Chapter 11 - Warrior Secret Technique: Qi Revolution

That same night, on the border of Ansem with Rhodnius, in the village of Teres.

At the mansion occupied by one of the Great Families of Ansem, the Corena family, a guard was bidding farewell to his companions who were about to begin the night watch. As he made his way towards the servants' dormitory, he stopped midway. He looked carefully around and when he determined that no one was watching or following him, he made his way to a large storage room, where the guards' weapons were kept, which was located next to the garden of the house.

Creak!

He opened the door and went in. He walked a couple of metres and stopped. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, the door closed, but the guard seemed unfazed and continued to wait.

"How did it go? a voice inside the storeroom asked. The voice was somewhat raspy and cold.

"Pretty good. Five of the other guards have decided to help us. Once we are in the Rando Woods we can execute the plan, provided there are no mishaps."

"Well... Although I am confident that we could accomplish the objective, with the help of the 5, my plan has a 90% chance of being successful. Plus the risk we'll have to take will also be much lower. Heh. To think that someone from her own house wants the Young Miss dead. I guess that's the thing about being the daughter of a concubine with no pedigree. Nobles are definitely more dangerous than vipers. Well, that's none of our business in the end. The important thing is that after this job we'll have enough money to live like kings".

Said the person hidden in the darkness of the storeroom. "Remember. No one can be left alive after this. I want no loose ends. Old Man Corena will lose his head over the death of his little daughter and I do not wish to be the recipient of his vengeance."

"Don't worry. The plan is perfect. The first thing will be to get rid of the 'guide'. He is nothing but a stupid young orphan. What's more, he could serve as a scapegoat, should we need a plan B," said the guard.

Both were confident of accomplishing their mission.

"There are only 10 days left. In the meantime, we can't spend too much time together, else someone could notice something funny. We have to fulfil all the Young Miss's wishes and make her happy during this short season. That is the only thing we can do. Make her last days of life a happy memory, hahahahahaha."

Finished the hidden man with mockery.

....

Two days had passed since Elijah's arrival at the orphanage. The provisions he brought allowed the boys to eat very well during these days, and they were immensely happy. Elijah accompanied them every morning during the daily training, so the children were twice as excited to work hard and get stronger. Maya was very happy to see all the children so active and even got to work out with them herself.

"Well Elijah, I want to see how much you have improved. I hope you didn't stop your training while you were away from the orphanage," said Maya, who had changed into light exercise clothes. The children were surprised, as they had never seen their sweet sister Maya looking so heroic.

Elijah had a very serious look on his face as he faced Maya. A small bead of sweat beaded on his temple. He knew Maya was a tough nut to crack, and although he had improved a great deal during the last year of adventures on the border, he couldn't help remembering that his sweet sister who protected all the children at the orphanage had another nickname in the Rhodnius villages across the frontier: "The Red She-Devil".

Elijah rushed at Maya at great speed. The children didn't even see how he moved when suddenly Elijah was already in front of Maya, launching many attacks with his claw-like hands, at a dizzying pace, with a speed of more than 15 blows per second. Maya however remained with an impassive smile on her face as she easily dodged Elijah's attacks.

"Elijah, please. This isn't even enough to warm up," Maya said, as she raised a hand and launched an attack towards Elijah with her knife-like hand. The attack was too fast and it looked like Elijah had been hit, but he had left an afterimage, and appeared a few feet away. While he had dodged the blow, there was now a clear slit in his shirt, and a line of blood was visible on his chest. Elijah couldn't help but gulp hard.

"Sister Maya, please, you make it sound like you want to kill me," Elijah said with a forced smile. No sooner had he said this, however, when he had again disappeared from where he stood and appeared several metres above Maya, landing with a kick that used the force of gravity to fall like an axe. A snake of white light surrounded the leg with which he attacked, a symbol of the Qi concentrated in his leg. Maya, however, did not retreat, nor did she dodge the attack, but planted her left leg on the ground like a pillar and then extended her other leg towards the sky which was surrounded by a light blue halo and slammed directly into Elijah's attack. Although Elijah had the advantage of height and the fact that Maya received the attack directly, it was Elijah who lost the onslaught and was thrown several metres, falling backwards onto the ground.

"Wow, Sister Maya is still the strongest," said Elijah as he was panting for breath. The children were cheering and happy to see the fighting techniques of two such strong people.

