Chapter 253 - Time to Teach the Girls Ki

It was night time and the party was currently resting in their rooms. Right now, Cecil was inside Serilla and Lucia's room sitting on the bed, while the two girls were both kneeling on the floor.

"Now listen here! I agreed to sleep with the both of you starting today, but we're going to be establishing rules, alright?!"

"Yes..."

"May I object darling~?" Serilla asked cutely.

"...No, you may not!" Cecil replied in a stern tone.

"O-okay..."

Now that he's properly subdued both girls, Cecil began giving out his conditions.

"First, you can't just spring a kiss on me like earlier today! That applies to both of you!"

"NO!"

"I object strongly darling!"

"Well, guess what my loves~ YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO OBJECT! I'm not asking you, I'm telling you!"

"Uwah!"

"L-Lulu!"

The two girls were excited after hearing Cecil's words. They didn't care about his 'no objections', but that small word just before it was all that mattered. The two pounced onto Cecil and toppled him onto the bed.

"H-hey! I said listen to me first!"

"We will~ but could you really bear to have us kneeling on the ground for so long~?"

"...it's only been 5 minutes..."

"That's long!"

"Whatever, anyways, no more surprise kisses...except when we're in the bedroom."

"Hmm... Since Cel has made a concession, we'll agree to that, anything else?"

"Hmmm...I'm not really sure...for a while now, that's been the only thing that's been bothering me."

Serilla immediately quipped up when she heard this, "That means we can do anything else besides that right?"

"Huh? What do you mean by 'anything else'?"

"Well~ things like suddenly hugging you and stuff like that!"

"...As long as it's not during times when I'm doing something important then you can do whatever you want, except kissing. That's all I ask. Save that kind of stuff when we're somewhere private. And by private I mean inside a bedroom! This may be our 'house', but don't you guys feel embarrassed if Silver and Yuna see you?!"

Lucia and Serilla thought hard for a moment, but both of the came to the same unanimous decision that it didn't bother them at all and didn't cause either of them to feel embarrassed.

"Those two will understand~ actually, Silver is even happy for you Cel~ he keeps saying to hurry up with it!"

"Hurry up with what exactly?!" Cecil exclaimed in shock. "Sheesh, that kid, he's totally gonna get it later. He's been clinging onto Yuna lately and would constantly spend his time around his big sis more than with me!"

Serilla who was on the side giggled and said, "Well, duh! Silvy's found a big sis to rely on so of course he's going to cling onto her! Haven't you had that kind of feeling before, darling?"

"Nope, I've spent my childhood training nonstop. I've only ever seen my siblings during my breaks and we normally don't interact much. Though, we don't need to for some reason. I've always felt a certain closeness to my siblings and I got along well with them whenever we met and played together."

"Hmm~ well, you did say you had an elder sister, were the two of you close?" Serilla asked.

Cecil was a little unsure as how to answer the question. His sister Fatima was a pretty cold person, but she would show her warm side to everyone in the family. It wasn't like she treated anyone of his siblings, including him, specially. Well, except for Angelia, his baby sister was the princess of the family and everybody spoilt her rotten, this included Cecil himself of course.

He would always give in to any of Angelia's whims and even his steel-hearted father couldn't bear to make the family's cute little angel train in their martial ways. Even if he did, Cecil was pretty sure that the family's goddess, his mother, would have surely beaten the heck out of this father. As for grandfather, grandma had that covered. So thus, Angelia was the only child in the family that had successfully escaped their strict family traditions.

Remembering how his eldest sister was like, Cecil smiled a little and said in reply.

"Well, she was a very cold person on the outside, but to our family, she was the warmest and most caring out of all of us. She was the big sis that every one of us siblings looked up to as a role model and the person we would go to whenever we needed help with something...well, except for me; I handled all of my problems by myself..."

"So, what did you look for your big sis for?"

"A spar, she was the strongest after my father. So it was always great to fight with her in the family dojo." Cecil replied with a light chuckle.

"Ahahaha~ for some reason I thought that might have been your answer, Cel!" Lucia replied.

The 3 continued talking about Cecil's family until they got too tired to talk. The girls were especially intrigued about the boy's family and they wanted him to continue their conversation tomorrow when they were going to bed.

For now, Cecil pulled the blanket over them and the two girls snuggled up to him and they fell asleep happily in his embrace.

'Phew, looks like I'll have to get used to this...it doesn't feel all that bad though.'

Actually, Cecil felt that it would also be awesome if he could hug one of them to sleep, but right now he had one arm around each of them. It felt a little awkward and it looks like he'll have to bring this up tomorrow before bed.

******

Half a month had passed since then and the party had finally arrived in the territory of the Tempest Kingdom.

Lucia stuck her head out of the wagon and was looking around. The scenery hadn't changed, but she felt that the weather was slowly turning colder as the days passed.

Yuna who was up front on the driver seat immediately asked her, "What's wrong, Master?"

