A boy with dark blue hair and a girl with fiery red hair were walking side by side.
They were silent and no word could be heard from them as they were heading home.
The boy was in deep thought as determination was written all over his serious face.
In the meanwhile, the girl was a bit curious and as she walked, she gave a lazy sideglance, to the boy beside her, from time to time.
"He has been with this same expression the whole day..." the girl thought, wondering about what he was thinking.
"Oh, you're back just in time for dinner." smiled Bai Juan as she and Bai Cheng were preparing the table.
Bai cheng smiled lightly and nodded " You kids go change and wash first, ok?"
"Yes dad, thanks mom! " Bai Ling moved quickly to the stairs and went up.
"Is something wrong, Ash?" seeing Ash standing still like a rock with a serious expression, Bai Cheng asked.
After a few seconds of hesitation, Ash came up with the courage to ask "Uncle... I know that cultivation gives a chance for a longer life and unimaginable powers, but... If someone attacks me, for example... How am I to defend myself?"
"This kid..." Bai Cheng thought in exasperation "He is trying to hide things from me... How cute!" he smiled.
Maybe one day Ash will find out that Bai Cheng was a respected cultivator in the upper world. Lies wouldn't work on him this easily, unless he wanted to be deceived.
Not to mention that his spiritual sense was extremely sensitive to Nature essense and could expand further than a continent on this little world. Thus, making it extemely easy to comunicate with other cultivators in the area.
This being said, uncle Lee, who was a strong cultivator himself, but slightly weaker than Bai Cheng, could transmit information to his master just as if he was on the phone with him 24/7.
"I guess i'll grant him his wish." Bai Cheng smiled devilishly as he called uncle Lee over.
"Yes, you're right Ash. You should know how to defend yourself in order to be able to protect Ling! " he acted with a serious expression, not asking Ash what realy happened.
"You called, master." uncle Lee came out of nowhere, behind Bai Cheng's back.
"You are to teach Ash matrial arts from tomorrow and let him chose a weapon after dinner! " Bai Cheng stopped for a second, before he continued in a hardly detectible whisper "Oh, and dont go easy on him. Train him as if you would train a soldier."
"I will do my best, master!"
"After you finish dinner I will await you on the first floor, young master." uncle Lee suddenly turned to Ash.
He was going to make a trainging routine for Ash.
"I will do my best too Uncle, mr Lee!" Ash enthusiasticaly answered and went up to change his clothes.
...
After dinner...
"I know about your little deal with Ash, Ling." Bai Cheng looked at his daughter with a stern face. "This being said, we are going to double your sword and martial arts training hours."
"But dad... Ash is way behind me in everything. Do you realy think he can cach up to me this easily?" Bai Ling pouted.
She was one of the most talented disciples in 'Golden Crow sect' in the upper world. Meaning that Bai Ling was a core disciple of one of the biggest and strongest sects out there.
How was Ash, a human cultivator, supposed to cach up to her? Not to mention that she was supposed to elevate her realm to the 'Body Compression' subrealm of the 'Great Circle Of Body And Soul Transformation' realm.
Compared to her, Ash was like an ant she could crush with a single slap.
"No buts! Do you know that Ash has unlocked his first meridian and made a connection between it and his dantian in under 4 hours, after reading the 'Mortality transcendence guide'?" Bai Cheng scolded.
"He did what?" Bai Ling asked in utter shock. Her eyebrows were lifted and her mouth opened slowly. This was unbelievable!
It was a well known fact that the first meridian was the hardest one to open and most human cultivatorst needed sometimes a month to accomplish what Ash did in a matter of hours.
Ash was a freak no matter how you looked at it. If geniuses called prodigies monsters, then prodigies would for sure call Ash a monster.
....
Oblivious to their conversation, Ash was being led by uncle Lee to the weaponry.
One never knew when one would be attacked, and this applied to the mortal world too. As long as one was a cultivator, there was no escaping the danger of being attacked or being preyed upon.
After all, if there was one cultivator out there, there might be a second one, or even more, lurking around, greedily searchimg for resourses.
It still was a world of mortals though, so mostly the weapons weren't that special and of low quantity, thus the weaponry was quite smaller, as big as two medium sized rooms at the most.
It was enough for the 'invisible' guards around the 'castle'.
Entering the weaponry, Ash thought for a second and got himself a pair of shields, standing one under the other. He wasn't going to risk being sliced by half no matter what. Satisfied with his choise of 'weapons', Ash went back.
"I'll go with these!" Ash gave a bright smile to uncle Lee. He knew that shields didnt have strong attack powers, but untill he was strong enough, it was better forhim to be atleast safe.
The shields were round and simple. They looked like two parts of a big sphere and were black in color. Only the edge of the shields was in shiny grey color and as sharp as a sword.
"Interesting choise!" thought uncle Lee.
Shields were usualy used for protection, but for skilled warriors and freaks, shields could become a weapon, nobody would want to fight against.
Warriors who used shields as weapons were extremely rare. The chance of meeting a cultivator, with double shields as a weapon of choice, was smaller than a mortal being hit by lightning.
"This will be a problem..." thought uncle Lee, knowing he was incapable of teaching Ash shield stances and techniques.
"We will start training tomorrow. As for your shields... I'm affraid you will have to to learn by yourself. I think master has some old shield techniques and stances for you to learn, but i cannot help you with that, young master." uncle Lee said with regret in his eyes.
"If you want, you can change to something else, like a sword or spear, maybe a staff wouldn't be a bad choice either." he tried to change Ash's mind. A rash decision was never a good thing.
"Nah, im good with them for now." Ash answered reassuringly. "One has to try first in order to succeed." he waved his hand and started walking to his room with the two shields.
Uncle Lee watched him unmoving as the kid infront of him slowly disappeared. For a 14 y.o., Ash was surprisingly mature.
....
"This kid. How many surprises is he going to show us..." Thought Bai Cheng. He created a disruption energy sphere around himself and turned into a magestic 6 tailed phoenix, flying away into the horizon.
A stream of light was left behind as a trail from the balcony to the high skies.