Chapter 199: Three Times Stronger

The next few days went by the same, and with Rion’s involvement, the preparations of the feast continued without any issue.

However, during this time, he was unable to meet Lara as she spent most of her time commanding the cooks.

Being from the outside and a former princess, she was aware of the methods to cook the ether beasts, and because nobody else was knowledgeable about them, she was far busier than she had been during Rion’s feast.

Due to that, Rion was unable to learn the geographic knowledge he would require for his journey however he didn’t think too much of it. Dora had yet to wake up. He still had two more weeks to ask Lara, and the feast was to happen two days later.

At the moment, his main concern was to learn the languages as quickly as possible because most of his time was spent learning them.

But for now, Rion sat atop one of the boulders placed around the training grounds and watched Haden train the warriors.

The warriors were mainly squad members, as the squad leaders were sent with the scouts to search the ground near the tribe’s settlement.

As for what they were searching? Minerals, herbs, water sources, caves and packs of beasts… their mission was to map all of them, but none of them knew why Marin had given them such a task.

Haden stared at the lines of the warriors standing before him with stars twinkling in their eyes and stated, “To use the ether around yourself, you must have complete control over your breathing and your movements.”

“Your breathing is the language that allows you to communicate with the ether, and your movements make it react in the intended way.”

“Such as,” He lifted his spear, his breathing turned calm like a pond with no ripple, and he spun it.

With a sudden Fwossh, flame materialised out of thin air around his spinning spear, and everyone’s eyes widened at the spectacle.

“WHOA!!”

“Fire…”

“That’s crazy!”

Haden stopped spinning his spear, and the flames scattered instantly.

“However, ether arts require far more precision than aura techniques.”

“Aura techniques are based on our fighting styles and will, but most of the ether arts are not of our own. These arts work by harmony with the world and thus cannot be changed per our wishes,” Haden explained slowly.

A thoughtful look appeared on Rion’s face, and he mumbled, “Won’t the opponent be able to predict our ether art?”

Just as those words left him, Haden answered in his head.

<No. Ether arts are considered difficult to learn, and ether reacts differently to each weapon — even a slightly chipped blade can cause the ether art to fail, so most people don’t even try to learn more than a fixed set of ether arts that complement each other.>

Understanding dawned on Rion, and he asked, <If they are difficult to learn, won’t that mean that most of the outsiders use the same arts?>

The corners of Haden’s lips arched up slightly, and he explained, <Once a path is found, countless variations would stem from it.>

Rion nodded in agreement. <True.>

Haden continued, <Each person has a different way to view the world and the ether arts, so even though they may fail to learn the art of their predecessors, they might create one of their own. What they need is vision and understanding.>

A smile appeared on Rion’s face, and he asked, <What about you, Father? What ether arts have you mastered?>

<I only learned a few because I knew they would be useless here.>

Rion’s eyes gleamed curiously, and he pressed, <Tell me!>

Haden chuckled inwardly. He pushed the heel of his spear into the ground and began to dance.

The dance was weird — it had a strange rhythm but it didn’t appear to be something without thought.

The warriors and Rion stared at him in confusion, and all of a sudden, Haden’s body glowed with a blue sheen, and cracks appeared beneath his fist.

“W-What is going on?!” The warriors shouted in panic.

The air around Haden began to tremble, and Rion suddenly felt his instincts scream. “Blasted hell…”

He smirked, jumped down the boulder and sprinted towards Haden.

“High commander?!” Worry spread across the warriors.

Golden flames blazed around Rion, a wide grin stretched across his face, and he shouted while his fist zipped forward, “Let’s see how strong this actually is!”

Haden stopped dancing, a dim blue glow still emitted from him, and he chuckled at Rion.

His fist connected, and he felt as if he had struck an iron mountain that refused to budge.

A gust erupted from the collision but Haden didn’t even move from his spot, and Rion stared at him with his widened eyes.

“What the…” he mumbled, and Haden said, “This is one of the hardest ether arts of the east, it’s called Dance of Yama.”

Rion stepped back and muttered, “What does it do?”

Haden grinned. “It makes me three times stronger.”

Rion blinked a few times and asked again, “I think I heard it wrong. It does what?”

Haden didn’t say anything and just stared at him with a smile.

Rion looked at him with a dumbfounded expression and said, “There’s no way it actually makes you three times stronger… right?”

“It does,” Haden said with an amused expression.

Rion shook his head in disagreement and thought, ’Nope, that’s simply impossible. How can something so simple make him three times stronger…?’

Even though Rion understood that this world was a bit absurd, this was just beyond everything he had ever witnessed.

Haden, who was able to easily guess Rion’s thoughts, said, “Dance of Yama is not a normal ether art… it’s an imitation of a dancing dragon.”

Rion blinked and said the first thing that came to his mind, “Do dragons even dance?”

Haden shrugged. “Maybe? I wouldn’t know for sure.”

Rion nodded thoughtfully, and the warriors watching this light-hearted back-and-forth between father and son were contemplating whether they were the weird ones to find them absurd, or if their saviours were simply too far from the norm.

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