Novel readers

Replying to get the tea…

do u want the plot spoiled or the how the romance progresses?

Everything ヾ(☆▽☆)

Hooo boi, everything huh? Well, strap in ig.





I believe the next big story beat is someone from the Legion disappears during the break. Yuder goes to try and find him and uncovers a hidden operation that captures awakened to experiment on them. One of the dukes is behind it, though I don't remember which one.
During this time Yuder discovers that the wound on his hand is a real issue. It spreads whenever he uses his power and it gets pretty bad, so Kishiar has to heal him (he's real worried).
This is also when he meets Nahan, one of the story's big antagonists.

Nahan is the right-hand-man to the leader of a group called The Star of Nagran. They started out as a refuge for awakeners who were prosecuted, ostracized or otherwise needed a place to belong. But Nahan wants to create a world only for awakeners (eliminating any who aren't).

Kiole (the annoying knight whom Yuder thoroughly humiliated) is also there and Yuder saves him, but also binds him with a magical contract (he basically gotta do what Yuder says and stop being a little bitch).

Also, Tyse Yulmann comes to the legion HQ and offering to help study and experiment with the redstone (either right before or right after the above incident, can't remember).
Towards the end of the experiments Yuder learns that the wound on his hand allows him to somewhat manipulate red stone energi (which he later uses to help both Kishiar and the Emperor).

Yuder contacts an old acquaintance of his, Enon, who poses as an apothecary, but is actually much more. Like, he looks 30 but is probably closer to 1000 years old. 700 chapters in and his still a pretty mysterious character.
He contacts him to get more information about Kishiar and this "vessel" that was mentioned in his dreams.
He learns that there have been other dukes that retained the surname La Orr and that they all self-isolated and died young. Kishiar seemed to follow this pattern until he suddenly returned to form the Legion.
We later learn from Kishiar that this is due to the very strong powers that flow in the royal family (magic and divine power + swordsmanship). But the downside to having such power, is that the "vessel" that holds them all can break if they use too much of it at once.
This causes terrible illness and eventually a violent death where the person's magical powers explode.
This is what happened to Kishiar, except he was saved at the last moment by his awakening and somehow his power seems to hold his vessel together.
The emperor is suffering the same illness, but thanks to the experiments with the red stone and Yuder, he also awakens and his vessel is mended.

Anyway.
Next there's a festival in the capital and the Legion are deployed to keep an eye on things. Yuder gets to show off a little, though he's still keeping his true power under wraps.
There's a Galla on the last day and the whole Legion is invited to attend. A poisoning happens, which is orchestrated by Katchian to incriminate Kishiar (as I recall).
Yuder goes to investigate but then his second gender starts to manifest (which for him is a very sudden, explosive and painful process) and also is his first heat.
Kishiar finds him and takes him away from the party and it's a really emotional scene.
Because in his last life, when Yuder's gender manifested, Kishiar also found him but ended up raping him (ig?) because he was in rut or something. It was baaaad timing all around, is all I know.
So Yuder is super scared when Kishiar finds him and he thinks history will repeat itself and they'll end up in a mutually destructive relationship like last time. However, the opposite happens.
Even though he's clearly affected by Yuder's heat, he treats him with utmost care and self control, and it seems to heal Yuder's trust in him.
And I think seeing Yuder's fear of him in that situation affects Kishiar a lot more than he lets on.
Later we learn that Kishiar is able to control his physical response to desire and does so around Yuder to make him more comfortable. And I think this scene is a big reason why.

It's also more or less canon, that the reason why Kishiar could control himself in this timeline during the manifestation, and not in the previous, is because he is healthy in this one.
In the previous timeline, Yuder wasn't present when they collected the redstone and Kishiar was injured.
This injury caused new cracks in his vessel that his powers couldn't hold together, so he was dying in the old timeline, though he kept it a secret.

