Author notes: Hey everyone! Thanks for the supportive reviews! I really did enjoy coiling dragon and the burning fiend, it was my entrance to web novels years ago. This is more of a side project for me but it's an addicting one.
Disclaimer: I don't own any source material.
Chapter 11
Six months past in the blink of an eye since I moved in.
In the first month, I got settled in.
I woke up, meditated to gather qi and mageforce for two hours + soul and body refinement, ate breakfast, worked out, practiced with my staff and bow, ate lunch, spent time reading - practicing spells – lounging in the pool, ate dinner, meditation again, and then sleep.
It was a simple schedule but one full of progress while enjoying the luxuries of having a full on site staff to accommodate me.
The chef made wonderful food, the guards didn't slack off, and the maids took care of cleaning easily in all forms.
I wouldn't say I'm an overly lustful guy, but an occasional enjoyment is something I'll gladly enjoy, especially with such eager maids.
As for special events, there were only three.
In the first week, I decided to carve into the floor of the pool to make it much deeper before adding water to compensate.
I used the added depth to meditate as the speed of qi and mageforce gathering is twice as efficient under water. I also started practicing with my staff and bow underwater. The added resistance creates a much more difficult physical workout as well as allowing me to be more in tune with my element.
In the second week, I got word that third bro was kidnapped by the dark $%^ before being saved by the radiant church. Third bro really has it hard, but he IS the one who wanted to be in the limelight. Us bro's warned him numerous times of the risks, but he still did it.
In the third week of the month, boss Yale and fourth bro did indeed get a party going at my place while dragging third bro in to have fun despite his protests.
I woke up the day after that party with my favorite jade haired girl from the jade palace on my chest with my maids on either side of me.
It was a good morning.
In the second month, the only thing of note was the auction.
I met up with my bro's and we went to the Proulx Gallery where Linley was auctioning off his grandmaster statue.
I thought it was a shame, but it seemed like third bro just needed to get the thing with his ex-girlfriend off his chest while also needing a lot of money.
He wanted to buy back his ancestors heirloom sword and he refused to accept money from his bro's.
I can understand him, he wanted to do it on his own, be his own man, I can respect that.
And at the same time, I could benefit from it a bit.
The gallery gathered the top class from around Fenlai Kingdom, including the king, and even two bishops from the Holy Union.
Before his statue went up, they held auctions for other items, including my paintings.
I was happy to say that I got at least 50% more on my paintings then I usually would thanks to the competition.
The auction took off after that with the revealing of third bro's sculpture and it got intense between our old school mate Delia who I was sure had a massive crush on third bro, and some middle aged man I hadn't seen before.
I hope one day third bro wises up before he loses his chance at that girl. Delia is a one of a kind girl and she would match well with my stubborn as rock brother.
I remember my grandfather telling me that behind every truly strong man, is an equally strong woman.
As for the middle aged man bidding against her, what truly shocked me about him was that he both radiated some kind of deathly aura that I recall from many beasts I had seen in the wild, but also seemed to bleed the air of light around him.
It was a weird sensation since I did have an affinity for darkness magic.
When I tried to understand how his mere presence was affecting his surroundings, I felt like I touched briefly on something about the elements, but then the man turned and looked straight at me.
My eyes widened briefly as he smirked before nodding at me and turning back, so I just tried to stay polite and nod back.
It wasn't easy considering just his look sent my danger instincts to maximum alert.
I had cold sweat covering my back when he turned away and only an application of a clean spell stopped me from ruining my shirt.
That was a man I didn't want to anger if possible.
The auction eventually ended in Delia's win and third bro's sculpture ended up as one of the top 3 most expensive sculptures in the known world at an insane price of twelve million gold coins.
With one sculpture, third bro shot right past fourth bro and I in terms of wealth, only boss Yale could come out on top thanks to his family.
So the three of us did what any self-respecting bro would do if their other bro got an insane amount of money.
We got him pissed drunk, made him pay for the drinks, and then did something stupid.
In our case, it was buying some horses and waking up in the morning in the outer ring of the mountain range of magical beasts, with empty bottles and some monster corpses around.
