Andrew Robinson Leinbach
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Chapter 139: Scamming for Soup
🕑 Added 2023-07-04 23:28:16 +0000 UTCArl
Arl Gremin spotted his sect’s new core disciple choose the Twelve Element Primal Code a bit too late, the information orb having already marked her soul before he’d realized what was happening. And this made him panic for a few seconds before he rushed over to her.
“Why choose the Twelve Element Primal Code?” he quickly asked. “You know you can’t transfer that copy to your grandfather, right?”
“Of course.” The young woman looked at him with an expression of confusion, her aura showing the same. “Are you alright, Mr. Gremin?”
“But you need to choose a cultivation technique for yourself.”
The confusion left the young woman’s face and aura and she reached out her left hand, summoning a forest green information orb into it from her spatial storage ring. “This orb contains a copy of the Seventeen Life Codex. My grandfather gave it to me as a backup in case the sect didn’t have a better life element cultivation technique and I just confirmed the Seventeen Life Codex was the best life element technique in the repository, so I didn’t see the need to read your copy when I have one of my own.” She placed her right hand gently on his arm. “Thanks so much for worrying about me, Mr. Gremin. And sorry for worrying you.
“I just thought that, since I have a free slot for getting a cultivation technique, I might as well read the Twelve Element Primal Code. As far as I know, it is considered the best cultivation technique in the universe, so I might learn something.”
“Ah.” The young woman’s words made a lot of sense. But it also meant one of the main reasons for joining the sect as a core disciple had been effectively useless for her, which made Arl feel like he was letting her down.
So, he decided he’d increase the size of her serving of Foundation Establishment Soup a little.
* * *
Orianthi
Looking at the young woman who’d just been introduced by Mr. Gremin, Orianthi Hewin smiled pleasantly and said a few polite words like the other core disciples, but inside she was screaming. This Sarra Ka’Dravone was her replacement and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
Human, with pale skin, blue eyes, and long light green hair, Orianthi was E rank and she hadn’t had any noticeable improvement for 34 years, while she was also out of things to improve other than raising her Law Egg of Bonds into a Law Larva and advancing to D rank. She’d been trying to do this for over a century, however, and by now she was pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen. In two years, she was going to lose her core disciple status, dropping down to an inner sect disciple, and there was now no chance she could get an extension.
Previously, as the granddaughter of the sect’s C rank with the highest chance to advance to B rank, she might have been given a little leeway to give face to her grandfather, but this new core disciple, at less than 30 years of age, already had a Law Larva of Bonds, so there was no chance the sect wouldn’t put all their focus on her instead.
And this wasn’t even mentioning how the young woman in front of her already had the attention of almost every male core disciple just because she was pretty.
Even Corin Val, the man known as the Stone Faced Killer, was laughing at some joke the woman made.
Feeling nervous, Orianthi left as soon as she could and went to find her grandfather, who’d been staying in the sect for the last several dozen years, and asked for an audience.
She had to stay sitting in the hall of his residence on the Crystal Mountain for three days, but he still allowed her to see him, so there was some care for her left.
“What is it you need, girl?” King Hewin asked from the golden throne in his mansion’s audience chamber, looking down at her from his elevated seat.
Orianthi bowed her head, unwilling to risk looking up at her mother’s father. “There is a new core disciple who was just brought in from outside who seems likely to take over my position, one Sarra Ka’Dravone.”
“I am aware.” King Hewin’s voice was deep and, due to his sheer amount of qi, it reverberated around the room as he spoke. “But what am I to do? You’re too weak to maintain your position even without her joining the sect.”
“What if I were to advance to D rank?” Orianthi grabbed at her last straw.
“Then things might be different.” Her grandfather’s booming voice sounded contemplative. “Sarra Ka’Dravone’s existence in the sect already has my old rivals bringing up my loss to her ancestor, and your inadequacy has been giving them further ammunition.
“Were you to rise to D rank on your own power and this Sarra Ka’Dravone to hit a bottleneck, or somehow disappear, I might be willing to use my influence to give you the sect’s last remaining Fruit of Life.”
Orianthi felt her heart start to race with excitement. The Fruit of Life was a supreme race changing treasure and the sect had only managed to gain four several hundred thousand years ago through a lucky encounter of the current chief elder. The three previous Fruits of Life had all been used on powerful healers or contract specialists, each individual eventually making it to C rank, and having her race changed through the use of the last one would completely alter Orianthi’s fate.
“Thank you, grandfather. Orianthi will work hard.” Orianthi kowtowed toward her grandfather three times, slamming her head hard against the stone ground as her grandfather preferred. “Orianthi will work hard.”
“Dismissed.” She couldn’t see it, but from the breeze which blew her back several meters, Orianthi knew her grandfather had waved his arm in dismissal. “And don’t come back unless you reach D rank.”
She quickly stood and started walking out of the room, making sure not to walk too fast or too slow, and, as a result, she was able to hear her grandfather's final words as well. “Useless girl.”
Orianthi’s eyes started to tear up, but she didn’t allow herself to break down until she was back in her own residence.
* * *
Pimala
Pimala Kelmin, a half human half jinn with small horns poking through her red hair, blue eyes, and dark patterned brown skin, had been crippled a couple hundred years before when attempting to advance to C rank, which would normally have had her drop from her position as a core disciple to an outer sect disciple at best, even though she’d been a powerful D rank mage. Thankfully, however, Pimala’s father, Eminar Kelmin, was one of the sect’s eighteen C rank elders, so, while she still lost her own position as a core disciple, she instead received the position of Chief Trainer, responsible for overseeing the instruction of the sect’s younger core disciples along with their evaluations every three years.
