Her empty eyes almost seemed to glimmer as her eyes glinted dangerously, keen and sharp as a masterfully-crafted blade.
Vesba swallowed, kept his face passive, and muttered under his breath:
"What do you mean exactly?"
She grinned, an odd sight for her, the turned to the stern sage beside her, as though she could see her.
"You've noticed it, haven't you? His growth and mastery over mana has increased."
Selen, huffing and puffing, suddenly stopped her somehow still ongoing ramble and gave her an inexorable expression, straightened her back, and cleared her throat.
"Ahem. Yes, certainly. I have seen his astounding growth. Who would have thought? Not only did his internal augmentation increase exponentially, his wit and technique did, as well. It wasn't apparent at first, but he was making more use of his body than before: during his spar with you two."
She pointed at the two of them, then continued.
"His moves felt somewhat… odd, as if it wasn't his own. It was an eerie sight, seeing such a young child move like that, dodging my spells and crushing my barriers so easily. In fact, it kind of looked like…"
"Like mine." The blind woman finished as the stern sage trailed off, as if refusing to finish the thought.
But, no, that didn't seem to be it. At least not entirely. Selen continued:
"Well, yes, there's that. I could see vestiges of your battle art, that much I'm certain of. However, I could also see a… how do I say this… insidious and deceptive aspect to it, I guess? Something like that."
She scowled, as if disgusted by her own confusion. Selen was much too prideful of her knowledge and intellect to admit to her own faults and misdoings sometimes.
"Is that so. My mistake, then."
'...'
To the untrained eye, the blind woman seemed to be impassive and unconstrained by the information. To the lying giant, however, it was all but obvious that she knew was.. bothered, confused, and a little disgusted by what to her felt like unexpected news.
Vesba indifferently shrugged, then decided to let the cat out of the bag. He said in a casual tone, as if he was strolling down the park on a sunny morning:
"Oh, that's probably me. My bad. A little bit of my manly charms rubbed off on him."
He winked playfully, which looked incredibly odd considering his gigantic stature, then threw his head back and laughed boisterously. Mostly to save himself the trouble of having to endure the odd stares the two lovely ladies were giving him.
And there were, indeed, odd and judging stares practically peeling him.
A low growl emanated from a serene and even voice:
"You… How dare..."
"Oh, that's what it was. But, seriously, THAT'S the kind of battle art you taught him…? No, more importantly, that's the kind of battle art you dabble in? That's… unexpected."
Ignoring the former's judging stare, Vesba flashed Selen a toothy grin and said with a light upbeat tone to his voice:
"That's the entire point. The key is pulling their ribs out before they can figure out they've been stabbed in the back."
Selen visibly paled.
"As in… physically?"
He beamed.
"Yup!"
An inexorable mood settled in the atmosphere.
Stepping between the two, Feng Xing Liu stood with an unyielding presence to her. It overpowered Vesba's own by a large degree, which made him tense and grimace.
'Well, I tried.'
The blind woman spoke with the unruly timbre of a mighty wolf and tone of a benevolent sage:
"So, given his recent growth and progress, is it not only right that I, the initiator of said growth, be the one to further lead him down that road and continue to push him to even higher heights? Besides, from what I can see, he seems to be on the verge of creating a new spell, based on my own intricacies, even!"
At that, it seemed that nobody had any further arguments; he sage because she was too infuriated to continue; and the giant because he had amply judged that it would not be wise to push any further.
…Though he did doubt her last words. No matter how much talent somebody has, creating so many spells so recently from awakening to mana is just simply impossible. He had long broken the official limit of what a mundane Adorned can do, pushing any more would practically be heralding divine judgement.
Putting his hands up in apparent surrender, the tall giant gave up and said amicably:
"Fine, fine. You win—"
But at that moment, the sound of a creaking door — the very wooden door they had been chatting beside of — resounded all of a sudden and made them all go quiet as a familiar black-haired boy with inquisitive blue eyes stepped forward, draped in bloody bandages on all limbs and appendages underneath his simple training clothes.
"You know we can hear you from inside, right?"
Selen turned away first and refused to face him. "Bad move." Vesba whispered just low enough that even if somebody heard him, they wouldn't be able to understand what he said.
The black-haired boy simply raised a brow at her and muttered:
"Weird."
"…!" The stern sage seemed to be shaken by that. It was funny seeing her so vulnerable.
As the tall giant marveled at the sight, a sudden tug to his black shirt pulled his attention and gaze downwards, to the inquisitive boy.
He craned his neck and said plainly, short and simple:
"Hey, can you train me after this?"
And yet, those seven simple words were enough to cause a reaction he had rarely ever seen before.
Looking aside with a grin wider than all, he turned slowly to Feng Xing Liu and responded to the boy:
"Sure, of course. If that's what you want, that is."
The boy tilted his head, seemed to have finally caught on and immediately buried the discovery, then nodded sternly.
"Yeah… that is what I want."
The blind woman's jaw practically fell to the ground as she heard those words.
Vesba smiled victoriously.
'Would you look at that. Isn't victory so sweet..'