. He also learnt scientific principles that would only be taught at the end of secondary school and into college but what his mother called basic science. It was important to learn science because it could always be applied to certain situations and it helped to develop an understand of the world and the underlying principles of cultivation. After all energy cultivation was merely manipulating energy through mediums (which were the techniques, arts and artefacts), so it was important to learn things like not to use fire techniques in an enclosed space otherwise the oxygen would be depleted and you could asphyxiate. Of course there would be certain flames out there that didn't require oxygen to burn and other methods to circumvent such basic science but they wouldn't be found until much further into the cultivation levels, like the realms above the second boundary where you wouldn't need oxygen to breathe anymore but could simply use your qi instead.

After class he would train energy with his father, most of the time he just meditated and gathered qi. It was like a break after the 3 hour long intense work out and then the 3 hour long study session. Sometimes though his father would go off on a tangent in what Lucius could only think was his father's way of venting his boredom. He didn't quite understand why his father would preside over his energy cultivation when clearly his more calm and gentle mother would be more suited. He had already assumed that the arena would be his father's domain instead of this calm and leisurely time of energy cultivation. Anyway, when his father usually went of on tangents it was about his own younger years and how he had cultivated much slower than Lucius, he kept singing praises at Lucius and comparing him to his grandfather who was apparently the most accomplished genius of the Basil clan for 10 millennia. He then had asked how old his grandfather was and his father replied with 10000 years old leaving Lucius baffled and thus he consequently asked what his fathers age was and he said

"Hehe, your father is quite young actually. I'm only a millennia old. Your mother is actually 1500 years old you know. Your mother is from the Lazarus clan hence her dark purple hair and beautiful face and heavenly body. There are countless bastards out there jealous of me for wedding your mother."

"I thought mother was a Basilian? Is she a Lazarite instead? Who are the Lazarus father? Why haven't I been told this before and why is mothers last name Basil then?"

"Sheesh, too many questions at once. Your mother isn't Basilian but is indeed a Lazarite. When we had wed she took the Basil second name since she is my Queen. Your mother is the second princess of the Lazarus so when she married me, a king, she had to take the Basil name over her own since her status as Queen of the Basil is higher than Second Princess of the Lazarus. This is politics actually so you don't need to know about it right now. As for who the Lazarus are you should ask your mother, she can explain better. However, if your mother tells you you're too young to learn about it then don't ask any further!"

Lucius was curious and really wanted to know more but he could tell he couldn't push it if that was the case. He knew his mother wouldn't hide things from him if it didn't really matter. But there was still one thing he was curious about so he asked.

" Father does your hair colour matter? You said mother was a Lazarite as shown by her purple hair so does that mean that Basilians would have silver hair like you? And what about my hair? Isn't it mixed?"

Orion burst out laughing and then explained patiently.

" Hair colour can identify races. Of course this isn't always the case as you could hide or change your hair colour but as you are naturally born your race would have a certain colour hair. Basilians have silver hair while Lazarites have purple. However, the royal clans have a deeper colour of hair, so your mother's hair is dark purple and mine is a deep shiny silver. Normal Basilians have silver hair but it isn't as shiny as mine, while if they are Basilian/Human mixed then they would have a light blueish silver showing the diluted bloodline. You have both dark purple and shiny silver as you've got two of the purest bloodlines of all. Some bloodlines have more of what we call blood power than others. High blood powers are like the Basilians, Lazarite, phoenix and dragon clans. Lower blood power would be humans, half-humans/demi-humans and other lower beasts like a serpent being the lower version of a dragon and so on. You should ask your mother more about this tomorrow, she should be able to explain it better!"

Lucius nodded and began thinking about the different bloodlines in the world and about what phoenixes and dragons were since his mother had never taught him of this before. Orion wasn't in charge of the general knowledge curriculum and thus didn't really know how much of the world Lucius knew of so he unintentionally talked about things outside Lucius's scope of knowledge, justifying it by simply saying go ask your mother at the end as all parents do sometimes.

Lucius's didn't get much qi gathering done that day so he just went to bed, anxious to ask his mother all the things he wanted to know about tomorrow.