Stone Will Page 4

  Actually, that was one of the questions that he was going to ask South Wind in the near future. Fortunately, he’d learned the local language six months ago and could now speak it fluently. And he’d learned to read quite well.

  The Scholar complained that, despite his genius, learning to speak and read had taken Hadjar too much time. Well, of course it had. In comparison to the earthly ones, these local squiggles had little resemblance to a normal language. Who knew how long it would’ve taken him without the help of the neuronet.

  Now, swinging his legs, Hadjar was sitting in the corridor with his father, uncle and a dozen warriors. Each of them was able to lift a stone that weighed 700 pounds, throw a spear four hundred yards and split a thick oak with their sword.

  The main thing was to get a good sword.

  They were at the fourth stage of the Bodily Rivers.

  Previously, Hadjar had thought they were insanely strong. But memories of his time on Earth faded more and more over time, with the help of South Wind’s lectures. Now, Hadjar knew that a Heavenly Soldier wasn’t the pinnacle of cultivation. Stronger cultivators existed.

  Those who were almost immortal. Those who could move seas and mountains with a wave of their hand. And it frightened and fascinated him at the same time, the fact that Hadjar didn’t know whether this was an exaggeration or not.

  And a week ago, he’d been taken outside. Well, ‘outside’ was just the balcony. From atop it, he’d been able to see the almost boundless city and valley, stretching out beyond the titanic walls.

  The wind blew, tousling his wavy black hair.

  The wind called to him.

  “Which do you want more? A brother or a sister?” His father asked again.

  Hadjar pondered the choice again. Each of the options had its advantages.

  Haver laughed and ruffled his son’s hair, as was his habit.

  “South Wind says that you can already pass the exam to be an official, but you can’t answer my question for some reason.”

  “It’s too complicated, Dad,” Hadjar said. “If I have a brother, I can play with him. And if I have a sister, I can protect her. Plus, a sister will clearly be more beautiful than a brother.”

  “Well, who can say,” the King smiled. “Going by what Nanny’s told me, the ladies of the court cuddle you every day. The healers say that, in future, you will break a lot of girls’ hearts.”

  Hadjar barely kept a smug smile off his face. By local standards, he was a very handsome young man. However, what else could you expect from such good genetics and such amazing parents?

  “I hate girls. And why have you given me a wife? It would’ve been better if she’d been a boat.”

  The King laughed and ruffled his hair again.

  “When you grow up, I’ll definitely teach you some secrets.”

  “South Wind’s already teaching me!”

  “Oh, believe me, the old man won’t teach you about this. I'm afraid that this area is one of those where he only has theoretical knowledge.”

  The warriors laughed quietly, and the King winked at his son. Hadjar made a confused face, which elicited a new bout of laughter. Fortunately, he was a great actor. He had to play the role of a two-year-old child. Ingenious, but still a child.

  After all, it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

  Finally, the doors opened and Nanny came out.

  “It’s a daughter,” she smiled.

  Haver picked up his son and rushed off to his chambers. This time, they burst in there without Primus. His uncle had gone to the southern borders on a military campaign. Nomadic tribes had plundered the villages and towns there.

  Hadjar hugged his mother quickly and sat down beside a small, pink, crying lump. His... sister had already been wrapped up in golden blankets. She looked quite ordinary, but something in the Prince’s chest tightened.

  Sitting on the bed, next to his mother and father, looking at his newborn sister, he suddenly realized what he’d been deprived of back on Earth. It hadn’t been the ability to walk and talk. No. Something much more vital had been taken from him.

  Since childhood, he’d been deprived of this very feeling.

  The warmth of a family.

  “And we’d been expecting a son,” the tired Elizabeth smiled.

  Two years had passed and she hadn’t changed at all. Not a single wrinkle had appeared on her beautiful face. Not a single gray in her thick, black hair.

  “What should we name our daughter?” The King rocked the little bundle tenderly.

  “Elaine,” Hadjar said. “Let's name her Elaine.”

  The parents looked at each other and nodded.

  And so, Hadjar now had his forever crying, but already beloved, little sister Elaine. And she changed something deep within him. Without noticing it, he suddenly realized that his performance, his ‘I can protect her’ act, had stopped being a performance.

  ***

  Just a month after Elaine was born, Hadjar was able to obtain permission to visit the training grounds. It would’ve been difficult to get in there, the most sacred part of the Palace complex, even if he’d been the son of not Haver IV, but the son of James Bond himself.

  The grounds were guarded even better than the chambers of some of the high officials. The Master taught the future elite of the country there, and he couldn’t allow his knowledge to be stolen by someone.

  He’d had to work hard to earn the trust of South Wind and to make him work on his cultivation. The cultivation of his martial arts, of course. The Scholar, in principle, didn’t like this field of study very much. Hadjar learned from his Nanny that once upon a time, the old man could’ve been admitted to ‘The Black Gates’, but his meridians had been damaged during the exam . The meridians were the channels in the body through which Force flowed.

