Faith's soft words ran through the underground area.
June kept an expressionless face while Noah simply ignored the question.
He knew that it was easy to mask expressions and hints during a formal meeting.
Still, anything could reveal the truth behind his relationship with June in that relatively safe situation.
He knew that because he had spent most of his life hiding and pretending.
\"Vance was the strongest student in the academy, and I was only his sparring partner. Noah Balvan, instead, is a traitor and a criminal, I have nothing but battle intent for him.\"
June answered without putting any emotion in her words.
She wasn't exactly lying.
Her relationship with Noah had begun to evolve through their cohabitation, but he left before it could solidify into something more than friendship.
Noah had given her a future and good memories that had accompanied her through the years, but they had never even labeled themselves as friends.
\"He is an amazing rival that I will surpass one day.\"
June said, and the honesty behind her words could be clearly felt by the other two envoys next to her.
Faith stretched her legs and laid her back on the azure terrain when she heard that answer.
Her mind seemed to wander for a moment, it was as if she was choosing her next question.
\"You know, I've spent my whole life surrounded by old cultivators that focused only on my centers of power and men that could only see my beauty. One side claimed that feelings were a hindrance on my cultivation journey, while the other said that their lives were worthless without my love. I guess I'm fairly interested in the topic, but maybe I've asked the wrong person.\"
Faith summarized her life while turning her face toward Noah.
The meaning behind her words was clear, she thought that it was Noah the one with feelings for June.
\"You do realize that you two are alive simply because you can provide me with intel useful to my escape? The continent is in complete chaos, no one would blame me for your deaths.\"
Noah gave a cold answer while continuing to focus on his body.
\"Yes, but you can't continue to punch through the ground until the path above is clear, and you can't fight me for the same reason. Also, June's envoys might be already dead, you need the Council to return to the Hive.\"
Faith answered while waving her inscribed notebook.
A sly smile was on her face, she knew that she was the most valuable person among the three.
\"Beauty is useless if you don't have power, why would I care about a pretty face?\"
Noah sighed before giving voice to those words.
He was being honest, beauty has never clouded his judgment nor affected his behavior.
Even his arousal from before hadn't been triggered when he saw Faith, it was as if that instinct was linked to the emotions contained in his mind.
\"So, you do find June pretty, but you've barely laid your eyes on me. There must be something deeper then.\"
Faith continued to speak while keeping her sly smile on her face.
\"Why are you doing this? A powerful pack of magical beasts has just invaded the continent, but you seem more interested in annoying us.\"
June gave voice to those words, she was clearly irritated by that situation.
She had barely been able to express his position to Noah just to be stuck with a woman that kept on asking about their relationship.
'Maybe, what annoys me the most is that I don't even know how to describe it.'
June thought when silence fell in the underground area.
Both she and Noah were around forty years old, but they had known each other for less than three years and cohabitated for even less.
She had spent those twenty years fighting and training, surrounded by people that she didn't trust and that she didn't care about.
Instead, Noah had traveled far and wide and claimed a position of power that he would have avoided back then.
'Maybe, the fact that he has stopped hiding isn't the only thing that has changed about him.'
June couldn't help but reach that point in her thoughts.
\"I need to know if it's worth experiencing feelings, I can't express peace and calm if I'm clueless about that matter. I need it for my individuality.\"
Faith explained the reason behind her interest, and silence fell once again inside that underground room.
The individuality of each cultivator was vital for cultivating through the heroic ranks, and it wasn't just a matter of learning the depths of their personality.
A cultivator's individuality would eventually become a personal law in the divine ranks, meaning that everyone needed to express it other than understanding it.
A partial understanding would obviously lead to a partial expression, Faith had simply recognized that her mindset lacked something and was working to fill those gaps.
The old cultivators that trained her couldn't help in those matters, and her followers were mostly interested in her aspect.
However, June and Noah came from different nations, they didn't have any obligation toward her.
Also, they seemed to share something more profound than simple rivalry, which led her to use that chance to learn more about a world that she couldn't explore under the watchful eye of the Council.
'The best talent of the Papral nation lacks experiences in normal human interactions. Well, I can't say that I'm different. I guess we are still growing, we have just begun our journey through the heroic ranks after all.'
Noah thought when he heard her explanation.
The envoys were all in the gaseous stage of the fourth rank.
They could be labeled as the best talents of their nations, but they also were cultivators who had just begun to explore their individualities.
Their path wasn't set since they had just taken a few steps on it, not even Noah could claim to know where his enlightenment would lead him.
\"The Royal academy is a place filled with nobles and every sort of talent, but I guess you already knew that.\"
June broke the silence and claimed Faith's attention.
\"I knew that I would have had to make up for the lack of resources with my hard work when I enrolled. So, I kept on fighting and training. It was at that point that I met him.\"
June didn't turn toward Noah, but it was clear that she was talking about him.
\"This guy rarely spoke, and you would always find him in some corner, focusing on his centers of power. His focus on his cultivation could only be labeled as addiction.\"
Memories of his life inside the academy appeared in Noah's mind as June kept on speaking.
'You know, I really admired him. He was the best of the best without anyone's support, his power came only from himself. It was clear that he hid something, but I didn't care back then, I just wanted to be like him.\"
An honest smile appeared on June's face when she reached that point in her story.
