After getting his two rewards .. Tanjō was even more excited ...
the blessing he got from the envoy made everyone in the town look up to him ...
a single victory won him an award of bravery and the talented genius of this town ...
he felt like he was in heaven .. everything he had ever wished for .. fell on him .. like raindrops .. none missing a speck of his hair ..
he was bathed in riches ..
the treasury house .. was like a vault ..
it carried many golden coins ..
and comparing the 30 golden coins the Lord of the town .. had with the vault was a slap in the face of the high ruling member above the danshaku ..
for his second reward .. Tanjō wished for 500 gold coins ...
and of course .. the envoy who gifted him this reward didn't refuse instead he gave him without arguing with him ...
with each gold coin he received .. he made some changes in the town .. and everyone who belonged there felt .. blessed ..
because for the first time ever .. since the beginning of their lives .. they had only been able to see such towns ... in books from bigger towns ..
but now looking at the magnificent changes ... they felt so great ..
everyone looked up to Tanjō .. whilst some watched from behind the scenes with jealousy and greed ..
he was dubbed .. the 'little hero' despite being no actions of him saving anyone ... or doing anything knightly ... before ..
his residence grew to the size of the danshaku residence ..
he was even given the noble rank equal to the town lord .. which made Unmei and him very happy ..
every poor person in town could now carry a single gold coin ... every day ..
not from his reward but from the business trades that happened between .. the ruling towns of different areas ...
the two got more and more prosperous .. and was soon filled with riches ...
in the following months .. the king of the colony .. was given an order by his seniors .. to upgrade the town's rank ..
at that time ... the danshaku of the town .. was placed as the hakushaku .. of their town .. and to top it off ..
their entire town was expanded to the horizon ...
a town that could barely fit 10 000 people .. could now have 2 million people .. with enough space left ..
treasures filled the treasury house and the hakushaku .. who was equivalent to a count ... grew more and more powerful with the power the king gave him .. and he had no doubt that in the next few years .. with Tanjō by his side .. it wouldn't be that long until he became at a Duke rank ... ruling his own dukedom ...
Tanjō's luck was that good ...
the schools that were built under the county's order were recognised as one of the most influential educational institutions ... inside the whole Eastern Continent ...
kids from big families .. even dukes .. had to humble themselves .. as they enrolled their children into this prestige school ...
at this time ...
the whole town .. was upgraded to a miniature kingdom ...
Tanjō and his sister lived in the best residence ... and had been gifted with more treasures with much more quality compared from before ..
the counts residence was equal to theirs .. and the two ruling powers considered each other as allies ...
Tanjō's friends .. the man and woman .. had become influential ... through their shops and had moved their business throughout the entire continent and had even gotten involved in international trading businesses .. hosted by great seniors from other continents ..
they had informed Tanjō about their departure in the next few years .. as they had missed their homeland ...
the latter was left heartbroken by these sudden news .. but remained strong during their time of stay ...
by this time ... 6 months had passed and he had already comprehended the special manual from the treasure house and was already on the verge of understanding the first manual of the three that the envoy gave him ...
the manuals themselves were considered high quality .. but he didn't even know how high they were ..
within this short time .. he indulged himself in the ways of the book .. and studied himself in his special library that was as large as a ball hall ..
as of now .. he was already behind his desk ... sitting down and reading about etiquette and knights ..
of course the Eastern Continent couldn't nurture knights but .. the ones known as Shinobi ..
the ones who moved with the shadow ..
while he was still reading .. he suddenly felt something like glass shattering inside of his mind ..
at this time he had received an epiphany ..
after five months of full training without rest and one month of reading for comprehension .. he finally comprehended ... the first high grade manual ...
from the ancient scribbles written across the manual .. he understood that the first scroll was about getting on the journey of being a Shinobi ...
the first manual was all about being in the shadows ... everything done was supposed to be in the shadows .. and was supposed to be secret in any way
.
