Creed Of Heaven

Chapter 3: Teaching

Since the system had already handed him an identity, Lu Xiao was down to one problem: how to get past the language barrier and seal the deal with Mario. He stood there, totally lost, while Mario rattled off Italian like a machine gun.

As the head of the Italian Assassin Brotherhood, Mario had sharp instincts. He clocked Lu Xiao's confusion and awkward vibes right away.

Slowing his speech, he started flipping through languages, trying to find one that stuck. First came a guttural string of what might've been German, then a smoother flow Lu Xiao vaguely pegged as French—neither clicked.

After a few switches, Lu Xiao finally caught something he recognized—English.

"Can you speak English?" Mario asked, his accent thick and clunky, like he'd learned it from a bad textbook. The words came out halting, each syllable chewed over like a man unused to its shape.

Lu Xiao's eyes lit up. "Yeah, I know a little English," he said, nodding fast. Sure, he'd graduated from a legit university, but speaking practice? Barely any. He'd scraped by with textbook phrases and the odd English song lyric, nothing fluent.

Still, with Mario's English just as shaky, they muddled through—half words, half gestures—until they sorta got each other. It was a messy dance of broken sentences and wild hand-waving, but it beat total silence.

Mario, still cautious, grilled him about where he came from and why he had that pendant around his neck. This was Lu Xiao's chance to flex the bullshitting skills he'd honed at work. Years of dodging deadlines and spinning excuses for late reports had sharpened his knack for improvisation—now it was time to sell a story wild enough to fit this world.

He opened his mouth and let the story fly. He claimed he was from a far-off ancient land in the East—the Ming Dynasty. Said he was the last of some assassin family, wiped out by a Templar bigshot back home. Forced to flee, he'd crossed great distances, hoping to one day head back and settle the score. He leaned hard into the drama, picturing himself as some tragic exile, voice steady even as his brain raced to keep the details straight.

'Assassin's Creed II' was set in the late 15th, peak Italian Renaissance. Lu Xiao's history grades weren't stellar—he couldn't name the exact emperor ruling China right now—but he vaguely recalled this was mid-Ming Dynasty. No Manchu uprising yet, just a relatively chill era. He remembered snatches of lectures about trade routes and silk, enough to pepper his tale with a hint of authenticity.

Back then, East-West contact was rare. Most Italians still pictured China through Marco Polo's old travel tales. Lu Xiao's half-baked story, sprinkled with some Ming flavor, was enough to throw Mario off. Paired with the assassin pendant, it sold the idea that this kid might actually be from some distant Eastern Brotherhood branch. Mario's good eye narrowed, but he didn't call bullshit—not yet.

The Assassins and Templars went way back. According to 'Assassin's Creed: Origins', their roots stretched to ancient Egypt, Ptolemaic times—way before Christ. Back then, they were the Hidden Ones and the Order of the Ancients. Over centuries, their clashing ideals spread worldwide, China included.

In 'Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China', the hero was Shao Jun—a Ming Dynasty female assassin. After her first mission went south, she'd bolted to Italy for help from the local Brotherhood mentor. That was decades after Lu Xiao's current timeline, though. Still, it proved the Brotherhood had tendrils in the East. Maybe Mario had heard whispers of far-off allies—enough to buy Lu Xiao's story for now.

***

Mario wasn't fully sold, but he figured he'd keep this supposed far-flung ally in Monteriggioni. He'd watch Lu Xiao up close, test his character, and figure out what he was really after. The old warrior's instincts screamed caution, but curiosity tugged at him too. A stranger with an Assassin's mark wasn't something you tossed aside lightly.

Lu Xiao didn't mind. To get intel on the Pieces of Eden, he needed to worm his way into the Brotherhood and earn their trust. Plus, right now, all he had was that peeping—er, Clairvoyance skill from the newbie pack. Combat-wise, he was a big fat zero. He flexed his hands, feeling the absence of calluses or muscle memory. Running laps around his apartment block hadn't prepped him for sword fights or rooftop chases.

With the system locked in, he'd be bouncing through dangerous worlds for the foreseeable future. Without some fighting chops, finishing those missions would be a long shot. The system hadn't said what happened if he flunked a world task, but years of web novels told Lu Xiao it wouldn't be pretty. Not a risk he wanted to take. He'd read too many stories of protagonists stuck in limbo—or worse—after botching a mission. Better to assume failure meant a bad end and plan accordingly.

