Above The Sky (Yin Tianshen Yin) Chapter 100: Flowing time and faith
Thrilling and ups and downs are always rare, and the days gradually return to calm.
As the aborigines fell silent, Nanling returned to peace. Because of the shrinkage of the four core aboriginal tribes, many small and medium-sized aboriginal tribes chose to succumb to Port Harrison and accept restraint, and the trade between the two sides resumed again.
But this time, the dominance is completely in the hands of the imperial people.
Through the blood-sucking natives, Port Harrison achieved a brief period of prosperity. Even though the trade with the central region of the empire was greatly reduced, it did not fall into an economic downturn.
Urban reconstruction was gradually carried out, not to mention other influences, so Ian gained a fairly long period of development.
When there are no natives, and most of Harrison Port's guards go to the west side of the river to guard the foundation of the future new city, his actions around the port will not be in the slightest danger.
Because of his identity as a psyker, both the guards and the guards turned a blind eye to his actions. No matter when he leaves the city, he doesn't need to report, let alone the difficulties he may encounter.
Training, actual combat, hunting, and a good meal—this is Ian's daily life during this period. During Hilliard's increasingly rigorous and effective training, the boy is like a sponge, quickly absorbing what the teacher taught him. every bit of experience.
Time flies.
In 767 Terra, due to the change of the western front, the commercial route from the southern provinces to Harrison Port was changed. Under the viscount Grant's momentum of defeating the Sequoia natives, the Grant family and the governor of the South Ridge Province jointly planned a new route. The trade route has built a trade core with Harrison Port-Nauman City as the main node, and tilted the development center to sea transportation.
Big ships set off from the port in the far south to Canaan Moor and Whale Song Cliff.
In March 767, the fishing season in the South China Sea came, and a large number of fish returned to the coast to spawn. Although the big storm half a year ago caused severe damage to the surrounding ecological circle, but also because of this, many large predatory fish have survived to this day. None of the populations have recovered, and the recovery momentum of economic fish populations is far better than expected, and a bumper harvest in the coming year can already be foreseen.
The Fishing Festival started as usual. Ian, Hilliard, and the sequelae of sleep powder have almost recovered. Elan, who can already run in the ground, happily participated in this traditional activity in the South China Sea.
They bought a brand new fish table, Hilliard chopped off the fish head, Ian deboned and removed the guts, and the smiling Elan was responsible for throwing the processed fish into the blessed holy water bucket Pickled, the family happily disposed of their responsibility with other neighbors, and even received a commendation from the bishop of the local Huaiguang Church, His Excellency Lorisson.
Bishop Laurisson, whose Christian name is 'White Mist', is an old man who looks over sixty years old. He has kind eyes, and his messy hair and beard are not because he is unkempt, but because of his ascetic vows. 'Self-reliance'.
Not to mention that he cut his own hair, this ascetic monk who even Viscount Grant respected even wove his own clothes by himself. Like a refugee, he mixed into various places to inspect.
Although he is a very traditional and kind grandfather character, Ian has always been wary of him - because his psychic ability told him that although His Excellency the Bishop faced everyone with a smile on the surface, in fact , he treats everyone, whether it is himself or the natives, 'equally', without love or hatred, just like the sun shining on the world equally.
The most dangerous person is not the villain, because the villain has desires, which can be speculated.
The most terrifying are the lunatics and the desireless—because their thoughts cannot be understood and figured out.
Not only that, Ian also found that Mr. Hilliard was unwilling to stay with the bishop for a long time, and he would deliberately avoid the old man.
Even if the opponent is only a second-level ascetic monk.
"Acquaintance from the past? Not like"
Thinking so, Ian didn't ask his teacher.
Moreover, he also discovered something that disturbed him.
On the morning after the Fishing Festival, Ian, who got up to cook, was a little surprised to find that Hilliard was still in the house. Is still in bed resting.
After hearing the sound of Ian waking up, the old knight also woke up. He looked normal and greeted Ian with a smile.
The boy didn't think much about it at first, but he thought that his teacher probably was too late and too tired to investigate last night, so he really fell asleep after a long time—until Ian finished his exercise in the afternoon, and was going to take advantage of the rare good weather to bask in the sun When he was covering the quilt, he was shocked to find that there were many tiny 'scales' on his teacher's bed.
It was formed by the shedding of the fine scales on Hilliard's skin, shining brightly in the sun.
"The scales will always change, just like ordinary people will slowly renew the cortex."
When Hilliard returned home, he explained that Ian could know that the other party was telling the truth, but there was still a subtle feeling lingering in his heart.
