“At that time the late queen still wanted for Princess to succeed her,” Yenaigai said, still trying to change her mind.
“That woman is dead and her wishes had been buried with her, wherever her burial was.” Came the aloof voice of said princess. “If those people have the ability, let them rule.”
For something that she never considered hers or never coveted, she wouldn’t fight. She was sleeping and was nowhere in a state to claim for anything, that they used such an opportunity, she actually found that quite normal.
“If you’ve waited all these years for me to take part in it, you’ve waited in vain for I have no desire for such a burden.”
Looking at her white thinly hands, she felt that they should stay clean, not dyed with red. Maybe, in the end, they would be, but for once, she wasn’t eager about it. If she should be the reason for a river of blood, she thought, the one who would start it wouldn’t be her. In this lifetime, there was no reason to fight. They wanted the throne, let them have it.
Her calm blue eyes stared at the bowed servant in front of her.
“No need to serve now. You can go.”
She saw him shuddered.
“Or is it that you can’t? What is inside this forest that is so scary?”
He shook his head and lifting his face, she saw his eyes turned even redder, tears dancing around them that he was unwilling to let go and she couldn’t quite fathom the reason why this sight annoyed her.
“This servant is unwilling.” He said with a surprisingly steady voice. “No matter what, this servant still wishes to follow mistress.” He banged his head on the wooden floor. “Asking mistress to allow this servant’s selfishness.”
Huang who was still on his head almost got crushed but fortunately, it quickly woke up and flew to land on the table, not forgetting to voice its complaint in a stream of curses.
“Rascal! Now that you’ve eaten you’ve forgotten all about your savior! Human!”
It chirped all its anger at being woke up for some minutes with no one paying it attention, certainly not the only one who can hear it.
Seyran looked impassively at the young man still kneeling in her bedroom, unwilling to get his forehead from the floor. At the end, she still answered him.
“Fool.” Her voice had been so cold that even Huang felt a little bit depressed for the young man for a second before remembering how it woke up and now it felt she should add some more nasty words. “What mistress are you talking about?”
“Mistress is still mistress!”
He kowtowed three times, each time knocking his head with more force. “This servant’s only wish is to follow mistress.”
He was really unwilling to let go and she saw no reason not to allow.
“Do as you please.” He lifted his head with a silly smile adorning his face. “Stop kowtowing” she ordered when it seemed like he would do so once more. In the end, he just bowed.
“Thanking mistress.” He said with a voice full of emotions.
Silly little thing thought Huang with narrowed eyes. What kind of dumb person doesn’t take the chance to get his freedom back?
Yenaigai had a light heart. He really got scared, thinking that this time she would successfully drive him away!
“Still, what is in this forest?”
“A couple of years ago there were some contracted beasts from the royals that acted like their detectors, telling them each time one set a foot out of the manor. That’s when beasts would go rampant calling for blood. This servant didn’t dare get further than the manor’s gates these last three years.”
She openly frowned and Huang who quickly detected her displeasure flew further away from her, as far as possible, thus he was behind Yenaigai, just in front of the door.
“One rather starves than hunt then? Planting herbs and potatoes on a capricious land at that! Vast manor yet no better place?”
He didn’t know what he did wrong now actually.
“That place was the only one where the beasts wouldn’t chase this servant!”
“And why was that rock dug there?” She frowned to herself as a strange sensation passed through her. “Never mind,” she said.
Yenaigai smiled sadly. This time around she was really remembering nothing. Not even infusing her qi on that rock the first time they came here to let him buried in the soil the items he took with him as his family’s last remnants. Wasn’t she the one who told him to commemorate them there where no one with ill intention, be it animals, humans, or contracted beasts would soil it?
“So at a certain distance in the forest, they would detect us and alert their master?”
“This servant thinks so. That nothing happened today meant they are still unaware of mistress waking up.”
Seyran tapped her fingers on the table once more with a smile on the corner of her face, not liking the impression she got at all. Not wanting to start a war was one thing being confined somewhere like a caged bird was another.
She may not care about this world’s affairs but obviously, this world cared very much about hers. If it was before, that kind of thing would be quite normal and she wouldn’t really care. When they showed up in the end –if they did- she would usually deal with them effortlessly; but now that her mana was limited and her understanding of cultivation wasn’t even grasped, she was obviously an easy target for her so-called family.
Being unable to fight back if provoked wasn’t something she could settle with, and being at someone’s mercy was out of the question entirely. She just couldn’t let that be.
She glanced at the bird by the door that started nodding off once again and wondered a little if it had once been able to cultivate properly. Her eyes then gazed by her windows at the direction of the faraway forest that she couldn’t see. Maybe building her mana a little more and knowing one or two things about cultivation wouldn’t be bad.
That night, Seyran didn’t sleep at all. Instead, she read books about cultivation that she had taken from the books' room.
Yenaigai on the other hand, after a couple of hours, started dozing off so she told him to go, no need to wait on her.
