Chapter 363: The Master's Gambit

(MC POV)

With Odriana returning back to our hometown, things went back to normal again.

Well, mostly back to normal considering we now have Elaria here as one of my new disciples as well.

I stepped out of my room just as the sun was rising, bathing everything in a warm orange glow. Standing in the middle of my courtyard were all of my disciples gathered and waiting for me, a tray of tea and snacks already prepared in the pavilion beside them.

Cai Hong was of course seated at the pavilion, waving her hand merrily at me.

"Good morning Master," Lian Li greeted with a bow, my other disciples mirroring her action. Seeing how Elaria was also doing it flawlessly beside them, they must have already filled her in on the daily life of being my cute disciple.

I nodded back in greeting, "Umu, we shall continue with our lessons today then. Not really much of a need for introductions since I believe you are already familiar with each other... But I guess we'll just do one for formalities sake. Elaria?"

She raised her hand enthusiastically, "Yes! Nice to meet everyone! I am Elaria! Onii-sama's one and only beloved imouto!! Please take care of me! Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!!"

Could be worse I suppose.

I took the time to take a look around the courtyard and it was definitely cleaner than yesterday. Those servants that were sent here definitely did their work seriously, even now they had no complaints while they tidied up our rooms in the morning.

I had been expecting at least one or two complaints about the menial work they are tasked with since one or two of them were supposed to be quite important members back at their own Sect. Then again, it has only been one day so I guess we'll wait and see.

If nothing goes wrong, they would hopefully help my disciples have an easier time learning from me here. That would translate to an easier life for me!

"Hmm... So we're back to our daily lessons again. Manami and Kiyomi can continue with clearing those blockages I had shown you last time. I will show Lian Li how to do it in a bit. Eris, go through the sword forms I taught you that day, make sure to remember the feints. Diao Chan will continue working on shortening your chants, do it in the barrier I set up. Brendan, you still have your alchemical tasks I assigned you so work on that. And Elaria... Well, I'll be with you in a bit. Now, shall we?"

"Yes, Master."

My disciples got into their individual areas of the courtyard for their own practice, Lian Li staying behind just long enough for me to point out her Quark Vein blockages and properly instruct her on how to remove them before letting her go.

Cai Hong had chosen that time to make her way to me with a cookie in her hands.

"Papa! Papa! Cookie!"

I patted her head and took a bite of the cookie before turning back to Elaria.

"First day of your lesson hmm?"

"Yes, Onii-sama! Oh, should I call you Onii-sensei instead?" She giggled. "Will Onii-sensei punish your naughty disciples?"

Of course I had to give her a forehead flick for that, wouldn't want her picking up Diao Chan's bad habits.

I brought both Cai Hong and my sister to the pavilion, sitting us down at the table.

Elaria took the seat opposite me while Cai Hong sat down on my lap with her own cookie in hand, munching on it with a 'nom nom nom' sound.

"What is Onii-sensei going to teach me?" Elaria asked, barely able to contain her enthusiasm.

I placed my hand on the table and a wooden board materialised in the space between us, the board split into multiple squares with a blank space that cut the board in half.

With another wave of my hand, multiple circular pieces appeared on the board, each of them with a word carved into each of them.

She looked down at the board quizzically, obviously having no idea what it was.

I stabbed a finger on the board, "This... Is Xiangqi. I am going to teach you how to play it and we will play it."

"Eh? Is Onii-sama not going to teach me how to create weapons of mass destruction?"

Oh god, this girl really needs to be brought back to sanity.

"No, I am going to teach you how to think better. I'll first explain the pieces and what they can and cannot do."

I reached out and picked up the piece sitting at the bottom centre of my side of the board, "This is your general. If he dies, you lose the game."

"Ehhh? Why? If the general dies the second in command will just take over and continue fighting," Elaria protested.

I smiled and placed the piece down, "That is the rule of the game. You lose once this piece in particular is defeated."

She looked down at that piece critically, "Such a burden..."

I chuckled, "Now, moving on to the other pieces here..."

It wasn't that hard to teach her the basics, she was already smart enough to invent all of the things back in our hometown so something like Xiangqi wasn't really that big of a deal.

Though I may say that this was to improve Elaria's thinking skills, the real reason why I chose to teach her this was to get her hooked into these kinds of games. Once she gains an interest in these logic based games, she would definitely realise that diplomacy is better than destruction.

I know it seems like a long shot, but believe me, it will work.

The first thing is getting her to like it enough to play it seriously.

And when she gets serious about it, I'll start going into the serious analysis of the game and she will learn the deeper intricacies of the game.

Once that is done, we will move on to other forms of logic games and begin the whole process anew.

By then, she would be so used to thinking through things logically the thought of building such weapons would no longer make sense to her in this type of world.

With her level of intelligence, such a thing would not be that hard to achieve right?

Perfect plan, even if I say so myself.

"And that's basically the gist of the game," I concluded, my little sister having listened attentively throughout my whole spiel.

Cai Hong had also diverted her attention away from her cookie to listen to me, her eyes now looking at the board with interest.

Isn't she such a smart cutey? I couldn't help but give the loli dragon a few head pats.

"Oooh, this is definitely worth learning, Onii-sensei!! Shall we try a game?"

"Umu, since you are new, you can go first," I offered.

Immediately, she picked up one of the pieces that had the word 'cannon' carved on it and moved it to the centre of her board.

I grinned and moved my own piece to counter her, I can already see an interesting outcome to this lesson.