The princess turned to other children and bowed with her hands tightly grasped in front of herself.
Long Xingyue: "I would ask of everyone to do the same, if you don't mind..."
The previous relaxed mood again became a little bit gloomy. If someone told the story of how six-year-old kids could think like adults and have emotions and empathy towards others, of the kind the adults show, nobody would believe unless they saw this scene.
Asura Ryuu only now awoke from his absent-minded state and calmed his racing thoughts. Seeing Long Xingyue's tightly furrowed eyebrows and her desolate eyes full of disappointment and loneliness, Asura Ryuu was shocked. Not because of the fact that the princess showed something like that before them. The reason for his shock was much greater and had much more impact on him than what any other case could achieve.
Her exact expression in that moment was the one of being betrayed by everyone she knew. He was very familiar with that feeling. Too familiar to be able to calmly take it to heart. His past was full of that feeling, the same feeling that was currently written all over the princess' face.
Asura Tenka's hand caught Asura Ryuu's tightly clenched fist. He didn't even realize that his hands turned into the clenched fist, while his eyebrows reflected irritation visible in his eyes.
Asura Tenka's voice appeared in his mind: "Let's go."
He nodded and then the two of them stood up, their hands separating, and came in front of Long Xingyue. Because her head was lowered, she could only see their feet. Long Xingyue looked up in order to see what's going on, because she was confused as to why would someone come towards her at this moment. But before she could even ask or say anything, Asura Ryuu and Asura Tenka tightly hugged her.
This was the first interaction between Asura Tenka and Long Xingyue.
The previous sad and chaotic thoughts in Long Xingyue's mind vanished into nothingness. Her mind was blank, but her heart, in turn, filled to the brim. She didn't know what this feeling was. She never remembered anyone doing this kind of thing for her. Everyone she ever met kept their distance away from her and avoided coming near her, as if she wasn't someone they wanted to come in contact with under any circumstances.
She never experienced the tightness that came about when the pair of arms coiled around her own, when her body pressed against another. This was a novel experience for her.
The Princess, this poor girl with aloof charm and captivating appearance, never experienced the warmth of another human being. Although Asura Ryuu and Asura Tenka weren't truly humans, that was only the case for their souls and the innate state of their body. In reality, be it humans, beasts or spirits, all of them looked like humans when they decided to embark on this path, as was obvious from the fact that everyone looked like a normal human child.
Asura Tenka's voice sounded for the first time. The gentle, charming yet absorbing and slightly overpowering voice lightly said: "You're forgetting something important ..."
Asura Ryuu got a sudden feeling of Deja Vu when he heard those words. He only smiled and put his hand on Long Xingyue's head, as if trying to convey the words: "Don't worry, everything will be okay." by doing that.
Long Xingyue wondered about the words Asura Tenka had just said to her and couldn't figure out what they referred to.
When both Asuras released Long Xingyue from their hug, Asura Tenka saw the confused expression on her face and gently smiled as her eyes slightly narrowed and a few silky strands of her black hair separated from the rest, carried by the wind.
Asura Tenka: "From the moment we all awoke our Spirit A-.. Emblems, you were a part of a new family. If Royal Family doesn't want such a cute little thing, we'll gladly monopolize you, hehe."
Asura Tenka turned to the side where Asura Ryuu's eyes full of confusion and disbelief met her own.
Her Spiritual Voice appeard in his mind: "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
Asura Ryuu: "Since when did you start swinging that way? Do you want to make Xun Bao sad?"
Asura Tenka: "... Huh?"
It took her a little bit to connect the dots and realize what she just said. Her cute face blushed and she hurriedly returned to her previous place, taking the half-transparent tablet and seemingly pondered about the meaning of those runes, as if mortal issues didn't bother her.
Meanwhile, her mind was calm, as usual. She only wondered: "Why did I feel an urge to say that? What did I mean by saying that?"
Long Xingyue couldn't really comprehend what happened and by the time she returned to reality, Asura Ryuu and Asura Tenka were already back at their places as the slightly depressing mood once again disappeared.
She felt a slightly warm feeling on her cheek and used the back of her hand to swipe over it. When she looked at the back of her hand after that, she saw the reflection of the green sun off the edges of a certain area on it. The greenish light reflected around the borders of the wet spot on her hand seemed to contain much deeper feeling than being merely light, but she didn't know how to describe it. She only knew this was her first tear that she remembers.
