While Nick was practicing his evening meditation, a seemingly unrelated event took place in the palace. Prince Helio requested an urgent meeting with his father. King Alexander was surprised, but still received his son in the royal study.
"Father! I'm sorry I wasted your time previously. I want to become a strong and influential king like you, please teach me how to become one." Helio humbly asked with his head bowed down.
King thought for a moment and answered, "Actually I have taught you many things during the last few months. If you were listening, you are on the right track already. But if you really want to become king everyone respects, you have to pick up the sword and learn it. You have wasted few years by fooling around, but you do have a talent. And with enough sweat and blood you might have a potential to become strong. But it will still be very hard and painful. Are you certain you want this?"
King didn't know what happened for his son to suddenly 'becoming smart', but he was still elated. Of course, that was not shown on his stern face.
"Yes, father." Helio seriously answered.
"Then from today on, you will mostly spend time on the training ground of the palace guards. I will assign a Qi master to supervise your training. Also, when the winter comes, you will accompany general William Grant to the south to help him strengthen our border with the Sand kingdom. General Grant is an expert on military tactics and there will be a lot for you to learn. There, because of the frequent skirmishes with those Sand nomads, you'll gain plenty of battle experience. Just swinging your sword in the capital is useless."
"Thank you, father. I won't disappoint you. Tomorrow morning I will report to the training grounds." Helio nodded and left.
'What the hell happened? Is this a whim or he is finally growing up?' Although he was happy to see his son motivated, king still couldn't understand what exactly transpired.
The prince did show up on training grounds the next morning and, according his fathers orders, six months later went to the southern border.
Nick didn't know any of that and, even if he did, he wouldn't care much – it had nothing to do with him.
The next morning, after the regular hunt with Ben, Nick met up with Zia and got to know more details on his upcoming duel. Although yesterday evening prince Andrew did calm down, there was no way to recover the spilled water. Since he couldn't contact Nick, he had to send his servant to Zia's quarters to give more details regarding the tomorrow's duel with her follower. It was another embarrassment he had to swallow, but this time even he understood it was his own fault.
During the Midsummer festival there were many small arenas throughout the city and many youths and men were fighting for prizes and entertainment. Obviously these fights were not deadly and if any weapons were used, those were wooden swords, spears or clubs – this way the heaviest injuries were only few broken bones.
Although during the ball hall event prince really did want to kill Nick, there was no realistic way to do that. This was not the Sand or Lori kingdom where bloody violence was allowed. Guards could arrest people and throw them in the jail, but executions followed only after the court ruling for heavy crimes. Obviously the government forces in secret were killing some threats right away, but that was kind of an open secret and, in fact, it was happening throughout the history of mankind even on Earth in the 21st century.
As it was decided yesterday, the duel wouldn't take place in one of the small arenas that were found in many fairs throughout the city, but in the Aurora's main arena. This place was used mostly for entertainment, but aristocrats were dueling here for their 'honor' from time to time as well. For the regular citizens it was a good form of entertainment, because it was exciting to watch those arrogant snobs whacking each other till they were half dead.
Today's fight was not publicly announced and happened relatively early, therefore in the spectator seats there were mostly some bored passersby and few nosy aristocrats who were present yesterday in the ball hall. Truth to be said, there was nothing interesting or exciting about the duel – a twelve year would just teach a lesson to an eight year old kid. The only entertainment value of this was that one of the participants was the young prince from Nola kingdom.
When Nick arrived at the coliseum style building, after entering the arena he saw the almost empty spectator seats. Prince Andrew was already impatiently standing in the middle, dressed in a dark leather armor with a wooden sword in his hand.
What spectators saw was a young and imposing duelist, wearing beautiful armor standing in the arena waiting, but his opponent who just came in was wearing blue trousers and white shirt with weird short sleeves and was carrying a small backpack. He didn't have any protective gear or a weapon and it looked like he was casually strolling around a marketplace. It was obvious that this child didn't understand what was going on, he was much younger than the prince and almost a head shorter as well.
"Where is your weapon and armor?" Prince asked heroically.
"That's not a weapon – it's a wooden stick, and that is not an armor – it's a stylish leather jacket. Listen, Andrew. Yesterday was a misunderstanding. Why do we have to fool around like this? You are a guest in our city, don't you think it would be better if I just showed you around and you could enjoy some sights?" Nick tried to reason.
"I already predicted you'll be scared and will try to talk your way out of the duel, but this is a fight for my honor! I will teach you a lesson for disrespecting the prince!" It looked like Andrew had prepared some 'cool' lines to impress the audience. He knew Zia would also be present, so he tried to speak as loud as possible for the spectators to hear.