Monteriggioni was a tiny speck of a city in Italy's Tuscany region, under Auditore control. Less than a thousand people lived here—a real backwater town. Through Mario's choppy English, Lu Xiao got the rundown on Italy… or rather, the Florentine Republic, since "Italy" wasn't a full kingdom yet—just a name and a place. The manor's walls loomed over the plaza as Mario talked.

The Apennine Peninsula was a mess. Big cities were splitting off into kingdoms, duchies, free cities, and little feudal patches. Tuscany, where Monteriggioni sat, was a hotbed of chaos. The Medici family ran the show in Florence, the strongest player around, and they were constantly brawling with the neighboring Sienese Republic. Monteriggioni was stuck right between them. To keep the town alive, Mario played both sides—friends one day, enemies the next. Lu Xiao caught the exhaustion in Mario's voice as he described the juggling act—alliances shifting like sand, every deal a gamble.

Lu Xiao had landed in the summer of 1474. The main 'Assassin's Creed II' plot wouldn't kick off until 1476, so he had over a year to prep. Sure, he had the Brotherhood pendant and a story that sounded decent, but Mario still wasn't buying it completely. That scarred eye lingered on him.

Mario led him to a guest room on the ground floor of the Auditore manor. "Lu," he said, all warm and loud, "you stay here for now. I'll test your basics soon and set up a training plan for you." The room was sparse—stone walls, a narrow bed with a straw mattress, a rickety table holding a chipped water jug. A single window let in slants of dusty light, framing a view of the courtyard below.

"Don't take it personal, but I can't trust you fully yet. You'll need to pass the Brotherhood's trials—prove yourself with actions to join us officially."

Lu Xiao nodded. "I get it. Thanks, Mr. Auditore." He kept his tone polite, channeling every ounce of corporate deference he'd mastered back home.

Mario let out a big, hearty laugh and clapped a calloused hand on Lu Xiao's shoulder—hard. "Just call me Mario. Glad you understand. Get ready, though—my training's no joke." The force nearly knocked Lu Xiao off balance, but he grinned through it, rubbing his shoulder as Mario's laughter echoed down the hall.

"Oh, and one more thing," Mario added, turning back at the door. "You'd better learn Tuscan and Latin quick. Hardly anyone on this peninsula speaks English. For talking and reading around here, you'll need both." He tapped the doorframe, his good eye glinting with a mix of amusement and warning, then strode off.

Tuscan was the ancestor of modern Italian. As Florence, the Renaissance hub, spread its culture, the language caught on, eventually becoming Italy's standard. Latin, meanwhile, was Europe's go-to tongue back then. Even with the Renaissance pushing local languages, formal stuff and most writing still stuck to the old classic. Lu Xiao groaned inwardly—two languages at once? His college cram sessions felt like a cakewalk compared to this.

***

To dig into the Brotherhood's intel, Lu Xiao had to pick up Tuscan and Latin at the same time. Good thing a bunch of European languages—Spanish, Italian, French—came from Latin roots. Tuscan and Latin overlapped enough that, with a private tutor Mario set up, Lu Xiao's focused studying paid off fast. Lessons took place in a cramped room off the manor's library, surrounded by shelves of dusty scrolls and leather-bound books that smelled of mildew.

Language lessons happened at night. Days were for training with Mario or his mercenaries. Like Mario warned, the schedule was packed.

After testing Lu Xiao's physical baseline and running him through some conditioning, Mario tailored a training plan just for him. Before jumping into combat, Mario told him to pick a weapon he'd stick with. The training field stretched out behind the manor, a patchy expanse of dirt and grass. Mercenaries sparred in the distance, their grunts and clanging steel filling the air.

"Lu." On the training field, Mario pulled his longsword from his hip. "I'm the Italian Brotherhood leader, sure, but I'm not your typical assassin. Sneaky kills aren't my thing—don't match my style. My brother Giovanni's the pro at that." He swung the blade in a lazy arc, sunlight catching its edge. The weapon looked heavy, but Mario wielded it like an extension of himself.

"What I can teach you is straight-up fighting—skills for taking people head-on. Once you're done with my training, I'll write to Giovanni. He'll take you for the next step." Mario's grin was all teeth, a challenge lurking behind it. Lu Xiao swallowed, eyeing the weapon rack—daggers, staffs, a battered mace. His gamer instincts screamed for something cool, but practicality won out.

"Come on!" Mario grinned, eyeing Lu Xiao as he hesitated by the weapon rack and grabbed two short swords. Clapping his hands, Mario taunted, "Attack me! I'll fix your sloppy moves and bad habits in the thick of it!"