Case in point, even while drunk, a group of upper grade warriors and mages are not helpless.
After that, third bro got his sword heirloom back, and fourth bro seemed to have found himself a new hobby.
I laughed hard when I discovered he had a big kink for being a Dom over a Sub. He found himself a beautiful woman who had nothing, gave her a job as his maid, and fully supported her mage training.
So it wasn't a surprise the maid fell hard for fourth bro, and she had a Sub kink.
Honestly speaking, I both saw and understood that fourth bro was actually being affected by his continued practice in death magic.
It was giving him a slightly colder edge and loosening his morals when it came to strangers.
He still was fourth bro, and he couldn't be called evil or dark, but his aura became a bit colder so to speak.
And I didn't blame him.
Our world revolves around the strong preying on the weak. Sure kingdoms have their laws, but those laws are only enforced by the strong while the weak have no choice but to obey or die.
Once I journeyed through the mountain range my first time, I truly took to heart what survival of the fittest meant.
In this world, male, female, old, young, nothing matters as long as your strong enough.
To be merciful to your enemy is to be cruel to yourself.
Where we each draw the line on our morals, chivalry, and discipline is up to us.
In fact, my dabbling into destruction magic has also affected me slightly, but I keep a strong grip on my mind and never let myself slip into mediocracy or arrogance.
To be proud of ones achievements is a wonderful thing, but to throw it in others faces is arrogance.
I meditated a lot on these topics during the second month and I came out a much more mentally reaffirmed for it.
I reaffirmed my conviction to grow stronger, to learn more, to reach a point where I never have to be in a position where I can be stepped on by the strong.
That is my dream, my goal, and reason behind my steel like determination.
Well that, and it also helps that I actually love training, fighting, learning, and experiencing new and exciting things.
Combining my hobbies with my goals makes for a powerful combination.
During the third month, a tragic event happened.
Third bro's father passed away.
As soon as I got the message from boss Yale, I dropped everything and went to meet up him and fourth bro.
We ran around the city quickly gathering up what was needed for third bro and headed to his village by carriage.
Considering third bro's current status, a funeral for his father was no small matter.
We had to bring a full catering staff and supplies to third bro's small village as the upper class was soon swarming the place to pay respects and earn some favor from the rising star Linley Baruch.
It was quite a traditional affair, and Linley remained kneeling in front of his father's grave for days without eating or drinking.
Something easily achieved by rank 6 warriors like us.
We paid our respects, welcomed the upper class in third bro's place, and dealt with the whole event but third bro was silent for most of it.
We did what we could, but there was only so much we could do for him.
At the very least, we made sure we were the last group to leave after leaving behind a few staff to make sure third bro had a full meal ready when he was finished mourning.
Boss Yale, fourth bro, and I were all a bit depressed on the ride back, but we got some cheer back by interrogating fourth bro about his new maid.
The boss was practically crying in pride since he taught fourth bro a lot about picking up women.
At this point, I was the only one who didn't have any experience with dating.
People, especially those of mage or warrior training, tend to start much younger when it came to dating or sexual practices.
Finding someone over fourteen who had no experience at the Earnst Institute was rare, for both males and females.
Boss yale had a different woman every month, third bro had his year relationship before it ended terribly, and fourth bro had his new favorite maid.
As for myself, I didn't feel a desire for companionship outside occasional sex.
I was much more interested in training, meditating, and painting.
Life was quite beautiful when you let go of a lot of things and just connect with it.
No part of my day is more pleasurable then the times I meditate at the bottom of my pool while connecting with the water elemental essence, or when I practice with my staff or bow under water.
Boss Yale was busy with his family business and was never so dedicated to training as the rest of us.
Third bro could be just as dedicated as me, but he seems to work in pockets of extreme intensity before something happens that stalls him.
And fourth bro was the one most like me, but he seems to be enjoying the luxuries of life a bit too much and getting a bit distracted lately.
And that's perfectly fine.
We were still teens; we had a long life ahead of us even if we never reached the saint rank.
A saint has an immortal lifespan but even a rank 9 mage can live for hundreds of years. Water mages like myself have the longest lifespans of known mages outside the branch paths of life, ocular, death, and destruction.
