บท 20: Sitri Sona
Sa Ji was currently walking through a dark corridor. After taking some turns, sometimes left, sometimes right, he was finally standing in front of a dark, wooden door.
As he looked at the door, he remembered that day's past events, preparing to do a summary for the person behind the door.
He then recalled everything that happened in the past couple of hours. After the battle with Issei, he had to spend five more minutes laying down before he could regain his movements.
After that, he brought Issei to the Mighty Skill Pavilion to hand back the three skills. Issei then picked three rank 3 martial skills, all about double swords.
Then, he took Issei to each lunch and afterward told him to rest in the dormitory a little and to wait for him while he prepared to do somethings.
After that, he directly headed to this place. At the moment, Issei was still in the dormitory, resting and waiting for him to come back.
He then took in a deep breath and knocked on the door three times.
After a slight pause, a pleasant yet cold voice rang out, "Come in."
Taking one last deep breath, steeling his nerves and putting on a serious face, Sa Ji opened the door and stepped forward into the room.
The room itself was rather simple, nothing too extravagant. Its decoration consisted of a large table with an archaic chair and some paintings here and there. Also, there was a shelf full of books at the back of the room.
However, all of that didn't matter. What truly mattered was the one sitting on the chair, casually reading a book.
She was a young girl in here late teens with dark black hair in a short bob cut and violet, cold eyes.
Her lithe, slim figure was covered in the normal robes of the school for inner disciples. Although she wasn't really buxom, with small peaks, her figure was still pleasing to the eyes.
However, when one looked at her, they wouldn't be able to admire her figure, neither her beautiful, elegant face. That was because, upon even glancing once into her eyes, anyone would feel afraid.
Her violet, elegant, sharp eyes were cold, like a snowstorm in winter. In it, absolute coldness along with strictness could be perceived, making anyone frightened.
Sa Ji was no exception.
Immediately after seeing her eyes, his figure shook a little before he forcefully composed himself.
For five minutes, the woman ignored him. Only after a period of time passed did she lift her head from the book that she was reading, her gaze even colder, as if it was staring deep into his soul.
"Sa Ji," She said, her voice cold and strict.
"Yes, President?" He said, tensing up slightly.
"Report," was her simple, one-word order.
Immediately, Sa Ji started recounting the events that transpired through the day and how Issei was waiting for him in the dorm.
After listening through the whole story, the cold woman nodded her head, slight surprise present in her face. She then looked over at Sa Ji, and in a serious tone, said "To lose in less than a second to an eleven years old… do you feel no shame?"
As soon as he heard that, Sa Ji grimaced lightly. True, she hit him right in the spot. He felt like digging up a hole and sticking his head in it ever since he lost to Issei. Seriously, losing in less than a second to an eleven years old… is there more humiliation than that?
Looking at his expression, the woman sighed, "Either way, if it's truly as you say, register him for the Medicine Hunt that will take place two days from now."
"Yes, President," He said respectfully as he bowed his head. After raising it, he looked at her asked, "Is there anything more?"
"No, you can go, Issei is waiting for you."
"Then I shall take my leave," Sa Ji said as he hurriedly exited the room, getting as far away from the woman as possible.
Once Sa Ji had left, the woman looked down at her book once more. In it, there was an illustration of Issei along with some info on him.
Looking through the info one more time, she sighed, "You're so mysterious… you suddenly appeared a couple of years ago, and now is already is a recognized martial genius."
She then took a deep breath and looked out of her window, gazing at the sunset.
"Just who are you, Issei?" She muttered softly, lost in thought.
– – -
Sa Ji was currently walking towards the dorm as fast as he could. As far as he was concerned, the further away he was from her the better.
That woman, the third best inner disciple, Sitri Sona, was his boss, along with the scariest person he knew.
They met a couple of years ago, and in less than a week, he joined her group, acting as her errand boy.
At that time, the only reason he joined was because he was infatuated with her cold and aloof look, but he soon came to regret it.
He had to do arduous tasks every day, such as scouting the other groups in school, keeping track of the disciples progress… and his reward? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
But even with all that, he didn't quit. It wasn't that he didn't want to, just that he couldn't. At that time, he had sworn eternal loyalty to the cold woman, and he couldn't just get back on his word.
Oh, how he hated the past him for getting him in this situation…
Thankfully, his tasks decreased considerably ever since Issei entered the school. For some reason, the Sitri girl had extremely high interest in him, specially in luring him to her group.
As such, Sa Ji was in charge of attending to his very wish, just in order that he wouldn't refuse when the invitation arrived.
Sa Ji himself liked looking after Issei much more than his usual jobs, so he hoped that they would never invite Issei. That way, his days would be peaceful…
After a couple more minutes, he finally arrived at the dormitory. Walking to Issei's bed, he saw that he was reading a book about medicine.
