Mana Master, page 22
And I had gained my own admirer. She had gold spun hair and a graceful body as she homed in on me from across the room.
“Hi, handsome,” she said, sitting down close enough for her breasts to brush against my arm.
Steve looked her over briefly before returning to his drumstick.
“Hi…” I dragged it out, hoping for a name.
She shushed me. “No names here, handsome. What brings you in?”
Honestly, I’d been dragged in here by Jonny, but I was also curious about the Sun and Moon Hall.
The woman guided me back to the present with soft trailing touches along my arm and a warm softness against my side.
I made eye contact with her, and she bit her lip and blushed. It felt like her beauty was luring my soul away.
“Follow me.” She wrapped a scarf around my shoulders and led me to a private room.
The sway of her hips and the curve of her lips promised sinful delights as she drew me to the bed in the room.
My large frame dwarfed her curvaceous body, but she was in control as she sat me down on the bed and sat on my lap.
The way she writhed and moved had me in a trance as my stiff member threatened to burst free of my pants.
I pinned her hips still and tasted her sweet lips.
She leaned into me, devouring my lips before a sense of her mana invaded my body. She was strong. At least a second-ring mage.
Her mana swam through me, but it returned like it had missed something.
I felt somewhat uncomfortable with her mana invading me. It felt like a venomous viper.
Then things changed.
She leaned back and blinked several times before looking at me in surprise, and then around the room.
“Wha?” Something must have occurred to her because she punched me hard enough to bounce my head off the bed.
Now I was as dazed as her, but she stood up and cast about the room blinking rapidly like she was trying to process what was happening.
“Where am I?”
I wasn’t sure how she was going to react, but honesty seemed like the best policy when alone in a room with a confused second-ring mage. I raised my hands, showing her I meant no harm.
“Sun and Moon Hall’s Brothel,” I said.
“Brothel!” she said in a whispered shout. “I’m in a brothel?” Her eyes locked onto me and they looked gold, like a serpent’s.
“Yes,” I said, waiting for her reaction.
Her eyes seemed to pierce right through me. “You’re telling the truth.”
I nodded. “One of your associates drew my friend in here. I followed to try to keep him from being an idiot, and then you drew me into this room. I was mostly just curious about this place.”
“Right. You’re right. I brought you in here. But.” She frowned, like she was struggling to recall the event.
“Are you okay? Anything I can do to help?” I asked. “I can go if I’m making you uncomfortable.”
She seemed to be calming down, but she put herself between me and the door. “No. Just don’t leave right now.”
“Okay.” I let the word drag out.
Not sure what else to do, I looked about the room. It was plain with a veneer of luxury. There were some personal odds and ends that signified this was where she likely slept too.
“You know your meridians are shattered, right?” she said, catching my attention again.
“Yep, going to fix that.”
“I… I think that’s why I’ve come to. I’m Nerissa.” Her eyes locked on me again. “You really are a treasure, you know that?”
“Thanks?” I wasn’t sure how to take that.
She shook her head and pointed to her eyes. “No. I can detect treasures. Your body is a treasure.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t explain what just happened.”
“But it does.” She grinned. “Your broken meridians and the fact that I am identifying you as a treasure is keeping what they’ve done to me at bay, because I have no commands or orders about what to do with something that is both broken and valuable! Or what to do with a person who is also a treasure.”
“So as long as I’m here with you, you don’t have any orders? And you just do whatever they order you to?”
“Yes, the spell they put on me isn’t forcing any actions.”
That revelation startled me. She was being controlled. “Oh fuck. You are being controlled.”
Nerissa sighed, “Yes, that bastard. I never even saw it coming.”
I wanted to ask more, but the door was knocked open as I felt something fall into my hand.
And there was Aiden Hall, standing in the frame glaring at me.
“Get the fuck out.” Before he turned to Nerissa. “You. Leave.”
Her golden eyes were gone, replaced with a dull brown. Nerissa was swaying in that hypnotic way again with a pleased smile plastered on her face.
Aiden let her out past him before turning to me with a big grin. “I just got some good news. Your precious Kat has become the Sect’s new favorite. She’s getting the full strength of the Sect behind her cultivation.”
“Good. Can’t wait to see her wipe the floor with your face.” I stood to leave.
But Aiden’s shit eating grin didn’t fade one bit. “You think that, after all of the resources the Sect will give her, she’ll deny the Headmaster’s son? I know for a fact he’s intent on wooing her.”
“Not my business.” I shrugged, and for the first time, I didn’t feel a twinge of pain in my heart hearing about Kat. I was happy for her if it was what she wanted.
Aiden’s smile faltered at his failed attempt to get under my skin. “Not even a little bit jealous?”
“Kat is a big girl. She can make her own decisions.” I stepped up to him, waiting for him to move. “Why do you hate me so much, Aiden?”
“Huh?” That question made him look like he’s just been slapped in the face. I waited.
