One Last System

"Right now, I only have one question," Mia muttered after taking a long while to look at the sketch that Andrea produced. "Why are you telling me all of this?" she asked, raising her eyes on the woman. "What does it all have to do with me?" 

She followed those two people because she believed she would learn something about the recent event that happened outside. 

Why did Arganar attack her? Unless he truly was just an old dog lusting for her swan's flesh, there had to be some reason for his actions!

Yet, even after patiently listening to all Andrea's explanations, Mia still couldn't figure out a single thing about the recent encounter!

"There is a reason why I'm telling you all of this," Andrea shook her head, a small smile forming upon her lips. "Tell me, then," she added, looking at Mia with a glint of irony in her eyes. "I just explained the entire general political situation of our kingdom to you. But there is one faction that I have yet to mention," she stated. 

Andrea then crossed her arms on her chest and looked at the girl with curiosity. 

"Any ideas what I'm talking about right now?"

  'The heck does she expect me to answer right now?' Mia asked herself, stopping her eyes from rolling in annoyance. 

Everything that she heard so far was new for her. She had no clue that the world outside of the sect was so complicated. 

Yet, to answer Andrea's inquiry...

"Is it the royal faction?" Mia attempted to answer. After all, from the main topic of the discussion, the matter of royalty suddenly disappeared from their agenda. In the end, this was the only clue that Mia had. 

"See?" Andrea muttered, lowering her eyes as she shook her head, acting as if Mia just proved some kind of the point. "If you don't know the general stuff, you won't understand what happened out in the street back then," she stated before leaning her head to the back and locking her eyes on the ceiling. 

'And whose fault is that?' Mia bit down on her lips, stopping those words from coming out of her mouth. 

Right now, all she could do was just sit tight and listen. The exchange just now proved that although she still couldn't see it, there was some sort of reason why Andrea took such a roundabout way to explain the recent events. 

"First thing first, you need to understand one extremely important thing," Andrea said after taking a few moments to calm down. "Being a royal has nearly nothing to do with ruling this kingdom," she stated. 

'Excuse me, what the fuck?' Mia thought, startled by the notion. 

Wasn't this the very definition of the royal word? If a royal didn't actually belong to the ruling caste... why would they be called royals in the first place?

'Wait a second,' Mia suddenly stumped, shocked by a seemingly random notion that appeared in her mind. 'There is one thing that uses names that hardly make any sense to people today,' she thought, turning her lips into a thin line. 

"Being a royal..." Mia muttered before sharply bringing her eyes up to Andrea's face. "Is this some sort of cultivation stage?" 

Mia was still willingly stuck at the pinnacle of the sixth cultivation stage, ready to advance to the seventh one at a moment's notice. In other words, she managed to unlock all the meridians in the previous stage and then reinforced her body with the newfound power. 

Once she would take a leap, she would focus on tempering her inner energy so that upon reaching the next stage, she would have an easy time expanding the influence of her spiritual core. 

'From what I remember, the weird ranks start after that,' Mia thought.

Infant, adolescent, and mature enlightened. Those three ranks followed after the core expansion stage. Yet, contrary to all the former ranks, they didn't depict the actual process one had to go through to advance. 

'If I extrapolate this naming sense, the following ranks would have ambiguous names as well,' Mia thought, keeping her eyes locked on the woman in front. 

But instead of replying like a normal person would, Andrea laughed out loud. 

"Royal being a rank?" she asked through tears of amusement, only for her entire body to start shaking under a new wave of giggles. "Girl, the royal isn't just some cultivation rank. It's the absolute pinnacle that one can achieve in this world!"

'Oh, that makes sense,' Mia thought to herself. 

The initial stages were named according to the process they involved because normal people could understand it and, to a degree, experience it themselves. 

Starting with enlightened rank, when people first managed to reach it, the common population responsible for creating and then keeping a nomenclature would no longer understand the concepts behind those ranks. 

Hence, starting from the ninth stage, the names of the cultivation stages didn't make much sense.

Yet, when it came to the absolute top that one could achieve in the world... how else would common folk call people of that stage, if not royals?