The max lifespan for a normal mage, even one at the ninth rank, is 500 years. For those who practice a branch path, they could live to double that amount.
I could use such an excuse of youth to play around more and slack on training, but it's just not in my nature.
Anyway, at the end of the third month, third bro announced that he was joining the Fenlai kingdom under the Radiant Church's banner.
To say his choice confused me was an understatement.
There was no love or hate in the church for us bro's as far as I knew.
That led me to understand that third bro probably had an ulterior motive, but I wasn't going to pry into his business.
During the next two months, fourth bro and I made sure to keep stopping by the upper class villa third bro got from the king to make sure he rested.
The guy was going through a training phase again and he was more intense than ever.
It was also during the fifth month that I really started to see results.
As a warrior, once one reaches the 6th rank, they need to start practicing a qi manual to gather the necessary qi from rank 1 to 6, and then they can use it to start evolving their body beyond human limitations to reach rank 7.
Before the 6th rank, a warrior only gathered natural, neutral qi from the world to refine their bodies rather than specific elemental battle qi.
While that is still the case with me, I thankfully have the body refinement spell from the destruction path that while painful as hell, consistently improved my physique daily. In only five months, I went from a beginner rank 6 warrior to a mid-rank 6 warrior.
And I did it without having to physically exert my body under insane conditions like third bro is doing.
The guy is working out eight hours a day under intense gravity from earth magic.
What I found to be bullshit however, was that third bro actually achieved rank 7 as a warrior in the time it took me to go halfway through rank 6 with a cheat like destruction magic!
It was bullshit!
I'm still proud of my bro, but fourth bro and I are pretty sure it had to do with that dragonblood bloodline Linley talked about in the past.
Fourth bro left the topic alone, but I became a bit interested in the idea of bloodlines.
If they were so beneficial toward training, it could be worthwhile to study them.
Unfortunately, I didn't have any real samples outside third bro's blood, which when I asked for some, he literally just cut his arm and didn't question why.
It's really nice to have true brothers.
I kept his blood in a crystal vial with a small formation engraved to keep its contents fresh.
I had a lot of questions about the concepts of bloodlines but without anyone to discuss it with, I kept the research to myself in a journal.
Where did bloodlines come from? Did humans mate with magic beasts? Was it a saint magic beast that mated with humans? Where did magic beasts get these bloodlines? Was there perhaps some other way to get it?
While pondering it, my mind turned to formations.
Perhaps formations was the key to the bloodlines, they could essentially do anything if you could figure out how.
This was my new way to pass the time and occupy my mind in between the rest of my training.
As a mage, I was firmly a rank 7 water mage, but rank 8 would be years away. The only reason I achieved rank 7 so quickly was because I was able to piggyback off the enlightenment third bro had along with fourth bro.
The same goes for me being a rank 3 destruction and darkness mage.
Destruction is well on its way to rank 4 but darkness is moving at a snail's pace compared to what I'm used to.
I very rarely use my darkness element considering the Radiant Church will stamp down on anyone using it within their borders, so It's become quite stale.
I barely use it for anything as my water element is very versatile.
As far as weapon training, I believe I've touched upon the 2nd stage, the so called 'wielding something heavy as though it were light' stage.
It's a strange feeling, but one I've come to understand a bit more thanks to training underwater.
From a young age until now, I had trained with my staff and the bow almost every single day.
Each weapon had become one with my body, an extension of oneself.
When I use the staff, my body is naturally in tune with the movements of it as if I were using a third arm.
When I use the bow, I extend my mind into the bow and visualize my target.
And when I combine it with water elemental battle qi or my destruction coating spell, it's deadly, but these things are still the basics of using weapons.
To wield something heavy as though it were light was easy to say, but hard to do.
In truth, it required one to be able to perfectly control one's battle qi and physical strength. And then, one could suddenly unleash all of their power behind the blow.
As I am a staff user, and mainly a defensive practitioner, I decided to try and focus on creating a technique that worked for me.
My idea was to be able to reflect all the force of my foe while stacking my own power to strike them.
