Emily stared at Lian for a while that he found it irritating. He had no choice but to look away.
"You were here first so we shall live your space. Pab let's go." Lian said. He didn't want to associate with any not in his family as they all thought of him as a monster. Lian held Pab's hand, and they were ready to move then Emily said something unexpected.
"No don't leave." she said. "I was here first, but you guys gave me tips on how to cultivate so I will leave you here."
Lian was ready to accept but then Pab pleaded for Emily to train with them. He knew the reason and couldn't criticize her. Pab was a mage and the same was for Emily. It was natural for Pab to want to train with Emily a fellow mage.
Lian nodded wit approval and left the two to get to their cultivation. He as well had an assignment to attend to. The assignment Ladwick had left him. He wanted to master the way Ladwick did his fighting really badly, but he wasn't if close enough to his aim. With no opponent to fight, his progress was not good even he could feel it.
"He could have at least given me a tip." Lian complained. He slashed the sword with a lot of force causing a bang in the air as the sword sliced through the air at an incredible speed.
Pab and Emily did help it, and they eyes had to stare a Lian. They stared at him with amazement. A kid that age couldn't be able to swing a sword the way Lian did, so Pab didn't help but blurt praises for her brother. " He's the strongest." she said.
Emily simply nodded with approval to please Pab She had own brother back home and he too was learning swordsmanship, so she wasn't too amazed.
The day went on and at a later time Emily had to leave so it left Lian and Pab alone. Pab moved closer to Lian as he trained. " Big brother, can we spar a little?" She asked.
Lian gave it some thought because even though she was skillful in her attribute Lian was still stronger and faster than her so he couldn't just fight her.
"Father told me to train with you not to spar with you." He answered then went on with his training. He would have trained with her, but he was afraid that things might go wrong, and he hurts her, so he had to reject.
Something came flying towards him all of a sudden then strange moving tree vein wrapped around his sword. Lian had dodged the thing that had come towards due to his amplified senses but then his sword was pulled away from him by the vein.
Lian turned and took a look at what was attacking him. "I knew she would try this." Lian complained. He was looking at Pab directly in her eyes which were now glowing green. She was surrounded by tree veins in a multitude well they were about a million tree veins behind her at her sides then at her feet.
"Big brother I want to spar with you, and you can't refuse." she said. One vein then threw back Lian's sword. "So, get ready."
Lian held his sword tight but then didn't take at stance he stood still like he wasn't going to attack and he was indeed not planning to attack instead he had many thoughts running through his head.
'I should not fight her what if something happens to her but then I haven't tested my progress yet. I will give it a try then.' His thoughts were disturbing and made it hard for him to choose but he had finally made a decision to fight. He remained still but pointed his sword at his sister.
Pab's face lit up with happiness. " So are going to fight big brother." she said. " I love you big brother." Pab was so happy to fight Lian that it gave Lian the creeps.
'I better watch out then.'
Pab attacked first as expected with her veins going for Lian with sharp pointed ends. Lian didn't use the sword for he knew it would break instead. He tightened his arm muscles then took hold of the veins and squeezed they till tearing they apart and this made Pab even more excited. She sent another set of vines and this time faster and stronger but still Lian squeezed them till tearing them. Pab then sent another set which had large and strong vines Lian could probably not squeeze them as they were even larger than him. Lian simply dodged them fast. Pab kept on raising other vines and wrapping them around Lian's feet to slow him down and it work as Lian couldn't dodge the attacks any and was getting hit.
"She's stronger around plants am getting tired of this." Lian murmured he forced his feet off the ground in order to tear the vines wrapped around them he then swung his sword madly cutting every single vine that was close by but his wooden sword didn't handle the impact and eventually broke into pieces.
Pab kept on smiling to his brother's actions, she was enjoying every bit of it. She then dashed forward sliding on the moving vines across the ground. The speed was incredible that she made it to Lian in a Blick of an eye. A punch was directed towards her as soon as Lian saw her close to him, but she was fast in her reactions raising a large vine to block the punch.
Lian continued sending several punches and she would block them. She even made the vines cover her in inform of a ball to block all attacks or make Lian cease fire, but he never did he continued hitting the big wooden ball with a smirk on his face. He had seen something, and he was happy about it.
Through his Alora skill he could see that the red aura surrounding Pab's chest was slowly dimming even Pab would was hidden in the big wooden ball could feel that her mana was dimming, and she was slowly losing control over the vines, but she did her best to hold them all together.
In reality, the mages were strong, but their powers were limited to the amount of mana one could hold. A mage with a lot of mana could take several knights without tearing down but in this world, a few could do that as it was hard to collect mana from the surrounding so the mages were mostly used for support like healing building and other support stuff but there were also strong mages, but they were the few.
As time went on, Lian's punch began penetrating through the wooden ball and shortly he could see Pab sweating trying to handle the vines together but then the green aura completely disappeared. The vines fell down and Pab stayed there kneeling on the ground with sweat dripping from her forehead and she was taking dip breathes. Lian gave her a hand to get her on her legs again but she couldn't, so he had to do what he had never done before. He pulled Pab up and put her on his back then they slowly descended the hill.
"You could have stopped when you felt you couldn't go on anymore." Lian said trying to lecture Pb on how reckless she had been in a way he was surprised that he started caring about her. Pab on the other hand was all smiles as Lian was concerned about her she felt special for a moment her face even turned slightly red. They made it home in just time, but Lian had put Pab down already as he didn't want to be seen carrying her.
"You are home early today." Scarlet said checking the duo to see if they had any bruises. "And you are fine."
'Did she think we would run into any trouble.' Lian complained in his thoughts, but he knew Scarlet's worries were correct but with Lian's newfound strength he wasn't vulnerable anymore and he could take care of anything that came his way.
"So how did your training go?" Ladwick asked.
As for Pab however as she was about to blurt out all the things that happened, Lian gave her a strange glance indicting her to keep it between them and she complied. "We did some warmup then I helped big brother with some exercise." she said. This didn't go unnoticed by his parents.
Supper was done and they all went to their room however Scarlet went into Pab. It was strong as she and Ladwick go into their kids' room not even to say good night as they say their good nights exactly after the meal. So Pab was surprised to see Scarlet enter her room.
"Are you asleep my dear." Scarlet said gently. "I wanted to ask something."
"What is it mother?"
"Did something happen with your training today?"
"Nothing happened we just had a wonderful training." Pab kept lying as Lian had told her not to tell anyone, but Scarlet could see that, so she brought in her own tactic.
"Well, your brother has already told us all about it but we wanted to hear from you."
"He did, but I thought he had told me not to tell anyone so he wanted to tell you himself."