  So, while he was healthy outwardly, he remained a cripple for life, internally.

  As for meridians, Hadjar managed to find out some details about the stages of their cultivation.

  The first stage was called ‘Bodily Nodes’. There were nine steps in this stage. Special passages, invisible to the eye, were opened in the body of the practitioner at this stage. They used some kind of acupuncture. The warrior could then absorb energy through them; the local air was full of it.

  After accumulating the energy in their centers, they directed it through the veins, opening the meridians, which were normally sealed from birth. This stage was called ‘The Level of Bodily Rivers’.

  When all the points were opened, and all the meridians were saturated, the practitioner came across the first so-called ‘threshold’. It was a state where the nearest level was so very close, but it was incredibly difficult to reach it.

  Many people couldn’t handle it at all.

  They simply couldn’t condense the energy and reach the Formation Stage. The first level was when The Seed, woven from force, would form inside the soul of a person (and not only there, but we’ll talk about that later.)

  Then it was necessary to split The Seed into several parts. This was the Fragment Level.

  And in the end, it was necessary to gather the fragments back together and create The Core. This was the third level of the Formation Stage.

  The Transformation Stage followed next. This was when a person’s soul adapted, but not their strength or body. The mortal shell, the Awakened spirit, and the New soul.

  Hadjar knew nothing about them, because South Wind had no information on the subject. According to him, only the King himself could teach his son how to progress past these stages.

  And as for the transition from a mortal to a cultivator, there wasn’t a single person in the entire Kingdom that knew how to make the transition between the Transformation and the Heaven Soldier stages.

  Those who knew how to do so lived only in sects or in larger states.

  “Аnyway,” Hadjar spoke to himself aloud, “I’ve already taken the first step.”

  He stood on the edge of the grounds where the soldiers t
rained. He’d made a cunning plan a long time ago. He only had to implement it. And that’s how his cultivation would begin.

  Chapter 6

  The site resembled a sandy parade ground. It was a huge, sandy parade ground. Thousands of soldiers trained here, sparring. They were tirelessly beating each other up under the scorching sun, wearing only short pants (sometimes with a bandaged chest, in the case of the women) under the guidance of the Master walking around.

  Someone moved his arms like a whirlwind, parodying the famous Chinese fantasy movies. Crazy jumps, contrary to the laws of physics, were the norm here. Someone stopped falling as easily as a feather on the wind, by pushing off the earth using just a single palm. Others were easily shattering wooden shields.

  Others fought with a variety of weapons. Their diversity was impressive. Hadjar didn’t know the names of most of these weapons, and he was glad that the familiar staves, wands, swords, bows, swords, axes and hammers were at least there. Some of the girls sometimes waved ribbons around.

  It might’ve looked funny, but not when those ribbons left scratches on the stone walls.

  And, of course, all of their characteristics were gradually being studied by the neuronet, gaining enough information to be able to perform a detailed analysis.

  For example, it could produce something like:

  Name

  Training Sword

  Quality Grade

  Non-artifactual Weapon

  Endurance

  ????? (lack of data)

  Damage

  ????? (lack of data)

  Energy points

  0

  The Prince walked along the edge of the parade ground, listening to the Master's shouts. He constantly repeated obscure phrases, like ‘energy circulation’, ‘external Techniques’, ‘internal Techniques’ and so on.

  Sometimes, the old man stopped duos that were training together and showed them how to do something properly. Then, an unlucky disciple found themselves flung, crashing into the wall, and they’d be considered lucky if they didn’t leave a dent behind.

  A new wall was probably erected here every season, because, at that moment, it looked like it had withstood a shelling.

  When someone noticed Hadjar, they stopped training and bowed. This continued until the Master noticed a toddler walking around the court.

  “Your Highness,” he bowed slightly. “May I ask who let you in and where your Nanny is?”

  “I asked for permission from South Wind,” Hadjar replied. Judging by the old man’s face, he was interested to know where the scholar had gotten the ability to give such permission. “And Nanny is busy with Elaine.”

  “And did you decide to come to visit us since you were feeling abandoned?”

  Hadjar bowed his head in annoyance. Despite all of his peculiarities, the Master still treated him like a small child. A child whose uncle and father had gone to war (and how could they cover such vast distances so quickly?!), whose mother had gone to a nearby town to execute some corrupt governor, whose Nanny was busy with his sister, and whose teacher wouldn’t be coming out of seclusion for another month.

  South Wind was currently working on a new medicine that he was going to use to speed up the cultivation of the nobles. If he got lucky, it would probably bring him a lot of money and, more importantly, fame.

  The Scholar, even being a cripple, didn’t refuse his attempts to get the attention of the sect.

  So, to the Master, he looked like a lost child.

  “No, Master, I’ve come to study.”

  “Study?” the old man was surprised. He scratched his long, thin beard. “And what are you planning to study here?”

  “Martial arts,” Hadjar said proudly. The old man should’ve known better than to ask.

  The Master laughed, and a few dozen soldiers that had been standing nearby laughed with him.

