Chapter 18: Conditions
Henry was looking at Lucien a bit more solemnly all of a sudden.
"Tell me, son, why are you sharing all of this with me, now of all times, you could have kept hiding?"
'Getting straight to the point aren't we, old man.'
"I want to leave the palace, I want to explore the empire."
Henry was completely shocked now, why would a son, who had it all here, want to leave. He was provided resources one level above his own, which was unimaginable for many practitioners who struggle for every crumb of the pie.
"Why?"
It seemed as a simple question, but it was hard to answer it, it seemed the final decision lied on the answer.
"Because, I don't want to be a flower grown in a greenhouse, like my elder brother. From all the history, there was no practitioner who broke past Rank 4, while relying on resources provided by someone."
"To understand the true path to power, there must be tempering in the fires and blood of the mortal world."
"In the palace, Darkness is weak, I'm protected from everything, I can't feel it clearly."
"I want to go into the world and see with my own eyes the Darkness of humans and the Darkness of the world."
"That way is the true way on the Path of Darkness."
Henry was not shocked at this point, he was solemnly looking at his son and was even restraining his presence a bit, to show this son of his some respect.
"Beautiful, I never imagined I would hear those same world I said to my father from you."
"And just like my father I will allow it on a certain conditions."
"First I will give you 1 year of time to explore, there is no way a prince of the empire can be a wanderer for many years, 1 year is the limit and you have to disguise yourself, mentioning your status would harm your goal of tempering yourself."
"Second, I will not send anyone to protect you, you might actually die, if you underestimate a situation."
"Third, it has to be within the empire, you can't leave the Scarlet Empire, if someone find out who you are in another empire, it would cause too much trouble."
"Of course, as a prince, you can't die to easily, so I will give you this stone, it has my powers inside of it."
"It will be active for a year and a bit, after that if it's not in my hands, it will teleport you back."
"It was given to me by my father, and to him form his father, it's an artifact with the ability to judge a situation, and if the situation is such that it doesn't matter what the holder does, he will die, it will activate the power within or in other words, the power I charged it with."
"It can activate once, and it's only in a situation where death is certain, if someone cripples you or something like that, it won't do anything, so don't rely on it too much."
Henry was finished with his conditions, but from his gaze, it seemed he favored Lucien more and more, completely overshadowing his brothers.
"For this 1 year, it doesn't matter what you do, you won't be able to rely on the imperial family, so if you offend someone, you are on your own, so that you can really experience the mortal dust and the Darkness of the world."
"This time it's only you wanting to do this voluntary, but when I had to do it, my father was already over 1 000 years old, he had many sons, when I wanted to do this, he realized the idea was not bad, so with the same method I'm using now on you, he send 10 of his sons out."
"From the 10, that were already half spoiled and arrogant, 6 were dead in the first 1 month, he didn't have 10 stones, so he made his own lesser copy that could protect against Rank 4 threat, which is plenty. It was activated on the first week, and after that activation they grew up and tried to survive in the world, but those 6 still didn't make it past a month."
"From the remainder, 2 survived for almost the whole year and were completely changed, but there was an unfortunate accident, and as the stone was already activated earlier, they died."
"Only 2 survived, me and an elder brother of mine. I won't dive too deep in details about that."
"But you have to realize by now that the death rate was 80%."
"Are you still sure you want to attempt this?"
There was a solemn look the face of Lucien.
'Is he testing me? Whatever I'll pretend to seriously think for a moment."
The tense expression disappeared and was replaced with a smile in a second.
"Yes, I still believe the path I decided on is the correct one, if I'm afraid of something 2 spoiled brats almost completed, where would my balls be?"
Henry burst out laughing when he heard the response. He didn't point out that Lucien was even younger than those 2 spoiled brats.
"That is my son! Good. Good. Good."
"I will talk to your mother, I won't tell her you wanted it, because she would try to talk you out of it, but now that you made the choice there is no going back."
"I won't let you break your word."
"And you need all the drive and support you can get, no need to leave in low spirits."
"Take the stone and prepare yourself, you can also take one weapon from the treasury, nothing above peak Rank 0 weapons."
"I'll arrange everything else and cover for you in your absence, nobody will know that the 3rd prince in not in the palace."
"You are leaving in 3 days."
Lucien didn't say anything more after that and just left, while Henry was looking at him from behind being more and more impressed by his attitude, even through it would probably be back to that dumb look by tomorrow.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Zebul
Zebul I think I missed a chapter the other day, it's kind of hard to keep track when it's in Chinese time. I'll make it up.
BTW, I haven't mentioned my schedule.
I do 2chaps/everyday. Times might differ a bit, as it is summer after all, but still 2 chapters, I don't plan on mass releases, since I plan some holidays and I'll have them keep coming out during my holiday, if you feel like commenting, I'm reading the comments on all chapters at least 2 times a day.
Phew that was long.
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