Many gazes were focused on the two, including Haze's conversation with two class B people. Charlotte had little time to focus on this as he was training with Juba. Juba was currently flying? No, he wasn't exactly flying; he was standing on a platform made of wind. He either wasn't skilled enough or didn't have the control to fly yet.
Either way, it wasn't very pleasant since Charlotte couldn't jump that high, at least not without being obvious. He dodged his attacks, as it seemed that using Charlotte as a training dummy had paid off. His attacks were thin and hard to see, and his only consolation was that it seemed to take a while to attack.
Of course, he would be a fool if he thought that Charlotte had no tricks up his sleeve. Charlotte barely dodged his attack, slicing the side of his neck. A beam of light shot out as he pointed his hand in his direction. He couldn't control the output yet, so it shot out at full blast in his direction, blinding him.
He didn't have the time to focus on turning it off, so he focused his Chi on his legs, jumped up, held onto Juba's legs, and threw him onto the ground.
"I surrender!" Juba exclaimed loudly, raising his hands. Charlotte was about to punch him in the face, and he quickly could have done it. He stopped himself, though, helping him to his feet. His face looked slightly sunburnt, and he seemed struggling to open his eyes.
"Christ, that hurts. Maybe I shouldn't have decided to teach you; my face might not survive once you get much better at this." Juba touched his face momentarily before flinching and pulling his hand away. "How about we take a break, hm?"
Charlotte nods, his gaze looking around for Fang. He hadn't seen him this morning and hadn't approached the two. He was beginning to worry something happened to him. Juba stared at him for a moment and let out a frustrated sigh.
"Fang is going to be busy for a while and is busy with the third stage. You look like a mother who lost her pet cat," Juba said matter-of-factly, questioning how he found out.
"How do you know? I doubt she would have given you any clues." Charlotte tried to imagine what his teacher would have told him, probably insulting him by saying that "garbage" has no right to know.
"Gathering information is a specialty of mine. I'd usually charge you for this. But you could ask the teacher, and they would have told you." Juba grumbled a bit, and Charlotte assumed that he was upset they would reveal that information for free.
"Well, that's good, but I don't know if I'd trust your information. You're probably telling the truth, but I'll still ask Johnny." Juba seemed offended to hear him say that, which made Charlotte chuckle slightly.
"I forget how little you know about everyone here, including me. I have a reputation to keep; I come from a family of...merchants, which probably fits best. We deal in everything; if you can think of it, we sell it. I know about almost everyone here, like you. Although what I know about you is almost insignificant." Juba said with a smirk across his face; Charlotte had to admit he was curious.
"Alright, prove it. Show me what you know." Juba held out his hand, and Charlotte rolled their eyes, took out the bag of gold coins, and put a few in his hand. Juba quickly slid them into his tunic and pulled Charlotte closer.
"You took some guessing and maneuvering to figure out. Your last name was the first thing I found out. Solace, that name sounds familiar, but it doesn't say much. That's because it hasn't been relevant for a few decades. Everyone knows the work of the blacksmith Solace, but he didn't have a kid." Juba winked, and Charlotte kept staring at him. He didn't let his face show his nervousness as if he was probing him for a reaction.
"At least that's what most people figure, since other than his work as a blacksmith, the last thing he is known for is his downfall. His wife got sick, and he wasted money and sold everything he could to try and get her healed. It didn't go well, and he sorta fell to obscurity, but during that whole ordeal, before the mother got sick, she had a kid. The only ones who knew of the whole thing were those close to him." Juba was practically grinning ear to ear, and Charlotte's mask of indifference cracked slightly as he flinched.
"How many people know?" Charlotte whispered to him, and Juba grinned as he raised his hand and made a "0".
"You'd be surprised, but nobody cared about you before. Things are gonna change, though, especially now. Nobody has come to ask about you yet, and although the weapons of Solace are still quite prevalent. There are more than a few houses with the last name of Solace, so they probably won't know you're his direct descendant." Charlotte reached into his pocket, took out the rest of the bag of coins, and put them in his hand.
"I'll pay you for your silence. Just tell them I'm from one of those Solace families, not that I'm his son." Juba weighed the bag in his hand, slipped it into his tunic, and gestured he would keep silent.
"I'll do that, but if someone offers more money than you gave me. I might let it slip. You're lucky that I even accept gold coins as a currency. This is useless here. Of course, I'm a big-picture type of guy. Now then, let's go back to training, shall we?" Juba pulled away and stood up; Charlotte did the same, a bit less focused now. His mind was filled with thoughts and worries about people finding out about him. He wanted to be his person; getting compared to his dad would have left a sour taste in his mouth.