Before he could even announce his presence, Issei casually looked up, and with some faked surprise on his face, he said, "Senior Brother Ji! You're back!"
Because Issei's acting skills were extremely believable, Sa Ji truly thought that he looked up by coincidence.
Smiling he said, "Yes, Junior Brother. Either way, I'm wondering something."
"Oh? What is it?"
"Would you like to participate in the Medicine Hunt?"
"Medicine Hunt?" Issei tilted his head to the side slightly. This was no acting, since this was indeed the first time that had heard of such a thing.
"Yes, Medicine Hunt. Although you may not know, there is a mountain called Medicine Peak not too far away from here that the school owns. Once every year, the school elders open it for ten days period so that the inner disciples can enter it and try their luck.
In the mountain, you can find cultivation resources, such as various herbs that help in cultivation and even some high-grade spirit grass!"
"Spirit grass?" Issei said in astonishment. Out of all the cultivation resources that Issei had used in Shinso's castle, spirit grass was by far the best. Furthermore, Shinso only had low to medium grade, and even those had high effects.
Because of all of that, the prospect of using high-grade spirit grass was extremely enticing for the young, unconventional genius.
"Yes, although even with how strong you are, you'd have a hard time getting it," Sa Ji said with a chuckle.
"Huh?" Issei said as he once more tilted his head to the side. He didn't understand what was so hard in obtaining spirit grass. The books he read said that gathering it was just like any other herb.
"Normally, it would be like any other medicine, but the medicine that grow on the Medicine Peak has special properties. They aren't like normal medicine that can simply be collected. You must first subdue them."
"What? Subdue them?" Issei asked with apparent confusion.
"Yes, subdue. The reason for that is because the medicine that grows there has a special properties. Low grades medicine will run away as soon as you try to catch them, medium grade medicine will run underground while high-grade can make themselves invisible and even fight back. Each one of the high-grade ones has the power of a level 4 cultivator of the Nascent Profound Realm."
As soon as he heard that, Issei's eyes widen considerably. Medicine.. running? Fighting back? Invisibility? What kind of bullshit is that?
"Is Senior Brother trying to fool me?" Issei said, rather suspicious. He just couldn't bring himself to believe what Sa Ji had just said. Although he had seen a lot things since coming to the middle realm, he just couldn't imagine a leaf with the power of level 4 cultivator of the Nascent Profound Realm. That was simply inconceivable for him.
"Well, although it might sound difficult to believe, I can assure you that its one hundred percent truth," Sa Ji while looking at Issei's suspicious expression. He couldn't really blame the little genius. Even he didn't believe it when someone told him the first the time he participated.
Seeing that Issei's doubtful expression didn't lessen in the least, Sa Ji sighed, "Well, you'll find out soon enough. Either way, come with me right now. We should register you for the Medicine Hunt and get your participation token."
Although Issei still didn't believe that story about medicine running around and fighting back, he still followed his Senior Brother to the registration grounds to get his token.
Upon arriving at the registration ground, the first thing they was a large plaza that was bustling with people, all wearing the Heavenly Might School's robes.
There were people from various ages, ranging from fifteen to twenty, although there wasn't anyone even close to Issei's age.
After walking to the end of the plaza, they stopped in front of an old man that was currently sited in an old chair, so absolved is his task of writing things in a piece of paper that he didn't even notice Issei and Sa Ji's approach.
"Elder Sun, we would like to participate in the Medicine Hunt," Sa Ji said politely as he broke that old man's concentration, causing him to look up with a slight frown.
He first looked at Sa Ji, and upon seeing that it wasn't a cute girl, looked at the second person, Issei, which caused his eyes to brighten up.
"Oh? What is this cute little girl doing here?" He said curiously as he sent Issei, the girl he thought was cute, a soft stare.
For the first times it happened, Issei wasn't bothered by being mistaken by for a girl. But, seriously, it happened way too often. Even he was starting to get bothered by it. He then made a mental note to try to look more manly in the future.
Hearing that, Sa Ji chuckled before saying, "Oh no, he is Issei, the school newest inner disciple."
"He?" The old man said in surprise, as if the fact that an eleven years old was accepted as an inner disciple was insignificant when compared to Issei's gender.
After looking Issei up and down a couple of times, the old man couldn't help but to mutter, "Such a convincing trap..."
Before Sa Ji and Issei could reply, the old man quickly followed up, "Either way, fill this papers with your info. Afterward, bring them here and you'll receive your tokens."
He then quickly pushed two papers into Sa Ji's hand immediately went back to scribbling something in the same paper as before.
Sa Ji then sighed, handed one paper to Issei and then begun to fill in his information with a pencil, Issei then doing the same.
After that, they both turned it in, receiving a small, blue wooden token.
Afterward, they both headed back to their dorms.
That night, Issei dreamed about being chased by an army of leaves.
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