Guiot, his mother and his little sister could only look around in complete shock. How could they have ever seen something like an Immortal Cave before? Back in their homeland of the Outer Ring, they weren't even large players in the twenty-seven major Sects. Gold coins were already fairly hard to come by for them, let alone the Qi Stones needed to power this monstrosity.
After a few hours, Guiot settled down with his family in a vacant room, an inner struggle pulling him in all directions.
How could he repay Ryu?
Money? He didn't have any.
His life? How much was that really worth? For a talent on the level of Ryu, someone who could defeat an Immortal Ring Realm expert at the Divine Vessel Realm, was he even worthy of such a thing? Rather than helping, it would probably be him benefitting from such an arrangement.
His sister's hand? Absolutely not! Sephare was too young and what kind of elder brother would he be if he had to pawn his little sister's future because he couldn't repay his own debts?
Guiot believed his limit was the Pedestal Plane, yet Ryu already stood at the pinnacle of this Plane. This left him at a complete loss.
"Ah… I should go talk to him… No, I can't bother him like this… But I can't seem ungrateful, I don't want him to think that I expect this kind of protection… I can't impose too much, though…"
Guiot paced back and forth madly. If it wasn't for the sturdy build of this Immortal Cave, he very well might have left two parallel trenches beneath his feet.
"Ah, forget it. I'll go and speak to him. Even if he wants me as a corpse puppet, I'll accept!"
Guiot snapped awake from his thoughts to find his mother smiling and laughing at him. Gisla felt that her son was very much like his father. Everything was about the spear, so whenever they had to deal with a problem that couldn't be solved with one, the result was very much like this meltdown she was witnessing now.
Guiot blinked before embarrassingly scratching the back of his head.
"Wait, where's little Sephare?"
The three of them had been sharing a room. Though this was a bit inappropriate, Ryu really had no other choice. This was an Immortal Cave built for experimentation, not living. This was already the only living area in the entire place that wasn't contaminated in some form or fashion.
So, when Guiot noticed his little sister wasn't here, he panicked. The last thing he wanted her to do was stir up trouble.
"Don't worry too much." Gisla said noncommittedly.
"She…"
"It's her choice." Gisla said with a sigh. "Your little sister isn't a baby anymore. I was already betrothed to your father at thirteen. I had you only three years later."
"Mom!" Guiot's gaze reddened with anger.
Gisla only shook her head. "If you wanted a husband for your sister, could you find someone better?"
Guiot choked on air, unable to respond. His chest seemed pressed down by a heavy weight that was only growing larger.
"I'm not ashamed to say this, Little Guiot. If he would have accepted me, I would have betrayed your father in this way, on this day. I may have forever been branded as a whore by our Ancestors, but I would have still protected my daughter."
Gisla's voice faltered and cracked, causing Guiot to enter a tailspin. Just what had happened in the last few hours?
After pressing his mother for several minutes, he finally gained a grasp of the situation. He had been so lost in his own world trying to figure out how to repay Ryu that he had actually let his mother and sister suffer so terribly.
Just a few hours ago, his mother left this room to see Ryu, planning to repay her with the only thing she had. Unfortunately, she was coldly rejected by Ryu with curt, emotionless words.
What she could have never expected was that Little Sephare had followed her sensing that something was wrong and overheard their conversation.
The tears she held back before came spilling out uncontrollably as Gisla explained Sephare's resolve. The little girl was determined to take her mother's place and Gisla was too weak minded to stop her.
"How long has she been gone!"
Guiot grasped his mother's frail shoulders, his eyes brimming over.
"… It's… It's been over an hour…"
"I'll…! I'll kill him!"
"Guiot, no!"
Unfortunately, it was already too late. Guiot, in a violent rage sprinted through the Immortal Cave. He didn't know what he going to do, he didn't know how he could possibly best an enemy like Ryu, but he was willing to risk it all.
"Ryu, you beast! –"
Guiot burst into the central laboratory of the Immortal Cave, standing at the edge of one of its countless honeycomb-like entrances.
He wanted to say countless more words. He wanted to curse Ryu's past generations and future generations. At the very least, he wanted to spew all the venom he had before he inevitably died. However, what he saw froze him in his tracks.
The cold arrogant Ryu was… smiling? His laughter was so captivating that Guiot had to remind himself several times that Ryu was a man.
Ryu and Sephare sat on their knees. The little girl had her small tongue sticking out the side of her lips as she concentrated on the alchemy cauldron before her.
Ryu seemed to be diligently guiding her. His alchemy knowledge was superficial, but it seemed that he was teaching how to better control and efficiently use qi.
But this was beside the point. The iceberg was smiling!
Whenever Sephare made a mistake, he would console her with a pat on the head and encourage her to try again. Whenever she succeeded, he would seem even more excited than she was.
Guiot stood there stunned until the trembling footsteps of his mother came in from behind him. Then, they both stood in stunned silence until they realized over another hour later that Ryu hadn't heard their outburst because he had cast a silencing Visualization to help Sephare focus.
What the two didn't know was that Ailsa, who was sitting on Ryu's shoulder, was even more shocked than the two of them. It was only after shamelessly reading through Ryu's memories again that she understood.
'He wanted to be a big brother this badly…?'
Ryu's worry for Nuri's fate weighed so heavily on him that Ailsa's own eyes brimmed with tears.