Nick continued to teach Zia, but most important new activity for him became running through the Royal woods. The former 'Dash' while running practiced his third Qi technique and had nearly inexhaustible stamina. Of course, he didn't forget his flexibility and strength exercises and taught those to Zia as well.
There was another unexpected event. One day, while Nick was piling up books from the wristband in his room, some commotion started outside.
When he came out, he was greeted by the 'five flowers of Aurora'. With surprise on his face he scanned the beautifully dressed teen girls and wondered why would they come to look for him – he lived in the forest after all.
The girls had dozen or so servants with them, but they stayed further away, obviously because of prior orders.
Turns out the five flowers had noticed Zia's new fashionable costume and, after being asked, the youngest princess proudly announced who was the main designer of her outfit. Without a second thought they came to Nick to ask for advice and maybe to get some new ideas as well.
Nick's first question was absolutely logical, "Don't you have enough tailors in the capital?"
But the four princesses and Kate vigorously shook their heads and complained how everyone was making the same dresses and robes, only using different materials and colors.
Nick thought for a bit. It was not that difficult to suggest something, he even didn't have to invent anything new – he only needed to recollect the busy Stanford campus in the morning and instantly had few dozens of designs available.
"Do you have any upcoming special event you want to prepare for?" Nick asked.
"There are several, but the big one is during the Midsummer festival." The eldest princess, Cira, replied, "It will be held in the ball hall of the palace and many aristocrats from all over the country will attend."
"What do you usually do there? Do you dance or sing?" Nick was really uneducated regarding these things.
Princesses started to loose hope in this little guy. Well, it was long shot from the beginning.
"Mostly it's a socializing event, but some people will perform music, some will sing and others will show off their poetry." Kate explained.
"So what do YOU usually do there?" Nick continued to question.
The five flowers looked at each other with confusion, "Why would we do anything? Anyone tries to gain our attention anyway."
"Oh, so you just look good and enjoy the flattery." Nick nodded as he finally understood.
He asked few more questions to make the situation more clear. They chatted and it almost seemed the girls forgot why they came.
"I think I can give you an advice and even draw you few sketches, but there is a risk involved and you will need to work really hard to pull it off. But if you manage to do it, I guarantee you will go down in history as revolutionaries of fashion in the Sun kingdom, maybe even in the whole world." Nick confidently said.
The girls did come hoping for an advise and maybe a sketch or two, but this was quite the statement. It sounded way too good to be true and none of the five actually believed him.
"Can you at least tell us what would that be and how would we look before we need to start to 'work hard'?" Conny, the youngest of them asked.
"Sure, I can tell you the idea of dresses you could wear that would accentuate your body lines – it would be very attractive and extremely elegant if you walk and pose correctly. Also, I would explain what types of shoes you should order and wear – it basically will make any man unable to resist you. Don't look at me like that, I am serious. If you don't want to believe me, it's your problem. But the difficulty lies within the shoes – it will be very, very hard to walk, maybe even painful at the start, but with some practice all of you would be irresistible. Also, you should wear such shoes only to events like this otherwise your feet will get deformed." Nick smiled, "A lot of risk, but a huge reward. Interested?"
The girls were quite confused. This was a bit more than they came here for.
"But what can you offer me in return?" Nick asked with a smile while they were thinking.
There was no limit for rewards if one was able to give more beauty and popularity to a woman.
"What do you want?" Cira furrowed her brows.
"Nothing much. If you follow my ideas, I want all of you 'five flowers' to wear almost similar style dresses and enter the venue at the same time for a bigger effect. And I want to be in the front lines to witness the looks on everyone's faces, hahaha!" Nick was certain it will be hilarious, "Oh right, Zia also should be able to come. She will definitely want to see her sisters conquering the capital!"
The conditions were symbolic and in the eyes of the girls Nick was just doing them a favor. It was, actually, so. They swore they will work hard in the upcoming months and finally both sides came to an agreement. Next day Nick had to visit the palace to draw designs for tailors and shoemakers, and, since the palace employees were the best of the best, they caught Nick's ideas quite fast. Looking at the drawings they understood themselves that at this moment they were becoming a part of the history.