He huffed. “You always have it easy. Getting everything, like picking up apples.” Aiden’s hostility melted away slowly. There was clearly some deep resentment and insecurity there.
“Aiden. My father trained me brutally since I was a child; nothing about that was easy. I had to work and claw my way to where I am now, just like you.” I realized that what Aiden saw as ‘natural talent’ was really all the years my father had tried to help me survive this world. It had been his way of protecting me, and it had been hard.
But Aiden had only seen the output.
I looked Aiden in the eye. “Look, I don’t think we’ll be friends, but I’d be all for not continuing this nonsense. Think about it.”
He paused before stepping back to make way for me. But while he was opening up, I decided to ask him a question.
“Is something wrong with the girls here?” I asked.
“No, just women from the Sect coming here to cultivate. A number of them practice dual cultivation. You know, where you need a partner.” He wagged his eyebrows, telling me exactly how that partner was involved.
I watched him for any signs of falsehood. But if he was lying, he was the best damn liar I’d ever met. He didn’t know what was happening to Narissa.
Nodding, I left, dragging Steve to pull Jonny out of the brothel. It had been an eventful trip.
I felt for Narissa. I wished I could break her free, but I wasn’t about to be able to do that at my current strength. For now, we needed to steer clear of that brothel.
I had a feeling that Michelle was very right about the Sun and Moon Hall. There was a reason none of the girls came back.
Kat flicked at the edge of my mind, but I pushed it off. I couldn’t do anything now, and it sounded like at least in the short term she was going to be pampered.
But all that fled when I opened the crinkled ball of paper.
Save me. Dungeon.
I let out a big sigh. I’d do it if I could.
***
I headed back to the house with slight dread at what my father had planned.
I opened the door to my father waiting at the table. He was dressed in dark robes like he was going on a stealth mission.
Yet he was waiting for me…
“Son, let’s go out for a small trip,” my father said, stepping up to me and grabbing me by the shoulder.
He sniffed. “Brothel?”
I could feel my cheeks flush. “Jonny got drawn into one.”
“Good, it’s nice to blow off some steam from time to time. Just don’t overdo it.”
Not having anything to say to that, I just went along with my father.
Traveling together had been quick. My father had led me to a waterfall just outside the city.
“So, you crippled your meridians?” my father asked me. But I knew he had already looked at my body and seen the damage.
“Yeah,” I said looking down in shame. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to restore it.
“You also awakened your mother’s bloodline.” It was a statement, not a question. “Tell me the whole story.”
I trusted my father more than anything and told him everything. Only this time, unlike with Rigel, I told him about everything, including Mei, Aurora and the stone tablet with a sword in it.
When I got to that part, he seemed to be curious about the sword.
I pulled it out, half-afraid it would shoot a beam of light into the sky. Luckily, it didn’t.
My father held the sword reverently and turned over the sword, looking at the hilt.
“I can’t believe she actually left this for you.” My father ran a hand over the sword lovingly.
“She?” I asked.
“Your mother. This was her sword.” He gave it back to me.
I looked at the sword made of polished bone. It had attracted the sects like flies just being unsealed from the stone. A sword capable of that, yet it was my mother’s.
The wounds of losing her opened up fresh again. Just what wealth of life would I have had if she was still in mine?
“Dad, you don’t talk about her much. Where is she?”
My father looked up with a flicker of surprise, before it settled into sadness. “I should have guessed you’d figure out eventually. But the answer is… I don’t know.”
He sighed and looked off into the distance. “She came into my life in a storm. I was out on patrol as a simple guard at the time. She was heavily injured, and it was a miracle she was still alive. I brought her back and nursed her to health.”
“She’s from outside the city,” I said, realizing now the significance of that.
“I think she’s from much further away than that son. She helped me cultivate quickly. Without her, I wouldn’t be the force I am within the city.” He shook his head.
“But I’m getting ahead of myself. After she recovered physically, she still had to recover her cultivation. During that time, we had you.” He paused, choking up before continuing. “Today, we will start the method your mother used to recover from crippled meridians.”
“Tell me more about mom.” I was more interested in hearing about her than training. If this sword was my mother’s, that means she made that enchanted stone tablet. She had made a seal strong enough to block mages greater than the third ring.
Just how powerful was my mother?
Those thoughts stopped with my father’s abrupt, “No.”
I wanted to fight him then and there. I had a right to know more about my mother.
“Can I see your spacial ring?” my father asked, changing the topic. I sighed and handed it over.
He put it in his pocket.
“Dad, what are you doing?” Was he just taking away the ring?
“Training starts now.” He pushed me under the force of the waterfall.
It crushed me, sending me on my hands and knees. I could barely hold myself.
It didn’t last long before I fell flat on the rock. I felt like I was being slammed by a thousand hammers.
“What are you doing?” I shouted through the roar of water.
“Training,” my father said simply. “We need to break you down, break your limits. Truth is, you can’t heal the damage to your meridians.”
“Then what?” If we weren’t healing my meridians, then what were we doing?
