RQL chapter 3

-(Lee’am)-

Zel Reis Residence - second day of Liira 4896

I woke up with my woman in my arm, we were entwined together under the sheet. The floral scent of her long silky blue hair under my chin and the warmth radiating from her body glued to mine often makes me want to stay like this forever. I felt comfortable, at peace there is nothing that I want more than to be with my lovely-

Knock. Knock.

Someone was knocking on our door. Why? it’s too early! Oh Goddess, why do people always interrupt me at the most inopportune times?

“Mommy! Daddy! Wake up!!” A shrill and recognizable cute voice shouted.

Oh great, Shiwan is awake.

I felt Kateri move and she woke up headbutting me in the chin. Ouch!

“Lee’am… take care of her.” Kateri said while rubbing her forehead, her eyes closed and kept herself in bed. Kateri is a Princess, but since we eloped she has become the backbone of this family, hunting, cooking, cleaning, sewing, there is nothing she wouldn’t do to take care of us. However some of her more prominent habits still lingered. Staying in bed the weekend is one of them.

I sighed and sat on the bed.

“Kateri, today we must explain a lot of things to Shiwan. We can’t laze around in bed.”

“Shiwan!” She suddenly got up from the bed, looked at me and went naked as the day she was born to open the door.

I quickly put on my pajama while admiring the naked form of my wife; her white and supple skin, her shapely backside and long legs that goes on for forever; Kateri is a gorgeous woman and I am happy that she is mine as I am hers. My wife opened the door, Shiwan in her black training outfit that we offered her yesterday, appeared. It always scared me how much she looked like my ancestor Zena Gabreeyel. The Fiery red mane and electric blue eyes are a dead give away of her Oni ancestry and the Royal line. The fact that she has the potential superior to her is even more dangerous for her. People will seek her out, either to obtain her hand or control her. That is why today is the first step to help her get strong enough to have control of her fate. If she can attain sky rank in her twenties, I would praise the Goddess… a Goddess who seems to have a plan for her.

After finishing donning my red sleepwears I went to collect Kateri’s robe on her side of the bed, she questioning our daughter.

“How come you woke up so early? Normally I have to scream for you to do so each morning.” 

Shiwan smiled at her and tilted her head.

“I don’t know I wanted to wake up early and I did.” Wrong move Shiwan, she will punish you.

“Oh, so you can when you want to.” Kateri said with her voice gaining an hint of steel.

I decide to intervene by placing the red colored dressing gown on her shoulders to cover her lithe and naked form. She turned briefly to look at me, I smiled at her and her cheeks briefly reddened. Shiwan chose this precise moment to say something.

“Mommy, I want to help you do breakfast!” Her face was all smile and her eyes twinkled.

Good move Shiwan! She will ‘maybe’ forget your selective sleeping habit! I am proud of the shrewdness of my daughter, she is certainly an Oni female at her core.

“Oh yes, you will and more.” Kateri assured.

Sorry, daughter you fooling your mother wasn’t meant to be. I saw her making scared eyes at her mother and I chuckled.

*** 

After Donning my pants, shirt and boots and eating an earthy breakfast and my daughter washing the dishes under the supervision of Kateri who today donned her leather under armor showing all her delicious curves, we find our whole family in the patio behind the house. It was an empty space with blue grass with a marble statue of my wife in her armor that I commissioned a year ago from a really talented lass in the capital  of the Bramha kingdom. It was at the center of the Patio and my wife was still embarrassed by the gesture, telling me that it was a stupid expense and that she will not give me money to do this again.

Not that we are poor or anything.

We could be considered a rich family, after all we raided the treasure vaults of Kateri’s family before eloping; I did the same with mine, I took one of the treasure of Ancestor Zena, A weapon called Chakrah and a spatial base. The spatial base is the foundation of this house pocket space, we built the house on the spatial base which was the size of a big coin before and I had to make the space on the base big enough to build our house on. If we ever have to run, we can bring our house with us by letting it in the pocket space and turning the spatial base back into a coin.

