Chapter 349: Chapter 349. An interaction with Esimo 1
A/N — Chapter 282 slightly edited. Kindly read before you read this.
Kailen sighed. "No answers, huh? Then I guess there’s no need thinking about it. At the end of the day, it’s still a good thing."
Bonevald addressed the class, his words snapping Kailen out of his thoughts.
"That’s it for today’s lecture. I will be out of campus for some business. It will be a while before our next meeting. Most likely, we will meet in the end-of-year exams. Till I get back, remember that mastery of the art of painting requires practice and perseverance. Don’t give up."
With that, the podium quietened — now empty.
The moment he left, several eyes turned towards Kailen’s seat. The students wanted him to give them some pointers.
However, to their disappointment, the seat was now empty.
****
"Is that him?"
"He really achieved the emotion realm in painting?"
"What sort of freak is this guy?"
"First alchemy, then runesmithery, now painting? Although painting is not classified a secondary carrier profession, achieving profound results in the craft is not easy."
"You have a point. This guy cannot be judged with common sense. I don’t think that if I were to hear anything about his achievements anymore, I’ll be shocked!"
"He’s doing too many shocking things at the same time — it’s starting to look normal if it’s him doing it!"
"Anyway, did you watch the videos of how he humiliated Riba Harker?"
"Yeah, he called him a meatball. I think a picture of Kailen calling him meatball is trending now."
"Pfft, hahahaa! There’s a video of their altercation trending with the hashtag #HeCalledMeMeatball. There’s even a meme of them trending at the moment."
"The guy is screwed. Not only did Kailen Darkhaven humiliate him tactfully, he also used a single lecture to achieve the second realm of painting — something that Riba Harker had been trying to achieve for so long."
"Talk about classic face-slapping."
"Yeah, it feels like reading some arrogant young master novel."
Kailen ignored the conversations around him.
He was currently seated in a large garden, teeming with serenity.
However, the hushed conversations and occasional glances shot his way betrayed the serenity.
Kailen was here for his zither weaponry arts class.
Suddenly, the students saw a notification from the instructor on their holographic screens indicating that the instructor had some emergency, so the lecture had been rescheduled for another time.
They were told not to worry about paying student credit for the lecture again, because the amount they paid for the previous one would still count since it was the same lecture.
Kailen disappeared from the beautiful garden after that.
****
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Esimo Ashton was busily working in the smithery forge of the Society.
Even when a tall, pale, handsome fellow entered the forge, he was either too focused to notice him, or even if he did, his mind didn’t consciously register the appearance of the fellow.
The sounds of hitting metals kept resounding in the room from time to time as the fellow was engaged in his work.
Kailen stood by the side, quietly observing Ashton.
Watching Esimo work, Kailen realised something .
"This fellow — despite his brute nature — he’s quite serious. It was a good thing for us to make him the chief blacksmith of the society."
Just as Kailen was musing to himself, quietly observing Esimo, the fellow took off his helmet, then stopped working.
Then, boisterous laughter erupted in the forge from Ashton.
He seemed extremely happy as he held a large broadsword in his giant arms. (Since he was in the forge, he felt like using his titan form was more suited for working.)
"After hours of lectures and working tirelessly, I finally managed to form my first ascendant-level weapon, and I can now be classified as a rank 0 blacksmith!"
The moment Ashton spoke, his eyes narrowed slightly as he suddenly realized he hadn’t paid attention to anything else but what he was doing.
Because of this, he failed to notice that someone had appeared in the smithery.
But now that he had broken out of his zone, he realized Kailen had been there waiting for him for some reason.
"Congrats, man," Kailen commented sincerely.
"Heheh, thanks, Kailen." Esimo sighed and smiled. There was a small relaxing area in the forgery that separated the working area.
Esimo used universe energy to clean himself and reverted to his humanoid height.
While headed to the relaxing area with Kailen, Esimo continued,
"Honestly, I wanted to quit since I was struggling to make progress — but now, I feel like the struggle was worth it."
Kailen nodded with a smile. "It seems you are really passionate about this. Happy for you, man."
Esimo shrugged as he sat down in the relaxing area with Kailen. He placed one hand at the top edge of the sofa relaxedly and continued, "Family business. Guess I have the knack for it."
"Fair enough," Kailen replied casually.
Now that Kailen had reached the emotional realm of painting — and had managed to tap into emotional resonance, a special trait that a few emotional realm painters sometimes managed to step into — Kailen could see the emotions people masked even when they put on a solid or happy front.
He was therefore able to perceive the subtle expression of pain masked behind Esimo’s words when he said "family business."
Kailen couldn’t help but ask, "What’s up with you and your sister?"
"How did you—"
Before Esimo could even finish talking, Kailen interrupted him.
"No big reason. It’s all a matter of deduction. During the time we met in front of the Sword Conclave Mountain, even a brain-dead person could notice the expressions of hostility you both directed towards one another. The obvious cause of this amongst siblings from influential backgrounds is inheritance, right?"
Kailen furthered under Esimo’s flabbergasted gaze, arm resting calmly on the armchair, legs crossed elegantly. "Plus the fact that you joined the Sword Tribunal Society instead of that of your family only hardened my assumption that there was bad blood between you two — and that you initially joined the society to spite her.
Also, I’m not like others. I have a high threshold now for some reason when it comes to discerning the emotional state of people behind every action, word, statement." Kailen shrugged. "Name it."
Kailen drank some champagne, then continued, "When you mentioned family business, I couldn’t help but notice you felt some kind of pain."
Esimo sighed. Why was he even shocked?
This guy was extremely perceptive, and he already knew that.
Anyway, he felt like he was talking to those "detectives" — the Atrexians — always reading people...
Wait, his girlfriend was an Atrexian, so it felt wrong thinking like this, but— ahem— he meant it as a compliment. Yes... a compliment.
But seriously, this guy’s reading of people and situations was something else. He mentioned something about even a brain-dead person deducing the expression on his and his sister’s faces — but Kailen didn’t know it was not an ordinary thing.
Kailen only felt it was ordinary because he found it extremely easy to do so.
Anyway, before he entered the forge today, he — alongside the other society members and leaders — was aware of the fact that Kailen had become an emotional realm painter, and they couldn’t be more shocked that Kailen had achieved this on the first brush of painting.
Aside from earning a feat many had failed to achieve in decades — centuries, even — in a single lecture.
What he had not envisioned was that Kailen achieved emotional resonance,a rare state only a handful emotional realm painters tapped into and this had made him more terrifying in this aspect of reading people.
Pushing these thoughts flashing through his mind in a mere moment to the back of his head, Esimo sighed.
"My sister and I weren’t like the way we are now..."
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