Life goes on.
In 767 Terra, in mid-May, Ian encountered a wild boar when he went out for training.
Relying on the training results of the recent period, when the opponent was resting and rolling in the mud, he manipulated the sand and dust to block the opponent's mouth and nose, suffocated the opponent to death, and captured his first prey after becoming a sublimator .
On the pretext of psychic power and traps, Ian gave the most essential fat, limbs and spine to Elder Purdue and other elders of the White People, and then divided the internal organs and flesh among the surrounding neighbors, leaving only the head and ribs for himself .
In this way, whether it is Captain Red and Master Mining who had a bad attitude towards Ian before, or Captain Badanli who has a good impression of Ian, they all sent thanks and gifts in return, not to mention being happy Elder Purdue whose beard is trembling.
Hilliard made a bone cap from the peeled wild boar skull and gave it to Elan as a toy. Little Elan happily put it on his head and shouted, "Uncle is the best!" ’——and then changed to ‘brother, the best! ’, which made the two of them overjoyed.
It's a pity that Hilliard didn't eat much this time. The old knight said that young people should eat more. He only ate a few bites, and sat aside smiling and watching.
Ian noticed with some sadness that there were obvious wrinkles at the corners of Hilliard's mouth.
In July 767 of Terra, Ian regained his past life memory for a whole year.
He used the green peppers and mushrooms exchanged from the aborigines to make a hot pot of spicy mushroom soup and mandarin duck pot as a celebration. The fly in the ointment is that there is very little beef and mutton in Port Harrison, so he can only use it to blanch seafood .
The good news is that Port Harrison is plentiful with everything from shellfish to whelk, fish to algae.
Elan prefers the half side of the spicy soup base, because it has a 'more feeling'. very happy.
Hilliard prefers the umami taste of mushroom soup, and when he tasted the seafood broth made by Ian with dried fish, fresh shrimp, seashells and sea shells, he couldn't help sighing, deeply regretting that he was so late Just tasted such deliciousness.
But even so, the old knight didn't eat much.
In September 767 on Terra, Elam began to learn how to read and write, with Hilliard as the first teacher.
The old knight even carved many illustrations with wooden boards himself, and taught them with all his heart, and Ian did not relax, and he would take Elan to read and write together after the training.
At the end of October of the same year, Elan learned to write his own name, simple numbers, the names of Ian and Hilliard, and words such as "brother" and "uncle". The learning speed surprised the two of them.
Obviously, Erlan is not stupid, and even quite intelligent-but the sleeping powder does affect him.
In November of the same year, in order to celebrate that Elan had learned one hundred words, Ian and Hilliard took Elan to a hill north of Port Harrison for a picnic.
The little boy doesn’t like meat, so the one-horned deer that Ian hunted can only be solved by the master and the apprentice, and the older brother learned the method of Provence stew in the previous life, and stewed a pot of wild berry stew for the younger brother , I didn't expect it to be well received, and Ian felt that he was indeed a half-breed elf.
At night, without clouds, Ian, who took out his telescope to look at the stars, was disappointed to find that there were really only less than 20 stars in the entire sky of Terra, and he could only see the double moons in the sky at most, and Several other planets that still shine.
Even the double moons of the "magic moon" and the "new moon" rarely appear at the same time. All living beings often see bright and ever-changing magic moons, and the dim new moon is rarely seen a few times a year.
As for those distant stars, even a mere one is hard to see.
"Since thousands of years ago, or in other words, since the disaster of falling from the sky, the stars have been gradually disappearing."
Hilliard also raised his head, staring at the sky, his eyes have Ian's familiar, but different from his own enthusiasm: "Not many people care about the truth behind this, they don't care."
Spent the night in silence.
A teacher, an older brother staring at the starless night sky in the soft breath of a young boy.
Until dawn comes and the sun rises.
At the end of 767, Elan still couldn't speak long sentences clearly, and could only express his meaning and thoughts with a combination of words.
Hilliard wanted to use his source quality to help detect Elan's situation, but was stopped by Ian. Because this is obviously not damage that can be repaired by the essence, and psionic energy is more professional.
More importantly, Ian found that Hilliard would obviously age a little every time he used the source quality.
Although it is only speculation, even if it is a possibility, he will not allow it.
In January 768 of Terra, Elder Purdue began to prepare for Ian to teach the true form of the Wavesinger, and gave Ian the virtual source seed.
In order to cover up, Ian deliberately failed once, and waited for half a month to imitate the successful appearance when he tried the virtual source seed for the second time. I never thought that Ian could succeed, but I just let Ian get used to it in advance to prepare for the real practice in the future.
