Alex didn’t loose his consciousness. Turns out Nabia knew some kind of mind technique herself and maybe even was going to teach him, of course, after thoroughly abusing him first, but Alex’s outburst made her really angry. No one in her life dared to insult her like this and probably mentioning her father broke the straw that held her already the short temper in tact.

Even if his vision darkened, Alex clearly knew where the girl retreated. For the most part during the past months he had gotten used to the scent of the sweet lilies, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t immediately pinpoint her location.

Nabia stood few meters from Alex with a victorious smile on her face, when he suddenly arrived next to her, grabbed her by the waist and smacked her round bottom saying, “Naughty girls need the be punished!”

For a split second she froze in shock, but then pushed him away and with a quick, but beautiful roundhouse kick landed her left heel on Alex’s cheek.

“I’ll kill you!” She hissed through her teeth, but the one she intended to murder already flew down the Southern peak.

Alex’s vision returned immediately after, but when he realized he half rolled, half fell down the hill, purely out of habit focused on his ‘plan b’. It wouldn’t surprise him if he broke his neck in the current situation. He heard her shout and the panicked yelp right after, but didn’t pay attention on it. A split second later he landed on the rocks near the river and lost consciousness.

He woke up a while later feeling someone shaking him.

“Don’t you know you could permanently disable someone by shaking like this?” Alex weakly said.

His vision was blurry as it usually happened after a heavy concussion, but he could clearly discern the scent of lilies and knew who was shaking him.

“Hmph! So you didn’t die after all!” She snorted and let him go throwing him back on the rocky ground.

Alex didn’t see her watery eyes nor did he hear what she said while he was unconscious, but now that she realized he didn’t loose his life, she immediately returned to her previous self.

“Ye, don’t worry – you’ll still have your chance.” He grinned while scanning his body to calculate the damage.

It was actually quite bad – both hands were broken, skull, probably, fractured along with at least a dozen other fractures.

“Idiot!” She swore, kicked him and went away.

“Ye, obviously.” Alex loudly said with a sigh.

He lie there for several minutes gathering his strength and only then slowly got up and carried his sorry figure towards the fox den. He had no clue how to light up a torch with two broken hands, but by now it should be possible to find the way to the Qi pond in the dark as well. An our later he submerged in the milky white water and passed out.

After Alex condensed his Qi and became a Qi warrior, for some reason his body stopped floating in the pond, but sunk. At first he was worried he could drown like that, but after some experimentation he realized he could lie under water for several hours as if he was some kind of yogi. The intensity of Qi at the bottom of the pond was higher and currently it allowed him to heal faster as well.

Of course, he would’ve preferred to cultivate and ‘catch’ the soul particles instead of recuperating again, but it was his own bad judgment that led to this. Alex clearly understood his own wish to blame the girl, but he was the one who had lived so many lives and should’ve foreseen such outcome.

The next few days at the training grounds were awkward. Neither Alex nor Nabia said anything or looked at each other and after practicing few techniques, Alex rushed to the library. The news of him being thrown down the Southern peak didn’t spread – apparently no one saw it, thus the incident was mostly forgotten.

It already seemed that his life would continue like this, when on the fifth morning Nabia approached him.

“Are you ok?” She quietly asked.

Alex swallowed a sarcastic remark and said forcing a smile, “Don’t worry, I’m fine. You know better than anyone how many hits I can take.”

“Ok.” She nodded, but didn’t leave.

Seeing her standing there awkwardly, Alex said, “Don’t be like that. We’re fine. Just say if there is anything on your mind.”

“How did you … how did you know where I was?” Nabia asked blushing all over.

It took a moment for Alex to guess what she meant, but then he smiled and shook his head, “Not telling. You might really kill me this time. No joke.”

“Why?” She immediately became upset.

“The moment something doesn’t fit with you, you become violent. Honestly – it’s scary.” Alex said.

“Is it a technique?” Nabia ignored his answer and asked.

Alex thought for a second and nodded, “You can say so. But I’m not giving it out for free!”

“What do you want?!” She blushed again and took a step back.

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“What the hell is going on in that pretty head of yours?” Alex laughed, “You owe me the last part of your explanation, remember? First that and afterwards we can discuss what kind of a deal we can make.”

“One can create partial soul brand to protect themselves from weak mental attacks.” Nabia quickly shot out something she prepared in advance, “You can dedicate few soul particles for that and later just disperse them finding new ones instead.”

Alex watched her with interest and wondered if anyone ever had seen this side of hers.

“There you go!” He said with a smile, “Was not that hard, was it?”

Seeing her awkwardly blush again, he asked, “Wanna spar? But no mind tricks allowed!”

This time they practiced till late afternoon. The awkwardness soon disappeared and both finally felt comfortable, to the extent of course, but enough to go to the eatery together. It felt strange for both of them, especially since neither knew what to say during the meal, even Alex with his almost hundred years of experience, but the main gain of the day was Nabia promising she wouldn’t attack him in the future just because of something he said.