The patio was built on the nexus of the base and is the place where we can train and absorb more easily the energy of heaven and earth : Chi. The Statue of Kateri is a big Foci that gather the Chi from the atmosphere in the garden, there is an enchantment at its base that channel and purify the chi in the earth and the air around us so that it doesn’t escape the space.

Under the purple sky, Shiwan was sitting on a patch of well groomed blue grass with her mother overing and waiting for me to begin the lesson. I sighed and focused on the task, if I didn’t do a good job of explaining things to Shiwan well enough, Kateri will take over. I love my wife but sometimes she speak to our daughter as if she expect her to understand complicated thing. I learned that Shiwan is smart but not that smart, she is still a little girl. So I will do a good job of teaching her,  I hate looking inept in front of my wife and daughter. My eyes went to Shiwan who smiled at me eagerly, waiting.

“Shiwan, do you know what Chi is?”

“It’s the weird light that appears when you fly?” She said, tilting her head. Her red locks of hair falling on half of her face.

I chuckled a bit, my daughter is obsessed with flying. To make a point, I let go of my restraints on my Chi in the core of my body, light blue and white mote of energy flow out of me and surround me. Like a tidal wave, it surge and coalesce in a storm forming what cultivator call Aura.

“This is, Chi.” I informed my daughter who looked at me with her little mouth forming an “o” with her eyes wide open.

I put my right hand in the air and a ball of Chi gathered in my palm, I moved my hand in circles, the energy ball followed it.

“Chi is not only used to fly, fight or heal it is one of the building block of life it is the vital force, part of any living entity. It is said to be an energy field that connect everything in the universe. It is everywhere, in our bodies, in the earth, plants, beasts and in the sky. Chi permeate the entire creation. Everyone can become a cultivator, a warrior or an elementalist able to harness this energy and manifest abilities and powers by stocking this energy in our bodies.”

I gazed at my daughter who looked at me transfixed, then I signaled Kateri to come to my side to do the same and she obliged. Her Chi glowed with a deeper shade of blue than mine, she is aligned with water and light affinity so it is normal. Shiwan stood up and approached us carefully, and touched us.

“It’s warm.” She said, fascinated. “I can do the same thing, right, right?!” Shiwan became even more excited.

Kateri and I looked at each other, I smiled and she rolled her eyes.

“With a lot of training and if you don’t give up, yes Shishi.”

I put my hand on my spatial ring and took out a big black board with some chalk, and amused myself with looking at Shiwan who dreaded “lesson time” and tried to flee. Her mother caught her by her collar and put her before me again. She really don’t like lesson time. Am I that boring? Sigh.

At the bottom of the black board, I drew a stick figure with long hair and said. “This is you, Shishi, you are a normal half-Oni female.” And then above the stick figure I drew a symbol for earth and a Faelide, one of those big catlike beast that we tamed to serve as our mounts.

“And this is a Faelide, it is stronger, faster and more resilient than you, they are Earth Ranked beasts.”

“Any creature or person can cultivate Chi to get stronger. Chi change our bodies and reinforce it, and the stronger the body, the more energy a cultivator or beast is able to stock. Our body evolve to be able to contain it, Earth Rank is the start on the cultivation road. However cultivation become more difficult, the more impurity you have in your body, that is why we went to your uncle Arthur yesterday. He gave us pills and supplements which will cleanse your body of the impurities you accumulated since your birth, Shiwan. We will come back on this subject later, now let’s speak about the Ranks separating cultivators.”

“There are Ranks superior to Earth rank, the higher the rank, the more powerful a cultivator is.”

I wrote the Spirit symbol above the earth one, then I did the same for the  sky symbol and wrote the star one and up on the blackboard a big symbol for “Sage.”

