Pa!
The crisp sound of a slap not only made Ryu's ears ring, but also caused his face to sting with a deep and reverberating pain. Maybe it was due to the fact his eyes were closed, but he felt every moment. The whooshing of the air, the vacuum that formed in his ear, even the shock of what happened were each multiplied many times over. He felt stuck in the moment, replaying the sensations in his mind again and again.
Amory's meridian awakening ceremony had long since come to an end. In fact, the awkwardness of its start was washed over by the outstanding news related to his meridian, skeletal, bloodline and spiritual foundation grades. However, it was clear that First Concubine Leilani hadn't forgotten what happened. It had festered in her to the point where she hit her son for the first time in her life.
"Do you not understand the gravity of what you've done today?!" Leilani's shrill voice filled the mother and son's private courtyard. "Do you believe that you were very clever?! Did you think that even if you meant your words with the utmost sincerity that it would matter?!"
Ryu didn't respond. His face didn't show the change in expression or borderline crying contortion a three-year-old should have probably displayed. His eyes remained closed, his hands didn't even clench into fists, and aside from the gradual reddening of his left cheek, his features practically remained at their baseline.
Even at three years old, Ryu had an arrogance that no one could shake. Today, he could have bowed, but he did no such thing. Since he was capable of beating up his elder brothers, something he had done on several occasions already, how could he not be capable of aiming a bow properly? He didn't do it because he didn't want to.
According to their martial world's tradition, there was no shame in bowing to one's parents. In fact, it was dutiful and filial of a child to do so. The problem was that Ryu never saw King Tor as a father. He saw him as a weak and spineless man who didn't deserve his respect. His brothers saw the King as the perfect and best man in the world, but to Ryu, if this was what the pinnacle of manhood was, the human race would have been extinct long ago.
"Do you not understand that this isn't just about you?" Leilani trembled at her son's lack of a reaction. She had half a mind to raise her hand and slap him again, maybe this time the message would ring true to his mind. However, something told her that even if she skinned Ryu alive, it would make no difference to his demeanor whatsoever.
**
The years passed slowly. On the fourth year since Ryu's birth, his second brother's meridian awakening ceremony took place. On the fifth, it was his third brother's turn. And finally, the seventh year came around, leaving just three days until Ryu's own.
In these times, the Kingdom was truly blessed. It seemed like all of the King's heirs were heavenly talents the likes of which their Plane rarely saw. However, there was an undercurrent of competition that shook Tor Kingdom. It could be said that this generation of Tor heirs had no choice to be great. If they had been any less talented, the threat of the Six Pillar Clans would have been too great to bear.
Young geniuses sprang up not only in the royal family, but also Tor Capital City's upper echelon. Not only were the Prince's heavenly talents, but so were the young masters of those six Clans.
Still, the Third Prince shockingly stood above them all, including his eldest full-blooded brother. He was actually born with an Earth Skeletal Grade! The moment this news became public knowledge, the various elders of the Heavenly Body Sect practically tore each other apart in competition to be his master.
According to tradition, there were only two ways to enter the four sects of their Plane. The first was to reach a certain cultivation threshold. No matter which sect was in question, this threshold was the Spiritual Severing Realm. One wouldn't be considered a true cultivator until this realm was reached. It was also those of this threshold that were no longer allowed to interfere in the matters of the 'Secular World'.
The second method was actually far more difficult. This second path required one to be born as a heavenly and undeniable talent. Being of the Earth Grade in one of the so-called Foundations of Cultivation was the minimum requirement!
In truth, King Tor was also born with an Earth Skeletal Grade. In his youth, he had been taken away. But, after all of his brothers crossed the age of eighteen, he came back to participate in the Coronation Games. After this, he was crowned as King and had ruled ever since. This said, once he stepped into the Spiritual Severing Realm, he too would have to return to the sect after abdicating.
For the Tor Clan to have birthed not just one Earth Grade genius, but three for consecutive generations of them caused an uproar the other sects could no longer ignore. If it had just been the now abdicated Amell Tor, it was fine. Their sects also had one such talent each. But now adding Shuren Tor and his son, Third Prince Cayden Tor… It was too much!
On top of all of this, recent rumors had it that Amell Tor had just stepped into the Half-Step Divine Vessel Realm. Even the sects of the Immortal Planes had started to show interest in recruiting him. Now, the Tor Clan had only become far more untouchable…
It was in the midst of this shockingly good news that Ryu's own meridian awakening ceremony approached. Using the former King Amell Tor's cultivation increase as a pretext, Shuren Tor took his four sons with him on a trip, waving Leilani off and claiming that he could handle his own son's awakening ceremony. After all, even the poorest of family's could arrange such a ceremony for their children. Although it often failed due to their poor talents, that didn't mean that such unlucky Clans didn't still treat their newborn children as potential lottery tickets to a grander life.
Ryu didn't speak for the entirety of this trip. Even when he entered the Heavenly Body Sect and met this shadow-like grandfather for the second time, he didn't show much of a special reaction.
When the day of his ceremony finally arrived, Ryu stood before his brothers, father and grandfather, a cold expression on his small, immature face. While his brothers, especially his first and third, stood nervous, each entirely certain that this fourth brother of theirs was the most talented of them all, Ryu somehow knew exactly what would happen.
When his father pretended to pull a long face as the ceremony fizzled out, he didn't so much as tremble.
"To not even allow me a path to live?... What a good father you are." Those were the only words Ryu spoke during the entire trip, and it earned him the second slap of his life.