With the designs of the dresses it was not that difficult, they were beautifully made in just a few days. The problem was the shoes. Medieval world preferred practicality and even if the shoes of the rich people were more beautiful, the high heel concept was new here.
In the end Nick approved one of the models and the training of the 'five flowers' could begin.
Needless to say that when the first time girls wore their new shoes, they simply wanted to die … or kill Nick. But then Nick asked Cira to stand face to face with one of the servants. The servant was a male and, of course, taller than her. But when she wore the high heels, she was looking him directly in the eyes.
None of the five flowers needed an extra explanation or encouragement. For one hour every day they were practicing to walk 'properly' with their new shoes. Despite the pain and inconvenience they would've gladly practiced more, but Nick forbade, because of the damage such footwear causes to the feet.
After throwing another idea on how a small stylish handbag would look nice in their arms, he left them to train and got a promise he would be invited to the event.
Zia was looking at all of this with big eyes. When she also wanted to try something like that, Nick asked only one question, "You want to wear uncomfortable shoes or become the strongest?" Afterwards the subject was never brought up again.
Besides the insignificant fashion incident, Nick's life had fallen into a pleasant routine. He had an early hunt in the morning, then taught Zia Qi techniques and practiced himself throughout the rest of the day. In the evenings he was organizing his own new 'library' in the wristband.
Up until now he was mostly absorbing and cycling Qi, but lately he learned to monitor the Qi flow in his pathways as well as in the Dantian. Nick noticed how the thick white mist was slowly revolving in the space below his navel and tried to change the speed of rotation as well as to compress it so that it became thicker. Although this body was very young, he wanted to become a Qi master as soon as possible. The incredible Qi skills that elder Sonor, Ling and king Alexander had demonstrated, made him fantasize about himself being able to move at such speed.
While practicing, Nick was trying to come up with new exercises for a Qi practitioner. He knew that performing the three Qi techniques should be enough, but already long time ago he had accepted Olle's advice about doing things differently than others.
One of the points he was working on was the footwork elder Sonor taught him. Learning the steps was not that hard, he mostly was doing that since the time he exercised on the grand elder's balcony.
The next part was to control the required Qi flow. Although Nick was only a Qi practitioner and his Qi thickness was laughable in comparison to elder Sonor's, when Nick revolved Qi in his legs according to the required pattern, he felt himself becoming lighter and faster. He didn't try to perform the Qi burst part because of the pathway durability requirement and he knew very well that most likely he would only cripple himself now even if he succeeded.
While organizing his book collection, Nick found few useful ones that spoke about Qi techniques and application. He took an idea from those and tried to implement in his own footwork. It was a concept of Qi release that would allow a Qi master to move or stand without leaving footprints. In addition, it would increase his speed considerably while consuming a great amount of Qi. Of course, that the 'great' amount was for a small practitioner like him – the Qi masters could use such principle for hours, like, for example, Angel was using his Qi to keep Nick's basket from falling apart.
During these practices he got faster and faster. Zia, who was unable to keep up with him, threw a little tantrum once again, but Nick explained that he was not toying with her and running around just for entertainment. Trying to assume Olle's style, he explained how she had to try and find her own way and learn through her own practice. Although he considered her a friend, he didn't really want to play with a nine year old girl all day. Not only would that be boring, it would definitely be weird. Of course, that's only from his own perspective. Him helping her was one thing, but he was not going to become her follower for real.
Zia pouted for a bit, but she was not stupid. After Nick helped her to create her own training program, she diligently followed it, silently swearing to kick his ass when she got stronger and could actually catch him.
Nick's time went by with him practicing and reading – mostly about research on Qi and alchemy, and therefore in the evenings he even started to delve into this new hobby more. He had learned the essentials of alchemy in the Holy Order before, but the more he read, the more interesting he found this science. Although he didn't intend to become an alchemist, he found it entertaining to spend few hours every evening by practicing it.
When days got warmer, while looking at the sun rising up from the Aurora bay, Nick realized that with making himself so busy he had missed an important thing – he hasn't even taken a swim in the sea.
It was not really possible to climb down the cliffs that were the natural fortress here, but it would take only half an hour for him to run around this obstacle to get to the beach.
He also remembered Ben's friend Paul, who invited him to fish together and decided that it was time. He would experience the fishing techniques of this world and take a swim at the same time.