I called it simply 'Reflection', or 'Reflect' for short.
If one were to swing a sword at me, I would not simply block, but control my body in such a way as to move with their attack, absorb the force behind their blow, and return the force with the opposite end of my staff.
When caught, my staff would be immovable as mountain but light as the wind.
Like flowing water, I would catch the force behind the attack, flow it through my staff, and counter attack with a blow of force of my own plus the force of their own attack.
At the moment, it only works on physical attacks, but I hope to improve to be able to counter spells as well.
But that's not all, for I also developed an attack with my bow.
When I fire an arrow, I am not looking at the target but visualizing it in my mind, and as I fire an arrow with the grace of one who simply picked up a blade of grass, the arrow contains the force of a mountain and pierces through all that stand before it.
I call it 'Power Shot'.
These two attacks symbolize my attainment in the second stage of weapon training, and although it is the early stages, it will continue to grow in power as I approach the third stage.
This was where I was at for the moment.
I haven't gone back to the mountains for another trip in these five months, but I planned to go after the new year.
It would be the year 10,000 on new year's, and it was being celebrated as a large event, so I didn't want to miss it.
But I had truly become a deadly being by this point.
On December 1st 9999, I turned 19 years old, and I could confidently say I stood in the upper portion of the world.
The deities stood at the top, the saints below them, and then the assortment of thousands between rank 7 – 9 mages and warriors.
Rank was used to divide based on levels of attainment as a mage or warrior, a rank 7 mage didn't have the sheer mageforce and speed in spell casting of a rank 8, but things are not absolute.
I'm not 'simply' a water mage.
I am a mage and warrior as well as a 2nd stage weapon user.
And not just a mage of water but destruction and darkness.
Under the right circumstances, I could jump ranks and even kill a rank 9.
Under the wrong circumstances, a rank 9 could flex their arm and kill me.
Everyone has their cards, their skills, and their talent in using their elements in unique ways.
At the higher stages of rank 7 and up, those who rely on just brute strength or mageforce are the ones who never live long enough to reach the top.
I have no intention of becoming a falling star.
I will rise to the top, and nothing will stop me. I will use my brain and sacrifice blood and sweat to reach it.
My 19th birthday was a quiet affair.
Fourth bro came by, and we sparred and had some drinks while talking about training idea's.
Boss Yale was busy with work, and third bro said he was busy, so we didn't bother him.
Life was great, and fourth bro and I were shooting up like rockets without anyone being the wiser.
But life is interesting.
When you least expect it, it throws you a curveball.
And our curveball came in the form of third bro getting imprisoned by the Radiant Church.
It came out of nowhere.
One day I was just enjoying lunch when boss Yale practically broke down my door in his hurry to reach me.
"Second bro! We got an emergency!"
I shot up from the table and rushed to his side.
The story being told was that Linley had a beast had attacked the king of Fenlai and Linley had gone to the Radiant Church's tower to discuss what he saw.
But the boss and fourth bro had apparently went to visit third bro after he pretended to be injured and he admitted to trying to kill the king.
'Third bro wanted to kill the king of Fenlai? What for?'
I was surprised by the news but it's not like I cared for the king. If third bro asked for help I would have helped him.
I turned to Yale.
"So what do we do boss? Are we breaking him out?"
Yale shook his head with a depressed sigh.
"That's not possible, their tower has at least a dozen saint ranks, we wouldn't get in even if we all went all out. No, I'll try to ask my father to step in and see if we can grease some hands to get third bro out."
I nodded at that.
When you can't overpower your foe, money can do the job just as well to get what you want.
The next week was a tense one for us bro's, nothing we tried to do was able to get third bro released, the church was remaining very quiet about the situation.
The boss was with his father meeting with church officials trying to work something out, but it was obvious they were stalling.
Stalling for what I had no idea.
One thing fourth bro and I agreed on was that whatever happens, we couldn't stay in this kingdom and had to be ready to leave.
The boss was part of a massive merchant organization, but fourth bro and I were from different empires who did not get along with the radiant church.
The Yulan and Obrien empires only allowed for the worship of their deity, the high priest, and the war god, respectively.
