In Preparation Of An On Coming War

For the next four months, Julianna had a daily routine that she kept on a tight schedule.  She would wake up early before the sun would come up to train her body.  She ran the perimeter of the Brooks compound, then stretched, did yoga, sit ups and used the branch of the tree for pull ups.  After the second week when she gained more muscle mass, she incorporated swimming at the end of her morning exercise routine.  Once she finished her exercise, she would have a heavy protein base breakfast and traveled out of the city to the nearest mountain to hike and to look for herbal medicine that would help her Uncle.  Once she was certain the herbs she was looking for was not on the mountain, she would then move on the next mountain to hike and look for the medicinal herbs. She would come back to the city near dinner time to spend time with her Master and helped him with what ever he needed help with.  She would tell him of her hiking adventures and secretly hint to him to give her the medicinal herbs she needs from his storage.  But to no avail did he concede to her feminine wiles and kept his indifferent face in place.  She always came home to eat dinner with her Uncle and Pop pop then went straight to training her body in the room next door to her bedroom. 

Zeze helped her clean the room of the broken furniture. They swept, mopped, and dusted the whole room.  Julianna would train in the room for hours relearning the fighting techniques and skills she learned since she was a child.  At first it was tiring, however she was too stubborn and determined to have her revenge on the world to care about how tired and weak her body was to maintain her pervious skills and endurance.  Julianna would then unlock herself from the empty room to take a shower and get ready to meditate and cultivate her energy. 

The first night that she meditated to cultivate her energy she found out that her energy flow was slow due to her dantains being clogged.  Dantians are the energy's focus flow centers that help maintain and energy flow through out the body.  Jemma did not have enough interest to unclog her dantains, she accepted her fate as a "waste" and preferred to spend her time reading books. Julianna on the other hand, understood the way of the world and was determined to use her internal and external force that she recently cultivated to unclog her dantains. With the help of the dried mugwort incense burning, Julianna took the whole night to clean and unclog her dantains.  After the first night, her meditation and cultivation became easier and faster. 

By the forth month and the third mountain that she hiked. She finally found what she was looking for.  It was a rare plant called Silver Grass that looked exactly like green grass, but held a hint of silver once the sunlight hit its blade. Silver Grass would only grow by the cliff side of a mountain under the shade of trees which made finding the herb difficult.  But to Julianna's luck, she found two blades of Silver Grass side by side under the tree's undergrowth.  Once she dug the Silver Grass, she needed to find the next plant on her list.  Even more rare then the Silver Grass, she kept her eyes out for a flower that only grew in the darkness of a cave by a waterfall called Dark Death.  It was a flower that bloomed black and red and its medicinal properties detoxifies the body of all poisons and prevents future poisoning by immunity.  Its called Dark Death because before it cures you of poison it kills you first by poisoning the body.  Dark Death's poison over rides any and all poisons and once it kills you, the Silver Grass once prepared correctly,revives you.  After being revived the Dark Death will then make you become immune to any and all poisons. 

The first two mountains that Julianna climbed did not have waterfalls, however on the third mountain where she found the Silver Grass, she knew of a beautiful waterfall that was popular with the nobles.  Knowing full well that if she went to that waterfall, there would be a chance of running into nobles and royals that she did not want to see nor talk to.  Sighing heavily she made her way towards the waterfall quickly and quietly kept to the edge of the thicker forest line making her way towards the water fall.  Julianna could hear the voices of many people talking and made sure to go deeper into the forest if she thought she was getting too close to the group. Once she passed through the forest to reach the shoreline of the river, she rolled up her pants and slowly crossed the river not wanting to fall into it nor did she want to get even more wet.   When she made it over to the other side of the river she made her way towards the waterfall and the cave.  The cave was hidden beside the waterfall.  Its entrance was hidden behind thick bushes and vines.  It was obvious to Julianna that no one had sought out the cave in a long time with the overgrowth maintaining its full shape.  Breaking through the hidden entrance she lit a small torch she prepared and  made her way towards the back of the cave. 

The cave was damp and humid as she slowly walked moving the torch side to side hoping not to meet any animals or beast that may live in the cave.  The cave opened up larger and Julianna could see the shape of a flower.  Julianna came closer to the middle of the cave and there stood a stalk of the Dark Death flower growing in the dark.  Planting her torch upright so she wouldn't loose the light, Julianna slowly dug the flower up, careful to not damage the root of the flower.  The root and petals of Dark Death held the most potency of the medicine that would help her Uncle.  Once she uprooted the plant did she lay the flower over a hemp cloth and carefully wrapped it up and placed it into her bag. 

Julianna came out of the cave and crossed the river quickly and as quietly as she could.  Once she crossed safely over on the other side of the river did she notice that she had an audience of 10 staring.  Most of them were speechless with their mouths open and the rest held her recklessness and unladylike behavior in contempt.  Instead of greeting the group of people, Julianna paid them no mind and kept making her way down the mountain.  And since they already saw her, there was no reason to keep going deeper in the woods so she walked on the pathway that would lead her down to her carriage. 

"So now that you're no longer betrothed to Prince Ivan, you think you're too good to even greet any of us?"

Turning around Julianna looked at who was talking to her, when she saw the pretty girl walk towards her with her three friends behind her.  She was a petite girl with brown hair and blue eyes.  Her figure was paper thin which made her look as if she needed constant protection.

"I see that you have also put on more weight as well.  You must be so heart broken over the whole ordeal that you've now become a pig."  Another girl said.

"Look at her clothes, its all dirty and wet.  Not only has she become a pig, but she has also become an unkempt dirty dog." 