"Hmmm, it's almost the end of fall and winter will soon come... Looks like I should start making some winter clothes for all of us!"

Yuna looked around and indeed, the weather was getting chillier. It was already mid-Hautur so it was understandable.

"I see..." Yuna closed her eyes for a moment and immediately informed the girl, "Master, fall is soon ending. Probably in a week or two, I believe—ah, there's also going to be a shower tomorrow, so make sure you keep the laundry inside."

"Thanks, Yuna!"

Lucia immediately moved back into the wagon and sat herself on the couch. She took out the spider silk that she still had in abundance of and immediately began working. She had already finished the party's equipment just yesterday, so she was happy she could work on something else now.

"What's up Lulu?" Cecil called out to her from across the room.

"Fall's fast approaching and winter's almost here Cel~ since we're going to be traveling in the north, I thought it'd be good to prepare some winter clothing for everyone!"

"Oh, you do have a good point there. Just don't forget to cultivate and train, okay? You don't want to fall behind me and Seri, now do you?"

"Of course not! I practice using my mana delicately while sewing too y'know!"

"Hmhm~ that's good."

Cecil sat himself down and began cultivating. He felt that his mana had reached a point of saturation already and he could feel himself breaking into the Mana Core Stage any moment. He had been constantly suppressing it, but he could feel that it was no longer possible anymore.

As for why Cecil was suppressing his mana cultivation stage, this was because it was written in the ancient text still present in his mind about the most efficient method to cultivating both his Mana and Ki, and that was the method of Ultimate Suppression.

This method of 'Ultimate Suppression' was labeled the best and most effective way to simultaneously train Mana and Ki during the ancient times. Once a person couldn't hold back their cultivation from advancing, then that meant they couldn't do anything anymore while on that stage and they'd be able to advance while having the sturdiest foundation they could attain.

Cecil could have actually advanced into the Mana Core Stage a long time ago, but after he learned about this new cultivation method, he had been suppressing himself the entire time while he kept piling up more and more mana inside his Mana Point.

While he was cultivating in this way, he was able to feel that his Mana Point was somehow 'expanding'. As the days passed by where he cultivated this way, the Mana Point had continued to expand and he'd feel an overabundance of mana welling up within his body.

The last time he checked his mana in the guild, it had actually swelled well above 8000 units. This was only the mana inside his Mana Point. He still hadn't factored in the mana inside the rest of his body.

Right now he had reached a point of saturation and Cecil predicted that his mana was probably at 10,000 units and this was the limit that his body could take. If he continued to forcefully suppress himself, then it'll result in a backlash that could kill him.

While he kept his mana stage suppressed, Cecil tried to quickly advance his Ki cultivation, but he made no headway and it was progressing kind of slowly compared to his Mana cultivation.

He wanted to at least have both his Ki and Mana advance at the same stage tier together, but that looked to be no longer possible since his Mana was going to advance any time now. The only thing he could do was suppress himself in the Mana Core Stage and quickly have his Ki catch up and try to advance into the Perfected Mana Stage and the Ki Transformation Stage at the same time.

For now his goal was to get his Ki into Crystallization stage. Now that he thought about it, shouldn't it be time for him to begin teaching Lucia and Serilla about Ki?

Those two were already at the Mana Core Stage and if he taught them any later, it'll greatly delay their cultivation if they had to start any later. He also decided to tell the two about the Ultimate Suppression method.

"Seri, come here! Lulu, put those down for a second," Cecil said as he broke his meditation.

Lucia was a little surprised when she saw Cecil stop cultivating after only sitting down for a minute or so.

"Something wrong, Cel?"

"Nope, but something good is about to happen for you and Seri!"

Hearing this, Lucia immediately got excited and asked,

"Huh? Really? Are you going to—"

"—Finally, marry us darling~?!" Serilla finished her sentence as she quickly dashed into the central partition.

"..."

Cecil could only stare blankly at the two. When did 'something good' equal marriage?

"Ahem, no it's not that. And please stop thinking about that! You guys should first at least meet my parents before we even begin discussing about that!"

"Then, then...after we meet your parents, you'll marry us, Cel?!"

Serilla also grew excited and the two eager girls began to creep towards Cecil slowly. The boy could see the fire in their eyes and he knew immediately that something dangerous would happen if he let them be.

"M-maybe?" Those words only aggravated the girls, but just before they could pounce on him, Cecil continued, "O-okay! I will, just don't pounce on me! You guys promised, remember?!"

They totally wanted to pounce on him, but they had to hold onto their promise since Cecil had been keeping his.

Seeing that the girls had settled down a little, Cecil immediately said in exasperation, "Enough, let's get to the point already, sheesh."

"Hehe~ we're just teasing you darling~ you don't have to be so serious like that! But at least we know that you have the intention to marry us someday!"

"Yup~ our Cel's finally taking responsibility!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, anyways, today I'm going to be teaching you 2 about Ki!"

Hearing the unfamiliar term, Lucia and Serilla immediately turned serious.