Any other religion was made illegal and stamped out on first sight with no mercy.
We both quietly packed up all our important items and had our bags ready to go in case of an emergency.
Since we both had interspatial rings, it was easy to store most things in them.
I didn't remove everything from my secret underwater vault though, we were ready for an emergency but that doesn't mean its guaranteed to happen.
During this time, Bebe, third bro's magical beast companion was staying with us.
He was down and depressed like the rest of us, he had been by third bro's side since before we first met.
At the end of the week things only got worse when we got news that third bro was going to be executed on the January 3rd, only days away!
Fourth bro swore to go to war with the church if it really happened and I was right there with him.
It might take us years to reach the saint rank, but it would happen, and we would pull out the church by its roots for their actions.
Thankfully, fate seemed to smile down on third bro in a strange way, for on the day of the new year, on the Yulan festival of the year 10,000, the apocalypse came for us.
In the morning of the day, boss took fourth bro and I to third bro's ex's wedding to try and ruin it.
He and fourth bro were pissed that the girl who broke third bro's heart was having her happily ever after while our third bro was about to die and in a jail cell.
I agreed that I didn't feel good about it, but I also didn't see the need to antagonize the girl for it.
She made her choices, she lost a loyal man like third bro, and third bro became stronger for it.
Still, I was just there to support my two bro's, so they didn't go overboard.
But while we sat around having some drinks in a depressed mood, a massive boom shook the earth around us like an earthquake and people started screaming and running.
I was so caught off guard I was thrown to the ground while fourth bro landed on me.
"Oof!"
"Ow!"
"The fuck?!"
We shook our heads and looked over to see…. A massive harry foot.
Fourth bro and I slowly followed the foot up to see the towering form of a giant gorilla magical beast.
The beast wasn't even looking at us, it was staring at the radiant church's tower where other giant beasts were appearing, as if we were just ants to it, which we really were.
Me and fourth bro met eyes and shared the same thought.
'Saint rank beasts.'
An array of various roars of magical beasts shook the city and we saw dozens of beasts appearing in the distance.
"Shit! A magical beast invasion!"
"Fuck, come on guys, we gotta go!"
"Wait!"
Yale and I turned to fourth bro who looked at Bebe.
"Bebe, this might be a chance for third bro to escape, we probably won't make it to the tower with so many high ranking beasts around, but they will ignore you. See if you can help third bro escape, if you can get him out of the city, then we can meet up with you guys and help him."
I caught on to what fourth bro was thinking and turned to the boss.
"Boss, what's the next city you would fall back to during an invasion?"
Yale thought quickly and snapped his fingers.
"An invasion of this size would leave small sized cities razed to the ground. Rak? No. Loti? No. Hess! Yes, we would likely retreat back to the city of Hess before making our next step!"
Bebe nodded seriously at that and took off in a blur of speed towards the tower.
I smiled slightly at such loyalty.
'Maybe I should find a companion for myself.'
The three of us ran out and began cutting a path for ourselves threw the magic beasts.
Fourth bro and I had our weapons in our rings while the boss was mainly a lightning mage, so he was throwing out spells like nothing.
When we reached the residential area, we had to split up.
"Guys! I have to run back and get my girl and my stuff; I'll meet up with you at the rendezvous site!"
Fourth bro took off at that and the boss and I chuckled and shook our heads.
"The damn brat is still thinking with his lower head even in this situation!"
"Haha leave him, he is quite attached to that maid of his. I have to return to grab some things as well, I'll meet you there boss."
He turned to me and nodded.
"Be safe second bro."
"Same to you boss."
We bumped fists and rushed off.
I wasn't worried about him; we were close to the meet up location and he was no pushover.
When I got back to my villa, I sighed sadly at the ruined state and the lack of anyone around.
'I feel sorry for my employee's. *sigh* it's truly a world where you need personal strength and/or luck to guarantee survival.'
My body moved like a stealthy panther as I entered my villa.
I was met with the sight of two fifth rank wind wolves tearing at an unrecognizable corpse and my eyes flashed with coldness.
