Suddenly the doors sprung open and Zia in her new black costume charged in. But when she saw the scene before her, she stopped half way stupefied.

While waiting behind the doors she heard a couple of shouts. That already made her nervous, but when she heard the big boom she thought her father was punishing Nick. Thus she couldn’t help herself and rushed in on impulse, even the guards didn’t react in time to hold her back.

And now before her eyes stood the small stature of her friend with pants down and in front of him was her father with red face, panting and with a wooden stick in his hand that resembled a broken chair handle! The situation was totally out of control!

“Don’t hurt him!” She shouted and positioned herself between two of them her arms spread wide open.

It was another moment of shock in the library. Too many of those happened in a brief ten minutes.

“Khem. That will be all for your punishment, Nick! You may wear your trousers again, but never do that again!” King has been around for a long time and it took him only few seconds to recover as he tried to save his face in front of his daughter.

“Thank you, your majesty, for your magnanimity.” Nick quickly wore his pants again and tried to help out as much as he could.

Zia still stared at her father with angry eyes, then turned to Nick, then saw the pile of sawdust that was left from kings table and the broken chair. The other two men in the room also didn’t react yet.

King awkwardly tossed away the chair handle and patted Zia’s head, “I like your new attire, you look very pretty. Come and sit with me a bit.” Then he turned to the man at the door, “Call the head of intelligence and general Sanders as well. Tell them to drop everything and gather here immediately.”

Zia didn’t know what transpired, but it looked like the danger was over. She happily smiled at Nick and holding king’s hand followed him to sit on the free chair at the tea table.

Nick was the only one left standing. He glanced at the pile of the sawdust, ‘What kind of Qi power is that? Did the king vaporize the big table with an uncontrolled burst of Qi?’

“Zia, I will have to talk with Nick a bit more, I promise I won’t hurt him. Is that ok?” King caressed his daughter’s head.

“I am not leaving!” She tried to adorably stomp her foot.

“Alex, I think it would be interesting to hear her friend’s story for her as well.” Suddenly the old man said.

King thought for a moment, “Alright, clean up that mess and bring tea and few more chairs.” He instructed one of his guards, “After Sanders and Den arrive, don’t let anyone disturb us except if there is a national emergency!”

“Ling!” King suddenly shouted, “I think you also want to join us.”

“Thank you.” Two words were said and the man in black Nick already knew was standing in the study behind Zia.

While they were waiting, king asked Nick, “Do you know what the Holy Order sect is?”

“From what I understand, it is an organization that practices forbidden techniques, murders and kidnaps people. I already guessed they should be pursued by government, but I didn’t expect such reaction from you.” Nick replied.

“This reaction doesn’t even show the full extent on how we feel. That sect, especially the grand elder, have performed so many horrendous deeds, that all the other criminals in the world together have not done a half of it. The grand elder whom you mentioned, he killed my grandfather. It was the only successful assassination of a king in the whole history of the Sun kingdom.”

Now was Nick’s turn to be shocked while king continued, “And the last big thing they did – they somehow managed to kidnap princess of the Northern empire and put a blame on us. Thousands of people from both sides died because of that. There are many, way too many crimes they have committed.”

Nick was clenching his fists, those were the bastards who killed his mother. From king’s attitude he got hope that may be there will be a way to deal with them sooner than he thought.

When two man they were expecting arrived, everyone sat around the tea table. It did look a bit strange, because the seven people had to make a bigger circle around the small table. Only Ling refused to sit and kept standing behind Zia, but King didn’t care.

He introduced newcomers to Nick, “This is head of our intelligence Simon Den, this is general Leon Sanders and you already met our prime minister Thalion.”

“Khem.” Suddenly the old man coughed reminding of his presence.

“And, of course, you already recognized my father, the previous king, Albert Maxwell.” King easily evaded the misunderstanding of him forgetting to introduce his father.

“Now, boy. Tell us everything in detail, the more you can remember, the better. Even the slightest clues might help us to deal with them.”

Nick, obviously understood the basic concepts of investigation. People in front of him were trying to catch those freaks from Holy Order for years – it was only logical that any small thing could turn out to be a big clue.

He told his story as detailed as he could, apart from mentioning the new body and the length of period he has spent in this world. Already after few sentences the head of intelligence picked up a piece of paper and started to take notes. The shock and surprise changed on the faces of seasoned men listening to his story. Zia didn’t know anything about Nick’s past and until now didn’t really care, but she was having tears in her while eyes listening to the things he had been through.

Nick told about the tortures, how he managed to eavesdrop from time to time, how he studied alchemy, learned the Qi techniques and read books.

When Nick told in detail how he killed the grand elder and everyone else tried to process how the seven year old kid killed one of the strongest people on the continent, head of intelligence Simon Den interrupted him and said, “Later you have to show me how you made those ‘bombs’.”

Then Nick explained how he managed to free Angel and get to Aurora.

Zia’s eyes lit up, “You really flew on a big eagle? I also want one!”

