Opening her pink eyes and gazing at the stars, Hong Li-Wei mustered a smile after remembering that memory.
'Even back then, he was already a pillar to rely on, huh.' A chuckle escaped her mouth upon remembering how Hai always had that "adult' aura surrounding him.
"…" Closing her eyes again, she heaved a sigh before getting up.
'Come on! Hai even as a kid dealt with things like that, so why am I so hesitant about it?' She motivated herself before closing her eyes again and just like before, the memories came again.
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While Hong Li-Wei was dealing with what could be considered her "heart demon", Elena and Kryn who were also going through the same training as Hong Li-Wei were faring a bit better.
Elena not so much, though.
Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Elena's feet kept repeatedly moving up and down tapping her shin, and her expression morphed into a frown from time to time as if worrying about something.
Opening her eyes, she looked around the room before closing them again.
Although she found no difficulty in understanding Akame's teaching, her problem lies in another, completely unrelated thing:
The fact that she is alone and without something to occupy her mind.
One problem that Elena faces since years ago is that she suffers from anxiety when she isn't with Hai.
Normally, a person would at most only miss someone and want to see this person again and as soon as possible, however, Elena is way beyond this.
She is so obsessed with Hai, that she makes him her whole life. She wants to be with him at all times and anywhere.
And this is where her problem comes from. Elena has a constant yearning for Hai's presence and affection, and this coupled with her obsession resulted in a high level of desire to be with him, which thus generated her anxiety, her desire for him to come back soon for her to be with him.
Even though Elena is good at controlling herself and has high self-awareness, she still is unable to get rid of this problem that stems from her own love.
Frowning again, Elena took in a deep breath and tried to concentrate on her task: to successfully advance. She has already been on the 2nd River for nearly a year, and she has been completely unsatisfied with her "slow" process.
And her own attribute doesn't help with it.
As much as her attribute is versatile, strong, and relatively easy to control, it is as hard to progress; not even her young master knows how to help her in this, since Hai has never seen something like her attribute.
After almost a minute, Elena opened her eyes with a glint of irritation in them.
She is getting angry at herself and her lack of self-control. However, there isn't much she can do.
This has always been a problem to her and even years ago, she only coped with it by occupying herself with her duties in the mansion, because if she was left with nothing to do, she would start to feel this anxiety, and then it would only go away when her young master came back.
Gritting her teeth, she shut her eyes again and tried to concentrate again.
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[Kryn…] As Laila flashed a message, Kryn looked at it with an impassive expression and calm eyes.
"…" Not answering anything, Kryn brought her hand up and wiped the dust off of her face.
Then, she looked at the charred room before her.
"…" Silently gazing at the destruction before her, she questioned herself in how it even ended up like that.
She was just following what Akame taught her and it ended… like that.
"How?" After a few seconds of silence, she eventually voiced out her confusion.
[Well…. You will probably get an answer when you reach the Nascent rank.]
Looking at the message, Kryn only nodded.
Getting up, she closed her eyes and tried again.
Focusing on gathering the surrounding mana, she concentrated even more, and she was eventually able to "see" some red, orange, and even golden particles with her eyes closed.
Although Kryn doesn't know what those colors represent, she understood that it is mana and she can absorb it.
Focusing on absorbing those particles, Kryn felt a comfortable warmth wash over her body until it eventually concentrated on her stomach.
If one had a special vision like Hai, they would be able to see Kryn's mana core glowing in a golden color while on the inside, the golden-colored mana seemed to boil a bit.
It would certainly stun most mages since cases where the mana behaves in such a way, are nearly unheard of.
As Kryn was gathering mana, the particles she was seeing suddenly started to multiply and before she could even think about it, her field of view had changed.
Looking at a sea of flames burning what seems to be an ancient city, Kryn looked at it in confusion.
*SCREECH*
Suddenly, a deafening screech was heard and it was so powerful that it blew the mountains on the horizon to dust.
However, Kryn couldn't pay it any attention as she felt her head buzzing due to the loud noise.
*BOOM*
[Kryn, are you okay?]
Blinking, Kryn took a few seconds to process her situation before looking at the message before her.
"…" She nodded at Laila before getting up and looking at the room.
It had gotten even more charred than before.
"Annoying." Was the only thing she said about the whole situation.
Kryn thought about what was that vision she saw but, in the end, she had no idea about what that was about.
She decided to ask Hai when she gets the chance.
As she knows that he is smart, he must know something.
Looking at the burnt marks on the room, Kryn remembered the lessons she had and a fire lit in her eyes.
She wanted to get something out of this training.
Something that wasn't an explosion and a charred room.
