LESSONS FOR A LIFETIME.

     ***On Planet Gieă, In the Outskirts of the Continent 'Eclipse of the Oceans', In a small house on top of a lonely and silent hill.

     Despite his physical exhaustion, Navi still had to pull up the now dead and bloody body of Troy all the way back up the hill as he does the task with a hand on Troy's ankle while taking slow heavy steps back into his house.

     Greeting another dead body(Diane's) by the entrance, Navi hooks his sword back into its sheath on his back as he pull them both into the door with one hand on each person's ankle while pulling a messy trail of blood and dirt with the bodies.

     Looking inside his now illuminated house, Navi sees a disaster. Blood everywhere, bodies everywhere and scars everywhere. A ruined door, blood on the floor, wrecked furniture, a very ugly and bloody stab in the wall just right above the head of the slumped down dead body of a massive martial student who is sitting with his eyes freakishly open in a drying pool of his own blood from his spilled open stomach, stabbed neck and possibly brains.

     Blood spills were across all the fighting areas then some more and adding two more bloody bodies to the mix didn't make it any much better. With this thought in mind, Navi drops the legs of the corpses he is pulling before walking up to the last invader who is still alive.

     Pulling out his sword, he calmly walks past the furniture and to the bleeding and seemingly unconscious half-dwarf and then,..

     *STAB!*.*PUING!###*.

     "Aaaarrrgggghhhh!!!..".

     Another brutal stab of the tip of his sword through her second ankle snapped the half-dwarf out of her pretence of still being 'unconscious' as a bloody scream tears through her lungs.

The elves body trembles as she groans and looks up,..

     Breathing heavily, she looks up at Navi with hatred and fear just like she is staring the devil in bloody white suit but her back remains on the cold floor she is smart enough to avoid moving as much as she could. Her body tenses up to fight the urge to escape which would only bring her much more pain but the veins in her eyes and the intensity of her glare is completely ignored by Navi who starts to speak.

     "You know,.. I'm pretty tired right now and even though I want to do nothing but sleep I would have to clean up this place first. When I'm through with everything,.. I might not even get any sleep at all.", Navi calmly explains as he sits on the floor with his back against a nearby wall while his sword's blade remains standing straight in Melisa's ankle as it executes the job of pinning her to the surface of the floor beneath.

     "..*PANT*.*HUFF*..You.. are evil! *HUFF*..", Melisa looks at Navi with intense reddened eyes and trembling lips as she spits those vengeful words with as hateful tone despite the pain coming from her completely destroyed ankle or now,.. ankles.

     *CHUCKLE*,.. Navi chuckles lightly at her words before smacking his lips open as he start speaking without even looking at Melisa or her pained struggle.

     "You know,.. my mom was actually a very playful mother to me but.. she is playful only for ninety-percent of times. With the remaining ten percent, she didn't nurture her child but instead she nurtured 'Navïælét -Vęr- Firųs'..

     "She gave me a lifetime of lessons in just twelve years and one of the most important things she taught me is 'Either don't try at all or make sure you succeed..'", Navi says calmly before taking in a deep breath as he looks forward. He then let's out the warm breath with a nod as if finally truly understanding the true depths behind his mother's words.

Finally looking at the half-dwarf, Navi slowly stands back hope before saying..

     "I hope you take this lesson with you as you journey to you next life."

...

...

***In the vast territory of one of the arms of the Imperial -The Coastal Clan- at the shores of the vast river between the imperial Grounds and Coastal Clan's territory.

     Princess Seflim can be seen sitting in her meditation spaces in a crossed legged position and she stealthily cultivates her bloodline while familiarising herself with her main mana-veins and their thousands of branches.

     Each of her breaths were steady and deep and with each one, she is already beginning to feel the benefits of her Swords battle maiden tri-pathways(Swords-woman, Warrior, Mage). Her Mage pathway makes very her sensitive to mana both in her surroundings and within herself. Because of this, she can control much more mana than a non-mage and much more better.

     Her Warrior pathways strengthens her body and mind, Forging her into a fluid weapon of strength, endurance, agility and destruction!. Because of her Warrior pathway, some of the milder benefits of her bloodline that has to do with strength and toughness is manifesting earlier and better than usual.

     Her Swords-woman pathway is directly affecting her bearings and attitude on a minor scale. Discipline on a different level, sharpness on a different level and reaction speed on a different limit. Her control of mana when she's with a sword becomes much more natural and her mastery over every aspect of the sword is slowly increasing thus giving her a mild obsession with the weapon and its arts.

     Soon, she would get a sword that perfectly fits her style and would be her companion atleast till she breaks through to the next Rank but that is still in a foggy future.

     For the past two weeks, Princess Seflim has been doing nothing but cultivating and stabilisation. A break through is important but truly stabilising the breakthrough is even more important.

     As a Beginner rank(Rank One), she is learning fast how important and difficult stabilisation can be for a Cultivator. The stabilisation process is a boring yet important process that can go on for months or probably even years for less talented people. For someone as talented as she is with an abundant of resources and guidance and a top tier cultivation technique, stabilisation would only take her three months at most though this didn't make it any less troublesome.

     "True Imperial Princess Seflim, your presence is demanded by her Elegance Counsel Tamara..", A familiar voice comes from Seflim's green gem cocktail ring with due respect to her title in its tone.

     Seflim's closed eyes slowly opens to show its beautiful blue shade as she rubs her ring's side before getting up and directly walking through a portion of the walls leading directly into a hallway that's micro compared to the one she's used to.

