Emperor's Reckoning

A forest at dawn was a peaceful and serene environment. The sky was usually a soft pink or orange color as the sun rises, and the trees are bathed in a warm glow. The birds are starting to chirp and flit about, and the forest floor was covered in dew. The air was crisp and fresh, and the forest was alive with the sounds of nature waking up. The light was dim and filtered through the leaves, casting dappled shadows on the ground. It's a magical time of day when the world was just beginning to come alive. However, for a certain party that was traversing these woods, the day might come to an abrupt chaos at any moment.

The caravan was seen lodging itself on a small field. The horse was lying dead-tired as it kept chasing the air through its nose. A couple of shadows soon overlapped its entire head.

"Heh, tired already," said Lyon.

"Don't you feel pity?" asked Reinhard. "The guy has been running nonstop."

"Well, I did tell you to stop him from running once you noticed him being a little sluggish," Lyon shrugged. "But you kept going like a guy that's about to lose his virginity or something."

"That's... quite a perverted analogy, were you always this way, teacher?" asked Noah.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lyon asked.

"Nothing!" Noah averted his glance elsewhere. ( He is certainly not the best teacher there is, but he is the teacher that we need right now, at least his flaw is pervertedness among other things ).

"Well, we can't go anywhere with the horse being tired," said Lyon. "Oi Rayus! Feed our champion some water."

"Eh? Why me?" asked Rayus.

"Because I told you so," said Lyon.

"..." Rayus ran out of options to oppose his logic. Lyon was his teacher and he was the student, thinking about that relationship, he sighed as the result, "Coming up..."

"I never thought that we would have a little picnic," Lyon smirked. "Though, I have a feeling that they are going to show up later."

Rayus sat down right beside the horse's head before feeding the horse with water using a small bowl. "We traverse the woods quite far, I doubt that they would catch us anytime soon."

Reinhard said, "It has two outcomes, remember? Perhaps they gave up and ran away."

"We killed one of them," said Noah, "That's highly unlikely to happen."

"C'mon Reinhard! Where is that hot fiery temper of yours? I thought you like this kind of stuff," said Lyon.

Reinhard's lips twitched, "I-I mean, sure, but are we even ready to fight them?"

"Ready... or not ready, the fight will happen," said Lyon. "What matters the most is the outcome, lest the way."

The three students found themselves looking at their teacher with a trace of epiphany. They pondered the wisdom of the words he uttered.

"You mean that we are going to use underhanded means?" asked Rayus.

"Underhanded, tophanded, sidehanded, we can use them all," Lyon grinned. "There are only the ones who live and the one who dies."

"But how can someone live knowing that they live because of a cowardly decision?" asked Reinhard.

"That's not my problem, nor it should be yours," said Lyon.

"Wouldn't they regret if they won because of underhanded means?" asked Noah.

"Do you know someone that has no regret?" asked Lyon.

The three students furrowed their brows and made a crease on their foreheads. However, as clouds calmly past the sun, they uttered no words, and before long all of them shook their heads.

"A corpse," said Lyon.

"Ah..." Reinhard increased his knowledge.

Lyon laughed, "Hahaha, you seem to disagree with me, but that's alright. You can die honorably and you will delete your regret with your death, or you can live and better yourself— you are free to choose the path, but not the obstacle —Rayus stop feeding the horse water, you would fill his lungs with it at this rate!"

"O-Oh, sorry!" Rayus quickly put away the bowl out of the horse's mouth.

"But teacher, you said bravado about cultivator's honor with Refl Angst before," said Noah.

"Meh, I just said what he wanted to hear," said Lyon. "Otherwise, we wouldn't get a caravan nor information about the Burgeon Swan."

"So you don't mean what you said?" Reinhard raised his brows.

"I mean half of it," Lyon shrugged. "Don't worry about small things like that, focus now."

( I wish I could be half as shameless as him ) thought Rayus.

"Oh right, I forgot to mention this, Rayus," asked Lyon.

"Yeah?"

"You're impaired right?"

"That's like, old news now."

"Are you fine with it?" asked Lyon.