“As you can see, Shiwan. You are not even a Earth Ranked little girl. To be able to do what we did show you earlier, you need to be…” I wrote her name near the spirit symbol. “there, my little darling.”

Shiwan looked long and hard at the simple schema, and sat herself before the blackboard for a moment. We had all the time to let her digest the explanation. After two minutes of silent muttering, my little girl spoke again.

“Okay. But where are you two then, on the ranks?” Shiwan asked.

She looked at us dubiously and if I didn’t know her better there was a defiant look in her eyes.

“Your mother and I are…” I wrote my name and Kateri’s beside the sky symbol. “There.”

Kateri crossed her arms under her breasts, and looked at our daughter; I don’t know what she was thinking but I think Shiwan will have a bad time of it later. My wife opened her sensuous mouth and said.

“It will take years of training before you will be able to control your own Chi.” Kateri added. “But Lee and I, we intend to continue to train, until we are in the Star rank.” My wife looked into my eyes and I proceeded to write our names with a different colored chalk.

“Shiwan we will give you a bath in a concoction that will clean your marrow and your meridians. It will hurt a bit… I am sorry but if you want to get strong you will have to bear with it. And then we will begin to train your body.” I continued.

Shiwan, oh Shiwan… I remember my first cleansing bath, how painful it was and again I was older than you when it happened. The medicinal water invaded my body through the pores of my skin and went to town by burning away the impurities in me; oh, how it burned! And what’s worse is that after this there was this black substance that is in fact leftover burned impurities. Oh and it wasn’t done yet I had to consume a pill that would act like a laxative to clean my bowels and Dantian! I remember staying for hours in the toilet. My poor daughter, you’ll have to go through this too if you want power.

“Your mother and I went through it, it is certainly unpleasant… but we don’t regret going through it, because it didn’t kill us, we became strong.”

Kateri went to hug our daughter, petting her head with great relish; I felt a sudden pang of jealousy, but squashed it. I will pet my daughter's head later. If she doesn’t hate us after her cleansing bath. Like Ancestor Zena, Shiwan can be… temperamental, I dread her teenage days. Let’s take advantage of her early childhood to spoil her before she become too much of an Oni-female, and I think Kateri would love to have more babies. Maybe two more children should be enough. I shook my head; let’s first get to the Star Rank before thinking about more kids. My mind went on the spatial chest that Liira gave us for Shiwan and us, shockfull with treasures. I didn’t forget that there are cultivation techniques, Martial techniques and pills with notes about how to use them. Maybe there is something there to help Shiwan to cleanse her body and prepare her to cultivate. 

“Kateri, prepare her for the bath, I need to look for something.” I informed my wife.

“Yes Lee, but be swift please.” She said without even looking at me, Kateri was focused on our daughter.

I turned heel and went toward the house, opening the wooden door I took out the big golden chest from my spatial ring and it clinked on the ground. Kneeled before it and opened the lid, I sent my consciousness in the chest and categorized everything in it. There were a lot of things inside, things I didn’t have a name for, but I could recognize weapons, ore, books, vials full of pills and alchemical concoctions. My mind stopped on a familiar one with a green fluid inside. I took it from the chest and it appeared in my hand with a note on the neck of the vials.

“Cleansing Elixir, 100% purity.” I read aloud. “Use three drop in a wooden tub. Porcelain or metal hinder the treatment. Meridians, Dantian and full body cleansing guaranteed.” It is oddly specific and commercial.

100% purity alchemic products are national grade treasures, I am surprised that Liira is throwing so much ressources at Shiwan like this. Then again, she said that my daughter is her Champion. I took out each of the vials of pills reading the notes attached to them each, healing pills, rejuvenation pills, skin smooth as silk pills, anti-burn, anti-scar, ah-ah! Chi nourishing pills! I placed those I didn’t need back into the chest, closed the lid and stood up. We will use this to get her started when it’s time to meditate. I stash the chest back in my ring and leave the house, to go toward the garden.

END OF CHAPTER 3