Author notes:
Hey guys and gals, been a while since I updated this one. Felt some inspiration and let it flow.
To the few that enjoyed this fic, I hope you enjoy the double chap.
Disclaimer: I don't own any source material.
Chapter 9: Brothers and Progress.
The return trip through the mountain range was vastly different then my entrance.
I moved silently though the forest, my scouting spells were recast at even intervals, I left no trace to follow, and only a single unlucky monkey type beast found me because I ran right into it. Not a single assassin even spotted me while I discovered around three of them. I'm no sociopath, I left them alone as long as they didn't inconvenience me.
Another difference was that all of my heavier gear was in my space ring which was tied on a string around my neck and under my clothes.
I left an empty bag on my back for appearance sake, but my ring held all my supplies, including my collection of magic cores, magic beast materials, and magic plant ingredients.
I debated selling it and decided to sell most of the magic cores and keep the rest for experimenting with making myself gear as well as playing with pill creation.
My experiments will likely ruin a lot of materials, so I was glad I saved materials from rank 3 beasts and up.
I wanted to do it earlier, but I just didn't have that much time and I didn't want to extend myself too thin and slow down my training.
The greatest time to make gains is right after a breakthrough in any path and I had a good amount of them.
I reached the exit of the forest at night, as planned, and snuck off back to the institute without being seen.
I couldn't help but smile at the site of my dorm and opened the door to the voices of my bro's.
"I'm being honest! I wasn't scared when I ran into that Wind Wolf pack, I was excited and battle hungry!" (Reynolds)
"Yeah, yeah, of course you were little bro." (Yale)
Yale and Reynolds were having a drink in the courtyard and it seemed like Reynolds was sharing his experiences.
They heard the door open and looked over.
""Second bro!""
They bear hugged me and while I could have dodged, I didn't want to. I hugged them back.
It's been a while since I could put my guard down and relax around other humans.
"Hey guys, I just got back. When did you return fourth bro? And where's third bro?" (George)
They backed up and Reynolds spoke up.
"Haha, I just returned yesterday. It was a crazy adventure." (Reynolds)
"Third bro hasn't returned yet, but he will be fine. Come! Share some more believable stories then fourth bro has been drowning me with. The little brat sounds like he just killed a dragon!" (Yale)
"Oi! I have been telling the truth you thick skulled pretty boy!" (Reynolds)
"Were mages! Were all good looking, think of a better insult brat!" (Yale)
Seeing them argue, I couldn't help but laugh and feel like I'm home.
I had been with my three bro's for almost seven years now, not even my grandpa has as deep of a connection with me as my bro's at this point.
I sat down at the table they were drinking at.
"I have quite a few tales, but I don't think they will be any more believable then fourth bro." (George)
Yale ignored fourth bro and sat down with me and he followed suit.
"Oh come on, we all know you and third bro never lie, third bro is to damn honest and prideful while you're a book worm with so much knowledge, your too lazy to lie when you have a logical answer, I swear you would be valued by any empire on the continent just for your logistics ability thanks to that memory of yours." (Yale)
I laughed at that.
"Fine, fine, pour me a drink. This is going to take a while." (George)
We ended up lightly drinking and talking until sunrise and they were floored by my story.
"NO WAY! You seriously got drunk and killed a fucking Wyrm?!" (Yale)
"And through the ass?! Hahahahaha! That's legendary!" (Reynolds)
To prove my point, I showed them the painting I made after that fight but while that proved my point, it also brought up something else.
"Second bro! This painting is honestly incredible. What level are you now?" (Yale)
"And what's your cultivation rank man! I've been using you as a benchmark since you're only a year older than me." (Reynolds)
I smiled and puffed out my chest a bit.
"Boss Yale, I firmly entered the beginner master rank as a painter a couple months ago. And fourth bro, I'm a rank 6 water mage and a 5th rank warrior." (George)
I didn't mention my destruction element and my darkness element was pointless to admit since it was only rank 2. They were both my trump cards along with formations.
Yale's jaw dropped while Reynolds looked at me with respect.
"That's it! We're going to the Jade Water Paradise to celebrate! Right now!" (Yale)
Yale jumped up and shouted while fourth bro and I shared a tired look.
"Boss, its sunrise and we have been drinking all night." (Reynolds)
"Yeah man, and I just got back, I need a real bed." (George)
Unfortunately, Yale was having none of it.
"How can we not celebrate after hearing about this! Come on you weaklings, is the spirit willing but the flesh weak?" (Yale)
I felt my eyebrow twitch at the question and cold mist escaped my mouth while Reynolds eyes almost spat fire.
"Fine you bastard! Let's go!" (George)
"Yeah old man!" (Reynolds)
"That's the spirit!" (Yale)
I was tired and just wanted to sleep but I missed my bros and hey, I would end up sleeping anyway but this way I get to spend some nice relaxing time with my favorite jade haired beauty.
