"The current skirmish between the two counts in the southern province of our territory is truly an unneeded hindrance given the current state of the northern alliance," Livia energetically expressed her frustrations aloud, while Rue silently listened.
With a sigh, she glanced toward her silent disciple.
"You know, you're faring far better than I had previously expected—" she paused.
Rue, who was propped against the wall, slumped limp—eyes rolled back, and with legs similar to jello no longer able to bear the burden of his body weight.
He began to tumble, face-first towards the ground.
Catching him by his chest mid-fall, Livia bit her bottom lip—stifling a chuckle.
"Well it seems I was mistaken, I spoke too soon, no?" she muttered rhetorically.
"Should have kept the champagne on ice. Now I'm going to have to be patient until he wakes up," she finished with a prolonged groan.
Sigh…
The exit of the tube manifested itself.
Hoisting her unconscious disciple over her shoulder, she exited from the tube.
~~~
~~~
~~~
Laid on a regal velvet-fitted four-poster bed was a motionless gray-haired man clad in bandages that covered his upper body, highlighting the contours of his Greek-like muscles.
The man was still, unanimated like a corpse, and as idle as a doll.
From his exterior, the man betrayed all tell-tale signs of being alive.
His chest was unmoving since the man wasn't breathing.
Their pulse?
Well, the man didn't seem to possess one.
By all regards, the man was clinically dead.
However, using the clinical standards of mortals to reason the state of a practitioner would be nothing more than naivety on the person's part.
Beings within the Fourth Destination and above were no longer susceptible to the harm of the lack of one or more of these signs.
By the Fourth Destination, beings no longer needed a constant replenishment of physical sustenance in order to counter the loss of energy used for proper body function and homeostasis.
Fourth Destination beings only required Will to survive.
Will was the "only" sufficient renewable energy source that provided enough energy to vitalize the vast number of functions needed to power a practitioner.
Think of the energy input needed to run the function of a highly complex AI; the software needed to run the AI model is extremely complex, while the firmware needed to correctly run the AI is notoriously delicate.
It's a dilemma between the system's thirst for energy and the thin margin of energy the firmware can take before it combusts.
So in order to combat the power convergence problem, scientists created resistors, which are small nodes used within circuitry to limit the amount of energy passing through, thus preventing the system from exploding or "frying up."
With the arbitrary solution to firmware, we now have to consider the power needed to necessitate the constant function of the AI—and nuclear power fits the criteria.
Considerably, while nuclear power is a great source of energy, it is frankly nonrenewable, thus finite—which while negligible in the short term, given enough time—A few centuries or more—our source of fuels such as Uranium will eventually sap up.
Of course, using this example leaves much to the imagination and does not take into consideration human advancement during this time or other binomial distributions, but nonetheless, it crudely details the dynamic between the need for energy along with a catalyst to channel said energy.
A practitioner's body acted as the catalyst to limit the flow of 'energy,' ambient Will, entering the body.
In short, Rue was physically perfectly fine, as shown through his body's constitution, but currently he was unconscious.
Rue wasn't dead, he was just in a comatose-like state.
With enough time, Rue would naturally recover given his body's powerful innate healing factor.
"Damn it," begrudgingly grumbled a petite black-haired woman with a blank-haired expression.
The woman sat cross-armed on a chair pulled up next to Rue's bed.
In contrast to the indifference of her expression, the woman's body did very little to hide her current feelings of reluctance and discontent.
They were palpable.
Aggressively, the woman jarringly tapped the glassy red surface of the panel in front of her.
She didn't want to be here.
Three days had already passed since her lady had abruptly assigned her to oversee and record her disciple's recovery.
The sixth heir—or her master's chosen disciple—was apparently this man, a person that no one knew or had ever heard of.
He was someone who wasn't raised by, nor had any previous affiliation with, the Reigner House.
Simply put, this person obviously harbored no feelings of loyalty or kinship towards the Reigner House.
They were an investment, and that gamble was even steeper than the norm.
And if this already wasn't enough, that bastard had apparently attacked the eighth heir.