Two arrows covered in incredibly sharp ice and vibrating with destruction energy were launched without hesitation and pierced each wolves neck.
I ignored their corpses and said a prayer to the human corpse before rushing on, I didn't have time for anything more.
My body dove like an arrow cutting through the wind into my pool and curved ever so right to launch into my fake wall and into the passage to my secret location.
I breached up in the pocket of air and looked at the wall where a couple bags of clothes and valuables were and my custom armor that was waiting for me.
In only a minute I had quickly ripped off my clothes and threw on my armor.
It securely stuck to my skin, and I sighed in pleasure at the feeling of the soft texture.
The black and dark blue outlined armor fit my body like a glove, and I felt the formations carved on it take effect and keep the armor dry.
The bags went into my interspatial ring, but I kept one with clothing out to throw on my back for appearances sake.
I can't have people questioning where my stuff was.
I didn't even bother going back down and I just punched upward with destruction energy on my fist to smash the ceiling and get back to the surface.
Thanks to how I designed the pocket, it was only a few feet from the surface.
Once I was out, I didn't stop my steps and rushed out of my villa and towards the meet up location.
I had to take down another three beasts before I could make it there, the streets were littered with corpses of beasts and humans alike as the buildings were in ruins and smoke and screams covered the city like a blanket.
When I came upon the location, I saw a large group of people on horses fighting off beasts.
I saw the boss on a horse waving to me and I rushed over.
"Second bro! Good, you made it."
"Of course, I said I would. Is fourth bro here yet?"
Boss shook his head with worry.
Just then, another horse approached with a large slightly obese man with a giant war axe on his shoulders.
"Ah! You must be George that my son has told me so much about. Mn, such power at such an age, it's a shame we have to meet under these conditions. Grab a horse son, we are leaving in two minutes."
I nodded at the friendly and charismatic man with a smile.
"Thank you uncle."
He smiled back and I jumped on the horse offered to me.
As soon as I mounted, fourth bro showed up with a gorgeous woman in his arms and Yale and I sighed in relief.
"Come on fourth bro!"
"Hurry it up you brat!"
He laughed and mounted a horse with his girl behind him.
"Sorry, sorry, I went as fast as I could."
We gave him the stink eye but still smiled politely to his girl before the boss's father yelled for us to move out.
Yale tried to make him wait.
"Wait dad! What about third bro?!"
"Silence son! We can't wait any longer or we risk our own lives. If your brother is as special as these two, he should make it out just fine on his own."
Yale tried to argue back but fourth bro and I stopped him.
"He's right boss, third bro should be fine."
"Yeah boss, trust in our brother, he will make it out, he's got Bebe with him."
Yale didn't like it, but he gave in, and we rode off and away from the city.
The group we were with had an assortment of rank 6 and 7 warriors and mages, so we had no issue with getting out.
I sniped every beast I could that was in our path and got a lot of awed looks from the group.
Fourth bro wasn't much to be left behind and was launching fire spears at beasts as well.
The boss's father was booming with laughter.
"Hahaha! Becoming brothers with these two and the other one are your greatest achievement yet my son."
Yale laughed and shouted back while casting his own spells.
"You don't have to tell me that father! I know it well."
Fourth bro and I just chuckled and kept up the attack.
It wasn't only magical beasts but human bandits trying to take advantage of fleeing upper class. Thankfully, our group was menacing enough and the few that came within our path were poked full of arrows or flaming spears before they could launch a spell.
It took us three days to make it from Fenlai city to the city of Hess and thanks to our speed we beat the majority of the crowd, so we were able to easily enter and go the Dawson conglomerate headquarters in the city.
Once there, uncle gave us a courtyard with four separate rooms to rest in and wait for third bro to come.
We would be here a few days while the conglomerate focused on buying up resources to sell at high prices to the fleeing nobles.
The next few days past mostly peacefully.
Fourth bro and I spared in the garden of our courtyard with massive smiles.
His spear lashed out like a viper but with the weight of a mountain as my staff blocked his advance and redirected the force back at him.
We would spar for hours, and our laughter rang out much to Yales annoyance of us being training freaks.