"Fine?" Rayus furrowed in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, do you like being impaired? Have you gotten used to it? For example, can you utilize art? Or are you a full-fledged magic cultivator now?" asked Lyon.

"I... hmm... I didn't study magic at all, so I'm totally lacking in that department," asked Rayus.

"That's a shame, you can do a lot of things with magic," said Lyon, "Not that I use it frequently, but utility magic is quite useful for day-to-day life."

"Utility magic?" Noah asked. "What do you mean?"

"What? You guys never heard of it?" asked Lyon. "It's like, let's say you are tired of washing your clothes everyday, just use magic."

"Is there such magic?" asked Reinhard.

"I mean, you won't beat your enemy with magic that wet your clothes," Lyon laughed. "But that's not the point here."

"There is such magic then?!" Reinhard exclaimed.

"Rayus, come here," said Lyon.

"... right," Rayus did as he was told.

"Give me your hand," said Lyon.

"Sure...?"

"Both of them," said Lyon.

"R-Right."

Lyon grabbed both of his wrists before his eyes sharpened.

( He is concentrating ) thought Noah. ( Damn, he actually looks kinda cool when he shut up and is serious ).

"I see, your meridians I can't feel them," said Lyon.

"It was diagnosed that the meridians around his arms were broken, mostly his hands, they were ruptured, totaled," said Reinhard. "At least that's what they told us."

"Oh, that makes sense," said Lyon.

"They say that you will need a cultivator with the high affinity of Life Element," said Noah. "Everyone knows they are rare, and not cheap."

"At least your meridians were broken, not missing," Lyon laughed.

"Missing? Can a meridian be missing?" asked Rayus.

"In this cultivation world, perhaps nothing is impossible," Lyon shrugged.

"Bringing someone back to life is impossible," exclaimed Reinhard.

"Sure," Lyon smirked.

"You're not suggesting that it's possible are you?"

Lyon rolled his eyes before letting Rayus's wrists go. "Well, I can fix you."

"W-What?!" exclaimed the three of them.

"T-Teacher, you have Life Element affinity?" asked Rayus.

"Don't look down on my darling that much, Life Element is not the only thing that he has," said Selena.

All three students immediately gulped at the words that were out of the teacher's wife's lips. Life Elements were among the rarest of many, but having more than one was outrageous.

"That's amazing!" Noah exclaimed, "Teacher Lyon, are you really that powerful?!"

"Teacher Lyon... no... Immortal Lyon! Please teach us moves!" Reinhard kowtowed and slammed his head toward the ground.

Lyon sighed but seeing the docile looks in Selena's blue eyes, he was already defeated. He was deliberately not to brag too much, but Selena didn't get that. She was almost the opposite of the composed Cecile.

"Teacher, you can do that?" asked Rayus with eyes beaming like a glitter of stars had fallen on his pupils.

"I can," Lyon raised his chin before crossing his arms. "Hah, I can't imagine those teachers' faces when they saw you back on track later! Hahaha!"

"Y-You're not lying are you?" asked Rayus as his throat started to dry.

"Why would I lie to you, considering the general status of how they see things in heaven, I'm lower because of my origins," said Lyon as he shrugged, "We are on the same boat in that regard, but more importantly I need you to be in top shape in the tournament because I want to win."

Rayus gulped a huge chunk of saliva before he nodded.

Lyon could see from his eyes that this student of his was overwhelmed. He smirked.

"Darling, let's do that after lunch, come, I have prepared a warm pot on top of a campfire," said Selena as she slipped her arm on his.

His heart and the other students sunk, well except for Rayus. Lyon's face was petrified upon hearing those sweet words.

( The last meal had an aura on its own, if she made a grand feast, that meal might be able to cultivate! ) Lyon gulped. "S-Sure, let's do it."

"Hehe, come, come, today is really special!" Selena smiled as she guided him and the rest of the students followed.

*Slurp!!

*Ptui!!

"What the fuck is this soup?! This the worst thing that ever landed on my tongue, damn!" a burly man with a full set of armor spat the soup that Selena had prepared. Laughter from the group he brought with him soon followed.

"Huh? Heh, surprise, surprise," said the man as he found Lyon and the other males from the group had parted lips.