An unforgivable SIN!
He should have been executed on the spot! And yet… This bastard, rather than being punished, was being rewarded by the sixth heir with the HIGHLY coveted title of an heir's disciple.
Sure, there were other forms of discipleships; an exceptional trainee could be taken under the wing of a corporal and learn from them.
This was a common occurrence, but nonetheless a great catalyst for later success.
The student gains a connection for future use, and the teacher may gain second-hand notoriety if their disciple exhibits exceptional capabilities—the same is true if the disciple is unsightly.
However, at the end of the day, these forms of discipleship were still that—commonplace—they didn't exactly make a person special per se.
They just made you more adaptable.
The influence of a mere corporal can only take a person so far, and through their simple teachings, you could only get so strong.
A rank higher, and it's the same thing after you reach that wall.
You reach that same proficiency level as your teacher and remain stagnant due to the stark realization that your talent and your teacher's teachings can only carry you so far.
Some trainees remain ambitious, not allowing such impediments to burden their road to success.
Their teachers were mere stepping stones in the grand scheme of things.
Why would they hold on to the past?
They learn, grow, and with time they reach another wall, before it quickly dawns upon them that this wall can't be climbed over with sheer effort alone.
Status, and merit now only mattered.
Status—the privilege of noble or high birth. Those lucky enough to have been born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
And merit—those who display remarkable feats through great times of adversity, great strength, talent, military honor—it gives a person the worth that they weren't born with.
Of course, a person could possess both status and merit, and this would increase their worth and notoriety.
And Rue?
He hadn't done any of this shit.
He had not been born with a silver spoon, nor had he displayed any great tenet of military honor.
And yet, he was bestowed with the highest possible type of discipleship for a trainee—being the disciple of an heir.
A prestige only lower than being taught by the great Patriarch of the Reigner House himself; however, this form was reserved only for his kin.
In essence, Rue became the highest rank of disciple just by mere coincidence.
He had just so happened to be in the right place at the right time—being attacked by those two kids had been a blessing in disguise.
Luck takes shape in many forms.
However, as a consequence of Livia's abrupt declaration, she had unintentionally stirred a torrent of unending envy and irrational hatred towards Rue from the countless talents of the Reigner House.
Why was this bastard chosen instead of them!?
They had desperately honed their craft and trained religiously through countless days and nights.
They abandoned family, friends, and lovers—all of it! In the feeble hope that they might be the lucky one chosen by an heir or high-ranking court official.
Their rage towards Rue was childishly justified in the aim to quell the truth of it all…
They failed to meet the par.
They weren't good enough.
THEY were TRASH!
And the reason being?
They were a dime in the dozen.
They lacked that certain finess—the given eye catching fiasco that stirred both resentment and awe towards their character.
Maybe at some point in life they might've been hailed as the most talented individual in their small peerage.
They were once the largest fish in a small pond.
The undisputed first.
That was until they were plunged into the vast murky ocean known as the Reigner House.
Their talent, which they once prided themselves on, was as commonplace as used condoms were on a brothel floor.
Their arrogance was humbled.
Stretching her arms languidly, the petite black-haired woman yawned before leaning back into her chair.
She closed her eyes.
"Just what in the hell was my lady thinking that led to her choosing this bum?" she exasperated abruptly, pinching her brow in frustration.
"Maybe the lady sees something I don't," the woman shrugged.
"On what grounds do I hold to object to the option of my lady." She sarcastically remarked.
Pursing her lips, she briefly glared at the unconscious Rue before sighing and rolling her eyes animatedly.
"This son of a bitch is wasting my precious time," she groaned, massaging her scalp to offset an impending headache.
The woman vented her frustrations for several more minutes before her speech gradually began to recede into the indiscernible ramblings of a distraught child.
The woman soon slipped into sleep.
Several minutes of silence passed within the room, with the only noise being the low purrs of inhaling and exhaling from the woman.
Until—
"....Ughhhh! What the hell, man?!…" Rue groaned under his breath.