"NO NTR!"Kyle would be d.a.m.ned if he gave up his girls. In the last few years they had taken an irreplaceable place in his heart. If it meant they could stay together he would find out the cause of this problem and fix it.
"Um Kyle are you okay?" Landon asked with some worry, he knew his son sometimes disappeared into his own mind but he was always surprised with what he came out with once he came to his senses.
"I"m fine dad I just have to fix this problem and everything will be rosy and if anyone tries to take my girls I"ll make them into eunuchs." The latter part of this sentence was said in an undertone which Landon couldn"t make out.
"Sorry Kyle I missed the last part, but anyway I was what are you planning now."
"I"m going to find the root cause for the loss of fertility by a.n.a.lysing those at the beginning stages to see if I can find a cure. By the way I know why mom cried but why at this particular time?" This was bugging Kyle, Maria never really cried or became upset but suddenly she broke down and he didn"t know why.
"It"s simple Kyle; you"re getting to strong too fast. Your mom had given up having any more children herself so she wanted to lavish her love on her grandchildren but with your progress she began to fear she would never have any. It is also a worry for me as well if you can"t carry on the family line."
"It isn"t a foregone conclusion we can"t have children with our different means of cultivation it all depends on the cause. Oh I almost forgot with everything happening but what"s the word on the harvest festival tournament, do I really have to partic.i.p.ate?"
"Yes I"m afraid so Kyle we need you to represent the family and show our strength and honour."
"I"m not worried about stuff like that, if I need to show strength I will but there has to be a proper reason to waste time and resources like this."
"Hum well if you think of it like this, we like to hire strong outside contractors as guards and the like. Now if there isn"t any future for a family why would they work for us, the tournament is a showcase of our next generation"s strength to rope in talents. Do you understand why we need to at least show a little quality during the proceedings?"
Finally Kyle understood the reason behind the tournament it was essentially one big advert and recruitment drive. It looks as though he wouldn"t be able to get out of the arbitrary tournament arc but at least there were no schools or academies here so he could at least avoid that load of bull.
"Okay I get it there"s no way around it so I just need to decimate the opponents. Who will be taking up the mantle for the other placements?"
"Bruno will join in with your age group while your cousins will each take one of the places in their respective age ranges. The other spots will be filled by people from the outer family, unfortunately there is no one truly exceptional amongst them but we"ll do what we can."
"Okay if we"re doing this we need to do it properly, we have a few weeks so I"ll free up some time in my mornings to train the others. It"s been a while since a last sparred with my cousins, we may as well ask Leonard"s son to join us as well it"ll be good for him."
Kyle was already onto his next project, planning to teach/torture the younger generation. He had of course sparred with Bruno regularly and he had been whipped into an acceptable shape and he had even trained with his cousins and Leonard"s son, the heir to the Black family but he wanted his whole team to make a good show of it so he would break them down and build them up as he had done for all 3 of his forces.
"Yes it will be a good idea if all of you are able to show some true strength it may help to knock the Miles family down a peg or two. They"ve started moving again and I think it is probably due to the information Susan brought."
"You mean now their backer, the cautious one may be cut off from them they may begin to act more aggressively and seize as much as they can in the chaos."
"That"s my thinking; they haven"t had an increase in personal power so they"ve probably made underworld contact with criminals outside the city to bolster their numbers."
"Yeah makes sense as the alliance with the Black family makes us a tough nut to crack even more than previously."
As they were speaking a soft knock was heard at the door before the door was opened and a young lady of between 18-20 years old entered followed by a man of similar age. Kyle recognised them both, the girl was a member of "steel lotus" while the man was one of the blacksmiths working under Randall.
Both of them stood in front of Kyle"s desk as they waited for the others to arrive. Kyle decided to calm them down quickly.
"Relax you"re not in trouble we just have to wait for some others to arrive."
Gradually more couples arrived and within the hour time limit 6 couples had arrived including Ash with Lauren and Liam with Iris. Nettie came in as well but sat to one side, Kyle didn"t mind this as he knew Nettie looked at all these people like they were her family.