Elder Purdue urged Ian thousands of times, hoping that Ian would not reveal the fact that he had condensed the source seed, and then began to secretly collect potion materials related to the Wavesinger for Ian.
After Hilliard knew this, he re-deduced the potion formula of the Wavesinger for Ian, and determined that it could better cooperate with the sand armor apprentice without affecting Ian's advancement. play.
He even simply informed Ian of many subsequent potion formulas.
In April 768 of Terra, it was another fishing festival.
This time, the fish harvest was abundant, and it happened that the western fort area was in urgent need of food supplies. Viscount Grant relied on his connections to successfully exchange carts of salted fish for several brand new alchemy cannons.
Elder Purdue took Ian to observe and study, and also heard some unexpected news-the imperial capital did not completely abandon Port Harrison.
Because the Flame Kingdoms are not monolithic, their threat to the western theater is not as great as imagined, but it is still possible to rely on the high mobility of the Constructed Knights to cut off the supply line in the Midwest in the future.
The imperial capital is now looking for other supply routes, and a maritime trading city like Harrison Port is the top priority.
The imperial capital intends to send a patrol envoy, or in other words, an inspector, to Port Harrison to assess the possibility of this place as a cargo transit center and bring the latest instructions from the imperial capital.
When I got home, Ian told Mr. Hilliard the news, but unexpectedly saw the other party's extremely dignified expression.
"The Emperor's Messenger"
He whispered to himself: "Is it a coincidence? Maybe it's a reminder, a sign."
"No matter what, I've been a little slack lately"
In the past two years, this was the first time Ian saw his teacher showing a vigilant, solemn, and 'sorrowful' expression.
Terra 768, June.
An ordinary morning.
The sun shines into the house, the jam jar on the table has been half used, and the cleaned dishes are placed on both sides, and the dust rises in the light band.
In the bedroom, the sun shines on the eyes, and the teenager's eyelashes move slightly, waking up from a dreamless deep sleep.
"It's really rare to sleep for eight hours today."
Opening his eyes, Ian looked at the position of the sun outside the window, and couldn't help being a little surprised: "I haven't slept for more than five hours for a long time since practicing breathing guidance."
The deep sleep of guided breathing technique restores physical strength very quickly, and it can also restore the body and balance hormone secretion. It can be said that if an ordinary person with a slight illness can successfully practice the guided breathing technique, he can enter deep sleep for three hours a day, It doesn't take a few months to fully heal and keep fit.
He can sleep for so long, which is enough to show that he has been exercising frequently in the past year, and the training of Shakai apprentices consumes so much energy that ordinary people can't bear it.
But because of this, Ian now has finally completely eliminated the hidden dangers left by his malnutrition in the past, and even slightly caught up with the progress of those descendants of big nobles who used monster ingredients as snacks since childhood.
Also in his early ten years old, he is now, no matter where he is thrown in the Terra continent, he is enough to be called a true young genius.
However, Ian, who just got up and continued to practice breathing guidance, came to the hall and saw Hilliard, who had already woken up, wiping his bladeless sword at the table.
Sword oil has a strange fragrance, like the essence extracted from burning metal and blood together. The light gray sword oil is applied to the light silver blade, making it still sparkle in the sunlight of day With a dazzling blade light.
All aging tendencies in the body have ceased, and the man stared at his saber, carefully wiping every corner of it with a cloth.
"Is something big going to happen?"
Picking up the water glass and taking a big sip, the boy looked at his teacher and asked with some expectation, "Have you found the entrance to the South China Sea ruins?"
"Nothing, Ian, just remembering."
Raising his head, Hilliard smiled slightly at his student, the sunlight could only illuminate his chin, and the old knight's eyes flickered slightly in the shadows.
There was something more in his smile than before, Hilliard turned his eyes back to the long sword again, and whispered to himself: "I just feel a little bit emotional that I accidentally forgot something important things."
"Forgot my true calling."
At this moment, Ian saw his teacher stand up.
The man is tall, majestic, like a mountain, with a heroic spirit, far more eye-catching than any moment the boy has ever seen before.
——Maybe this is part of my teacher's true demeanor back then. Ian couldn't help thinking of this, and even wanted to applaud the current Hilliard, and feel excited and joyful for the teacher who is no longer aging.
"Yeah, how can I forget."
Put the sword back to its sheath, with a straight spine, surrounded by golden mist, the old knight said calmly: "I am not just a teacher."
"I'm still a knight."