Huang, who was already sleeping on the floor by the door got awaken by the sound of the rice paper sliding open and close. A little drowsy from its slumber, the bird flew and land on the bed, making itself comfortable for a good night.
***
The next morning and for the whole day, Yenaigai nursed an angry stomach. He ate too much last night and if being honest, his cooking was that bad too. However in his misery, he was quite happy that his mistress was completely fine.
The one who wasn’t was Huang. How dare those humans turn him into their little pet fire? Her servant needed to drink hot water to soothe himself what does that got to do with its great self? How come it was now in charge to heat his cup? Looking at the direction of that demon’s room where she was certainly still reading, Huang shuddered a little. That fella was frightening not knowing one little bit about asking services! Who had that much frost in the voice when requesting something?! Well, Huang recognized flying away from the now steaming cup, it wasn’t like she didn’t say she would increase the essence she was giving it to eat. Mana she called it?
“Thank you, little Huang.” Said Yenaigai, angering the bird which flew to poke his head. “I’m sick, I’m sick, you’re not little! You’re big, really big! Ah, give me a break, my cup will turn over and you’d need to heat it up once again!”
***
Seyran was by her small table, more books than the night before occupying the place. She had taken a bath a couple of hours before –Yenaigai had been able to fill her water tube and Huang had been in charge of heating it up. It had grieved all along her bathing time. “It’s great self” It had repeated again and again “used no more than a normal fire … One’s fall from grace isn’t one’s death ah!!!”. She had after her bath, given it some of her mana and tossed it outside to nurse Yenaigai.
Now she was, her eyes closed, cultivating. She was sitting in a lotus position, her hands intertwined on her laps. Once she started, she actually realized that the process was familiar to her body and she effortlessly knew her rank. She was still at mid novice.
There were five ranks in cultivation, each of them divided into three stages, early mid and late. As of the ranks, there were Beginner, Novice, Medium, Adept, Expert. Since she already had a core, she needn’t go through the process of forming one.
The core was situated at her lower dantian, below the navel, about three fingers widths below and two fingers widths behind the navel. It was also called the golden stove. That was where the particles in the air were refined and purified into qi. Once the qi was formed it glowed with a golden bright, before leaving the core to flow throw meridians with now a blue color. It could, like mana strengthened the body but she didn’t infuse it in her organs to strengthen them, just let it flow through her body. Qi, contrary to mana couldn’t create anything. But it could prolonged one’s life or hardens anything. To fight some would harden their fists, while others infused qi in their weapons to make them deathlier or contour the strengthened bodies. Qi played a role in forming contracts too. Actually the contract was formed by the core but if the beast was unwilling, the contract could be forced at the condition that one had more strength than the beast, books assimilate it to having more qi or a rank higher than the coveted beast.
With each rank the core grew with strength and the qi it formed grew with purity and efficacy. At the beginning, to breakthrough, each stage depended on how much one refined particles. That was for the beginner rank. For Novice, it depended on the quality of the purification, the quantity didn’t matter anymore. For the medium rank, each breakthrough depended on how well quality and quantity could be associated. The books at her disposition didn’t give any details about the last two ranks. Maybe the destroyed books had them but they were illegible.
So, for the whole day, Seyran absorbed particles and purified them but she didn’t breakthrough though. Huang flew at her window, attracted by her qi’s smell. How much it wanted to taste it. Would she be willing? It didn’t dare ask, she had already given a part of her mana. Maybe tomorrow it will ask qi instead of mana. Huang swallowed its saliva, already tasting this bluish dessert in its mind.
Poor Yenaigai left alone in his room was hungry too. He didn’t eat anything since the morn and was tired of his own company, yet he felt too tired to get up.
***
That night too, she didn’t sleep.
The following morning, she opened the parchments with her handwriting. It was a childish version of her handwriting, a little unsteady and a little light compared to how she usually wrote. There wasn’t really anything important written there. Just some poems. Never having before been someone who was interested in things like that, she found that it wouldn’t be bad, to start a new kind of life. An idle life didn’t sound bad.
Yenaigai knocked and she allowed him in. He was fine he said, when she didn’t even ask and he proudly served her what he called breakfast. It was something made with raven once more and looking at the full of pride Huang on her servant’ head, she supposed it was waiting for a reward for having fetched for them yet another food.
Seyran’s eyebrow twitched after the first bite. This thing was too disgusting for words yet he was looking so pleased with himself. It was good that she did strengthen her body since young otherwise wouldn’t she be accompanying him into vomiting like he did yesterday?
How could she know that it’s been his first breakfast since long? He had even forgotten that one usually eat three times a day. If it wasn’t for birdie which made him follow it to the raven it had got, Yenaigai wouldn’t even remember.
Seyran ate it all without so much as batting an eye and Yenaigai’s happy face fell a little when once again she didn’t compliment his cooking. It was the best he had done in years!
“Do you have a core?” she had asked instead for after all, no core meant no cultivation.
