Determination and Consoling

  After finishing the bandits, Ryker headed towards his downed family. Looking at them, he let out a sigh of relief. Apart from severe qi exhaustion, they were mostly fine. Physically that is.

  He was not sure of their mental but he hoped they could recover in time. Using the Life Giving Mantra, he quickly healed and replenished their qi. He also healed the injured Solance, the injury clearly gotten from the fight with the bandits.

  However, he purposely slows down the healing, letting him stay unconscious for he wants to use the Hidden Ancient Mansion and he doesn't want the young master to know about one of his greatest treasures.

  Carrying the entire group he put them in their beds, most of the unconscious saved for Mashia, who had fallen asleep when he carried her to her room. He let out a sigh before exiting the spatial tool.

  He walked towards where the bandits' corpses were before throwing a fireball to the corpses, burning it to pieces. He angrily punched the ground, unleashing his rage on the surroundings. Oh, how he wished to keep the bandits alive just to torture them over and over again.

  Unfortunately, he didn't know if the Uru Family had a way to detect the bandits under their employ so he couldn't take the risk.

  He fell on all four, his rage exhausted as he let out a roar of frustration, tears flowing down as he cried in shame. 

-x-

  He returned to the mansion after letting out his frustration. He killed several beasts in the process, the beasts would be used the best way possible, as meals. He returned to the living room, sitting on his chair. 

  "I have to get stronger, but how without compromising my cultivation?" he said out loud.

  Increasing his cultivation is a given path, but as his cultivation got higher, the longer it took to get to the next realm. He didn't have any way to get stronger until he thought of what his parents left him.

  He took out a silver token, a spatial tool that contained the Cultivation Art his parents told him to look at given the chance. He merely skimmed it, only learning the basics before forgetting about it.

  Some, like the Yin and Yang Unity Art, is a Cultivation Art derived from two Cultivation Art, Burning Yang Mantra and Freezing Yin Scripture. The Shadow Traversing Technique is a movement and concealing technique in one technique, learned when he dabbled into the Dark Night Scripture.

  He quickly reread all the descriptions, his eyes widening as he took in what he could do if he had used it more extensively. He couldn't even use the excuse he didn't have enough time, the year he spent to recuperate could have been used to read and comprehend some of the Cultivation Art.

  Besides the advantage he got from cultivating, practicing Art would increase his comprehension of some Laws and Lore. It would make any fight easier as people who comprehended any Laws or Lores could use it easier than their opponent.

  He made a silent vow to learn all of the art and use them whenever possible. He took a quick look before deciding on the order he would practice each cultivation Art. On days he couldn't practice, he should at least read something, maybe understand a few things.

  He decided to start now, starting with one of the easier ones, Burning Flame Mantra, a Cultivation Art focusing on the Law of Flame and enhancing one's flame qi. He quickly read it, understanding some key points.

  After a quick read, he took out some resources rich with flame energy and absorbed them, using both Celestial Energy Art and Burning Flame Mantra to absorb them at the highest efficiency. As he focused wholeheartedly on his cultivation, he didn't realize a small flame being formed in his Inner Realm, something so insignificant he couldn't even sense it if he didn't know of its existence.

He didn't know it, but in the future, the small flame would be greatly helpful in the future.

-x-

  The first one to wake up was Mashia, the dragon's vitality allowing her to recover in record time. When she woke up, she gasped in terror before doing a quick check of her body. Realizing she was still pure, she let out a sigh of relief.

  She looked around, recognizing it as the inside of the Hidden Ancient Mansion. She took a bath, changing to better clothes, the other women had landed theirs, before searching to find Ryker.

She found him meditating in the living room, clearly concentrating. What surprised her was the flame surrounding him. Though she felt she would perish if she came any closer, she was surprised to see he was mostly intact, his upper clothes burned from the heat.

  Soon, he opened his eyes, and an orange-red pupil seemed to replace his silver before vanishing, making her question if she just hallucinating. She looked at Ryker, who quickly wore spare clothes before looking at her.

  He smiled at her, "I'm so glad I got there in time," that seemed to break a dam inside her, the dragon princess jumping towards his arms, crying her heart out.

  "I don't care if I die. But, if they get to do what they wanted to do to me, I don't think I can live with that," she sobbed, Ryker, brushing her short hair. He knew yesterday's incident would leave some marks to his family.

  The only thing he could do was offer them his support and kill all bandits in his way, whichever would help better. The dragon princess continued to let her tears out before slowly standing up, saying something about going to take a shower, before leaving, a blush on her face.

  Ryker lightly chuckles. He could smell the soap she used, meaning taking a bath was merely an excuse to get away from him. He shook his head. Dragon's pride can be so troublesome.

By then, the rest started to wake up. Their reaction was the same as Mashia, crying as they remembered what happened yesterday. He let them release their emotion, knowing it would do them good than bottling it up.

  He soon remembered to check on Solance, the young master still asleep, as he wished him to. He let out a sigh of relief, planning to stay there for the moment before going to continuing their travel.

  He hoped that the bandits' population would be reduced by then.

-x-

  "Who would have destroyed one of our strongest bandit groups?" a man in his fifty asked, looking at the extinguished candle in front of him.

  "The Hal Family's young master must get in contact with his family. After all, those that due were the ones we sent after him," a younger man gave his two cents, the older man shaking his head.

  "That can't be. If not, the Hal would have sent more people and caused some commotion. After all, the young master is the family leader's only son," the younger of the two thought about it and nodded, seeing the older man's opinion made sense.

  "Then he must have found a powerful expert to help him, maybe a group of them," he offered, the older man nodding in agreement.

  "Whatever the case, we must not let him get to the capital, or our supporter would cut us off. Send in one of our Genesis Core experts to help with the search. We must find him as quickly as possible,"