“Sir Edmund, from today onward, you will be the new Governor General of Canada!”
“You may already have heard certain rumors back home. In Canada, there is a mysterious and extremely powerful man who has built an enormous family force.”
“You may freely say that I was incompetent, but do not underestimate his strength!”
Before leaving office, Earl Minto grasped the new Governor General’s hand and, with deep concern, gave him one final warning.
Sir Edmund Walker Head was the newly appointed Governor General of Canada.
He smiled viciously, pointed toward the distant northwest, and said arrogantly:
“Lord Earl, do not worry. Along with me, three frigates, two ocean-going ships, and ten armed patrol vessels have arrived in Canada. They are commanded by the brave and warlike Captain Geoffrey Hornby.”
“They are currently anchored at the Hudson’s Bay Company docks near Beaver Farms, and in the event of an emergency, the Crown has entrusted me with the right to issue orders to them.”
“Products from the Blackwood family’s factories and textile mills are transported by sea and sold in Europe and Asia. As soon as I take control of the main maritime routes, they will have no choice but to bow their heads.”
The wrinkles on Earl Minto’s face relaxed slightly, and a smile mixed with relief and disappointment appeared on his face.
“Good, that is excellent! However, you must not focus only on the sea. I advise you to request that the royal family send additional ground troops to guard the border between Canada and the United States of America.”
“Lord Earl, are you afraid the Americans will cause trouble?”
Sir Edmund looked at him in surprise, not understanding why he was making such a suggestion.
Ever since Britain and the United States of America signed the Oregon Treaty in 1846 and established the western border between their territories in North America, there had been almost no major armed conflicts for nearly ten years.
“Dear Sir Edmund, the problem is not only American troublemakers. The Blackwood family also owns a large number of enterprises in the United States of America. Restricting maritime trade alone will not be enough.”
“Besides, prepare for a fight. They will not surrender peacefully.”
Watching the carefree Sir Edmund, Earl Minto boarded the Duke of Windsor with endless concern, a ship sent by the British royal family to show special honor to the hereditary marquess.
At the same time, at the Blackwood estate!
More than twenty strong and burly men had gathered in a smaller ceremonial hall.
Every one of them was a battle-hardened veteran who had followed Aron from the very beginning and built the family’s power together with him.
“Congratulations, Charles! Truly, congratulations! In one breakthrough, you reached Transforming Force and became a true martial arts master. The next time you accompany the master on some mission, you will no longer slow him down.”
“Ha-ha, don’t say that, Edward. Look how Charles’s face has darkened.”
“The old man doesn’t know how to take a joke at all. Be careful he doesn’t make your life difficult later!”
Around the enormous round table, the elders of the Blackwood family gathered around Butler Charles Whitmore, teasing him and one another.
“Heh, what are all of you so proud of?” Charles was dressed in a tailcoat and calfskin shoes, while his gaze swept over his old comrades.
“All of you broke through before me, and now you have come to mock me.”
“If I weren’t buried in family affairs, do you really think you would have managed to advance before me?”
“Look at him! The brothers are only joking, and he has already taken it seriously.”
“Exactly! It has been a long time since we all gathered and joked this loudly. Don’t hold it against us, Mr. Butler!”
“Now that I think about it, I really envy him. Charles has so much work every day that he barely has time to touch the ground, yet he still broke through less than three months after us. How many among these twenty of us can really say they are as talented as he is?” This chapter was taken from novelping . com without permission.
The group of burly men toasted one another, recalled the past years, and teased each other in a lively atmosphere.
Among them, sixteen-year-old James sat dejectedly and poured himself a drink.
Until now, he had still failed to practice the Yi Jin Jing and the Golden Bell Body of the Thirteen Guardians simultaneously.
Normally, he was very close to all those older men, but deep inside he still felt a certain pride.
When his foster father first taught them the Yi Jin Jing, it was James who was the first to successfully perform all nine movements that surpassed the limits of the human body, which earned Aron’s praise.
James had then decided that he would train diligently and always be a source of pride for his foster father.