Their newest core disciple, Sarra Ka’Dravone, however, was giving Pimala problems. First, she’d used her own cultivation technique instead of taking one from the sect. Then she’d set aside some of her violet mountain credits to automatically buy monster souls every month, which had been disturbing until Pimala learned about her bloodline. But now the girl had signed up for her classes for the next semester and her choices seemed completely illogical.
Stepping up to the gate of the small compound Sarra had chosen as her residence at the base of the Crystal Mountain, Pimala knocked twice and waited, Sarra coming a few seconds later and letting her in.
Behind the stone walls, there were three stone buildings, indestructible remnants from before the time of the Violet Mountain Sect. Completely open to the air with mostly open floor plans, the buildings had windows, but no glass separating the inside from the outside, and it was the residence assigned for use for core disciples that almost no core disciple in the history of the Violet Mountain Sect had ever chosen, as the others, made of steel and glass, had much better modern conveniences.
“Why did you choose this residence?” Pimala asked as Sarra brought her into one of the buildings, where there were a few stone benches around a low table.
“I spent three years trapped in a forest.” Sarra smiled at her as she sat down on one of the benches. “Modern comforts just don’t feel quite right yet, and this residence is a good middle ground.”
When Pimala sat on one of the other stone benches, Sarra then asked, “So, what brings you here, Chief Trainer?”
“Your class schedule.” Pimala decided to get straight to the point, knowing most young cultivators, especially talents, didn’t like wasting time. “I wanted to confirm with you your choices.
“You chose nothing related to either of your two specialties we have on file, and no combat classes either. Instead, you’ve chosen Introduction to the Theory of Skills, Introduction to the Theory of Artifacts, Introduction to the Forces of the Universe, and Introduction to Monsters. These are classes normally targeted toward children and I wanted to make sure you were choosing the courses best for helping you advance. Would you mind explaining your reasoning?”
“Oh.” The young beauty smiled at her. “Thank you for worrying about me.
“Well, as you probably know, I didn’t grow up in a B rank force, a C rank force, or even a D rank force.” The young woman radiated excitement. “The strongest person in my clan was E rank. So, before Grandpa Epecteos found me, I wasn’t thinking much beyond the city I grew up in or the monster-filled forest planet I was later trapped on. My foundational knowledge is not on the same level as you when you were my age and I think my first order of business now that I have this chance should be to fix that.”
Pimala shook her head in assent. Most youngsters didn’t have such a mentality and she very much approved of Sarra’s reasoning. The bigger issue was that Sarra had first gone to introduction courses on healing, contracts, and combat, but then dropped them. “What about the courses on your specialties and combat?”
“Well.” Sarra looked a little embarrassed, and her aura showed the same. “I don’t know what I can say.”
Pimala had a guess about why the young beauty might not have liked those classes, but, after a minute of cajoling the young woman and making sure she’d feel safe to speak, the answer she received was not at all what she’d been expecting. “Mainly, they seemed kind of useless.
“Contracts are simple. You form a bond between two people or between two parts of a person’s soul and you set a series of rules with a set punishment if those rules are not followed. Due to the nature of karma, if someone breaks those rules, their own soul then punishes them. There’s not much there and the limitations have to do with the skills, class effects, and racial abilities involved, not the gobbledygook that teacher was talking about.
“Healing, on the other hand, is complicated. I gained a healing Law Larva because I repeatedly needed to heal myself. As a result, I know my own body well, but my theoretical knowledge on how to fix other people is really low. The class designed for those with my level of Laws didn’t seem like one I would be able to follow, so I thought next semester, after I fix some of my missing common knowledge, I would start with more biology, anatomy, and zoology courses.
“Finally, that combat teacher didn’t seem very good, his explanations needlessly complicated, and he couldn’t answer any of my questions on incorporating life Laws into my movements, so training with him seemed like a waste of time. If I want to get better at combat, I can go back home and train with my grandfather, so there’s no need to settle for lesser quality instruction when there are better things I could learn.”
The girl’s eyes lit up and her aura showed excitement again. “For example, I learned the names of seventeen different gods in class today. Isn’t that cool? And the teacher just knew their names off the top of her head.”
Pimala didn’t say anything for a few seconds. It sounded like for contracts no one but Lord Haxor would be able to teach the girl, which wasn’t going to ever happen given the man’s personality, and for combat Epecteos Ka’Dravone was probably far more skilled than anyone in the sect other than the chief elder. He’d fought across ranks with King Hewin and forced the latter to run after all.
They could offer her knowledge, but the totality of what she seemed to need could probably be freely bought from the sect by another force for just a few D rank credits, though the girl didn’t seem to know that yet.
In the long run, there wasn’t much binding the girl to the sect, and that was a problem. So, while politely chatting with the girl for a little longer, Pimala thought about some possible solutions, and she settled on upping the girl’s resource allocation. The slots for the next War of the Chosen set to start in eight years weren’t fully set, and if the girl was E rank by that time Pimala would definitely give her a spot as well.
Sarra probably wouldn’t be powerful enough as an early E rank, but healers were always valued on the battlefield, so it was possible she’d do better than any of the sect’s warriors.
