"d.a.m.n boy you started early."With that a 4 foot 11 inch ball of energy came bounding into the room and leapt on the bed between a now red faced Clara and Miranda. When this tornado of terror made contact with the bed a m.u.f.fled yelp could be heard and a now dishevelled and thoroughly disgruntled Elena could be seen.
"Oh my G.o.d it"s not a threesome it"s a foursome. Man kids these days sure have a lot of energy; I hope you"re using protection teenage pregnancy isn"t anything to laugh at."
Clara and Miranda were gradually becoming more and more embarra.s.sed while Elena was staring at this new beast that disturbed her beauty sleep. While she was pouting Kyle could clearly see Elena was thinking of something before Kyle could sense the metaphysical clunk as a gear in her head caught and she came up with an idea.
"You disturbed my rest, you have to compensate me."
Elena spoke to Susan with a pure belief she was in the right and only waited for Susan to respond. For her part Susan only looked at Elena with amus.e.m.e.nt in her eyes, she was a third stage cultivator and everyone feared her barring a few people.
"Oh really and why should I compensate you?"
"You woke me up and I want pancakes, make that cherry jam pancakes."
"But why should I worry about waking you, it"s only the afternoon heck even the sun is still up."
"Don"t care I was sleeping so you owe me."
"But...."
"Don"t care pancakes first."
Susan didn"t know what to do, she wouldn"t hurt someone just for talking like this and she found the girl funny. Looking to Kyle for an explanation she could only see him silently laughing at her predicament. Seeing Susan looking his way he could only shrug his shoulders.
"Just give up she"s got you in her rhythm. If you head to the kitchen and ask Lauren about the pancakes and she"ll whip them up how Elena likes them, just tell her I said it was okay."
"Okay, okay but before that did your father come in here?"
As she asked this her eyes began roving around the room seemingly trying to hunt out the cowering Landon who was currently hiding under Kyle"s bed.
"Sorry Susan I haven"t seen him surely he should be around the main hall."
As he was saying this Kyle could swear he could feel relief coming from beneath the bed, however he still remembered when his father had tried to use him as a s.h.i.+eld against Susan the first time they met so he decided now was a good time for revenge. It may have been a long time coming but Kyle was nothing if not patient. Indicating the bed with his eyes as he spoke Susan quickly caught on and before he had even finished his sentence dove under the bed to catch a wild Landon.
She emerged while holding a struggling Landon by the ankle and started dragging him out of the room as she reached the doorway she shouted back to them.
"I"ll get your pancakes ordered up little girl and Kyle I need to talk to you can you meet me at the library in an hour."
With this the storm pa.s.sed and their last view of Landon was of his hands gripping the door frame as he was being dragged away while being sent off by Kyle.
"Sorry dad I did try."
This was it for all four as they started laughing at the pitiful view of Landon. The three girls were curious about Susan as they didn"t get to meet her on her previous visit as she was only present for a couple of days and much of this time was taken up with some imperial duties.
"Kyle who was that little lady?" Clara asked as she felt Susan was stronger than her but couldn"t get a true sense of her power. After the household began training with the new form of soul projection Kyle had his mother experiment with, they gained an ability to roughly gauge the strength of others. This training became known as soul shaping, Maria and to a lesser extent Landon had this ability already due to being more powerful.
"That was my mother"s master Grandmaster Susan Alvarez, imperial seer and also according to my father a demonic beast in human form. Any questions?"
The girls were giggling again at this as they felt this Susan was very interesting. Susan was also one of the few people Kyle had given his cultivation technique to without requiring a servant seal at the minimum to be placed on her to protect his secrets. It was just a feeling he had but he didn"t believe she would ever betray them and when he had seen how she acted with Landon and Maria he felt she was part of their family.
Kyle had finished his reminiscence so he stood up and straightened his clothes as he wanted to check on the training grounds before he joined Susan in the library. Seeing him getting ready the three girls also got ready.
Walking down to the training ground Kyle wasn"t surprised to find Susan and Landon were in the sparring arena. Landon was already in a bad state as he relied heavily on his physical skills and melee combat. Kyle had told him he needed to give some focus to mid and long range mage skills to diversify his combat style but he hadn"t listened and the result was he had been beaten so badly he looked like a panda. Susan was still fresh as a daisy and seemed to really enjoy torturing Landon.
Kyle however knew she was only playing with him while also pus.h.i.+ng him to develop his abilities. She was more akin to an older sister rather than a master but this didn"t prevent her from having a little fun at Landon"s expense.
