“It’s amazing!” he finally said, his eyes traveling to the tops of the walls, where small figures moved back and forth.
“About time we got here, too,” Irusaru grumbled. “Now hurry up, I’ve been looking forward to that bath all day.”
They had been walking for a good three hours before the walls had come into view, and Aika hadn’t stopped talking the entire time. She’d asked him question after question, and Roy found that after a while, he’d begun to relax around her.
Irusaru, on the other hand, seemed to grow more and more annoyed at her incessant talking. The two of them had continued sniping at one another the entire way, making Roy feel distinctly uncomfortable. No matter how many times Aika assured him that it was fine, he just couldn’t understand how it was.
“That’s all you’ve been talking about all day!” Aika yelled as they approached the wall. “Don’t you want to visit your own daughter first?”
“Bath first, then family. And since you seem to have made a new friend of my young disciple, you can show him to his room.”
Aika shrugged. “Fine by me, old man. Just don’t come crying to me when my mother kicks you out of the house.”
They all walked up to the wall, and a problem became immediately apparent to Roy. There was no gate. While Irusaru and Aika could probably spring to the top of the wall with little to no effort, he could not. He was about to ask how they were going to get in, when a line appeared in the solid stone, tracing the outline of a doorway.
A moment later, the stone sank into the ground without so much as a sound, leaving an entrance just tall enough to admit them into the village. As the stone rose up behind them, Roy thought that ‘city’ would be a more apt description.
While the Shah clan all lived in low wooden structures, it seemed that out here in The Crater, people lived a bit differently. Sure, there were still the same cobbled streets, wooden bridges, and flower gardens, but the vast majority of structures were made of stone.
When he asked Aika about this, she gave him a lopsided grin.
“We can’t go building things out of wood in a place that is constantly plagued by lightning storms. Can you imagine what would happen if one of the structures caught fire?”
Roy nodded, feeling just a little embarrassed for needing to have such an obvious fact pointed out to him.
“Alright, boy. I’m going to the bathhouse. Aika will escort you to your rooms in the school grounds. Any questions you have should be directed at her. There will also be a stable for your Beast. I will be around this evening to induct you into the school and begin your training.”
With that, the old man vanished into the bustling crowd without so much as a parting gesture.
“It’s rude to leave in the middle of a conversation, old man!” Aika yelled after him, but Roy knew it was a futile effort.
She blew out a long breath and turned back to him, her ever-present grin back in place.
Why does she always do that? She can’t be in a good mood all the time, Roy thought as he felt Ferry bump her head up against his back.
He turned around, feeling a smile stretching across his own face as he scratched behind her ears. She’d been subdued over the last few days as she recovered from her injuries. Now she was almost back to normal, or so Geon had assured him.
“Come on. Follow me.”
Roy turned as Aika gestured down the busy street and began walking, weaving her way effortlessly through the crowd. He was quick to follow, more shoving than weaving. He had a few angry looks shot his way, but for the most part, he was ignored.
“Is this your clan’s main village?” he asked as he finally caught up to Aika, who was waving and calling out greetings to people as she passed.
“Hardly,” she replied, waving at a little girl with a Yellow-Belt tied around her waist. “This is only one of our outlying villages. It’s here mainly for the school. Our main village is actually outside The Crater, but only those of the main family live there.”
So, Roy thought as they finally broke free of the heavy crowd and headed for an arched bridge. Aika wasn’t from the main family, which meant that she probably didn’t have an important role in the clan.
“Who is your clan leader?” he asked, looking towards the end of the bridge, where a multitude of long and low buildings with slate roof tiles stood in a long row. They were packed so tightly together, that they formed a sort of wall.
A Torii gate painted green and gold stood before them, in a large gap that Roy was pretty sure served as the entrance to the school grounds. He couldn’t say he was surprised that they’d sectioned it off, but he was surprised that the gates appeared to be completely unguarded.
“Our clan leader is Tonde Kaeru, the Supreme of Torrential Storms.”
Aika’s tone convinced him that this was something impressive, and seeing an opportunity, he jumped on it.
“Just what is a Supreme? I’ve heard the term used before, but I don’t know what it means.”
“Really? And here I thought that everyone knew,” Aika replied. “A Supreme is a title given to a Martial Artist once they’ve mastered nine techniques in Essence, Qi, and Chakra. They must also have reached the seventh level of cultivation, though that’s a given, seeing as it’s impossible to work with Chakra before then.”
Aika spouted this information like it was nothing, but to Roy, it was all new. He’d been hoping to have his questions answered, but now, he only had more. For example, what on Earth was Chakra? And what was the seventh level of advancement? He knew that Green was the fourth, but he’d never seen anyone with a Belt past Base Green, so he didn’t know what came next. Maybe Aika would know?
“And what exactly is the seventh stage of cultivation?”
“Does everyone in the Waterwood live in ignorance?” She didn’t seem upset, just genuinely curious.
“I’m not sure, but the strongest Martial Artist I’ve ever seen was a Green-Belt. I’m pretty sure that Irusaru is stronger than that, but I can’t make out the color of his Belt.”
Aika rolled her eyes.
“All the Masters at the school do that. They think it adds a layer of mystique to hide their levels of advancement. As to what comes after Green- the next level is Blue, after that is Purple, then Red. That’s as far as I know, though. I know that there are more, as a Martial Artist can never stop improving, but our clan leader has lived for over half a millennium and has been at Base Red ever since advancing, nearly fifty years ago. The knowledge of further advancement has been hidden, so we’ll only know what comes next once someone reaches 1st Dan Red.”
Roy’s mind was working overtime by now, compiling all the information and trying to sort it into place. He was glad to have all this information, but it served to highlight something very significant.
Geon’s enemies, the ones he wanted Roy to kill, would both be at Red, or perhaps even higher. Just how long would it take him to attain the kind of power needed to take them both down?
Deciding that these answers could afford to wait, he turned his attention back to the present. He only had a limited amount of time left until he would meet a very painful end, which meant that he would have to begin cultivating as soon as possible. When Aika asked if he would like a tour of the school grounds, he very politely declined, asking to be shown to his rooms instead.
She seemed a bit dejected that he’d turned her down, and he was quick to assure her that he was just tired from travel and wanted to rest. That seemed to raise her spirits once again, and she returned to her usual chipper self.
She escorted him through the Torii gate, then led him to a structure without any walls. Instead, the stone roof was held up by a series of metal beams around the outside, as well as several on the inside.