Back to Cyrus

On the early morning streets of Cyrus, there was a young man dressed as a scholar with a dark-blue pup on his head. There wasn't anything about his appearance that stood out, but even so it was odd how no one could recognize his presence. It was as if he was a ghost, yet his body still had vitality.

This young man strolled to a certain house where a family of siblings were having breakfast. The young man went to the front door and knocked twice before waiting for a response. Not long after, footsteps came towards him and the door creaked open.

"Can I help you?"

Lily was the one to open the door and speak to him. She didn't know why, but the moment she saw this young man who was two inches taller than her, she felt a very strong spiritual connection to him.

'Do I know this person?'

The young man smiled at her and replied with a question that answered hers.

"Aren't you supposed to welcome your master in?"

The voice was deeper than she remembered, and the face and body couldn't be compared, but that question was enough to tell her this young man's identity.

"Yes. Please come in, Master."

Once she realized who he was, Lily quickly led him to the dining area and pulled out the chair she had sat in for him. The rest of her siblings were bewildered by this scene, and all of them wondered if their eldest sister had finally found a boyfriend. However, they all thought the same thing when they had that suspicion.

'Isn't she devoted to Mr. Shin?'

In recent times, even if she didn't say anything, everyone knew who she was thinking about when she looked dazed. As much as they agreed that Shui was a great guy, even Ryan thought that she was pining for him a bit too seriously and a bit too early.

The other four siblings remained suspicious of the young man until his form changed into that of a boy in a black cloak and with bandages over his eyes. However, Cin remained hidden.

"Mr. Shin!"

"Yes, it's me. You can keep eating."

With mutation control, Shui had transformed into that young man and made it into the city. There would be no point in fooling Bartos' group if he was going to expose himself to the eyes here. With the 'Hide' talismans he had along with the concealment array he added to his clothes, even Ulus would only be able to sense him if he got too close. Additionally, since the cloak he wore was custom made for him, it could adjust its shape and colour. Cin also hid his scales and horn easily with a spell he learnt from his bloodline. Naturally, he was smug when he did so, but Shui had started getting used to this big brother showing off.

Until they finished eating, the siblings kept glancing in Shui's direction. Not just because he was there, but also because Lily was feeding Shui with a bright smile on her face. Since there was still a bit of food left in front of her chair, Shui asked if she wanted it, but she said that he could take it. Shui already had breakfast so he had declined that offer but then Lily used her beg skill, which was on the same level as Cin's, to make him say 'ahh'. It was only one bite, but that was enough for Shui to blush in embarrassment and regret doing it.

"Ah...so, did you come on business?"

When Ryan asked this question, Shui cleared his throat and responded.

"I'm in bit of a troublesome situation, so I won't be able to come here too often, so I'll need your help for a few things."

"Of course, you can ask for whatever you want."

Instead of Lily, Ryan was the one to answer since she was busy staring at him. Additionally, everyone in the room knew there was no way Lily would refuse his request.

"Thanks. Before that, do you have a room in this house where you can cultivate?"

"Well, we normally just cultivate in our rooms or outside."

"Then, which room is the largest?"

"The boys'."

There were two main reasons why Shui came to Cyrus. The first was to raise the strength of the siblings since he planned to use them to help him recover and maintain his relationship to Ulus. Among the things he promised, there was nothing that would stop Ulus from kidnapping him if he thought he was no longer as useful after being crippled. Those in Cyrus shouldn't be interested in news about the three clans, but Shui had no doubt that Ulus had a idea as to his true identity so if he didn't continue their business relationship, then it would probably be a matter of time before he tried to kidnap him despite him being in the clan.

Making custom artifacts for them would be no problem, but the most important thing would be increasing their cultivation. Though he knew of certain methods to increase their cultivation in a short amount of time, the siblings weren't disposable and he didn't need them to get strong in a short time. Therefore, he went with a method that would make it easier for them to cultivate.

When everyone was finished eating and Lily started washing the dishes instead of staying near him, Shui went to the boys' bedroom and took out a container with evolved beast blood. The other siblings watched him do so with curiosity blatant in their eyes.

"This'll take about an hour."

"Should we wait outside?"

"Just don't enter the room. I'll have a surprise ready for you afterwards."

They wanted to watch him, but not enough to go against what Shui asked them to do. Once the door was closed, Shui stood up and looked around the room. In the corner of the room was a large bed, and near that was a pile of clothes and other miscellaneous items. Cin was still sleeping on his head so he didn't need to worry about it.

'Time to begin.'

Shui used martial intent to lift the bed and other items off the floor and prepared to draw two arrays. It was much easier to make arrays interact than it was for inscriptions, all he needed to do was make them overlap. The size of the arrays that overlapped would determine which array would have greater priority. However, the size of an array didn't determine the strength of the array as arrays the size of fingernails could still compare to arrays the size of islands. What did determine the strength of an array was its complexity and the soul cultivation of the array master. Unfortunately, even if arrays and inscriptions were both just different representations of the natural laws, since Shui was still a beginner in arrays, his arrays needed to be reasonably big.

Shui drew the larger array first. This array was a concealment array. Since he was quickly fascinated by the effect of a concealment array, which was to make target objects within it invisible, in addition to concealing aura, it was the one he was most familiar with. It took him a mere 20 minutes to finish drawing it, after which he began the second one, which was an energy gathering array.

The concealment array was needed to hide the effect of the energy gathering array since even though there were few array masters in Cyrus, Shui knew it wouldn't be a good idea to show off the fact that the siblings had such an array. With it, the siblings would be able absorb 120% more energy than usual. If he knew the spirit soothing array as well, then even aiding them gain martial comprehension would be simple as well. It was due to these intricate effects, that were hard to do with inscriptions, why Shui became more and more interested in learning arrays.

Right as the one hour mark came, Shui walked out of the room. His legs still hurt, but he was doing fine by wearing shinguards of light material he secretly forged and added inscriptions of 'Relieve' that decreased the amount of stress his muscles were under.

As soon as Shui was out, the other siblings were alerted.

"You can enter now."