I Am Fighting

Adam returned to the guest room. Sure enough, Jin had appeared there once again.

"You hooked up with the Rom Family that quickly?" Jin sprawled in a chair piled with soft cushions. "Don't tell me you're Doug's old bastard son?"

"Quit joking around." Only after Adam watched Jin seal the room with black smoke did he speak. "We're variants."

"What's wrong with being a variant?" Jin said with a smile. "As far as I know, quite a few nobles in the Loken Kingdom are variants too."

"Not every variant becomes a bloodline sorcerer. As long as they follow the knight's path and earn merits, they can still become nobles."

"Your Trinder family even has a branch bloodline that became nobles. I think they were called the Ronnie Family."

"Who?" Adam abruptly turned around. Some of his memories of the bloodline inheritance had been hazy on the night his bloodline awakened, but Jin's words instantly brought a name back to him.

Ralph Ronnie Trinder. Since this name had appeared in his bloodline inheritance, that person should have been one of his direct ancestors. Yet his father's name had apparently not included Ronnie. Perhaps one of his ancestors had branched off and chosen not to inherit the Ronnie name.

Adam had also learned earlier that Count Ronnie of the Loken Kingdom had vanished, leading to war between the Loken Kingdom and the Holy Sound Kingdom.

No wonder the name Ronnie had seemed vaguely familiar at the time.

Judging by the timeline, that Count Ronnie could not have been the Ralph who had appeared in his bloodline, but he was at least a distant relative.

"The Count Ronnie who disappeared forty years ago?" Adam asked.

"You know about him?" Jin looked somewhat surprised, then nodded, confirming that Adam was right. "That's right. That Count Ronnie belonged to your Trinder family."

"Traces of divine arts being used were found at the border. Multiple parties concluded that the Holy Sound Church had been responsible."

"The Holy Sound Church claimed Count Ronnie was a variant, but they could not produce any concrete evidence. It was therefore regarded as an excuse and slander. Combined with certain interests within the Loken Kingdom at the time, the First Northern Inquiry War began."

"What about you, Jin? Why did you come to Roa? You don't want to return to Loken?" Adam still wanted Jin to give his full support in helping him escape Roa.

"Wasn't the Third Northern Inquiry War ten years ago?" Jin shifted his backside, pressing the cushion into shape, and spoke carelessly. "You have no idea how formidable your teacher was back then. He charged at the very front all the way, stormed straight into Roya City, and fought the enemy for three days and three nights."

"And then you were left in Roa?" Adam quietly watched Jin speak with animated excitement.

"What else could I do? I was badly injured. By the time I had more or less recovered, the Loken Kingdom had already withdrawn its troops."

"On my own, with experts stationed along the border wall... when I first approached Mansla, my intentions were actually much the same as yours." Jin lazily recounted the past. "Ten years have passed, and little by little, I stopped thinking about it."

"Anyway, no one here can find me. If I can't win, I can run. Helping other variants from time to time, nurturing outstanding young juniors—that is more or less enough."

Jin looked at Adam, sat upright, folded his hands together, and asked, "Nesser, why are you in such a hurry to leave this place?"

"You have the Tears of God Ritual, and a sorcerer teacher who thinks highly of you. Even in Roa, you could live very well."

"Are you running from something, Nesser?"

"I am fighting." Adam raised his head and looked at Jin. Their gazes met, and each saw the seriousness in the other's eyes.

"I have lived in the Holy Sound Kingdom for thirteen years. Choosing to run away is choosing to fight!" Adam spoke with exceptional conviction. He had not adjusted the weighting, yet at that moment, he still radiated an imposing presence.

As Adam's presence bloomed, so did a different kind of charm—a strength bursting forth from the depths of his soul.

"Is that so?" Jin slumped back into the chair again, one hand resting against his neck. He murmured a single sentence before falling silent.