The two of us had firmly stepped into the second stage of weapon training and even as a late rank 6 warrior and mid rank 6 warrior, we we're a threat to early rank 8 warriors.
Weapon training can bridge the gap in ranks.
And that's not including our magic.
During that time, fourth bro was also having fun playing around with his girl while I meditated and ignored them, and the boss went out to woo some women himself.
It always made me laugh at their addiction to sex.
'Then again, if I found a woman and fell in love, I might end up just as addicted at the time.'
But unless there is love, I wouldn't give in to my basic lust and distract myself from my growth.
It might seem like fourth bro is my match, but we both seemingly know that I would come out on top in a fight.
Not only because I have a year advantage on him, but because he slacks off a bit to play, and my destruction element is made for fighting.
His life and death magic has loads of tricks but it's not strong at direct combat.
On the third day, the three of us were walking around the packed city.
"My god, the city is congested like crazy!"
I nodded at fourth bro.
"It seems this is the only city left north of Fenlai kingdom, everyone that survived fled here and is in a panic."
The boss added on.
"Yeah, and my dad's making a fortune on selling food and wine at high prices."
We laughed at that, a merchants life was full of chaos and opportunity hand in hand.
Fourth bro spoke up as we were on a roof looking at the city.
"Guys, I think I'll leave in a few days and head into the mountain range of magical beasts. I'll make my way back to the O'Brien empire while training and take a couple years to grow to rank 8 at least. Otherwise my family would force me to join the military."
We nodded at that, and I added my own piece.
"That sounds like a good idea fourth bro, I might do the same. Except I'll split my trip in half and head home before fully committing. It's been a decade since I left home, and I worry for my grandfather."
Boss Yale put a hand on our shoulders.
"Whatever you choose to do, know that I will always be there to support you if you need me."
We smiled at that.
"Ha, it doesn't even need to be said."
"The four of us will have each other's backs in life and death."
He laughed at that.
"Damn straight! And when you three become saints, you gotta take care of your boss and let me ride your coattails."
We chuckled and I slapped his own back with a little force and made him yelp.
"Don't think you can't reach it yourself boss, we all know you like to be lazy, but your already a rank 6 mage. It might take a couple dozen years, but don't give up and do it. Once you're a saint, us four bro's will be immortal and can drink without worries for as long as want."
Fourth bro smirked at that and smacked the boss's back as well getting another yelp from him.
"Hell yeah! That's what I'm talking about second bro. Boss, you can't let your little brothers show you up now can you?"
He grumbled and backed away from us while trying to rub his back.
"Why you little brats! Fine! I'll reach the saint rank and then we will see who has the last laugh!"
We shared a stare off for a moment before we all laughed until a new voice surprised us.
"Oi! Don't forget me you bastards!"
We turned with wide eyes to see third bro smirking at us with a smug looking Bebe on his shoulders.
"""Third bro!"""
*Line Break*
The next day, third bro had requested uncle to find a blacksmith for him and low and behold, it turned out in the next courtyard over was the head of one of the four warrior clans like third bro's dragonblood warrior clan.
The vermillion bird clan.
They were famous blacksmiths, and they were deeply in uncles debt and happy to forge a blade for third bro.
The forging process was a true inspiration for me to watch and I soaked up their skills as best as I could.
Third bro, the lucky bastard, had stumbled on a lump of adamantium, one of the hardest materials in the world!
The blacksmith forged a massive blade before to everyone's shock, lightning descended and hit the blade like some declaration of a masterpiece being born.
I rushed forward and cast healing spells on the blacksmith to the thankful nods from him and his sons who were helping him, but it seemed his bloodline had a natural talent for regeneration, so they asked me to stop.
It seems that truly high grade gear has phenomena born when crafted into it's greatest form.
I may not be a natural blacksmith type, but I was a decent craftsman, and I was tempted to try my hand at creating a weapon for myself.
It wasn't a priority for me at the moment though, my bow and staff were not cheap gear and would last me a while longer.
Third bro's blade was one insane monster of a sword!
1.41 meters long and over 3,600 pounds!
Only a practitioner of the earth and a warrior could use such a beast.