“No” he had answered and she had said no more, taking the parchments she had left and resuming her readings without giving him a second glance.
Yenaigai took out the food’s sets and while washing them with the water of the well by the kitchen, he thought back at her question and then at the oracle’s prediction. Indeed, this time was different but was he really liking it?
Huang, which stayed in Seyran’s room was actually quite happy in her company for once. Who knew what took her but she had been generous enough to actually propose her mana after it finished the allowed portion of qi she had authorized it to absorb. This time she said, she wanted it to touch her physically and try to forcefully take the mana from her body. It was a little hard to do but hell, it was really delicious so Huang was giving it its all.
It didn’t know of course that this was how she intended to increase her reserve’s storage. One would usually do that with one’s proper familiar for it can be dangerous otherwise but this little thing didn’t seem like it was trying to harm her anymore, it was more like it was taking her for a walking food so why not used it properly?
It served no purpose to increase one’s quantity of mana if it cannot be stored, for when the storage would be full, the mana won’t be generated anymore. The whole body was a container and if previously she had no problem with using it all, now it seemed only a little part was available to use. To increase her storage possibility she needed to dig it. To do that, she had to completely exhaust her mana, forcing the storage to increase by demanding more than it could store -even the mana that usually would be impossible to use, she forced it out. The counterpart would usually let one unable to move for days but she found that she stabilized the energy’s loss from the lack of mana with the energy provided by qi.
So, she let Huang lain on her shoulder more and more each time she was cultivating.
***
A couple of weeks passed. With the passing days, both Seyran’s and Yenaigai’s shape got better thanks to Huang who became their official hunter. He even lured rabbits out of the forest for them to eat –when ravens became scarce. Yenaigai was quite pleased with it, not that his cooking got any better actually. The woods used for the fire, Seyran understood after sometime, were actually parts of the formers courtyards. Not having any plan on using them anytime soon, she didn’t mind what he did with those courtyards’ materials; however that didn’t stop Huang from being the one she used to heat her bath. His fire was doing wonder on her skin, making the process of creating mana by her pores so easy. It was so hot, her skin easily turned the hotness into mana but contrary to the normal fire she was forced to cut short her time in the bath for after a time her skin would grow red making her uncomfortable.
Seyran was rummaging through her drawer, to see if there were more poems to read for she wasn’t interested in cultivating that morning. She found no papers but there was a rock inside. It was a little warm against her skin, quite beautiful, round and completely white. Huang on her shoulder told her it smelled nice. –Now she could actually let it absorb her mana for a couple of hours without needing to stabilize her body. Finding that this method was improving her reserves really fast, she permit it to absorb most of the time so by now, Huang grew used to sticking with her.
“This one wants to touch it.”
She gave the stone to it, placing it under Huang’s claw on her shoulder. Not having found what she was looking for, she seated herself by her table, in the end, starting to cultivate. Until now, she didn’t have any breakthrough but it wasn’t far by now for she could feel her core’s strength increasing.
Huang felt like it should try cultivating too. The painful sensation it had have for the last two years each time it tried cultivating lessened –blessed that demon under it, it thought, for her qi was that delicious and that essence she called mana had soothed the pain each time it was allowed to absorb it. Now though, Huang had the itch to infuse its qi in the stone under its claws. It didn’t really know why, it just had to. Prepared to feel a little hurt, Huang was quite pleased when it didn’t hurt at all. So it quite smoothly absorbed particles and purified them into qi, a red one. Immediately it infused the red qi on the stone.
The stone glowed with a bright whiteness and the moment the light faded, both Huang and Seyran had disappeared.
Yenaigai came a couple of hours after with sets of food yet found no one.
***
Far away and in the middle of a village, a red little bird was chirping with vehemence, its voice a little scared, just a little.
“This one just got curious.” Huang pleaded for leniency the moment it took in their surroundings. They weren’t at the manor anymore, that’s for sure. They were in a place fill with people which obviously was its fault and it feared for its life. She may have stopped threatening it but hey, she just had that fearful of eyes okay?
It chirped some more but wasn’t really listened to. Seyran, who was still sitting but now sitting on a muddy road, finally got up, letting her white feet touched the brown watery mud under her. The white clothes she was wearing were now completely filthy, making Huang chirped some more. She had been startled at first and for a moment thought that she somehow used magic to teleport them, but knew the second after that the idea wasn’t probable for her reserve didn’t permit to use teleportation still.
***
The moment Seyran’s feet touched the ground, its gigantic head lift to her direction, its black eyes turned frosty white, cold air started forming around it, as a vague of killing intent arose from within its being.
That killing intent was so heavy that Seyran felt it kilometers away.
Someone wanted her dead. Seyran turned her head in direction of the North where it came from. That kind of thing, she hadn’t been missing it one bit. Even though in this life she was prepare to stay low key, some just wouldn’t let her be. She had been in a forest for ten years now, but, she wondered, just who did she offend as a child who had that much capacity?
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