Next memorable arc, is when the Legion travels to the west. There's this big, semi-magical forest on the border, which houses several significant groups. There are some mages, a hidden Star of Nagran outpost and a few other factions.
Yuder ends up fighting an insane monster at the end of the arc. It's one that starts smol and cute but grows exponentially larger as it feeds.
In his last life it became a real big issue and killed a ton of legionares, but Yuder manages to stop it by essentially dropping a mountain on it before it can kill anyone.
He's in real bad shape afterwards, though and Kishiar nearly shits his pants. Like, Yuder is blind for a while and they gotta do experimental treatment on him and shit.

After the whole ordeal they decide to establish a branch of the Legion in the west and plan to make more in other regions.

I believe it's also in the west that they uncover a drug operation, led by a group of awakened southern merchants.
They are also bad eggs and will later work together with the first bad egg and other rotten produce.

Some stuff probably happens that I don't remember.

Then the Legion starts the second round of recruitment.
Yuder and Kishiar (and Nathan) travel around to different locations to oversee the recruitment process and root out any moles (of nobles, the Star, etc) who are trying to infiltrate the Legion.
I believe it's during this time that Yuder goes into heat and he and Kishiar spend a week in a shed shagging.
And poor Nathan has to be on standby, to make sure the two of them don't starve to death

They then go to the south, to oversee recruitment there. There have been some internal conflict in the Star of Nagran HQ (which is also in the south), so some of them are there to genuinely apply for the Legion.

They also discover an illegal fighting ring, which is capturing awakeners and forcing them to fight.
Yuder and a few others infiltrate and save a bunch of people. Some of them join the Legion.

They also discover that the southern merchants are present and scheming and set out to capture them. Then the southern branch office is attacked by some Star of Nagran members (not Nahan) while Yuder and Nathan are away.
But the Legion comes out on top.
This about where we are in the story now.

Also, some stuff happen that I just can't remember where to place on the timeline.

One of them being Yuder revealing to Kishiar that he came back from the future.
This scene was absolutely amazing. It happens later in the story, though, so don't expect seeing it anytime soon.
But essentially, we know and Yuder knows, that Kishiar is super smart.
Like, he can work out some connections that are incomprehensible to most other people.

So, he's been sus on Yuder for a while. He knows there's a lot Yuder isn't saying, especially about how he knows so much about awakeners, the political landscape, and how he can predict events etc.
Buuuuut he trusts Yuder. He knows that Yuder isn't keeping secrets out of malice, so he doesn't dig. He waits patiently for Yuder to tell him.

But Yuder knows that saying he comes from the future sounds kinda cray-cray, so he's gotta convince him - nay, better: make Kishiar figure it out himself.
So, he sits Kishiar down for a game of chess and then proceeds to wipe the floor with him.
But he doesn't just beat him. He predicts every move, every tactic, every play that Kishiar makes. Which doesn't make sense, because they've never played together before in this timeline.

Really, this only works because Kishiar is next level genius. He already had a dozen theories about Yuder and was just waiting for that final piece of the puzzle.
So finally, Kishiar asks him if he was the one that taught Yuder chess and Yuder confirms and it all clicks into place.
From then on Yuder begins to divulge information about past-future events to help Kishiar and the Legion more overtly.

Kishiar also guesses quite a lot of information about his past future self, their relationship and other tragedies.
And it turns out that it weighs pretty heavily on him to know all this stuff.

Yuder catches him a few weeks after their game, recreating each round - move by move - as if recreating the moment and their entire conversation and it seems he's been doing that a lot.
Worrisome behavior, thinks Yuder and confronts him and they have a pretty good talk about it.

Kishiar, in general, is the kind of person who suppresses his emotions, desires, impulses, boundaries - everything.
Yuder is not the opposite; he's good at enduring but also quite impulsive, so he pushes Kishiar in that area. Meanwhile Kishiar pushes him to take better care of himself.
That's why they're so good together.


I've probably missed a bunch of stuff or messed up the order somewhere, but that's what I got. Others are most welcome to correct or add.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

Kudos to you for typing all of this,