The usual spike of customers in the morning was already over when Yui decided to go enter the Jungle of Fury area. Her cultivation strength was hard to define, as she had a lot more raw power than most other cultivators but she was still lacking control. She also wanted to test her new bow that was recently made for her by some of the craftsmen. They needed someone to test their new bows, which were simply made, but of good quality nonetheless.
Hunting in the jungle, with danger being everywhere, no buildings that she could destroy by accident as well as lots of room to move, seemed like a good idea to hone her skills some more. Yui regularly went into the beast areas, but usually she would just tag along with their own hunters in order to protect them or to acquire new tamed beasts.
None of their current hunters had high enough cultivations to go into the Jungle of Fury on their own, but with their rapidly advancing cultivation, as well as the support from their newly acquired tamed beasts they would soon be able to manage on their own.
"Ryoma, can you look after the shop for me?"
"Yes, sure, I just move my work over here to the shop while you are away."
Yui stuffed some food and other things into her dimensional pouch, wondering what she might encounter in the jungle.
"Miss Tai, are you heading out to go hunting?" a familiar voice called out to her.
While Yui was busy with packing her travel gear, a small group of people had entered the pavilion. They did not look like regular customers, but some of them seemed familiar to Yui.
"Oh, you're the one who asked about the cake." she remembered a moment later.
"Yes, yes, can we make some later?"
The people standing and sitting around in the shop area were all rather surprised.
"Isn't this the princess? What is she doing here?"
"Yes, it definitely is her highness. Do you think she will cause some trouble?"
"Whatever she is going to do, it's going to be fun to watch."
Various whispers could be heard all over the shop room with the regular customers discussing the royal family and their all too well-known princess.
"Sure, we can go make some cake after the shop closes."
The princess was already excited before they had even started
"Awesome, I can't wait. If you go out hunting, we can join you! It will be easier with a group, right?"
"I … I guess." Yui was not very used to someone who absolutely held no regard to things like keeping their distance. Most people she had met so far were rather reserved.
"I'm going into the Jungle of Fury. If you want to join me, make sure your people are at least of mid foundation stage. They should at least be able to defend themselves somewhat."
"Mid foundation stage?" Princess Harue paused for a moment. Out of their whole group only Yumine and herself were at mid foundation stage, yet this girl who did not look any older than herself, mentioned it, as if it was the bare minimum someone should have.
True, this jungle listed the various beasts' strength and it made sense to not ignore the recommendations of the pavilion, but Harue was all too used to be one of the strongest people of her own generation.
There were not a lot of young people in Yura or even the surrounding kingdoms who could compete with her in terms of cultivation strength. Decent talent, along with being fed countless spirit resources since she was young, not many could compete with her.
"Yumine, you tag along, the others wait here for us." She quickly decided.
"But your highness, we can't just …" A glance from Harue made Yumine sigh and give up what she just wanted to say. Harue turned to Yui again and introduced herself.
"I'm Harue, this is my friend Yumine. Do you think we will be alright, with just the three of us?"
"Mhm, we should be fine. I'm Yui, but you likely already know that. Just don't run off too far and let me handle anything that is getting troublesome."
While the princess and her friend put on some soft grey leather armor, obviously Harue also had a dimensional storage of some kind, Yui just put on a cloak as if she wouldn't go to fight beasts.
The princess was not very tall, but obviously a lot better trained than Yui had ever been. Her body was rather athletic, not to the point of no longer looking feminine enough, but still rather different to someone like Yui who was until recently just a high school girl, spending most of her time sitting in front of her PC or watching TV shows.
Harue had light brown hair bound into twin tails reaching a bit over her shoulders and eyes that looked like a mix of brown and gold, a color Yui had never seen back in her own world.
Her friend Yumine had a much more refined appearance, with the bangs of her black hair forming drills and the remaining locks falling a bit over her back, with two little buns on each side holding it together somewhat.
Deep blue eyes and a very ladylike pose made it obvious that this woman was a lot more concerned with her appearance and style than a certain princess she would watch over.