     As expected, Nanny Nora is waiting for her presence calmly outside with both palms tucked into each other and placed in front of her waist.

     "This way your faithfulness..", Nanny Nora points the way while Seflim gives a small and slightly detached nods before following behind her through the short hallway then up the double flight of steps that leads to a luxurious and open sitting room.

     Her mother, Imperial Consort Tamara is elegantly sitting on a throne-like Club chair in the corner with eight open scrolls and three heavy books floating in front of her and a jade cup and kettle of tea placed in a tray that's held up by a servant by her side.

     "You called mother..", Seflim says casually yet respectfully greets as she steps forward to the chair closest to the mana fire-space in the open room space.

     "..", Tamara takes a short glance off her floating scrolls before nodding at Seflim with a golden quill suddenly appearing in her hands. Turning her gaze away from her daughter, a blank scroll pops in the air and with a speedy swipe of her quill over it, it gets covered in elegantly written symbols and words before disappearing once more into thin air.

     Thousands of calculation were already running through her head as she deals with reports, encryptions, study, cultivation and her growing businesses all while keeping her eye on her daughter as they are already two weeks deep into the journey of finding her daughter's shadow.

     Seflim halts her steps for a moment and watches as her mother deal with stuff at a speed she couldn't even try to follow before she soon continues walking as she takes her seat at another corner with the fire-space by her side. She sits down quietly and stops herself from sighing in pleasure while feeling nourishing waves and waves of pure energies from the burning white flames in the fire-space instead of heat.

     Seflim closes her eyes for a moment as she leans back in comfort but she is soon forced to open her eyes once more as her mother starts talking.

     "You have been busy with cultivation so you might not know this but last week, we made a move to shorten the journey drastically. Its highly unlikely your shadow is beneath the ocean so we paid the price and took the risk of using a jump portal to get to the other side of the vast and dangerous river and well,.. we have arrived.

     "We are safe, Months of journey gets covered in a week and the fact that your shadow isn't pointing back to the Ocean shows that we made the right choice..", Tamara explains while Seflim nods calmly in understanding.

     "We have exited the other side of the Jump Tunnel and although the lands are your father's to rule, we are still no longer in the Imperial Grounds territory. We are now in the Lands of the Coastal Clan and since your shadow points somewhere within their territory then we would be here for a while.. Probably Months and hopefully,.. weeks", Tamara says with a sarcastic smile hanging lazily on her lips.

     "Is this enemy territory?..", Seflim asks with raised brows without much worry in her tone or bearing as she is confident in the safety her surname brings, atleast for now.

     "In the type of game we are in, there's no such thing as a permanent enemy or friend but right now with the Coastal Clan we.. can't be sure. We are sure that they are absolutely not on our side but we can't be sure that they are on any other side either. Right now we can just view them as being their own person.", Tamara explains as she leans back into her chair in slight mental exhaustion. The new level of maturity and calculations in her tone compared to few years ago shows a wild growth in her political and cultivation maturity.

     "Then why the worry when we can just pass through then make an elegant exit?..", Seflim asks with a raised brow.

     "I'm not worried about entry and exit, I'm worried about the mark we would have to leave as we pass through. With the game we play, It would be more than a little hilarious if the very talented and possible heiress 'True Imperial Princess Andruv -ö- Niel Seflim' passes through without making an impression or statement..", Tamara says while creating a sucking sound between her teeth at the end of her statement as she seems to also no while the consequences of her own words.

     "Are this the expectation on me or are you going with guess-works?..", True Imperial Princess Seflim asks her mother while taking a silent breath as she considers the implications behind her mother's words.

     "These are expectations from the vast population of cultivators. Like it all not, information about you precedes your presence and there is very little we can do about it. Invitations and greetings has poured-in in thousands and although we must reject a vast majority, our presence is required in a select few as we make our journey through. The show we put on is barely important to true powerhouses but it's the world to smaller houses who have to also put stakes in the inevitable path to the throne. They have less to lose but this also means they can lose it faster and another thing to care about is their opinions and stance which can snowball into something.. *SUCKS* scary.", Her Imperial Elegance, Tamara explains calmly.

     "We are arriving in one of these select few place in just a couple hours so I'm about to give you a debrief.".

AUTHORS NOTE: REMEMBER -RANK ONE IS CALLED THE *BEGINER RANKS, RANK 2 TO THREE ARE CALLED THE *INTERMIDIATE RANKS, RANK FOUR TO SIX ARE CALLED *HIGH RANKS, RANK SEVEN TO NINE ARE CALLED *SAINT RANKS AND RANK TEN IS CALLED THE *ZENITH RANK OR THE *FORBIDDEN RANK.

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MAP:= PLEASE NO OTHER COMMENT SHOULD BE MADE ON THIS PARAGRAPH. CLICK ON THE ONLY COMMENT HERE TO SEE THE MOST BASIC MAP OF CONTINENT 'ECLISPE OF THE OCEANS'.

IT TOOK A LOT OF EFFORT DRAWING THIS OUT SO PLEASE DON'T THROW SHADE ON IT. ITS NOT THE BEST DRAWING BUT IT WOULD DO FOR NOW.

SPECIAL THANKS TO MOMHAMED SABRY, YOU ARE LITERALLY THE ONLY REASON I'M STILL DOING THIS BUT I BELIEVE THAT ONE DAY MY NOVEL WOULD COME TO LIGHT.