"You are not bad yourself Elijah. Level 29 Qi Grandmaster, you will soon become a Praetorian. I am very pleased to see your improvement. Your attacks are hard, sudden and have a wild touch to them, a normal warrior of level 35 and below will have a hard time defending against you. However, you are also a bit sloppy in your defence, and at times you attack without a clear target in mind. You need to focus your strength and attacks better, otherwise, it will be very easy for someone to counterattack and defeat you," Maya commented as she outlined her younger brother's strengths and weaknesses.

"I will keep all your advice in mind, big sister," Elijah said smiling when suddenly his gaze turned strange as he looked over to where Maya was standing.

"I don't know why you give so much advice Maya, when you yourself made so many mistakes. Look at your legs. They are clearly quivering. If I touch them I can feel that you have a small tear in your thigh muscles, you tried too hard to take your brother's attack. It looks like you wanted to show off in front of the rest of the lads, but you have to be careful. It's best to avoid such direct attacks. After all, even though your Qi level is much higher than your brother's, your muscle mass is still lower. Besides the fact that you haven't trained for a couple of months, pushing yourself so hard without a warm-up could be counterproductive." Said Maikal squatting down and looking at Maya's butt while touching her thighs with a serious face as if he was doing nothing wrong.

Maya turned bright red, with a blush that extended to her neck, and with all her strength and Qi, she slapped Maikal who was slammed to the ground. "PERVERT!!" shouted Maya as she stormed out of the courtyard in a rage.

All the children were dumbfounded and were thinking that today Father would probably only eat black bread and water for the rest of the day. Maya after all was the one who kept all the accounts and money in the house and decided what was eaten.

Maikal got up with little difficulty, and dusted off his rags as if nothing had happened. Elijah couldn't help but facepalm.

Then Maikal began to stare coldly at the boys, who were on the verge of bursting out laughing, the laughter getting stuck in their throats. "All right, you brats. I hope you're having fun. I guess you're in the mood for a double dose of exercise today. Glad to see you all so active." All the boys started to shiver. Then he yelled, "Luka, come with me."

Luka went trembling to where Maikal was, and Maikal took him aside to a secluded area of the garden, which was covered by a tall wooden fence. This was Maikal, Elijah and Maya's private training area. Nerun and Sylvester were immensely happy to see this. They knew that Father Maikal was about to teach them the combat techniques he had promised them.

Half an hour passed, during which they heard several times a noise like thunder from the private area. Luka came out after a short while markedly excited and happy, though you could tell his legs were shaking like a pair of maracas. Then it was Sylvester's turn to run into the private area very excited. Another half hour passed and this time the sound was as if a bomb had exploded. Sylvester came out pale and with his arms on both sides of his body, unable to move them. However, there was also a smile of immense happiness on his face. For these children, no hardship or sacrifice was too much to become stronger in order to change their destiny.

Finally, it was Nerun's turn. He was also excited, but it would be a lie to say that he was not fearful when he saw the state Luka and Silvester were in. Nonetheless, he made his way without hesitation to the private training area. Upon entering he was shocked to see several holes in the ground. It was like a minefield and everything looked incredibly destroyed with many craters and cracks in the ground. Nerun could only imagine the attacks that could have caused this damage and imagined himself making very powerful attacks with his hands and legs.

Maikal stood in the centre of the training field looking seriously at Nerun. His gaze showed that he was having serious doubts about how to train the brat.

"To be honest, I'm not sure I should teach you any technique whatsoever. Your body is too small, you're only about to turn 6 and your Qi strength is inferior to that of your brothers. If Luka keeps training, it's not impossible for him to become a Qi Master at the age of 10 like Sylvester, and his muscles and bones can withstand the technique I taught him with just a slight overexertion. As for Sylvester, the truth is that his first central meridian is the Terra meridian. That means his speciality will probably lean towards defence and his attacks will have the strength and stability of a mountain grounded in the earth. You on the other hand can easily lose control of your strength and I fear that this may leave less than savory results."

"Father, please. I promise I can handle any technique you teach me," said Nerun nervously. What he feared most was that Maikal would back down from his promise. Finally, Maikal seemed to have made up his mind.

"I have decided to teach you a technique brat. I will only show it to you 3 times. If you manage to understand something, then the technique will be yours. Otherwise, you'd better forget about it until you get older and stronger. The name of this technique is 'Qi Revolution'. Watch closely".

Maikal then assumed a horse stance, while relaxing his upper extremities in front of him. Then he separated his arms and started very slowly rotating his arms in a counter-clock wide movement while his hands were getting ever closer to each other. At the end of the revolution when his hands got together, he then gently pushed towards Nerun with both palms open.

Nerun was completely slack-jawed.