On the way there, Yale recalled something and turned to me.
"Oh yeah second bro, speaking of your paintings, all three of the ones you submitted had been sold, the manager came around to give you the magi-crystal card and offer you a place in the masters hall.
Hell, even third bro got one, you two are insane in your talents!"
He searched in his robe and tossed me an envelope with the card and invitation while I chuckled.
"What a coincidence, I had a few paintings I wanted to drop off soon."
Yale and fourth bro chuckled at that while fourth bro threw an arm around my shoulders.
"Remember to take care of your bro's when your rich and famous second bro."
I shook off his arm and gave him a knowing look.
"I'm sure you made plenty of money off your own trip."
He chuckled and stuck a tongue out at me childishly before Yale threw arms around both of our shoulders.
"Shut it guys, it's time to have some fun!"
We all laughed at that and continued down the street without a care in the world.
Life was good.
*Line Break*
A few days later, third bro returned, and we were shocked by his story.
The poor guy had his body covered in scars and he lost all his innocence at the betrayal of a deception type assassin.
He had a horrifying scar over his heart from where he almost died from the small girl.
Third bro's mind was a mess and Yale, fourth bro and I had to cheer him up and make sure he understood and learned from his mistakes.
It's like he just ignored everything Reynolds and I told him about being cautious!
On the bright side, he lost his so-called real-life virginity. He's still a prude without experience in feelings of love but at least he will no longer trust humans so easily again.
A few days without training and just hanging out and third bro was already looking better.
Third bro and I talked and shared our idea's as artists and inspired each other a bit.
We handed over some more work to the Proulx Gallery under the managers incredulous eyes.
This time I was handing over five painting including the Water Wyrm painting. I made a copy without much trouble and handed over the original considering the original is the one that held the true aura of a masters grade painting.
Linley was giving five statues as well.
The manager spent an hour marveling at our work and throwing us endless compliments, saying how we were genius's among genius's in the world of art.
He didn't even care what our mage ranks were, just our art talent was enough to make us famous the world over.
According to the manager, we both had some big fans and he showed me where my personal section of the masters gallery was.
Linley was also given one but that was more for his unique sculpting style and his public identity than it was as a master.
He was close to the master level, but he was missing that small bit of inspiration. Thankfully, the unique style of his sculpting was unheard of and true art fanatics went crazy over it.
The manager was floored by my progress, and he was practically drooling over the Water Wyrm painting but he was an honorable man who kept my identity a secret. A few tips never hurt to make sure it stays quiet as well.
Life was good and I had little to worry about from dangers, so I decided to relax a bit more and spend time with my bro's rather than graduate early.
It was also the perfect time to buckle down on crafting some gear.
Like this a year passed.
All four of us kept growing in different ways, Reynolds and I in strength and skill. Linley in love since he found himself a girlfriend that reduced his training time. And Yale in both rank as a mage into a rank 5 lightning mage and understanding politics for his merchant future.
Yale embraced his talents as a merchant and was happy to follow his father.
Linley was going a bit off track, but Reynolds and I didn't have the heart to stop him, he was young and had time to enjoy life a bit.
I even considered getting a girlfriend myself but decided I didn't have enough time for it and stuck to occasional trips to the Water Jade Palace with my bro's. I wouldn't search for love but if I happened to stumble into it, I wasn't against the idea.
Reynolds was the real surprise. I found him sneaking off a lot more while his aura slightly changed and during one of our spars, I accidently tore his shirt and exposed a space ring on a string around his neck.
He got wide eyed and tried to hide it while making an excuse, but I just smiled at my bro and pulled out my own necklace ring.
His excuses abruptly stopped much to my amusement and we had a long discussion on what exactly we both found.
During his excursion, he found a space ring with tomes for life and necromancy magic, and he has been practicing them since.
I laughed and explained my discovery of a destruction tome and we came to a strong agreement that day.
The both of us had a drive and mentality for how we see life that was similar so we decided to always have each other's back and help where we could.
Linley was too narrow minded and while we could trust Yale, there was no reason to say anything just yet.
Time passed and we made some memories I'll always cherish.
I took another two trips into the mountain range for fights and materials as I kept wasting materials in droves while learning how to craft gear, but I didn't go into the inner area's and stopped at the outer-inner edge.
I regularly fought with dozens of magic beasts at the fifth rank, but I avoided sixth rank beasts as best I could and ran if I sensed one nearby.
My plans to make myself some gear were growing well, and I was combining different formations I knew such as durability formulas, specific spell boosting formulas, energy hiding formulas, and emergency situation formulas.
I didn't want to dull my senses to much so that's why I decided to focus on making some lightweight armor that wouldn't hinder my movements.