"I'll give you a chance though – kneel, admit your mistakes and apologize! I might forgive you." Andrew continued.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Where did you learn such nonsense?" Nick was getting upset. A grownup wouldn't really care much about child's whims and tantrums, but it gets annoying when you are pestered all the time.
Arena master who had to oversee this duel was long bored. He had seen many theatrics of aristocrats and knew that the prince could talk heroically for an hour or two, therefore he wanted to get over this farce as soon as possible – a twelve year old with a stick against an eight year old – what a nonsense!
There was only one person that was genuinely excited for the upcoming fight. Zia impatiently sat in the front seat and munched on sweets she bought along the way. This time she was accompanied by her mother, who also wanted to alleviate her boredom in the palace and took a stroll around city. Behind her with expressionless faces were standing two men, dressed in black and with swords on their backs.
There was another parson in the spectator seats who Nick knew. Mason did actually come to watch and even brought a couple of friends. He was telling them about the events that transpired yesterday and the other two were listening attentively and dreamy while he described the 'five flowers' and laughed laud when Mason told about the prince's embarrassment.
Finally arena master had enough, "Both sides have entered arena. Are you ready?"
Prince made few beautiful swings with his wooden sword, "I'm ready!"
Nick took off his backpack, put it on the ground and shrugged, "Ready."
"Begin!" Arena master loudly said and his voice reverberated through the empty seats.
For a few seconds boys were motionlessly standing there two meters apart, looking at each other.
Then the prince swung his sword high, just to barely notice his opponent suddenly appearing in front of him. When the prince moved, Nick instinctively dashed forward since it was the best thing he could do and dived with his shoulder into his opponent's chest as if he was still playing football. To not do any serious damage in a kid's brawl, he didn't try to hit the prince in face with Qi infused fist or palm, only used it to enhance his movement.
The result was disappointing and astonishing at the same time. The prince's body, which was head taller than Nick's, lifted from the ground, flew few meters backwards and landed on the back with a 'puff' sound. Then prince grabbed his chest and rolled from side to side whimpering. The duel was over.
The stupefied arena master gathered his thoughts and announced the end of the duel. The already bored spectators stood up and started to leave murmuring something like 'why did I expect anything from a children's fight'.
Zia, Mason and his friends also expected at least some moves and wanted to see the prince demonstrate his sword techniques. It was obvious that the prince has started to train in Qi. But it ended just like that.
Nick went over to the prince, "Try to relax and take slow breaths. Seems I hit your solar plexus and it hurts a bit, I'm sorry."
He really was. He never knew how to fight and had no intention to learn. Now he hurt a young boy and although it was an arrogant prince, he was still a child in Nick's eyes.
The prince's two assistants ran over, "Get away from his highness!" They screamed.
Nick shrugged and went towards the exit.
"Wait!" Suddenly prince weakly shouted, "The next time I'll beat you up for sure! Just you wait!"
Nick stopped in his tracks and turned around, smiling, "Andrew, what is wrong with you? We brawled a bit and that's it. We are children, why are you making a fuss about it?"
Then he thought for a moment and continued, "What do you think about this: come to visit Aurora again next year or the one after. You will definitely become stronger if you train. Then we can compete, let's say, in three disciplines – running, jumping and weight lifting. The one who wins at least two is a winner. Or you can take another way to compete like swimming or hunting. It's much more fun to do it like that rather to whack each other with wooden sticks in arena."
"Fine!" Prince blurted out with his teeth clenched.
"It's a deal, bump me!" Nick said and stretched out his fist all smiles.
Prince Andrew froze. He remembered what the girl of his dreams yesterday said, '… that's just what friends do if they do something fun together …'
Prince stood up, took few steps forward and under the confused eyes of his assistants bumped Nick's fist.
Then without saying anything turned to leave.
"If you want to impress her, don't fool around like this. You have to become really strong, she respects only the strong people. And more importantly, she is only nine years old, she is not thinking about marriage yet. You have few years of time." Nick whispered so that only prince could hear.
The latter froze and looked at Nick with incredulity in his eyes, 'Wasn't this commoner also trying to woo the princess? Is he really just a follower?'
Nick didn't care, he was hungry. Still smiling, he jogged out of the arena to meet princess and Mason.
"What do you think?" In the stands queen Hua asked her daughter.
"It was so boring!" Zia was disappointed to the bottom of her heart.
"Fights between experts usually last only for an instant. Every move is fatal and the one who makes the first mistake, dies." Queen smiled at her daughter, "Do you still want to practice after hearing this?"
"Of course! Even if it's only one move, I will make it the best and the strongest!" Zia laughed.
Queen kissed her, "That's my daughter! Go, looks like your friends are waiting. Ling, you know what to do."