"Hi everyone and thank you for coming. The reason I"ve asked you to come here today is because you are either trying to conceive a child or are already pregnant with a child."
Most of the couples merely nodded their heads but the first couple to arrive had a larger reaction. The girl looked at her lover with a worried look while he looked as though he had been hit over the head with his own smithing hammer.
"Sorry did I ruin the surprise my apologies and also my congratulations." Kyle realised he had stepped on a landmine so he decided just to gloss over it and deal with the aftermath.
"I"m sorry my lord I didn"t mean to hide it but we aren"t married and I didn"t want to be known as a loose woman, plus I really love what I do and didn"t want to leave." The girl began talking in a rush while she had tears in her eyes. This brought her lover out of his stupor and he moved to support her, this brought a smile to Kyle"s face as he found this young man to be of good character.
"Calm down now why would you think you would have to leave?" Kyle had some suspicion as to where this came from but he wanted to get it straight from the horse"s mouth so to speak.
"Sir usually when a servant becomes with child they are removed from their duties until the child is born." The girl was still worried but she had calmed down with the support of the young man.
"You don"t have to worry about that, like I said before you are one of my people now and unless you wish to leave you will never be forced out. I"ll speak to Zak and Faye and see if we can get you on some lighter duties while you are carrying. Will that be okay?"
The girl nodded her head emphatically while her lover was also saying his thanks.
"Well now that"s sorted out, the reason I"ve asked you here is because I want to inspect you. You"re aware of the fertility issues cultivators have and I want to find out the cause. I think the easiest way to track this would be to first inspect pregnant cultivators of lower levels. Is that okay with all of you?"
Kyle didn"t hide anything from those present as he didn"t want any confusion. Nettie was surprised at the reason for this impromptu meeting but didn"t worry about it much and the rest weren"t bothered if Kyle inspected them as he had done it many times over the years.
With their consent the first couple to come up were the young girl and the blacksmith. Kyle turned his soul sight on the girl and altered his perception so he could see the foetus growing within her. Kyle could see the child was still only newly conceived, probably within the last 3 months. From what he could see the foetus was healthy and on inspecting the girl"s cultivation he could see she was level 5 approaching level 6.
Looking closer Kyle noticed an anomaly within the girl"s womb. Mana was flowing through the umbilical cord and strengthening the child this was probably why children born in this world are generally stronger and more resilient than Kyle could remember kids being in his previous world. There was also a second flow of mana which was coming from the body of the girl and rather than nourish the child this mana was attacking it.
With the nourishment the foetus was resisting and healing the damage caused but this was strange. Mana within the body should strengthen it and evolve it like the mana that was being fed but why would other mana attack.
Kyle pulled back and sat there pondering for a minute. The young girl became worried and after a couple of minutes spoke up.
"Um Lord Kyle is everything okay with my baby?" The girl had a little quiver in her voice as she spoke; this was her first child so of course she was worried for it.
"Sorry, sorry I got caught up in my own thoughts. Yes your child is fine and it doesn"t appear as though there is anything out of place. Can I check the rest of you?"
With this Kyle began inspecting the rest, most hadn"t conceived yet and Kyle could only shake his head as he told them. While they were upset they knew there was nothing to do about it but keep on trying which made the husbands happy.
When he got to Ash and Lauren, Kyle checked and found a newly conceived foetus present. This was only around a month old a.s.suming Kyle was remembering his biology correctly. The situation here was different from the young girl as the energy attacking was greater than that healing. Lauren had recently broken through to level 7 and Kyle thought this was why the energy was greater.
It still didn"t answer the question as to why the mana was attacking. Kyle began to breakdown what he understood of pregnancy. When the baby is conceived it will be connected to its mother for blood and nutrition, also in this new world it will also draw mana. Once the baby has gestated it will be born in what some people consider a true act of beauty but in Kyle"s opinion it looked like something from alien.
As Kyle was thinking along this silly line of thought he had an epiphany.
"Kids are parasites!"