It wasted dozens of materials, but I got some decent skill as a tailor and found some tricks with water magic such as using needles made of water to precisely sew together different leather and cloth.
The real challenge was to find the right materials that would mix together with the formula for the best efficiency.
I wanted to find the best mix and after a lot of trial and error, I ended up with a dark blue, almost black colored leather armor.
There was a black cloth robe underneath that fell to my knees with torso armor and a belt to secure it tightly around my waist, shoulder armor that stopped an inch out from my shoulders, and greaves for my forearms.
The cloth was incredibly comfortable and friction resistant, so it didn't bother my skin while the armor was made from the Water Wyrm's leather with its scales hammered into the surface of the leather for an extra layer.
I had to find a blacksmith to help me melt the scales onto the leather but together we made it work.
Thankfully Earnst Institute had some of the best blacksmiths in the holy union.
The robe was sleeveless and came up to cover my neck and chin with a scowl.
I purchased the silk for the robe using the money I made from selling magic cores and bought 5th rank Wind Arachne spider silk.
A material that's durable enough to act like chainmail for 6th rank warriors plus plenty of comfort features.
On the bottom I made a pair of combat pants that were secure against my form without any pockets. The main material was the Wind Arachne silk, but it had the metallic sheen of the scales hammered into leather over main areas.
On my feet I crafted dark blue combat boots with the top and front of the boot hardened by scales.
(AN: Google images: "LySandra Vuong COVENANT on Twitter armor". It's the second pic, the guy with two swords.)
It was all around the perfect secure armor made from lightweight and high grade materials that could save my life from rank 7 foes.
I made sure to test it a few times with lower rank materials before using the Water Wyrm materials for the armor.
I spent eight months experimenting and learning before using a further two months to finish the armor.
In those two months, I made sure to carefully carve formations into the back of each piece of armor.
Temperature adjustment, durability enhancement, weight reduction, energy inhibition (to hide my rank), waterproofing, and a water essence gathering formation that increases the rate in which my body pulled water elemental essence from the atmosphere.
It was a masterpiece of my current abilities.
With the dark blue and blackish armor on my muscular and fit frame with dark blue hair that fell to my neck and artic blue eyes with my neck and lower chin covered by the silk scowl, even I had to say I looked handsome in a dangerous but refined way.
My armor was not bulky but form fitting, and it made me look like an aristocratic warrior.
As for pill refinement, I came to a startling conclusion that it really did need more effort than I originally thought.
I had assumed before that it was just making a sludge from medicinal plants and condensing it into pill form, but it seemed it was much more technical.
I wasted over half my medicinal plants before I called it quits.
Moving forward, I decided to just preserve all the rare medicinal plants I get my hands on in the hopes of either finding an expert pill refiner or getting knowledge on how to craft properly.
The techniques to do so were few and far in between with not a single one on the market.
Only a couple recipes with price tags in the thousands were available and yet they didn't tell you HOW to craft, only what combination and order to use your own technique to create a certain effect.
As far as weapon training went, only Reynolds and I had made significant progress with Linley being pre-occupied.
The three of us had pooled together what we knew of weapons training and knew there were three main levels.
First level, 'Using strength and Battle-Qi with a weapon'. This stage required incredible finesse to the point that the weapon becomes an extension of the body.
Battle-Qi is what warriors trained in versus a mages mageforce.
There is neutral qi and elemental qi.
Neutral qi is gathered in the dantian underneath the naval by the process of breaking down the body and allowing the elemental essence of life to enter your body and flow into your dantian to be condensed into qi.
Elemental qi is achieved at the sixth rank with a rare manual.
A regular human could never get past a sixth rank warrior without utilizing Battle-Qi, it just wasn't humanely possible.
Training Battle-Qi requires a manual to teach one how to utilize it correctly or you could gravely injure yourself.
Until the sixth rank, the basic training method is widely known.
From the sixth rank on, Battle-Qi passively flows from the dantian and throughout the body to strengthen and improve oneself all around.
Strength, Constitution, Agility, Dexterity, and all the senses get improved with Battle-Qi and allow humans to achieve incredibly feats of power.
It continues to increase all the way to the Saint rank just as mage ranks do.
The speed of collecting and condensing energy in the dantian depends on the strength of the body. The stronger the body, the more natural essence from the world can enter the dantian and be condensed into Battle-Qi.
If the body weren't strong enough, the dantian would stop gathering new essence and one would become stuck.
In essence, a human's body could only reach the sixth rank as a warrior, but to reach ranks 7 and up, you need to accumulate battle qi.
As a mage, I focused more on my mageforce, but I never once let up on my warrior training which is how I reached rank 5 as a warrior and neutral qi flows through my body passively.
Reynolds stepped into a rank 6 fire mage and rank 5 warrior around the same time I did age wise, considering he is a year younger than me.