  “Why do you, your Highness, think that you can study martial arts?”

  “Because I’ve decided to do so.”

  The old man twitched slightly, having glanced into the child’s deep blue eyes. Damn it, he could’ve sworn that he’d seen a look that could bend iron.

  “Your determination is worthy of praise, my Prince,” the Master nodded. “But…”

  The martial artist came closer and touched the child’s wrist. He listened for a second, and then opened his eyes and shook his head.

  “While you do undoubtedly possess some talent…” the Master sighed, “It isn't strong enough to achieve true greatness on the path. Perhaps you should go back to South Wind's scrolls.”

  This news could’ve broken another man, but Hadjar was adamant. He had heard, all his life, that he couldn't do anything or couldn’t handle anything. But in spite of everyone’s words, he’d used to achieve his goals and deal with his problems, punching through any obstacles. He knew that hard work and diligence produced much better results than mere talent.

  “I've decided to do it,” Hadjar repeated.

  Suddenly, the Master realized that he couldn’t convince this two-year-old boy to give up.

  “I'll take you on as a disciple, then,” the old man stood up, blocking the sun.

  The court grew silent. The silence hung heavily on the shoulders of the people. They froze, remaining in poses that they’d been in a moment ago. Some of the disciples were even standing with their feet raised above their heads.

  First was South Wind, who had been alive for two thousand years, and had never taken a disciple before, and now the Master, who was almost twice as old as him, and had also never taught anyone personally before.

  To tell the truth, luck was part of it. Hadjar had been born the son of the King, and had then expressed a desire to study and then become a disciple of the Master. He was quite a lucky boy.

  “But you have to pass one small test, first.”

  “What kind of test, Master?”

  The old man smiled and pointed to the opposite side of the court. There was a large barrel of water there, on the surface of which floated a wooden cup. Soldiers often went there to rinse their mouths. They were allowed to drink only a few times during training, and the Master oversaw them very strictly.

  He would say that nobody was allowed to mix… He said that one couldn’t mix the energy of the sun (fire), with the energy of water. Whatever that meant.

  “Do you see that barrel over there, my Prince?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then your test shall be this: you need to pour water from that barrel into this one here,” he patted a barrel next to him that was exactly the same as the other one, only this one was empty. “You mustn’t spill a single drop.”

  Hadjar estimated the distance that he needed to cross. It was about fifteen hundred feet from one end of the parade ground to the other. Given the fact that it was difficult for him to take even a hundred steps, it was daunting to imagine having to walk so much more than that. The task was further complicated by the scorching sun, as well as the large size of the barrels; he needed to pour a whole barrel of water.

  The warriors hid their smiles behind their fists. Well, they loved their King, who was strict, strong and fair. And yet, they were glad that the little Prince had been put in his place. They hoped that he, being a well-bred boy, would turn around and leave, offended, but without making a scene, as the spoiled children of petty nobles usually did. Neither Nanny nor the Queen would approve of that kind of behavior.

  “Well,” Hadjar nodded, clenching his fists.

  Nobody had expected this. They also hadn’t expected that the boy would lift a heavy barrel and drag it through the parade ground.

  The Master blinked a few times, rubbed his beard and screamed: “What are you staring at?! Keep working!”

  No one moved, because the Prince, Haver and Elizabeth's son, was walking among them. The very thought of touching him caused them to tremble, they were afraid of hurting him accidentally while sparring.

  “But, Master, we could…”

  “The Princ
e is doing his job, and you have to do yours as well. Those of you who are going to take a break can forget the way here! Whoever pauses to cool off, they can forget the way here as well!”

  Forgetting the way to the parade ground meant missing out on the opportunity to train with the best instructor in the country. No practitioner could allow himself such a thing.

  They all craved strength and they weren’t afraid of the danger along the path of cultivation, the complexity of it only fueled their excitement. So it wasn’t surprising that, just a minute later, Hadjar found himself having to dodge other people's heels and hide his eyes so sand wouldn’t get in them.

  He was dragging the heavy cup, looking at the barrel ahead of him intently.

  The Master looked at the little Prince. He was ready to save the child’s life at any moment if the need arose, but the disciples whom he was training were also trying not to injure the boy. And so, their movements became calmer, more measured, more reasonable.

  Well, little Hadjar’s stubbornness had produced a lot of benefits. He, the Master smirked inwardly, was an excellent training obstacle. Maybe someone would get so deeply immersed in their movements today that they’d be able to get some inspiration and get to the next level.

  It would hardly be that beneficial, but who knows.

  The Master wondered how long the Prince’s willpower would last. Could he reach the barrel?

  It was extremely difficult for a two-year-old child to overcome five hundred yards under the scorching sun, among all the flickering bodies. And what if a heavy cup and hot sand were added to the mix?

  However, Hadjar overcame the first hundred yards, then two hundred, and after a quarter of an hour, all five hundred of them. He’d already surprised the Master. But a simple surprise wasn’t enough to force the old man to take him on as a disciple.