Jago came out from his room and went to the training field behind his courtyard's building. He practiced the Royal Family body strengthening movement. The movement was consisted of only stretching, tightening and other movements to increase his agility and flexibility.
In the Five Element Continent, this kind of exercise was taught and done solely for the purposes to maintain the healthiness of the body. Cultivating was carried out not by body exercises followed combined with breathing practices. The continent's cultivator absorbed the element energy from nature by meditation or got direct intake of element energy from magical items and elixir.
Sweat poured down on the boy's body. He kept diligently practicing the useless movements although he knew that it would not help with his lack of element affinity. Merga watched his liege from the side and held bottle of water in her hand. She readied herself whenever the Prince asked for the water after the morning practice.
"Merga, bring me the water." Jago asked.
Merga ran to him with the water she brought. Jago drank the water from Merga and took the towel from her other hand. He swept the sweat on his little body and walked to the chair near the training field.
"You're a diligent child Jago." a soft voice suddenly reverberated in the training field.
Judging from the voice, it should belong to a mature lady instead of a young girl. Jago was little bit wary, his courtyard was inside the Palace Complex, there should be a tight guard around the Palace's wall. Not to mention also the existence of Palace's Formation, it was a very tough job to sneak into Palace Complex. The biggest possibility was that, the lady should belong to either Royal Family members or their retainers.
Jago swept his sense around the training field. His affinity level might be low, but he had confidence in term of comprehension and sensing ability of the element energy. Soon he found out that a slight fluctuation could be detected in the corner of his courtyard. Jago found out that the element energy fluctuation was slightly familiar.
Jago knew the lady in the corner.
Jago signaled Merga to leave the training field. Merga bowed her head and came inside the courtyard building.
"It is my honor to have Royal Mother visited me." Jago bowed his head to certain direction on the wall.
A soft exclamation voice came out from the corner. The lady seemed did not predicted that Jago could pin point her exact location. A yellowish color started to gather on direction that Jago bowed his head to.
"I've never expected that you would be able to sense my elemental energy ripples my Son." A beautiful lady came out from the dense yellow lights condensed in the training field.
She wore a skin tight robe with cyan color. Her hair tied up and she wore a veil on her face. Although Jago couldn't see the face's features of the Lady before him, he knew that he was facing the Queen of Rivermountain.
When Jago saw the dense yellow color element energy and the pressure it brought, shock appeared on Jago's face. All this time, it was known that the Queen didn't have good talent on cultivation. She reached only Primary Novice Mage level with her level 4 wood affinity.
After Jago saw the yellowish elemental energy, he knew that wood element was never be the Queen's main element, she should have earth element as the most dominant one.
Jago kept bowing his head to the Queen. The Queen smiled to him, but once she saw the black hairs on Jago's head, a strange gleam could be seen on her eyes. There was a complicated feeling shown on her eyes.
"Jago, I am your mother's sworn sister, you should consider me as you own mother. Stop bowing to me and let me see you closely." Asri walked slowly to Jago and her hands reached to touch Jago's face.
Asri saw the familiar features on Jago's face. She missed it a lot. The black hair and eyes carried certain charms that very uncommon on the empire. The longer she saw Jago, she no longer able to hold back. She closed up on Jago and hugged him tightly.
Feeling the sudden hug and started to lose his breaths, Jago pushed Asri's body away. It was very embarrassing for him. He was a 5 years old boy that completed his awakening ceremony. In the continent, he can be considered a half-adult already. To be hugged by such beautiful lady with a nation-toppling body, his face burned red.
Asri indeed asked him to consider herself as his mother. But there was no blood relation at all between both of them. This was awkward for Jago.
"Royal Mother, thanks you for your cares." Jago inched away from Asri.
"Are you shy My Son?" smile bloomed in Asri's face.
She finally realized that the boy before him were having another thought on her.
Jago couldn't find any reason why his half-mother came to his courtyard. She even came in peculiar way. Rather than using a carriage through front door, she sneaked herself to his courtyard directly. Not to mention that she shown her secretive personal strength which was vastly different with the one shown on the public. A sense of worry budded in his heart.
"Jago, maybe the only person that feel saddest because of your awakening ceremony is me." Serious expression started to show on Asri's face.
"Your mother was a beautiful woman. I loved her very much. We grew up together, sharing anything between us. To me, you're the only one in this world resembling her." Asri paused for a moment and glanced at Jago.
"I can't come to your courtyard in straight manner. We all know that there is no secret can be kept secure inside the Palace's wall. Because of your awakening ceremony result, Sister Sari's faction had decided to leave you off the hook. But she keeps people lurking around to monitor your movement. That's mean, if I came through your front door, in the next hour, Sari will find out about that."