Chapter 2131: Passage of Time
It had been a while since Rui had visited home. The last time he had done so was before he dove into his training three years ago. Of course, his family had long grown used to the fact that his path as a Martial Artist required him to be away from the orphanage for extended periods of time.
Rui was glad that they had shown remarkable understanding, although he still felt guilty in that regard. However, the good news was that he probably wasn't going to need to spend too much time away from the orphanage.
Although perpetual use of the dungeon was something that he had already written off due to a need for exposure to a variety of forces to grow stronger, he didn't mind using it to accelerate his training phases when all he needed was isolation. Thus, unless he spontaneously decided to leave Kandria for extended periods of time, he could be sure that he would be able to spend plenty of time with his family.
STEP
He found himself before the Quarrier Orphanage, taken aback by how much it had changed in just the span of three years. What had once been an extended neighborhood of homes had now grown into something much larger.
[Quarrier Village]
He stared at a board nailed to the top of a tree.
It was startling.
When he had been a kid, there had been a single home, the original Quarrier orphanage. Since then, more than three decades had passed.
The entire landscape had changed, having grown only larger and larger over time. It almost gave him whiplash, leaving him stunned for a moment.
Each generation of the Quarrier Orphanage had been inspired by Lashara, a mother and grandmother to all of them. Many similar orphanages had sprouted across the entire place, forming a community of caretakers who took care of as many kids as they could.
His mind sense allowed him to directly sense the emotive energy of the atmosphere.
It was pure positivity.
An atmosphere of hope, love, and joy.
Naturally, being comprised of many orphanages, the number of children far outnumbered the adults. They played with each other in the woods around the orphanages. He couldn't help but think about his adoptive mother.
She would have loved what he was looking at.
"Big brother!" Two Martial Squires descended from the sky before him.
Max and Mana approached him with beaming smiles. "You finally returned from your training."
Rui smiled. "...Yeah, I'm back."
He observed the two Martial Squires carefully.
Thankfully, they hadn't been remiss in their training.
They had grown stronger in the past years, having approached the peak of the Squire Realm.
It showed that they had made steady growth in the Squire Realm since having entered it nearly a decade ago.
He was certain that they would reach the threshold of Senior candidacy soon enough. It made him wonder if he ought to break them through.
After all, their Martial Drive was centered around the orphanage. That meant for their Martial Drive to be challenged, the orphanage itself would need to be under grave threat, pushing them to require more power and triggering the activation of the Martial Heart.
That was a circumstance that was never going to happen.
If only because Rui would never let it happen. Although he would love to see the two of them break through to the Senior Realm, he was not willing to allow the orphanage to suffer in service of that desire.
That was why he seriously considered breaking them through the Senior Realm with his own Martial Art. There were risks, of course, but he was confident of being able to mitigate them.
"Big brother?"The two of them broke him out of his reverie, drawing his attention.
Rui smiled. "The two of you have grown, just like this orphanage. Come, I'm eager to meet everyone else."
Funnily enough, the orphanage had grown to a size where the number of people he knew had shrunk to a minority. Yet, trudging through the orphanage village didn't make him feel out of place.
He drew a lot of attention from everybody even as he concealed his aura.
He was too recognizable, after all.
Not only was he a prince of the Royal Family, but he was also a highly renowned Master for having broken through to the Master Realm at the youngest age anyone ever had. While the gazes of the young children were characterized by innocent curiosity, the gazes of knowing adults were reverent and awed.
At least those of the adults who didn't personally know him.
"Rui." Alice's aged voice drew his attention.
She smiled at him warmly. "You haven't aged a day."
The same could not be said for her.
He had known her his entire life. It was almost impossible to reconcile her current visage with his memories of her when he was a child and she was still a boisterous adolescent in her late teens.
"You know," Rui began with a wry smile, "you used to jump at me and hug me so hard that I thought my Martial Body would break whenever I returned after a while."
"Hoho, if I do that at my age, I will pull my back." She chuckled. "I shall entrust that duty to young Apprentices that have been popping up all over this orphanage these days."
Rui raised an eyebrow. "Really now?"
"Ever since you, many more have followed in your footsteps," she told him with a sigh that was equally amused and exasperated. "You started a trend in this orphanage by being the first Martial Artist among us, followed by Max and Mana here. Now, we have more than a dozen Martial Apprentices who are currently in the academy."
Rui stirred at her words.
Considering the total population of the village, that was a high proportion of Martial Apprentices. Normally, such a thing was possible only when one employed means now banned by the Panamic Martial Federation or had some trump card like the Silas Clan's prophecy, which could increase the number of Martial Artists in the long run.