Ascension of the elder

Chapter 36: The blue oyster

"Okay mum I know how to train you."

"Really that's great dear can you tell me what I need to do."

As soon as Maria heard Kyle would be able to train her she immediately became elated and there was no question in her mind as to whether Kyle would be successful. Kyle found this blind faith in him at once very comforting and also very worrying as what would happen if she had this same level of faith in untrustworthy people. Kyle didn't know that Maria only had this level of faith in two people the first being her husband and the second was Kyle himself. She didn't even have this level of trust in her master who had saved her from a forced marriage arranged by her family so she could choose her own husband.

Maria had navigated this world's aristocratic circle, where a simple comment or mannerism could be interpreted in any number of ways and lead to untoward effects that the person may not even be aware of. This is the nature of the nobility and anyone outside of your own family is a potential enemy, so Maria was cautious around others but let some of her guard down around those close to her and completely with her close family. This was how Maria dealt with the stress of living like this while others have different means of release whether that was drinking, fighting or gambling some vice or another to remove them from the stress.

"Okay mum what you need to do is create the array in your spirit realm but before it collapses pull back so you avoid the backlash from failure. It's pretty simple but you'll be able to train longer and harder than others who keep on failing completely."

"I'll give it a go, by the by how many arrays can you produce simultaneously?"

Maria was curious as to this point as Kyle could already produce as many arrays as her master at such a young age and she wanted to know what his limit was.

"Well 5 is my limit at the moment, but this isn't due to a lack of soul force. I'm the opposite from you I have plenty of soul force but not enough mana to sustain the arrays past 5 of them but due to my abundance of soul force I don't suffer from a backlash I just get tired from mana drain."

Maria accepted this as it made sense, before she started her training she asked Shauna to keep Kyle company while she tried to progress further. Kyle and Shauna moved away from Maria so they wouldn't disturb his mother and sat on one of the couches on the opposite side of the room.

"So Shauna we haven't spoken for a while, how have you been any progress with your crush?"

The last time Kyle had a friendly chat with Shauna was several years ago before he started focusing on his training blocking almost everything else out from his view, which lead to him losing contact with his friends and people who cared for him like what happened with Bruno.

"Which crush? If you're talking about that guardsman from a few years ago I lost interest in him almost straight away. Even though he looked cute he was boring as a brick and only knew how to pose and check his hair."

When she said this Shauna got a look in her eye and then began laughing as she had remembered something.

"Come on Shauna if you're laughing like that you've got to share."

Kyle hadn't seen her laugh like that for a long time and he now really wanted to know what happened between her and the guardsman as it must have been a good story.

"Well it was a week or two after we broke up, I found him sitting in one of the gardens with dead eyes and I thought something had happened. Even though we had broken up I didn't dislike him so I went up and asked him what had happened."

"Okay I'm on the hook what did he tell you."

"Well he and another junior guardsman received a tip from the market about a bar that operates in the night with many suspicious men going in to conduct business that cannot be done in the open, so the following night they went to investigate it themselves."

"Keep going."

Kyle was wondering what happened in the bar was it kidnapping, drugs maybe murder for hire who knew.

"I'm getting there, well they found the bar no problem and watched it from outside for a while. They saw many large men going in and these men looked like thugs so deciding enough time had gone by they approached and were allowed in by the bouncer. While he wouldn't tell me exactly what happened in the bar afterwards he did say one thing to me 'they made me dance all night'. I found out afterwards the bar was how should I say, for men who prefer the company of other men."

When Kyle heard this he had a strong sense of dj vu and why was Shauna comfortable talking to a child about this.

"Shauna just to check, what was this place called?"

"I think it was something like blue reef, blue clam oh wait it was the blue oyster."

Hearing this Kyle finally lost it and began laughing his socks off.

"Hahahahahahahahhahahaa."

Shauna was happy to see this as Kyle hadn't laughed so freely since he was much younger and the weight of his position and his lack of progress was weighing him down. She saw herself as more of an older sister to him and she wouldn't hesitate to help him even if it meant killing half the city as Kyle, Maria and Landon were the only people she thought of as family.

"Oh god I feel sorry for that guy, what happened to him afterwards is he still a guard?"

"No he quit and starting working as a waiter over there."

This time Kyle really broke down, he laughed so much tears were coming out of the corners of his eyes and he couldn't get his breath back. After stifling his laughter he looked at Shauna who was smiling at him and said.

"Thanks Shauna I needed that."

Kyle felt lighter after Shauna had made him laugh like that and he realised he would need to loosen up if he wanted to lead these people. He could delegate when he needed but he kept too much bottled up and this could lead to him being unable to associate and enjoy time with the people he was trying to protect.

"Are you 2 finished?"

Kyle and Shauna looked to Maria who had come out of her training and was looking at the both of them as if they were crazy.

"Hi mum we were just talking. How was the training?"

"Oh what were you talking about?"

Shauna looked at Kyle before she told Maria the story but she didn't understand the meaning as even though she was politically save and powerful in her own right, she was still sheltered and didn't interact with the commoners much let alone those of a different orientation.

"What's funny sometimes I'm sure me prefer the company of other men."

Kyle's moth was twitching now as he saw his mother's lack of understanding regarding this and instead decided to move on.

"Don't worry about this, how was the training?"

"It was good I could feel the array was more complete than previously and if I carry on like this I will have no problem in producing a complete one before long. But I stopped when I became overly tired."

"I think this is probably due to straining your soul force. It's like weight training you don't want to over burden your body instead do it gradually slowly increasing your strength."

"That's what I thought as well so I'll carry on training tomorrow and see how it goes. Well it seems today's lesson was a bit different but while I'm here do you have anything to ask me?"

Maria looked hopefully towards Kyle as she intended to help him today and instead it was the other way around.

"Well actually there was something I wanted to check with you."

When Kyle said this he held out his hand and pulled up a 'remote' array and made the 'shield' array that was present in the room visible.

"Mum can you have a look at this 'shield' array and let me know what you think of it."

Maria saw this array floating in the centre of the room and was surprised by it artistic workmanship. This was far more beautiful than any array she had seen before like comparing calligraphy to standard writing. She studied it for a minute before she responded to Kyle.

"This is an old style array from the pre empire era but I've never seen a complete one before as every record that has been found was incomplete and what we use now are based on these incomplete notes. Can I copy this down I would like to discuss it with my master when I get a chance?"

Kyle didn't have a problem with this as amongst the arrays that are present in the mansion this was one of the closest to the arrays used currently. After Maria had copied down the array in a notebook they stopped for lunch before they returned to the main compound but not before Maria had said she and Landon would be joining him for breakfast tomorrow morning. After seeing them off Kyle moved to the training area as he decided to get in another cultivation session or two while he had a chance but before he got more than 2 steps he got an alert that there was a large number of people approaching.

Kyle waited at the entrance and when the doors opened Kyle welcomed his visitors.

"Welcome to my home."