Leaving Landon to his training/torture Kyle looked through the rest of the training grounds. After the morning training schedule Kyle let the household do as they wished. A large proportion would continue training while some would do personal projects or just go out and enjoy themselves. The people weren"t prisoners and if they didn"t get some private time they wouldn"t function at peak capacity.
Today the grounds were particularly quiet as most were preparing for the harvest festival which was fast approaching. This festival was as it sounds a celebration to mark the end of the harvest so a lot of drinking was expected.
Kyle was thinking about part of the celebration he wasn"t looking forward to, that being the martial tournament. This was an organised fight between the younger generations of various families in the city. It was composed of three bands 10-15 years old, 16-20 years old and finally 20-30 years old.
Kyle couldn"t see the purpose for him joining the tournament but he had a feeling his father would put him up for it. As he was musing about the stupidity of these matches Kyle noticed One was still in the training grounds attempting a new skill from the dark magic branch.
Watching for a moment Kyle saw One was close to getting it, he decided to let One get there on his own rather than help him as it would give him a greater boost to get there on his own. Kyle thought back to last year while waiting for One to finish. After several years of service and seeing the unflinching loyalty One and the original members of "shadow hand" now had towards him Kyle decided to grant them their names back and to lower their seals to servant seals like the rest of his people.
When he broached this subject to One and the rest of the original Eleven as they became known, they only looked to each other before they rejected his offer. They wished to stay as the original Eleven and to be his slaves. When he asked why One answered him.
"We are your "shadow hand" that is all we wish to be."
Kyle even now thought he may have gone too far with their training but as long as they were happy who cares. One by now had succeeded in using his new skill, this was a simply a spike made of dark energy but its advantage was it could be launched from any shaded location and could hit the enemy before it was destroyed by the light.
"h.e.l.lo sir can I do anything for you?"
"No One I just saw you practicing, well done on using your new skill."
"Thank you sir, if you"ll excuse me then I"m on duty tonight. Seven and Nine will be staying for dinner tonight."
"Okay One carry on then."
As the "shadow hand" were now occupying the 5 other mansions Kyle had restored in the city, they maintained a team of people in each one. When they weren"t on duty Kyle insisted at least some must be present at meal times and each member must eat with them at least twice a month.
Carrying on through the training grounds Kyle saw members of "steel lotus" and the "death watch" cleaning up the grounds before they finished up for the day. As they were pa.s.sing the final archway they saw Bruno and Alena standing in a quiet corner.
Curious as to what was going on the girls were going to go say hi but Kyle quickly grabbed them and dragged them somewhere out of the way. He had an idea of what was going on and before he could do more than ensure the girls wouldn"t interrupt Alena kissed Bruno.
Bruno was frozen with wide eyes and a shocked expression. After she kissed him Alena quickly stepped back but before they could do or say anything else they were interrupted by a sudden squeal from Clara who had seen them.
Breaking free from Kyle"s grasp Clara rushed over and hugged Alena, deciding it was a wasted effort now Kyle came over with Elena and Miranda in tow.
"Sorry for disturbing you." Kyle said while he was smirking first at Alena who was trying her best to look anywhere else and then at Bruno who was still frozen. Leaving Alena to the girls Kyle walked in front of the sh.e.l.l shocked Bruno and clapped his hands right in front of his face making him blink and focus back on Kyle.
"Ah Bruno welcome back, was it that good?"
"Um yeah, wait what no I mean yes but I don"t what?" Kyle was struggling seeing how his friend was acting he could almost see a big *error* flas.h.i.+ng on his head. While Kyle spent time socialising and wasn"t embarra.s.sed or unaware of the fairer s.e.x Bruno was a muscle head, good natured but mostly oblivious to the interactions between men and women. Kyle thought this would be good for him as it would help him grow up a bit and Alena was a good match for him.
Taking pity on the young couple Kyle decided to change the topic.
"Susan has returned, I"m going to see her in the library in a bit do you want to come along?"
"Yes if that"s okay Alena do you want to come as well?"
Alena"s response to this was only to stand next to Bruno and take his hand. Seeing this Clara and Miranda rushed to each of Kyle"s sides and grabbed his hands. Elena seeing their actions looked a little annoyed before her little brain once again kicked into gear and she did what she thought was the most logical response to this development and just jumped onto Kyle"s back.
"They grow up so fast *hic*."