Dimensional Descent

Leonel walked toward the direction Montez had gone, his gaze still flickering.

If what the woman implied was true, then his dad and Montez seemed to be at odds. In that case, depending on the reason, maybe the reason Montez was acting weird was because his dad had probably done something to make the situation worse recently.

Leonel wouldn't be surprised. He heard his dad was the reason the tensions between the spear and sword factions had taken such a huge turn recently, accelerating a lot of the issues the two groups had already been having.

"Kid, you're quite slow."

"You're really my uncle?"

Leonel ignored Montez's words and got right to the point.

Montez tilted his head to the side. "You're quite slow, kid. You think I just allow any random riffraff to call me uncle? You have no idea the kind of weight words hold, especially when you've reached my level. You can't just casually allow ties to form between people."

Leonel blinked. Why was he always getting reprimanded by old people, couldn't any of them be normal?

He really didn't know why he hadn't seen it before, honestly. If Montez had acted like this before, he would have been the spitting image of Velasco. Both of them were insufferable, but in a special sort of 'I'm only doing this for your own good', kind of way.

"Alright, now follow me."

Montez ignored Leonel's weird expression and turned away as though this wasn't world shattering news, also something that was identical to his father. Only Velasco would be so casual with such a large piece of information as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You two really are brothers," Leonel laughed.

Montez's head snapped back, a glare in his eyes.

"Ooo, scary." Leonel rolled his eyes.

He had spent every day of almost 18 years with his father, he had already built up enough immunity to this stuff and he had his own bag of tricks to deal with it.

He didn't seem to realize, though, that he had also slipped back into his role as a child, his heart feeling light. He couldn't even remember the last time he had rolled his eyes, it just wasn't something he did. But, it just felt quite easy to be childish around his dad, and it somehow also felt natural to be like this around Montez as well.

Montez's glare suddenly became a smile, a devious sort of grin.

Leonel's heart skipped a beat. He also knew that look. He was just a toddler the first time he saw it, back when that old man put the first cup of that vomit brew right in front of him. Now, this face was practically an exact copy of what Leonel remembered.

'Oh boy…'

Montez turned back and soon led Leonel into a tower-like building. After passing through the reception, they entered what felt like an elevator and eventually came to a room.

Large tiles of about a meter by a meter lined the floors, walls and ceiling. They were all matte black and were somewhat soft and warm to the touch.

At the center of the room, there was a kneeling table with some objects on it.

Montez strolled forward and Leonel followed, the door closing after them. Turning back, Leonel couldn't even see the entrance any longer.

There didn't seem to be any light in this place, but somehow there was still just enough to see around.

Seeing Montez kneel at the table, Leonel carefully untied Aina from his back and kneeled as well. He thought of finding a place for her to sleep more comfortably. But, she ended up rolling in her sleep and claiming his left thigh as her pillow.

Montez didn't say anything about this, just looking at the items on the table.

"That annoying chauvinist probably didn't leave you anything about the spear, right?"

Leonel thought for a moment before shaking his head. His dad really hadn't left him anything obvious, but wasn't the Spear Domain ring still on his finger?

"He left the Spear Domain with me. It's helped me with my spear training a lot."

Leonel wasn't wrong. The Spear Domain was probably the best trainer of the spear in all of existence, filled with tens of thousands of teachers.

Montez's eyes flashed with an enraged light for a moment, but it quickly faded.

"I don't mean that, I mean something like he likely did with your Crafting training. That chauvinist is arrogant, he thinks he's above even the Spear Domain. If he really cared, he would have left you personalized training."

Leonel nodded, Montez was probably right. His dad really was like that.

But, then again, that old man had said he'd teach him a lesson if he dared awaken his Spear Domain Lineage Factor first. So, he must really not like the spear for some reason.

"You're right, he left me a Crafting training program, but nothing about the spear."

Montez shook his head, clearly expecting this.

"It's no wonder you haven't grasped Sixth Dimensional Spear Force yet. If you can't grasp it before entering the Sixth Dimension, I'll take it upon myself to kick you out of our family line."

Leonel was speechless. He really didn't know what to do about this uncle-father pair of his.

"Now focus, what do you see here?"

Leonel's brow furrowed.

Before was what looked like a xylophone mallet, a paint brush, and an elaborately designed fountain pen and its ink.

"A mallet, a paint brush and a fountain pen and an ink well."

"Good, you're going to learn how to play music, write poetry and paint from me until I'm satisfied."

Leonel was left stunned.

"Excuse me?"

"Did I not speak clearly enough?"

Leonel didn't know what to say. He had never done any of that stuff, not to mention the fact he didn't think that he would be very good at it. With his logical personality, how was he supposed to make art?

Wait, that wasn't even the point. What was the use of this? What did this have to do with the spear?

'Distraction. Right, I need a distraction to escape from this place.'

"Um, Uncle Montez, who was that beautiful lady? I think she likes you, maybe you should pursue her. In my experience, women don't get so riled up about men they don't care about."

Montez raised a brow. "Of course she likes me, she's my wife."

Leonel was thoroughly defeated. Who runs away from their wife like that?