*line break*
On the day before we were ready to split up, the three of us were walking in the city to meet up with third bro who had rented his own place for some reason before we were shocked by the sight of massive pieces of stones appearing from the sky and shooting like stars toward the location we were heading in.
The ground shook as a massive quake happened from the impact before we all heard a bloodcurdling roar that sounded somewhat like our third bro.
With only a glance at each other, we rushed to the sight to find third bro in his dragonblood warrior form on his knees inside a massive crater with tears falling down his eyes.
Around the crater were a dozen corpses of what looked like radiant church inquisitors.
"Boss! Grab third bro and pull back! Fourth bro! Burn those bodies, leave no evidence!"
They complied without hesitation, and we cleaned up the site as quickly as we could before a crowd formed.
Uncle showed up and had his men help deal with the situation. The old fox took one look and understood what must have happened.
The radiant church was still after third bro.
I hefted his massive sword without an issue and used water to wash away the blood on the ground.
Not to mention the four obscure elements, I knew that among the seven main elements, there were scrying type spells used with blood samples to track people.
The element of water was one of the best for recording and scrying.
*Line Break*
We had delayed our departure by two days due to third bro's condition.
The guy was just lifelessly staring at the ground and refused to eat, drink, or speak.
It was driving us mad.
We had to leave, the beast wave wasn't over, and the city of Hess was being evacuated.
Eventually we had to make a final effort and push third bro, so I got in his face and met his eyes.
"Third bro! Wake the fuck up! Are you going to act like some emo child who thinks the world can't understand your pain, or will you speak to your brothers closer than blood!"
"Third bro, speak to us man! What the hell is going on?"
"Come on little bro! We're here for you."
Third bro looked at us and Bebe who was jumping up and down and seemingly squeaking something to him before a few tears appeared in his eyes and he finally choked out some words.
Third bro spoke and told us about the man who guided him as his teacher and second father.
Grandpa Doering.
A saint rank spirit that was attached to an artifact that third bro always wore.
It seemed his teacher had sacrificed his life to save third bro with that wave of rock meteors.
After hearing the story, I knew the reason for third bro's pain, but I had to find a way to make him wake up from his depression, or else he might get stuck in his path and never progress again!
Inner demons were the bane of cultivators!
An idea struck my mind and I placed both hands on his shoulders to make him look at me.
"Third bro, who did you grandpa save you from? Who took your father from you? Why were you imprisoned by the church?
They are the ones at fault for all of this, what will you do about it?"
Third bro's eyes that were so broken ignited with a flame.
A flame of vengeance was born in him.
It took a few more minutes of speaking but I was able to guide him onto a path where he wouldn't give up growing stronger.
"But third bro, remember that you have us to help you. You are a once in a generation talent but so are we, I would bet fourth bro and I will make saint rank before you considering how much training time you lost."
The warm and challenging words made him smile at us and fourth bro was quick to join in on the teasing.
Even with his bloodline, third bro was beneath me and fourth bro in strength, he just lost to much training time no matter how lucky he gets with random incidents.
An hour later, we were all packed and ready to head out.
Third bro was leaving straight for the mountain range and planned to head for the center before going north until the ocean. His little brother was in the Obrien empire so he would make his way to him over the next few years.
Fourth bro was doing something similar, but he would take his time and he would be bringing his girl with him.
I was going in the opposite direction, I planned to go south through the mountains toward my home before heading to the mountain range of the setting sun on the southern border of the yulan continent.
And the boss would be leaving with his father to start working full time with the merchant organization.
The four of us stood together with a raised drink in each hand.
"To the four of us."
"Next time we meet we will be powerhouses on this continent."
"We will always stand together."
"We'll reach immortality and drink till the ends of time."
"Cheers!"
We downed our drinks and laughed before saying our goodbyes.
It would be many years until our next meeting, and many challenges will be placed along the way.
But no matter what life might throw at us, we would always be brothers.
Chapter end.
Author note: Review! I'm curious what you guys think. Any requests for a beast partner or what he might face while in the mountain range? I'm open to idea's if anyone has something interesting.