Chapter 985 A valuable lesson
" Very well then, boy, I shall hear your request-" Sir Jhonny said as he sat on an asteroid and let out a deep sigh.
Max, who sat beside him, looked at the stars above as he said " Sir Jhonny, by chance, did brother ask you for a request before he ascended to the celestial realm? Something along the lines of becoming his soulmancer?"
Sir Jhonny remained silent, however, Max who had his [ Mind Reader ] skill active glanced at Sir Jhonny's head, trying to see what his true thoughts were.
' Soulmancer? Aghh! Soulmancer! So that's what it was called- , hahaha, I knew it was something that rhymes with gold-digger, nice nice' Sir Jhonny thought as he stroked his chin.
" Yes, there may be a request made along those lines, '' Sir Jhonny said as Max shook his head and deactivated the mind reader skill.
He deactivated it partly because it was useless to read sir Jhonny's mind and partly because it seemed like he had no intention to lie anyways.
" Sir Jhonny, if you are my brother's soulmancer, are you in connection with him?" Max asked with a hopeful voice as he truly hoped that the answer to this question was a ' yes' as he desperately wished to connect with Rudra even if it was only once.
" Yes, yes, the last time we talked was about 8 or 9 months ago, the boy passed me a single message.
He told me 'Take Kremeth Jr as your disciple', so I began scouting who in the blue hell was Kremeth Jr.
My initial investigations pointed me towards a fat dwarf who is married to Beniogre.
He is the leader of the bastards, a cult figure and his master was some turtle called Kremeth.
Some of his followers call him Kremeth Jr, but he's too fat to become my disciple.
Then, I realised that I was chasing the wrong target. It's your son who Rudra must be referring to, A third generation Rajput, some talented prince who needed my guidance!
So I headed towards Rajput Capital and observed the boy for a few days.
I watched him train, I watched him study and I watched him spar…. In the end I did not wish to take him in as my disciple, so I left" Sir Jhonny said as he relayed the developments that occured after Rudra issued his last command.
Max, who had no idea that all of this had transpired, felt dumbfounded by this development.
Instead of connecting with his brother, Rudra had issued a command to Sir Jhonny to train Kremeth? When arguably Kremeth was currently being taught by the best teachers in the universe!
Not only that, but Sir Jhonny infiltrated the Rajput Capital! A place that was guarded by the universal queen herself and managed to stalk his child for days...
As if it was not bad enough, he even refused to train him in the end as now Max felt truly concerned as a parent.
" Why did you refuse to train him, Sir Jhonny?" Max asked curiously as he expected a courteous reply, but instead received a brutal one.
" Because he's a spoiled brat who lacks any semblance of willpower" Jhonny said as Max was left dumbfounded by his assessment.
" I will explain it to you via two separate examples, my boy.
Firstly, there was a time where I think your child was injured from training.
His arm was bleeding and he needed some medical attention.
If it were you or me, we would walk down towards the medical bay ourselves and get the treatment we deserve, yet your child walked back to his room and made the head physician walk to his room and treat him there.
During the whole treatment, he winced and shrieked like a village woman and after it ended he did not even give the physician a courteous bow.
He's spoiled…. And you have spoiled him for sure.
Secondly, I saw it while sparring, he was fighting the black dragon guard Zippo and was being constantly pressed.
Under pressure his speed and reflexes were about 20-25% faster than what he used while going on the offensive and the only reason that I could explain for it was that he was too afraid to get hit.
He has untapped potential, yet he does not go all out in every practise session but rather only reaches his limits when pressed for it.
I've seen Rudra train, that boy trained like a maniac in both offence and defence, pushing his limits constantly.
Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Kremeth Jr has all the ingredients necessary to become a great warrior with a great foundation, however, you can't teach one to be tenacious.
I can take him in as my disciple, but I'm pretty sure he will cry under my training day one and while I can be a teacher I can't be a babysitter.
You just can't teach spoiled brats" Sir Jhonny said as Max felt his world spin from under his feet.
He had received reports from Zippo and DarkSorrow that Kremeth was not training as hard as he should, however, he brushed those concerns under the rug thinking that he was just clumsy and timid.
Never did he realise that he was failing his kid in terms of education.
Because of the accident that he suffered, and because of Asiva's overprotective nature Max never pressured Kremeth to become better or work harder and apparently that lack of drive had become a personality defect.
It was only after talking to Sir Jhonny that he realised that he had failed Kremeth Jr as a father and that instead of levelling up or becoming a more attentive husband, he needed to first devote some time to becoming a responsible father and raise a fine son.
" Thankyou for your teaching Sir Jhonny, I'll definitely pay more attention to juniors' education going forward.
I hope you can revisit us at the Rajput Capital two months later to re-evaluate your decision of training Kremeth, if after two months you find his temperament to be suitable, please take him in as your disciple" Max said with a bow as he practically begged Sir Jhonny to give his son another chance.
" Ofcourse I will, the Rajput bloodline is worth a second look" Sir Jhonny said as Max sighed in relief and looked towards the stars.
Although his brother was in the celestial realm, he was still looking after the family and Max felt thankful for it.
He as a father had missed Kremeth's development defects, yet Rudra was attentive about it.
" Thank you…. Brother" Max murmured as Sir Jhonny could not help but smile in the background.
" So what were you really here for?" Asked sir Jhonny as Max shook his head and explained his predicament.
He asked if Sir Jhonny could connect to Rudra and pass on a message for Max, and Sir Jhonny in return explained how he could connect with Rudra only once a year and that day was going to come 3 and a half months later.
The conversation that Rudra and Sir Jhonny could hold was also usually very short with both being able to pass only a few words.
Last year, Rudra asked him to take Kremeth Jr as his disciple and Sir Jhonny replied with " Kremeth who?" And that was it.
This year he needed to be prepared in advance as the message that needed to be passed was- " Max wants talk".
If everything worked out well, Rudra should contact Max in the coming year, however, Sir Jhonny was not the most reliable guy under these circumstances.
Nonetheless, having no other option Max could only trust Sir Jhonny with this task as there was no one else who could contact Rudra even once a year for even a microsecond.
In the end, his trip to meet Sir Jhonny could be considered a success and a failure as while he manage to find out that he was indeed Rudra's soulmancer, he failed to connect with Rudra as intended and needed to wait a few more months to pass on even a very small message.
However, it was still a success as he managed to find out the problems in his child that he was previously unaware about and gained something that was much more important than talking to Rudra.
No longer having any doubt in his mind that he and Asiva needed to start treating Junior more strictly and impart to him the lessons of discipline and tenacity, Max decided to mentor him personally for the next two months.
When he was tier5, it was Angakok who took him on a journey across the universe to perfect his stats and now that junior was tier5 Max intended to do the same to the kid and throw him into fiery pits of hell to temper his spirit.
While he did not need to walk the path of the perfect warrior like his father did, he sure as hell needed to become a warrior worthy of the Rajput name and not be a shame to his ancestors who built the Rajput Capital.