Chapter 125: 125 – Learning With General Aquila

Raven and Rook were so enthused about learning swordsmanship from General Aquila that they dragged Jules and Bella and Mana and went to General Aquila early morning the very next day.

However, there was someone even more enthusiastic than them, as they found out!

King Jaren and General Aquila were in the breakfast hall, chatting amicably. Azar was seated on a chair next to King Jaren, not acting spoilt for once, and eating his breakfast in a very prim and proper manner.

"Good morning, Mommy, Daddy, Uncle Jules, Auntie Bella and Uncle Rook," Azar greeted politely.

Everyone was taken aback – normally, the little dragon would have launched himself at Mana and Raven and nuzzled their faces with his small head.

Mana and Raven cast an enquiring glance at King Jaren, a bit worried about their precious dragon child.

"Azar wants to learn swordsmanship from General Aquila," King Jaren said.

"Azar is a big boy now!" the little dragon spoke up. "And because Azar is a big boy and a good boy, Grandfather Aqi will teach him new sword style!"

All the humans shared an amused glance. So, the little dragon was acting all prim and proper to prove to his Grandfather Aqi that he was old enough to learn?

How adorable!

Jules immediately rummaged through his pockets and pulled out the picture he had taken of King Jaren, Raven and Azar practising the sword together.

"Azar is actually very good with the sword," Jules said, passing the picture to General Aquila to see.

Azar puffed up proudly, beaming at his dear Uncle Jules for standing up for him.

General Aquila looked at the picture and his eyes widened in a mix of surprise and excitement. "Indeed! Little Azar and little Raven are really good!" he said happily. "Excellent posture!"

"Papa taught us well," Raven said shyly.

"Azar wants to be as cool as Daddy and Grandapa!" the little dragon chirped happily. "And Grandfather Aqi," he added quickly. He made a puppy face (well, a baby dragon face) at General Aquila. "Grandfather Aqi, teach Azar, please?"

General Aquila simply couldn't resist this overload of cuteness anymore. He stood up from his seat and walked over to the other side of the table, to Azar's chair. Then he picked up the little dragon in his arms and tickled his chin fondly.

"Of course I'll teach you, little one," General Aquila said affectionately. "Why wouldn't I teach my first grandson? And you are such a good boy, of course I'll be very happy to teach you."

Azar beamed at him. "Thank you, Grandfather Aqi!" he said excitedly and nuzzled the big man's face with his head.

Then he flew out of General Aquila's arms and straight into King Jaren's arms. "Grandpapa! Grandfather Aqi will also teach me! Azar will learn from both of you!" he declared proudly.

You are reading story The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart at novel35.com

King Jaren rubbed the little dragon's head with a merry laugh.

Since they had another banquet in the evening, it was decided that the sword lessons would be kept quite short for today.

That didn't dampen any of the students' enthusiasm – well, other than Mana, who didn't even want to learn swordsmanship in the first place. She was here simply because she couldn't resist the doubly adorable faces of Raven and Azar put together, which had a multiplier effect on the cuteness factor, and her heart couldn't take it at all.

Bella, on the other hand, turned out to be as good as Jules in swordsmanship! Everyone was surprised, except Jules, because Bella had never mentioned anything about her interest in sword arts before.

"Bella doesn't like to talk about it because she thinks she isn't good enough, and she refuses to believe me because she says my eyes are blinded by love," Jules said, when Bella's display had made everyone speechless with shock.

Mana remembered how Bella had hidden away her beautiful face earlier – maybe it was something similar here. Still, looking at the proud flush on the older girl's face resulting from the double attack of Jules's words and the open admiration on everyone else's face – Mana realised that it wouldn't be difficult for Bella to move forward from here at all.

With a bunch of such eager to learn students, General Aquila took his teaching role very seriously and the next two hours passed in a flash. The first half an hour was spent in explaining basic concepts and strategies once again, especially for the benefit of the younger ones. After that, the next hour was spent on teaching them various moves. And the last half an hour was a friendly sparring match between King Jaren and General Aquila. It ended in a draw, ultimately.