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*BAM*
*BOOOM*
"OY! Look at where you are aiming, damn woman!" Stella shouted after almost losing her arm.
Chang Hua, the woman whom Stella was referring to, turned to look at her and smiled apologetically.
"Oh, my, sorry, sorry." She said before grabbing a golem that came to attack her by the head and hurling it almost at sonic speed toward Stella.
"BITC-" Stella saw this action and tried to curse Chang Hua, but sadly, the golem flew faster toward her than the words out of her mouth.
*BAM*
*CRASH*
Looking away, Chang Hua looked at the endless army that surrounded them from all sides and she scratched her head.
'Is this really a training?' She couldn't help but question herself.
She knows that the palace master has her reasons, but this training feels more like a punishment.
One of those golems would already be a decent opponent since they are so sturdy and resistant that even martial artists find it difficult to damage them.
But now, not only are Chang Hua and the others fighting golems that even she, a mid-stage Neo-Fighter martial artist has can't do much damage, but they are fighting against waves upon waves of those endless enemies.
With her lips pursed, she looked at Jia and Bing Qing, both of whom were having some trouble against the golems.
Jia mainly due to her ineptitude in fighting. She can deal considerable damage; is a formidable support and an annoying opponent to be against.
However, her fighting skills without magic are… pitiful, to put it nicely.
She has a good sense of balance and is flexible.
But that is pretty much it.
She doesn't know how to deal with an attack without receiving one, how to properly defend against two or more enemies, and so on.
Jia is basically a usual mage, someone who heavily depends on their magic.
And it just so happens that her magic barely does anything against those golems.
Bing Qing meanwhile…
'What the hell is she doing?' Chang Hua questioned while pointing one of her hands backward and flicking, creating a blast that sent the incoming wave away.
Bing Qing was…fighting(?)
She looked more like a drunk woman than a fighter.
With awkward steps, her tails moving in random directions, late reactions, actions made reflexes being interrupted midway, and terrible responses to the attacks, Bing Qing looked like a complete amateur.
And the reason for this is that, currently, her mind was in chaos.
Her thoughts were all over the place.
She "got" an idea about a possible solution to her problem, which would be receiving orders from someone that she can refuse, but this also generated another thing within her:
Doubt.
Although she knows that this kind of thinking, this "way of living" would be heavily disapproved by her mother and even some (most) people, she found herself faced with a crucial question:
Would Hai even agree to this?
In the chance that he does, would she always be able to have an order to fulfill?
No matter how much she thought about it, in the end, Hai is a human and has things to do. He wouldn't always be able to order her to do something 24/7.
*BAM*
As a golem landed a clean hit on her face, Bing Qing was sent flying while dropping her sword.
With her tails aimlessly swinging while she flew, her mind barely registered the pain as she kept thinking about those questions which were plaguing her mind.
"…" Chang Hua watched all of this happening with a blank face.
She didn't know how to react or what to think about this.
"Is that bitch okay?" Stella commented after finally getting rid of the golems near her and coming close to Chang Hua. "By the way, just you wait." She added in a low voice.
As Chang Hua ignored the last part and opened her mouth to say something, however, a loud noise echoed on the battlefield they are in.
It means that another wave is coming.
"…" Chang Hua closed her mouth and sighed.
'I need help.' She really wished for some help with those people.
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A/N: Hello there, I hope you are having a wonderful day!
To my haters: Sadly for you, I'm still alive and kicking.
To my readers: I'm back.
Thanks for the patience, everyone.
This chapter came out a bit shorter than usual due to me battling my keyboard to write this. Seriously, there were sometimes when I had to tap from 3 to 5 or more times the spacebar for it to work.
So, what do you guys think about this chapter? In this chapter, I did it to explain the general situation of the girls and their problems, some of which are old, and some of which are not. I had thought of fully focusing on Hong Li-Wei and her problem's solution, but then I remembered that some problems aren't like smoke, they don't "puff" out of existence, so I decided to present some of the girls' current problems and thoughts.
Comment what you thought about this chapter. If you liked it or not, I want to read your opinions and interact more with you guys.
Another thing: Please give your feedbacks. I want to know what you guys think, if there are things that could be better or if I could have done something in a simpler manner. If you could also leave a review, that would help me to understand what you think about the novel in general, so it would be really helpful.
Also, join our Discord community, there you can interact with other readers or with me in case you have questions or ideas about/ for the novel.
Discord server: https://discord.gg/NZV2EtdJY8
(The link is also on the novel's synopsis).
...….
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100 Power Stones = 1 bonus chapter;
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500 power stones = 3 bonus chapters.
...….
That is all for today, thank you all for reading! 🍷😎