after comprehending the whole thing .. Tanjō realised that .. movement techniques weren't actually needed in this case ..
every shadow had its own shadow ..
and every shadow's darkness is every shinobi's home ...
that was what he understood from the script .. everything was all clear to him ...
after this .. he got up on his feet and practised all the technique itself and realised .. that each step he made was silent ...
unlike before .. he had done many mistakes and created soft sounds when creating the techniques ..
but now ... his steps .. were as light as the wind .. when moving across his floor .. he didnt meet any restrictions and flowed smoothly .. his feet suddenly created a shadow which encased him in a dome that was invisible to the eyes of others ..
when practising this technique he suddenly had an idea ..
as he moved .. his feet became even more lighter .. a black blur appeared on his feet as he walked slowly ..
but to other people it would've looked like he was running fast ..
he combined the special technique with the technique from the senior and found out that they were a perfect match ..
he could feel his blood pumping .. and his veins vibrated with vigorous energy .. and his muscles loosened like in unbuttoned robes
..
he could feel the gravity around him and he could feel the movement in the air ..
each object and everything in this room that moved slightly didn't go unnoticed by him
...
he felt like he was one with everything ..
after a while .. he stopped and looked at the second manual .. and read it's scribbles but then decided on studying it at a later time ...
on his free time he would study other offensive techniques and defensive ones as well .. which packed him a lot of fighting skills ...
his skill slots were all maintained and balanced in a way the seniors would've been surprised if they saw the current Tanjō ..
they wouldn't believe that it was the same fragile boy from before ...
he had grown so much in such a little time ...
after practising other techniques .. he indulged himself again in the concepts of politics .. and war ...
understanding these two made him believe that he would have the mind to be tactical even at dire times ..
as the time passed .. he had read past about a dozen books as thick as an adult arm ..
he then stood up and walked out of his library .. and appeared in the living room where Unmei sat ... drinking cuvèe from a goblet ..
Tanjō happily greeted her and went on his way .,
he then wore his outside formal clothing .. and walked down towards the clothing Store ...
there he met Estelle .. the woman who was his friend and Mark .. the man who always accompanied her ..
he passed by with a smile with a greeting and walked over .. under his favourite tree ...
under the glade of that perfect moment .. he felt like he belonged ..here ..
from all those tiring practices and comprehension skills ... he never found the time to sit alone in peace ..
but now ... he felt like he deserved this rest ...
by the time he turned ten .. the seniors will be impressed with his progress so far ..
unlike before .. Tanjō had regained a bit of an adult mindset and could now differentiate between bad and good ..
from extreme kindness to the proper and valued kindness .. he didn't need to complicate and ruin his life by being vulnerable all the time ..
but he still was the same kind Tanjō everyone in the town .. has ever known ...
he could even converse naturally with those in the higher echelon without causing any trouble .. but strangely though ... the necessity to bow down to someone of huge importance bugged him ...
he couldn't understand but what he did comprehend was that from his mind .. a while ago .. when he was still 4 years old .. he often had images of a place ... that had purity in and out and from the end of that place sat a man of great glory and respect ... blurry facial features but had the presence of dominance that he couldn't understand ...
even in his dreams .. he always felt the need to bow when before him ...
it was that weird scene in his dreams .. even though the dream was always repeating ... everything felt like they were still in the present ..
every second he took to bow made him conclude that a thousand years may have passed in the real world ..
from those dreams alone .. he learnt one thing ...
Never bow to anyone even in the face of power ..
when he thought of this .. he smiled lightly ... the feeling inside his dreams didn't release any power .. but unrestricted love and caring ...
even without seeing his face .. he had a gut feeling that told him .. the being was smiling at him ...
so with all that ... he promised never to bow down even in the face of fear ...
he made an oath to serve and praise the one in his dreams ..
as his mind wandered off .. he dozed off .. and fell asleep under the shade of the tree ...