"I can help you, but it may be dangerous. Mansla has other forces backing him." As Jin spoke, he lowered the hand from his neck.

"That is where we will need Mr. Doug's help." Adam broke into a smile and slowly laid out his plan.

"An immortality medicine that does not alter one's bloodline?" After hearing it, Jin suddenly understood. "No wonder, among the Holy Sound Three Heroes, only that old fellow Xia Ya went to war back then. If all three of them had taken the battlefield, it would be hard to say whether the latter two Northern Inquiry Wars could even have started."

"Did Alva and the others go into seclusion before the Northern Inquiry Wars began?" Adam asked. Since he had decided to use the immortality medicine as bait to obtain Doug's full support, the more related information he learned, the better.

"It was around that time, more or less. I had only just come of age when the First Northern Inquiry War happened." After thinking back, Jin answered with certainty, incidentally revealing his own age.

If Jin had not lied, he should have been over fifty this year.

From what Adam knew of him, Jin, who roamed through streets and alleys every night, did not look like a man in his fifties. But variants naturally had long lifespans; otherwise, so many sorcerers would not choose to transform into variants through rituals.

Adam worked out the broad outline of the plan, while Jin patched its gaps and filled its omissions. Once the initial plan had been settled, Jin began teaching.

Tonight's lesson moved at a faster pace. Jin even began teaching knowledge beyond the syllabus, mainly concerning bloodline sorcerers and the knight's path, giving Adam a basic understanding of how these two professions condensed rituals.

"Knights are a rather special profession—or rather, every profession has its own peculiarities," Jin said. "Most other professions have only one ritual, but knights are different."

"A knight's merit ritual, taken on its own, is generally inferior to the rituals of other professions."

"But though they are difficult, merits can be accumulated in more than one."

"The finest knights can condense several merits. The abilities formed by those merits empower them, making them incomparably powerful. It is precisely because these knights hold the line that the nobles can now steadily seize power from the Church."

"The key lies in people spreading their tales. At first, a merit is upheld by the knight alone. Then, after it spreads far and wide and gathers the spiritual power people unconsciously shed, the merit becomes solidified, allowing the knight to condense more merits."

"I heard the Loken Kingdom had been researching how to condense merits without territory."

"That would solve the problem of abilities weakening once a merit left its territory. I wonder whether they have achieved anything by now."

"And because merits are territorial, the nobles in Roa were mostly made nobles through military achievements in their ancestors' time." Jin warned, "Do not underestimate a noble, even if he is now a frail, sickly old man."

"I understand that." Adam nodded. Just as he was hesitating over several questions, he heard Jin speak again. "Although I agreed to your plan, you still do not need to rush."

After a pause, Jin said once more, "I will find a way to deal with the scar on your face."

At those words, Adam turned to look at Jin. Yet Jin had already left through the window. He would probably turn into black smoke in some corner and depart, leaving behind a pile of dirt.

Before this, Adam had not asked why Jin was nurturing him, and Jin had not asked about Adam's past. Though they were master and disciple and had grown close, it had always seemed as if a wall stood between them.

Now, Jin's words had knocked a hole in that wall.

Adam smiled. He walked to the window and used the night breeze to sweep his hair back, openly revealing the scar on his face.

"Anthony was right. It really does look much more handsome when I show it," Adam said, looking at his blurred reflection in the window glass. He let his hair fall and closed the window.

Earlier, he had asked Jin to visit Room 17 on South River Road and leave the time and means of gathering for their next meeting on the second floor.

At this gathering, Adam would mobilize all of them and bring them into his plan.

"And then, escape Roa completely." Adam finished encouraging himself and turned to begin meditating. He was not yet ready for battle. He absolutely could not fall before the war even began.

Thanks to Zerozero_, Voidming's Little Fan, Nine Dream Immortal, Book Friend 20200323131444238, Eastern Palace Son, Got Fish Food?, and Origin Life for your rewards. Thank you all for your support. Many thanks.