Fourth bro really has talent and a work ethic that matches mine and it let us bond the most out the four of us bro's.
Not that we don't have strong bonds with the boss and third bro, but we just spent the most time around each other training or discussing training methods.
The boss calls us insane while third bro used to join us, but he got distracted by his first love.
Anyway, fourth bro and I had been training since childhood and we we're prodigies of talent and hard work, which is how we both reached the first stage of weapon training at 15.
I didn't even realize I reached it until we all discussed it.
But even now, a year after my first excursion into the mountain range, I was stuck on reaching the second stage.
Reynolds and I spared daily with his deadly offensive spear style and my defensive and counter offensive staff style.
We danced around each other like true experts as our weapons blurred at speeds only a 5th rank warrior or above could see.
But no matter what we did, we couldn't figure out the second stage.
It was known as 'Wielding the heavy as though it were light' or 'Wielding light as though it were heavy'.
It was a baffling stage that the few books we found on the topic only stated that we would 'know' when we achieve it.
Like that was much help.
With my skills with a staff and my archery, I was stuck so while keeping up my training, I just put it on the back of my mind for the time being.
So at the age of 17, I was firmly in the middle of rank 6 as a water mage, reaching the end of rank 2 as a darkness mage, a rank 2 destruction mage, and a rank 5 warrior.
Plus reaching the first stage of weapon levels, I was blazing with my full potential.
And that's not even mentioning my skills as a master painter and an adept level formation master.
Reynolds was hot on my heels however as a beginner rank 6 fire mage, rank 2 life mage, rank 2 death mage, and an early rank 5 warrior.
With his talent in runes, weapon levels, and the obscure spells of his life and death magic, he was a force to be reckoned with and my true rival.
Of course, we were both smart enough to hide our true skills from the world.
Only boss and third bro knew how far along we were, outside of the destruction, darkness, life, and death magic.
There were just to many boosts from our special magics that we saw no need in endangering our brothers by giving them knowledge that could be sought by others.
Reynolds soul was growing under his spells while my soul and body was being refined daily by destruction essence.
My body dispelled impurities endlessly with my skin smoothing and enhancing my appearance much to the boss's lament.
I could easily wave it away as being an advanced water mage and genetics, so no one questioned it.
Outside the… *shiver*… fangirls and fanboys that is. A truly terrifying bunch.
As far as my soul has been going, the cracks I found in my arrow shaped soul have shrunken on the surface, but I could tell there was more healing going on underneath.
I had no idea how my soul got cracked in the first place, but I assume it had to do with the duel color nature of it.
The white and grey aspects were being consumed by the destruction energy and refined into a soft silver color.
It was a slow and painful progress.
As for my idea of soul protection, I didn't have much to go on, so I took inspiration from the water shield spell that creates a dome of water around the user.
Inside my soul space, I gathered water elemental essence and created a swirling dome around my soul, added a total of three layers, and added rotational effects to increase its defensive abilities. I even added a thick layer of fog around it to hide the exact location of my soul inside the space.
The only reason I didn't go further was because it has a consistent drain on my mageforce. I considered it worth it to lose 1/5th of my daily mageforce to fueling a soul defense.
The final thing worth of notice during the year was the public reaction to my paintings.
My identity was hidden under the penname of 'Sacred Water', and the explanation was that the painter was a rank 6 water mage with the rest being hidden under the request of the artist.
I let out my rank because it boosts interest and fame while also giving a reason for the blood infused signatures on my work.
Without such things, many could forge fake versions of my work.
The response to my Water Wyrm painting was incredibly positive and stirred up a frenzy that caused a nice auction with the painting selling for a whopping 300,000 gold coins.
I was rich! Hahaha!
Ok, I was rich already being from the Walsh family, but this was different. I earned my own money and had it under a bank account with my personal name.
Not the Walsh family fortune, but my fortune.
That has a much different feel to it.
My other paintings sold for various amounts between 50,000 and 150,000 gold coins.
In the last year I submitted a dozen other works and made a small fortune.
I didn't go farther though as the manager of the gallery advised me to keep the amount of works I sell to a minimum to increase value and prestige.
I thanked the man for his advice by donating a trio of paintings he could put up for show rather than selling.
Linley had also been making a large name for himself as he didn't hide his name or mage ranks plus his style of craftmanship.
The guy had been in love this year, so his work had a certain charm to it.
He managed to enter the master sculpture rank, but it was just barely.
His mind was to clouded by emotion, and even though I tried to tell him, he didn't really care.
Overall, it was an incredibly productive year, and I was on cloud nine with my results.
Which is probably why life decided to throw a wrench in the form of me, boss Yale, and fourth bro coming across Linley's year-long girlfriend with another man.
Chapter end.