"Who are you?" Julianna asked them.

The petite girl quickly answered her. "How dare you pretend you don't know us!  As if no one knows the name of Amelia Jonas!"  She announced.

"Ahh, so you're Amelia Jonas."  Julianna nodded. "It's finally good to put a face to the name.  I mean with all the rumors that I hear about you.  I can finally understand why they said what they said about you."

Amelia looked smugly at Julianna as if the rumors about her were only good ones. 

"So you're the Amelia Jonas that they call the beauty of the city.  The Amelia Jonas that has so many talents and class that no woman could compare.  With your soft and gentle demeanor and giving heart that moves any man.  I mean, with all those attributes one would think that you would be confident in all of your achievements and need not demean and bully others with your profound group of friends that also happen to be considered the flowers of society.  While I, the wasteful trash of the Kingdom, being unkempt, dirty, ill-mannered and gluttonous have no right to even look your way nor do I have any right to greet such a refined being such as yourself.  Please continue on with your gathering and enjoy the rest of the day while I make my way down the mountain so I won't pollute the beautiful air that you breathe."  Julianna said sarcastically to the group of people in front of her. 

Before any of them could say anything else, Julianna made her way down the path towards her carriage.  She got what she came on the mountain for.  If any of the group knew what she held in her bag, there would be an all out battle over the rare treasures.  She would have to fight her way down the mountain, which she did not want to do.  Julianna was still too weak to even start a fight let alone finish one.  So she bowed out of the conversation as fast as she could by swallowing as much of her pride as she could to complete her task at hand. 

No one called Julianna nor did they stop her.  They were all too surprised that Julianna finally talked back to them when they teased her.  She usually said nothing when they came up to her, she would take it all in and try to move out of their way, but the group has always managed to surround her and prevent her from leaving.  Once they have her surrounded, they tease and taunt her until she cried.  This time, however, she talked back and insulted them that no one saw it coming.  Her speaking out became the miracle that saved Julianna from being held behind.

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When she finally reach home, Julianna gathered all the herbs she needed to make several  concoctions  to heal her Uncle.  She called her Pop pop down from the library to meet her at her Uncle's quarters.  Her Uncle was in his bedroom when she arrived to her Uncle's quarters. She sat down in one of the comfortable couch in her Uncle's study and Pop pop joined her soon after as Uncle Jude could be heard grunting from his room. 

Three months ago, Julianna suggested to her Uncle to hire someone he trusted to massage his legs and give them some exercise to let the flow of blood and energy flow through his veins and simulate is dantians that have been dormant for the past 20 years.

Although the reason for his injury was still unknown to Julianna even though she asked Uncle Jude several times over the years and several more times over the past four months.  Uncle Jude always turned her down gently and never lost his patience with her.  All he would say was that he was poisoned and that was the end of every conversation that they had. Even with the excuse of needing to know what happened to help cure him, Uncle Jude held on to his honor and did not tell her how he was injured.  Looking into Jemma's memories, Julianna knew that Uncle Jude was a strong practitioner of martial arts.  He was a child genius that shook the 4 Kingdoms.  His name rang from every corner.  He was the first teenager to reach low level 8 at the age of 14 and was granted a platoon of his own by the King.  The platoon he was in charged of was special operations.  Any and all missions were classified and Uncle Jude never spoke about them.  All he would say was that the missions were all in the name of the King and nation.  By 18, Uncle Jude became the youngest and strongest general at high level 10.  His cultivation and fighting skills could not be compared to anyone and made many people jealous of his successful military career and high cultivation skills.  Although he was one of the strongest person in all of the 4 Kingdoms, it did not mean he was invincible and that was how he got injured. 

Uncle Jude was rolled out by Thomas, Uncle Jude's personal butler.  Thomas has been working for the Brooks family since he was 16 years old, his father before him was a Brooks butler. Thomas is 4 years older then Uncle Jude and has been Uncle Jude's personal butler and companion since Uncle Jude got injured 20 years ago. 

"Its time," Julianna said without waiting for Uncle Jude or Thomas to greet them.  "Lets go."

They follow Julianna out of the mansion, through the flower garden to another small house that was built for the onsite doctor that worked at the Brooks manor.  However due to her father's shrewdness, there has not been an onsite doctor for the past 17 years.  Everyone called the building Doc's house, even though no one lived in it.  It just held medicine and strips of clean gauze. In back of the empty patient beds was the doctors office.  To the side of the doctors office was a room made for herbal cultivation.  In the room held dried herbal roots that were easy to find and three caldrons.  The first caldrons was the size of a large pot that was able to boil many liters of water,  the second caldron was three times bigger and the third caldron was the size of a bathtub.  The mission for today was to use both the smallest and biggest caldron. 

Julianna already had both of the caldrons filled up with water and had the fire lit under them as well.  The water on the small caldron was already boiling hot and Julianna threw the Silver Grass into the pot and stirred it.  Silver steam could be seen in front of their eyes as Uncle Jude gasps.

"Is that what I think it is?"  Uncle Jude asked in awe.

"Yep."  Julianna answered. 

"How did you ever find a Silver Grass?"

"Determination and luck. And I didn't find a Silver Grass,"  Julianna teased.  "I found two!"

Uncle Jude looks at Julianna and laughs out loud at her behavior.  "Alright then, my life is in your hands, what are my commands?"

"For now, sit there and wait as I prepare the medicinal herbs you need in the big caldron for your bath."

"Bath?"  Thomas questioned. "You mean to cook your Uncle?"

"Cook him? Who said anything about cooking him?  I mean to kill him."  Julianna said nonchalantly.