12 Chapter 12
My eyes darted around the messy office that I hadn't seen in years as I waited for my oldest brother to arrive since cultivating inside Ruval's home without telling him about it beforehand wouldn't be polite.
His mansion was decorated with warm motifs and multiple fine crafted statues of mythical creatures, but it still fell short when compared to the Phenex mansion that exceeded it both in size and opulence. That was to be expected given that this used to be our family summer residence in the past. Ruval moved here after getting married because he wanted to become independent and show that world that the future head of the Phenex clan was more than capable of succeeding our father. That is what he told everyone at the very least; we know that the true reason is that he wanted to fuck his new wife with some semblance of privacy, which is fair all things considered.
It has been a while since I visited my oldest brother, and while I should be excited to be given the opportunity to exchange pointers with an older and more powerful cultivator who has reached the Aureus Core Realm decades ago (even if the stupid Ars Goetia still refuse to acknowledge this about that because of something that happened 1200 years ago), I am not looking for the scolding I am about the receive from him.
Because everyone else in my family is busy at the moment (Father and Revive are doing damage control by supervising what information should be released by the media about what happened in Romania, while mother is talking with the dhampirs and making them undergo an extensive medical examination), the only available to give me a talk about my supposed recklessness is Ruval.
"Sorry for being late, I haven't slept since Lyra told me that she was pregnant and…that was supposed to be a surprise." It's a novel experience to see Ruval drinking a can of Redbull while wearing disheveled clothes.
"Rival, right?"
The perfect heir in the Underworld, the devil known as the blue bird, a young adult who is famous for being proper and graceful all the time, snorts at my smirking face.
"It is too early to be that cheeky."
I may have challenged one of the most powerful and impatient dragons in the world to a duel yesterday, but my brother is the one who needed to rest the most. There are like two dozen cans of energy drinks lying on his office, which is especially confusing since he should be immune to the effects of caffeine thanks to our mother, meaning that they would serve as a placebo at most.
"Do I even need to tell you that you could have easily die back there? Regeneration does not translate into real immortality."
"Mother and Father made sure to beat that into my skull before sending me here." I groan at the horrible memory that I will totally repress in one or two days at most. "Besides, I was in full control of the situation."
Ruval shoots me an incredulous look and chuckles, shaking his head in something between amusement and exasperation.
"Anyways, do you have any idea of how problematic it is for our family to have the user of the Sephiroth Graal working under you? Truly, we would have an easier time discreetly giving the girl to Grigori in exchange for some other longinus user."
I am not very happy with the idea, so I instinctively scowl.
"Stop making that face; there are too many unknowns for us something that drastic. We don't even know how Crom Cruach learned about the Sephirot Graal in the first place. At least the evil dragon did a great job at exterminating the vampires, so nobody appears to know that he was looking for the Sephirot Graal. There are some rumors going around about him fighting a somewhat young devil, but we are not planning to tell the public about your involvement because then we would have to explain a lot of things and people may be smart enough to connect to connect the dots." He sighs. "The less people we have to tell about the longinus, the better."
That's probably the right course of action. This is the first time in history that the Sephiroth Graal is in the hands of a devil. In the past, the previous users had been recruited by the church…or they were killed by some other faction before they could become a problem. Most pantheons feared the possibility of someone reviving powerful beings of the past.
Yeah, Sephiroth Graal users aren't known for having long life expectancies, especially since they tended to commit suicide after overusing their abilities according to my mother.
"I apologize for the problems that I caused, but it was fate that guided me to my new Junior Brother and from there, things just happened. On the bright side, I earnt both their loyalties and the girl seems to be smitten by my wonderful personality and exquisite appearance meaning th-"
"I will stop you right here and ask you a single question." Ruval cuts in. "Do you have any idea of how this will affect you and our family as a whole?"
Well, that is an extremely complex question, and I am not anywhere as wise as Master Ophis, who obviously can accurately predict the future.
"I have no idea." I admit without any shame. I may like to appear wise before others, but I have never liked the idea of lying to my family all that much. "I am not really sure what I am doing half of the time beyond following my book if I have to be honest."
My brother chuckles once again at that.
"Riser, let me tell you a secret about the universe." That catches immediatedly my attention; any pointer from Ruval would do wonders for my understanding of the Dao or help me to refine my bloodline even further.
"Nobody really knows what they are doing."
That is certainly a profound lesson, a single sentence filled with ancient wisdom from a long forgotten past. To truly grasp all the deep meaning behind it, a cultivator would need to have reached the Aureus Core Realm at minimum. Those with a low cultivation would be left confused in front of such a simple and seemly random phrase.
In other words, it makes perfect sense for me to not understand shit.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Everyone feels a bit lost and lonely sometimes. Just look at me, I'm almost three hundred years old and I barely understand why people like it when I use long and flowery sentences when I'm speaking to them." He falls on a sofa and opens another Redbull. "Hell, even father is wrong most of the time, he is just really good at improvising and cleaning after himself."
The script is wrong. I am supposed to be a Young Master from a clan filled with powerful and talented experts capable of understanding the secrets of the universe.
This is probably a hidden test. In order to pass, I need to see underneath the underneath.
"Then it's my duty as a Young Master is to reflect on my own failings in order to gain wisdom."
"Yeah, you do that." Ruval huffs. "Or maybe you would rather do as everyone else and act as if you understand what is going on with everything."
That…would actually explain why even the wisest master in the world is uncapable of eliminating the calamity known as the Great Red, the dragon of dragons, by herself and chose to recruit talented individuals for help.
No, I shouldn't doubt Master Ophis like that…but maybe she is suffering from a bottleneck of her own.
"Riser, despite how bad this sounds, it doesn't truly matter in the great scheme of things. It just means that everyone can feel lost sometimes." I am feeling very lost right now. "I just want you to understand that your actions will have consequences for everyone that you can't predict.''
I think about the time when I first met Kuroka and how she reacted when I called her by her real name in the restaurant while Ravel was sitting next to me. I also risked Kuroka's life when I agreed to help Gasper, didn't it?
...So much for me feeling wise after my midbattle enlightenment!
"This sucks." I sagely summarize this whole conversation in just two simple words.
I almost failed to catch the Redbull that Ruval threw at me. It doesn't taste particularly good, but I can understand why he drinks so many of them.
"You said; not me. I almost shitted my pants when Lyra told me that we are having twins." He winces after finishing that sentence. "That also was supposed to be a surprise."