Yui quickly considered letting the two of them pay, but as this was not a regular hunting trip for them, she decided to waive the fee. It seemed way too troublesome to figure out how to split the rewards and she also did not want to stay a full day in the jungle.
Thinking about it some more, Yui preferred this 'puppy girl' who enthusiastically followed her around when she compared her to the old people who were sent before, who all thought they could threaten her just because she was young.
Maybe improving their relationship with the Yura Kingdom with this princess might actually work out.
Having received a new title from Yui without even knowing about it, Yura 'Puppy Girl' Harue was checking her armor and equipment once more before walking over to Yui.
"All ready!"
Ryoma meanwhile glanced at the gathered young women and felt slightly sorry for the anxious looking Yumine.
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Yui's optimistic and happy attitude she showed as a shopkeeper was already rather extreme and only offset by her shy and introverted personality when she wasn't taking care of the shop.
This princess on the other hand, seemed outgoing and not shy at all, with her temperament of a volcano and enough energy to move mountains being all natural and not just some mask that she used to interact with others.
All three of them disappeared in a flash and found themselves in the Jungle of Fury.
-
The first thing they encountered was a spirit tiger, one of the more common spirit beasts to be found here. Harue was engaging it right away, wielding a long snake spear with a sharp pointy metal tip and a wavy blade on a wooden shaft.
It was not adorned with any decorations and did not look very special by itself, but the material could easily handle the impact and did not even bend slightly. Yui had heard that some spears were designed to bend in certain ways, but obviously this was not one of them.
While Harue took the tiger head on with the advantage in range her spear offered her, Yumine was flanking the beast with a one-handed sword. A straight blade and a typical intricate design reminiscent of various ceremonial weapons that Yui had seen, except this seemed to be a spirit weapon of some sort, the weapon cutting straight through the fur and flesh of the tiger.
"Watch out!" Yumine was worried about the princess as the tiger was rushing right at her, swiping its claws at the young woman viciously. If these claws hit her, even her cultivation strengthened body would not be able to protect her completely.
Harue twirled around moving out of the way of the tiger's charge and at the same time changing her spear stance from a position to stab to a horizontal blow with the shaft.
The tiger however, barely noticed the blow, it's body far tougher than those of cultivators of the same stage. Harue was excited. She rarely had a fight that made her feel like she was in any kind of danger, but this tiger was obviously a strong enough opponent to require all of her attention and skill.
With such a strong beast, she was sure it would be a long but rewarding battle.
As the tiger was in melee combat, Yui had enough time to take out her new bow. It was a design that was not much different from a japanese daikyu. A bow larger than herself, with the handle about two thirds from the upper end.
The materials were all of some spiritual nature, making the bow far better and more resilient than what she was used to though.
Yui didn't have any arrows, making them with pure spiritual energy, training her control by only releasing a tiny bit to form this arrow, before releasing it in a controlled way, training both her skill with handling smaller amounts of power, as well as her aim and how to use it.
The bow made a whining noise, as if protesting about the huge amount of spirit energy rushing through its string and limbs and Yui frowned a bit.
'I used too much power again.' she thought, and it was already too late to change the output now. A bright flash brightened the whole area for a moment, before it dimmed down again.
Disappointed, she looked at the remains of the tiger, with a big hole in the middle of its body and a twenty-meter-long ditch behind it. The spirit arrow not only had enough strength to shoot right through the tiger, but it wasn't stopped until all that earth was dug up.
"Ah, sorry, I used a little bit too much power."
Harue and Yumine were in the middle of a fight, when the tiger suddenly dropped dead with a hole in the middle. It was a good thing that Yui did not aim in a direction where they were in the way.
Yumine still held her sword raised for another slash, while Harue was ready to stab the deadly beast once more. Both were now looking at the more than dead beast with open mouths.
"What kind of arrows are you using to produce such results?" Harue asked, after some time of making sense of what had just happened.
She was curious what type of arrows would bring such disaster and destruction. She wanted to have some too!
"Uh, I simply make them with spirit power."