"Oh, man – I'd have lost if we continued for another ten minutes," King Jaren said, wiping his face with a wet towel thoughtfully provided by Raven. His eyes shone with admiration as he looked at General Aquila. "You're good – really good. The best I've seen, in fact," he declared.

General Aquila, who was also wiping his face with a wet towel (also supplied by Raven) chuckled. "I fear I may have been the one to lose, instead. I had no idea that you were such an impressive swordsman, King Jaren. I know you'd thoroughly defeated King Orion back then – but we never heard of your battle skills after that," he said. "I've never met anyone who can fight with me at this level."

King Jaren grinned. "I'm going to boast about your compliment to everyone, especially when I'm in a foul mood and people aren't listening to me – if the legendary hero General Aquila has deemed my swordsmanship to be good, I can justifiably pull out my sword to make them obey, isn't it?" he said jovially.

General Aquila burst out laughing. "If I'm around, I can put the fear of the sword in their heads on your behalf," he offered in a teasing tone.

"That'll be even better!" King Jaren replied.

Mana and Raven exchanged a pleased glance. Both of them were very happy that King Jaren and General Aquila had become such good friends in such a short time.

"Azar will protect you, Grandpapa!" the little dragon chipped in and settled on King Jaren's shoulder. "If bad people say bad things to Grandpapa, Azar will burn them for you! Azar can also stab them with his sword now!" he said ferociously. "Everyone has to listen to my Grandpapa!"

King Jaren stroked the little dragon's smooth scales affectionately. "Thank you, my dear child," he said. "Grandpapa will be relying on Azar, then."

They didn't know at the time how soon Azar's help would be required…

The group disbanded and returned to their own rooms to freshen up and prepare themselves for the banquet in the evening.

Today's banquet was more informal that the previous day's, because all the formal announcements had already been made by King Jaren along with the confirmations from the other kingdoms. Today was more for networking and connecting with people from different places and to see if they could collaborate on something or just open a channel of communication.

Their carefully prepared outfits were more casual today, but they still followed the coordinated theme, with matching outfits for the couples. Today, the young royals entered the hall arm-in-arm with their significant others. King Jaren, naturally, went in first with Azar propped up on his shoulder – today, Azar had chosen to wear accessories matching King Jaren's outfit rather than coordinate with Mana and Raven. Of course, the young couple had no objections – besides doting on the little dragon, they all had great faith in Azar's intuition. If their baby dragon had chosen to stick with King Jaren for that evening, they were more than happy to let him do so. After all, Azar and King Jaren were the absolute favourites of each other by now.

The guests had been cleverly seated in mixed groups, so each table had guests from all five kingdoms, and they were matched in terms of their business where they could collaborate easily with each other. The distribution had also been made cleverly, so the people from the Obsidian Kingdom had a person from the Emerald Kingdom on one side and a person from the Sapphire Kingdom on the other side. The people from the Pearl Kingdom were next to a person from the Emerald Kingdom, and a person from the Amber Kingdom had a person from the Sapphire Kingdom on one side and a person from the Pearl Kingdom on the other side.. This worked out quite well overall, since the goodwill of the people from the Emerald Kingdom and the Sapphire Kingdom towards the Obsidian Kingdom was quite high at the moment, because of Raven – especially the Emerald Kingdom, who absolutely adored Raven. This would also filter across to the Pearl Kingdom person next to the person from the Emerald Kingdom – because no matter how Raven had been vilified in the Pearl Kingdom before, currently, the only reason they were able to get the opportunity to be here and enjoy such magnificent hospitality from the Emerald Kingdom was because Raven was the son of their Head Sage Yue of the Moon Temple!

You can find story with these keywords: The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart, Read The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart, The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart novel, The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart book, The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart story, The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart full, The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart Latest Chapter