However, for several years now, he had failed to master the simultaneous practice of the two techniques.
Aron, who was sitting in the seat of honor, had long since noticed his unusual behavior.
When the number of old comrades around him decreased, he smiled and approached James.
“James, what are you thinking about?”
“What is troubling you? Tell your foster father.”
James raised his head and looked at Aron in surprise.
He had been so deeply lost in thought that he had not even noticed someone approaching him.
“Father, do you think I’m useless? I still haven’t managed to master the new training method.”
The young man spoke those words dejectedly and poured himself another glass of wine, preparing to drain it.
Aron smiled faintly, gently pressed down on his hand, took the glass, and placed it on the table.
He softly patted him on the shoulder, and a faint smile appeared at the corners of his lips.
“You are exceptional. Truly exceptional!”
“James, don’t put so much pressure on yourself. When you have time, spend more time with your younger brothers and sisters. Training is a strange thing. Sometimes, the more forcefully you try to squeeze out progress, the farther you move away from your goal. In more serious cases, you can lose control and badly injure yourself.”
“You lack the cultural and philosophical foundations from which these techniques originate, and understanding them requires time, study, and experience. If you don’t mind, how about starting tomorrow you attend Blackwood School together with Elaine?”
James blushed.
Elaine was his fourteenth younger sister.
She was only six years old and attended elementary school.
Just thinking about sitting in the same classroom with a bunch of little children almost made the young Wolverine lose control.
The bone claws on both of his hands involuntarily pierced through his skin, revealing tips as white as polished jade.
“Father, stop joking! I’m already sixteen years old, and you want me to attend elementary school?”
James suppressed his dissatisfaction and asked the question proudly, but a moment later his tone changed.
“Will going to school really help me master those two techniques?”
Aron did not answer, but merely looked at him openly and calmly.
“All right, foster father! I’ll go to Blackwood Elementary School.”
“That’s more like it. Do you think I would want to harm you?”
Aron nodded with satisfaction, draped an arm over his shoulder, and said with a smile:
“A man must keep his word. This is now an agreement between father and son!”
After saying that, he clenched his fist and extended it toward James.
The two lightly bumped fists, and the young Wolverine smiled for the first time that day.
“By the way, I’m entrusting Elaine to you. She often uses her mutant abilities to skip classes. As her eldest brother, you have the right to discipline her. You don’t want her to start going down the wrong path while she’s still a little girl and later get tricked and taken away by some suspicious street scum, do you?”
Aron firmly patted him on the shoulder, then returned to the seat of honor with a smile and continued drinking and talking with his old comrades.
James froze.
He had a strong feeling that he had just been tricked.
His fourteenth sister Elaine might have been only six years old, but she was extremely intelligent.
More importantly, she possessed two mutant abilities and was the only child among all of Aron’s descendants who had two powers.
Just thinking about her mischief made James feel as though his head was about to explode.
When Elaine had only just learned how to crawl, her mutant abilities awakened.
Her real body invisibly crawled out of the cradle, while dozens of her duplicates formed a pile over which she climbed down to the floor.
The Blackwood family’s maids had been terrified at the time.
They thought they had encountered a demon that had cast a spell and that the dozens of babies running around the room were nothing more than terrifying illusions.
In the end, thanks to his animal instincts, James discovered where Elaine’s invisible real body was, preventing the chaos from spreading any further.
When Aron received the news and hurried back from the weapons factory, he erased the memories of all the maids present.
Thus, only father and son kept the secret and avoided a possible disaster.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the Church still possessed enormous influence.
If the Blackwood family’s secrets were exposed, endless trouble would await them.
“God, help me!”
James grabbed his head with both hands, sincerely regretting that he had agreed to his foster father’s request.
The dim light of the crystal chandelier unevenly illuminated the ceremonial hall.
Aron, who had successfully shifted the burden of responsibility onto someone else, sat at the head of the round table, while the old comrades enthusiastically raised their glasses and toasted one after another to the man who led the Blackwood family.
Amid the adults’ laughter, a world was created in which only Wolverine got the short end of the stick.