“I didn’t really fly on him, I’m sure he would be too proud for that, he carried me in a basket.” While the little girl didn’t really grasp the significance of that event, grownups did – a child used a rank six beast as means of transportation! It was beyond any common sense.

“And then uncle Ben found me and took me in. I did tell him what happened to me in general and I thought he would report to you anyway.” Nick ended his story.

“He wanted to, but I didn’t have time yet.” King shrugged.

“Are there any questions? If you want to ask me where the sect is located, I can’t tell for sure, I just know it is hidden somewhere to the south-west of Corbus mountain and it should be in the territory of the Lori kingdom. Somewhere on the thin stretch of land between Eternal river and the Sand kingdom.”

The men asked Nick some questions and he answered as thoroughly as he could. The discussion went on till late afternoon.

“Nick, you killed the murder of my father.” Suddenly old king Albert spoke, “For avenging my father I would like to reward you. Is there anything you want?”

Nick thought for a bit, “There are three things I would like to ask. First, if it is possible, I would like to ask his majesty to give an order to build a small cottage at the east side of the Royal woods. Uncle Ben could keep his traps and other equipment there and I would guard it.”

“Hahaha, you just want to have the most beautiful place in Aurora for yourself!” King Alexander immediately started laughing.

Nick blushed in a beet red color. This king was way too smart!

“The second thing is – I would like to ask for the royal doctor to take a look at my condition. I still had a lot of poison in my body recently and I don’t know if there is any danger remaining. And the third – I would like to ask for your help in Zia’s training. I am running out of Qi way too fast and it might take even longer than a month to clear her Qi pathways.”

Another period of silence enveloped the study. Except for both children, who didn’t think of it much, and Ling, of course, who experienced Nick’s technique on himself and already got his share of shock, everyone's mouths opened wide. They all were Qi masters and it was unimaginable for eight year old boy to gather Qi, much less to help others to clean their Qi pathways. And it will only take a month?

“Cough.” Ling woke them up from stupor, “Please let me explain so there are no misunderstandings. For the past three months young miss is taking supplemental baths according to the Lethe traditions. And during the last few days Nick, using his Qi technique understanding, is cleaning her pathways. He is not very proficient in it, but the technique is very effective and his amount of Qi as well as speed of recovery is incredible.”

Everyone looked at Nick who also got confused.

‘Is the first Qi technique really that good? Or am I doing something different?’ Nick thought.

“Sigh, Zia, I can’t help you and your mother also can’t help you.” King said while gently caressed his daughter’s hair.

“But why?” She pouted.

“You don’t know it, but when I married your mother, we vowed that if we had daughter, we would not teach her Qi techniques and the sword. We wanted you to lead a peaceful and happy life.”

“What’s the big deal? Just teach me, I won’t tell anyone!” Zia got a bit angry.

Nick jumped in to help, “I think I know what your father means – as king he can’t break his own vow. If he breaks one, that means he could break another just because it’s convenient. It’s a matter of principle and him respecting himself.”

“Oh?” King was surprised, “That actually is correct.”

“Zia!” Nick continued, “Don’t you understand? This is even better!”

Looking at Zia’s confused face he continued, “Relying on your own power you will become the strongest Qi master on the continent! This is great! Now it’s even more fun to train!”

Zia’s eyes suddenly burned with passion from those few sentences. She was basically ready to have a training session right away. But everyone else noted the small word in what Nick said – he said ‘will’, not ‘could’.

“Alright, alright. Now that we cleared the confusion in that part – regarding your wish to ‘guard’ the Royal forest.” King seemed to become serious, “Nicolas Berglund, from now on your task is to assist Ben Donnel in overseeing the Royal woods. To be able to better complete your task, you will be provided with a storage house on the eastern side of the woods, near the cliffs. In the future you will answer directly to Ben Donnel. Before starting your tasks you will report to the royal doctor Sigismund Marbel to check your health condition and ability to perform your duties. Take this token, it will prove your identity as an employee of the royal palace.”

Everyone, including Nick, smiled at the way king employed him.

That is, everyone except Zia who only had one question: ‘Who is Nicolas Beglund?’

Nick thanked the king and took the silvery token.

“Regarding information of this whole conversation.” King continued, “Only the people in this room know it and I want to keep it that way. Zia, it concerns Nick’s life – if anything gets out, he might die! Oh, right, Ling – you are to report to her majesty and her only about what transpired here. There will be total of nine people who will know.”

“May I ask a question your majesty?” Nick was waiting to ask this question the whole day. Seeing king nod, he continued, “When can be a task force deployed to burn down that nest of psychopaths?”

“Sigh, if that would’ve been so easy, we would have done that long ago.” King sighed.

“Mountains and Lori?” Nick asked.

King nodded again. It was as Nick thought – is was impossible to attack that place without them getting discovered first. When the attackers would arrive, the sect would be long gone. It was no wonder those bastards survived for so long.