She sat down as well, completely forgetting about the reason she stood up in the first place.
Just as the silence was about to take over again, Xun Feng's cough came from the front.
Xun Feng : *cough* "Now with that out of the way, what did you want to say a while ago?"
Long Xingyue: "I... forgot."
Xun Feng took two seconds to let the silence spread a while and then shook his head, continuing with his explanation.
Xun Feng: "This shape isn't anything we previously mentioned, but if you carefully pay attention to it, you'll see that it gives off the peculiar feeling. That is the magic behind the runes we are unable to touch upon. Even if you don't use the standard symbols, we would still be able to understand the content of the rune, as long as we are capable of understanding what the meaning behind it signified. Take this one for example, this shape is called a square but the idea I infused into it while bringing it to life was the one of the nature. Feel the nature around yourselves and then look at the rune again."
It truly was as he said. When children carefully felt the aura from the nature everywhere around them, they realized that this rune gave off a similar aura, even though it wasn't quite the same.
Asura Ryuu thought: "Interesting, very interesting."
The more Asura Ryuu felt the wonders of this world, the more he became absorbed in it and expectant about the future events.
Just at this moment, a voice sounded in his mind.
Xia: "Little Ryuu, would you mind joining me in your Divine World for a while?"
Asura Ryuu's thoughts immediately focused: "Xia! You're done?"
Xia: "Leave that aside, do what I said."
Asura Ryuu didn't doubt her words and hurriedly submerged his consciousness into his Divine World. He was shocked when he saw what happened inside.
At the middle of the rainbow-colored lake, there was a sapphire-blue tree around a hundred meters high. The exact height from the surface level was 98 meters to its highest point.
The tree was transparent like a crystal and had a scaly texture. He was familiar with this texture as it was the way how Xiao Lan's scales looked. The scales on the tree were exactly the same, even the color, design and aura were the same. The occasional streak of lightning flashing at the surface of the tree further assured him of that.
Asura Ryuu: "W-w-w-w-what happened to Xiao Lan?!"
"Ai, how sweet! Master cares about me, hehe.", a voice different from Xia's appeared in Asura Ryuu's mind. It was Xiao Lan's voice, but it seemed much younger and more energetic.
Then, he saw another shocking thing. There was a little girl with a pair of horns on her head. In the middle of her forehead, there was a rainbow-colored mark in the shape of a vertical eye with some thread-like markings surrounding it, resembling lightning. The girl was exactly the same height as Xia, which was the same height as the current Asura Ryuu.
Asura Ryuu: "X-Xiao Lan, is that you?"
The girl answered: "Who else could it be? Does master not even recognize his elder sister anymore?"
Asura Ryuu muttered: "Elder.... with that appearance?"
Xiao Lan caught his words and pouted: "Mouu... even though I'm now young and small just like this, I'm still your Elder sister, understood?"
Hearing the silence as the answer, Xiao Lan smiled and waved to the sky.
Xiao Lan: "Well anyway, see ya in a bit."
With that said, a golden vortex appeared around the little girl and her silhouette twisted into nothingness.
Ten seconds later, Xiao Lan in the form of a young girl ran out of the forest where she initially went in order to go to Asura Ryuu's Divine World.
Xun Feng naturally recognized her due to her aura staying the same, but there was a slight difference now - the eye on her forehead. It gave him a familiar yet terrific aura. A cold feeling crawled up his spine and he immediately stopped his thoughts from probing further than needed. Anything related to that white dragon that appeared a while ago was off-limits for him, that's what he decided when he saw its form for the first and last time. He didn't even dare ask his own disciple about it, let alone think of questioning it.
Xun Feng: "Ah, old fool... there are a lot of things you're not supposed to interfere it. Ah whatever, I never saw what happened to legendary Blue Qilin. Where it went and how it disappeared is not known to me. Um, that's how it will be!"
He told the same to Lan Yao who was in disbelief when she saw the little girl and both of them put on indifferent expressions after that.
That's how Xiao Lan joined the twenty four children and became the twenty fifth member of the local True Dragon gang.
Needless to say, the reason Xia initially called her inside Asura Ryuu's Divine World was to offer her to do this precisely, sacrificing all of her cultivation to evolve into True Dragon and re-start everything from zero, which was the common point of everyone in Class Zero.