“The only way is to completely grind them to dust, so you can start over again.”
“Mom did this too?” I asked.
He nodded. “And far worse. The stories of her family's training would put anything you’ve seen to shame. She would say ‘a mercy to oneself is no mercy at all’. Training must be tough in order to survive.”
What he said sparked something in me. It was almost like I could picture my mother in the same position years ago. I pushed with everything I had to get up.
Fighting against the waterfall seemed like an impossible task. It wasn’t a small curtain of water; it was a roaring waterfall that pressed me to the rock below.
But I refused to give up. If this is what it took, then I’d bear with the pain the same way my mother did. I’d walk in her footsteps and recover my cultivation.
The real pain started when my skin became raw and started splitting under the force of the waterfall. The pressure threatened to bend my spine, but I would rather break than bend.
Even my enhanced strength from awakening my bloodline was nothing before the persistent power of nature. Eventually, I passed out from the pain and woke up in a pit of liquid.
“What’s going on?” I pulled out my hand; it was sticky and smelt like medicine from the dark liquid in the pit. My arms itched.
“It’s a medicinal bath.” My father was about ten feet away, barbecuing a large hunk of meat.
“What’s in it? It really itches.” I started scratching, but it just wasn’t helping, like I couldn’t quite reach the itch.
“Why don’t you summon your mana beast? I’m curious to see her.”
Aurora appeared at the edge of the pit. “Hi,” she said awkwardly.
“Well, aren’t you a darling? I hope my son hasn’t treated you poorly.” My father seemed completely unconcerned that she was a humanoid mana beast.
“No, not at all. It’s a pleasure to be bound to Isaac,” she said, tucking her dress under her and sitting down next to the fire.
They started chatting, but I was distracted by just how itchy I’d become. “Dad, what’s in this bath? I’m so damn itchy.”
Aurora turned and sniffed at the liquid before recoiling in shock. “That’s poison! What are you doing?”
My father put out an arm to stop her from dragging me out. “Sometimes there’s not much difference between poison and medicine. Yes, that’s a poison to dissolve someone’s meridians, but in this case, that’s exactly what he needs.”
I sucked in a breath, realizing just what was happening in my body as I looked into my inner world. Sure enough, the ‘medicinal’ effect of the bath was seeping in and clearing away my shattered meridians.
Looking back out at my father, I gritted my teeth and made a decision. “I can take more. It only itches.”
He raised a brow but didn’t say anything, directly producing a vial of powder. “It doesn’t take much.” He warned Aurora as she took the vial.
I nodded to my lovely mana beast. She sprinkled just a bit into the pool, letting me stir it in with my arms. The itching increased to pinpricks; it was uncomfortable, like being bitten by a thousand ants. But this was nothing if it helped be back on the path of cultivation.
Not wanting to wait, I pulled the poison into my inner world and began circulating it as I had when I forged my meridians.
I pushed through, gritting my teeth as the pain built and built until I passed out from my first lesson on breaking down my meridians so I could reform them.
Chapter 18
It had been three days at the waterfall. The intensity had increased significantly with each day. Aurora had ended up deciding to hide in her ring, saying it was too hard to watch. My father remained by my side, pushing me through his steady presence.
At first, my father had started sending sand and gravel down the waterfall to hammer out my body, but now we were up to fist-sized chunks of rock.
I grit my teeth as my bones cracked from the hammering of stones coming down the waterfall.
This was ridiculous. He was going to kill me.
My body was much tougher than it had been a few days ago, but it was not a happy experience. It felt like every bone had been broken and re-forged at this point, and every muscle was bruised beyond recognition. I’d grown a new appreciation for muscles I hadn’t realized I had before.
But I continued to let the waterfall temper my body. I had already grown enough in strength to sit up straight in the torrent.
When the stones finally stopped coming, I opened my eyes and found my father before me.
He looked at me with pride. “You did good. Only someone with a bloodline like your mother’s could withstand that.”
“Now we need to get you used to this new body.”
I didn’t wait for him to attack. I burst out of the waterfall with a punch to his chest.
He blocked me and grabbed my elbow, tossing me to the shore.
Ducking into a roll, I gathered the momentum of the toss and came back up ready to fight.
My father was already before me, sending his own punch. I could feel that he wasn’t using more mana than a first-ring cultivator.
I still barely managed to divert his fist by swinging in with my own.
“Good, now try and use your bloodline.”
He sent another fist, this one stronger than the last.
I crossed my arms and took the blow, stumbling back a few steps.
“Again,” he shouted, not giving me a chance to recover.
I matched his punch with one of my own, trying to eke out all the power in my body, but it didn’t come. I was knocked back again.
A fist rapidly grew in my vision before I could stabilize myself. This one had more force than the previous two.
Badump
I felt my blood surge and my body swelled with strength.
“HA!” I shouted as I met his fist again, this time not giving ground.
We descended into a flurry of punches and kicks. Each attack of his was growing steadily stronger, pushing my new speed and strength to its limits.