On the way back to his residence Alex met Jamil with four other saint candidates. A couple of their former bunch actually managed to become saints and their lines got thinner, but being a saint candidate in addition to being noble was enough to throw ones weight around in the capital, thus they didn’t loose one bit of their haughty bearing.

“Alex, what are you so happy about?” Jamil shouted from a distance noticing him.

“Right back at you!” Alex nodded. He was indeed in a good mood, but there was no way he would tell anything to this blabbermouth.

He asked “Are you going out again?”

“Ye, everyone is kind of getting suffocated here and we’re gonna let out some steam.” Jamil laughed back.

‘Seriously? Suffocated in the place with the richest Qi in the whole empire?’ Alex wanted to smack him, but held back.

Not all knew what it was to be locked up in an educational facility like he was in the College of evangelism. But at this thought he froze. He clearly remembered what the main source of entertainment there was and these youths were of a similar age as the oldest ones in the college were!

“You’re going to get in trouble.” Alex said, “Be careful.”

They were not really close, but could be considered friends, thus it would be a pity if he degraded to a level where he would rape someone.

“Don’t worry, Zain will tag along.” Jamil winked, but Alex realized his suspicions were correct.

Zain was one of the group of noble candidates he had to meet while staying in Isa residence. Last year he managed to become a saint, but kept in touch with his former buddies and apparently they grew up to become drinking buddies as well. The problem was – Zain was really into girls and his presence meant the guys would definitely get laid. The different question was if the girls would have a chance to give their consent.

After quickly weighing the options, Alex said, “Don’t you know there is a specially dedicated industry for what you are about to do? And without any risks of getting caught?”

The boys froze in their tracks and the five pairs of eyes stared back at Alex.

“Come on! Didn’t your fathers teach you anything?” But then he realized that the existence of brothels and prostitutes wasn’t taught in any of his families either.

“What do you know? Exactly?” Jamil stepped towards Alex and poked his shoulder indicating the importance of the subject.

“Sigh, go get some straw hats and throw on a casual clothing so you won’t get recognized on the streets. Let’s meet at the entrance in half an hour.” Alex helplessly said.

Although he had no clue where the ‘red district’ was in Tabulan, he could spare a few hours in order to educate this bunch.

The next morning atmosphere on the training grounds changed completely. Alex had spent the night in blissful meditation in his Qi pond, but the red eyes and the stench of alcohol coming from few boys spoke clearer than words about their nightly activities. If only that, it would be fine, but the heroes of yesterday loudly bragged about their achievements to the others intriguing everyone around them, even the haughty saints.

Party that met these news with disgust were the female students and everyone around them instantly got marked as perverts. Even that would be ok, but the guys Alex took out last night didn’t shy off to credit him for their happiness and now his former opponents and haters flocked over for advice and guidance. Thus he immediately became the biggest pervert of all and the source of all the trouble in the world.

Upset by such turn of events, Alex went to the library in his head counting the days left in the academy. Truth to be said, it was a useless endeavor since he already decided to stay here at least for a couple of decades, but it somewhat lifted his mood.

Unfortunately it was meant to be brought down again. In front of the library there were six female students with the furious Nabia in the lead.

It was impossible to take them on in a fight since two of them actually were saints and he was already evenly matched with Nabia alone. But to tackle them in an oral fight seemed completely useless and Nabia’s words proved it.

“Leave!” She commanded in a tone that didn’t allow any compromises.

“What?” Alex instinctively asked.

“Leave and never come back if you want to keep your sorry life!” Nabia angrily said.

“First of all, it’s not for you to decide and second, what the hell is wrong with you? And why would I leave?” Alex was becoming angry himself.

“Just kill that pervert! Teachers won’t punish us for getting rid of that trash!” One of the saints shouted and the bunch slowly encircled him.

“Alright.” Alex smiled and closed his eyes, then took a deep breath and said, “But I promise – I can take at least two of you with me. Ask Nabia if you don’t believe me.”

“You!” The saint from earlier stopped and looked at Nabia only to see her give a sad nod.

“Not coming?” After waiting for a moment Alex opened his eyes again, “Then why don’t you tell me what do you think I did wrong so I could explain why you are mistaken!”

“I’m not going to sully my ears with his dirty lies!” Another student said, “Let’s go and request the academy council to expel him!”

Few seconds later only Alex and Nabia were left. She was still angry and he still had no clue what he had to do. He never actually dealt with an angry woman even when he was one himself, to not speak with a bunch of them at the same time. The fact that five already left could be counted as a small victory.

The two stared at each other for a couple of minutes and then Nabia finally said, “You have one chance!”

“To do what? Explain myself?” Alex laughed, “I don’t even know what do you think I did wrong!”

“You … you led them yesterday to the city to … to do all those perverted things!” She blushed and angrily retorted.

“Now we’re getting somewhere! You see – it’s not that hard to actually communicate!” Alex smiled, but seeing her face flush red again, this time from anger, he became serious, “Ok, jokes aside – do you know what the teenage boys are like?”

He didn’t actually expect her to answer, but looked around and said, “Let’s go sit down over there. It’ll take a while.”