"Most of the cultivators can only ever reach the core expansion stage," Andrea finally managed to rein in her laughter and pick up her explanation. "Those with sufficient talent can enter the realm of enlightened ranks. Coincidentally, Ackhart," Andrea pointed with her chin towards the man sitting deeper into the room, "managed to reach the top stage of this rank, mature enlightenment."

"Does that mean..." Mia muttered, her face turning white when the realization dawned upon her. "Does that mean that Arganar was of royal rank?!" she almost screamed out, only to shake her head and lower her eyes on the destroyed furniture below. "No, that doesn't make any sense," she quickly added, reining her excitement in. 

'If he was of royal rank, then a royal banishment wouldn't work on him so easily,' Mia thought, quickly finding the hole in her attempted explanation of the situation. 

"He wasn't royal," Andrea shook her head. "He was an infant ascender," she revealed, finally filling in the one gap that Mia had in her understanding of the cultivation stages. "That's why I was able to use royal authority to banish him, but I believe you already figured it out," she added, taking a quick glimpse at Mia's face. 

"Okay, then," Mia nodded her head with understanding, only to openly roll her eyes. 

She was tired of waiting for all those explanations to start making some damned sense!

"Can you finally tell me what the hell is going on?" she asked, tightening her hands into fists. "I obediently listened for quite a long time already, but instead of understanding the situation, I'm only getting more confused with each passing second!" she protested.

Yet, instead of getting angry at Mia's sudden explosion, Andrea only released a tired sigh. 

"This is the crux of the problem," she stated, resting her face in the palms of her hands. "If the situation wasn't as complex, we would have long dealt with it," she stated before turning silent. 

'Excuse me?' Mia asked in her thoughts, finally reining her emotions back in. 

'I was lucky they didn't mind me acting up,' she thought, stealing a glance of the woman's face and then swallowing a mouthful of saliva. 'But can someone finally tell me what Arganar attempting to rape me has to do with those worldly schemes?'

"Listen," Andrea raised her head after nearly five minutes she spent in silence. "The mythic... No, the royal rank is special. Even if you train harder than anyone, you need several extremely rare opportunities to be able to reach it. Legends say it was easier back in the days... But nowadays, it's nearly impossible to do," she stated as she freed her face from the grasp of her own palms. 

"It's nigh impossible to reach the royal rank in the current times... but some people still do reach it," she stated. 

"And?" Mia asked, cranky after wasting so much time listening to some explanations that still refused to make any sense to her. 

"Seriously?" Andrea raised her eyes at Mia, a hint of disappointment flashing in her eyes. "You were able to figure out a lot on your own before, and you can't connect the dots now?" she asked, only to shake her head. 

'The hell does she want from me?' Mia asked herself, ready to ignore the rude remark at first. 

But then, she got thinking. 

'Initially, royals would carve out a piece of the continent for themselves whenever reaching that mythic rank,' she thought, only for her pupils to widen when the realization struck her. 

'What about today?' Mia asked herself, her body freezing in terror. 'What about the people that reach this rank today?' she asked herself before moving her eyes on Andrea's face.

"What about people that reach the royal rank today?" Mia asked out loud, voicing out the thought that she had just had. 

"Good, it seems that I was worried for no reason," Andrea commented, shaking her head. Yet, there was no happiness in her voice despite what she had just said. 

"That's the exact reason why I wasted so much time to explain the situation to you," she said after releasing a deep sigh. "Listen, the only reason why I went so far to help you out, back then, was because of Ackhart," Andrea stated, bitting down on her lips. "Or rather, because of the reasons that he has to protect you," she added. 

"Excuse me?" Mia asked, looking at the man with confusion written all over her face. 

She met that man for the first time when he agreed to take care of remodeling the entire training ground for her. And outside of a few other occasions when she had a relaxed conversation with the man, she didn't interact with him whatsoever!

Yet, before Mia could voice out her curiosity and confusion, Ackhart stood up from his seat and approached the girls only to seat himself directly on the table on which Andrea scribbled the map before. 

"Tell me," he asked, "does a name Sangakarts sound familiar to you?"