"I have never heard of someone shooting arrows made of spirit power. Why not just use it directly without a bow?"
"It's sort of a training for me. My sis told me that my control isn't good enough, I should improve my skill with just using small amounts of power to avoid any problems in the future. Also, with a bow, if I shape my power into the form of an arrow, it will have a much bigger range with less spirit power consumption."
"I'm sure uncle Yafuu would be pretty happy if you train your shooting at his place." Harue chuckled.
"Uncle Yafuu?"
"Ah miss Yui, master Yafuu is a general of the western border. The forests and hills near the border to Tanawa Kingdom are filled with many different spirit beasts and the fortress at the border region is often sieged." Yumine added some tidbit of information.
"Uncle Yafuu always complains that they have no good way to deal with all the critters before they are at the walls." Harue added, smiling as she had to think of the grumpy uncle of hers who spoiled her just like everyone else in her family.
"Why don't you deploy archers there?"
"There are many archers, but I have never heard of a way to form an arrow out of spirit power. We also don't have such great spirit bows. I don't think we'd have to funds to acquire them for our regular soldiers."
"They are only Steel Bamboo bows though, perhaps like 100 spirit stones a piece." Yui mumbled, not sure what else to say and still confused why they would not use such a simple thing.
"What? 100 spirit stones? You mean first tier stones? For such an excellent bow? How many could you make or sell us?"
Turning from her clueless hunter personality to her businesslike one Yui quickly calculated the prices and the work effort.
"Currently we have enough to do with the upcoming auction, but once that is done, we could sell you about 1000 bows the following month as a one time offer. I usually don't want our craftsmen dragged down with work like this, but it would be good training for them."
"That sounds really like a great deal. I will check with father and I'm sure we can come to an agreement. Too bad our people don't know how to use spirit power instead of arrows though."
"I could teach them?" Tora never really bothered much about many of the techniques she taught Yui as they were much too weak in her opinion. Her sister wouldn't mind if she taught some people these skills.
"Oh, you would share this knowledge with our people? What do you want for it?"
It did not take long for Yui to think of something. "A school. I want to build a school."
"Why would you want to build a school?"
"I cannot teach everyone. I cannot do everything on my own either. We don't have a lot of people but hiring more people would also mean taking care of more people. I have neither the time, nor the patience to do that."
Yui quickly outlined her plans for such a school.
"The people who work for the Earthly Treasured Pavilion are important to me. I don't want them to just become stupid work beasts who can do no more than follow orders. I want them to be smart, think for themselves and be productive beyond manual labor."
"If I want them to become smarter, they need a better education. I can teach them cultivation methods and they can share it with others, but life is not all about cultivating. They should learn about many other things, like language, literature, architecture, laws, economics and all the various topics."
"I see, that is a rather odd idea, but I see no reason why not to have such a school. How is this related to battle and combat techniques?"
"Simple. Cultivation and combat are part of a well rounded education for this … place." Yui nearly said 'world' but that would have caused some questions she would rather avoid.
"If you provide some decent teachers and a place where our people can learn, then our Pavilion will provide various cultivation, battle and manufacturing techniques as well. A certain number of students will come from the pavilion, while your family will also get a share of student slots. The remaining will be for the general population and will be selected on a fair selection process open to everyone in the Yura Kingdom."
"Open to everyone in the kingdom?"
"Yes, if the workers on your fields show effort and aptitude, then they will be given the same chance to join as nobles and the like. There will be no shortcuts because of rank or status."
"How would they be able to join though?"
"The pavilion will provide a transportation talisman for every applicant in the kingdom once a year for kids of a certain age. I handle the way of transportation, your family handles the distribution throughout the kingdom."
"Sounds like quite the challenge, to get these things to every place in the kingdom."
Yui just shrugged, fully aware of how interesting all these techniques were and how much effort people would go to learn them.
"I'll bring it up with dad. I'm sure we find a way to do this. Why don't we head back?"
"Uh, we only got one tiger so far." Yui looked at the remains once more, suddenly realizing that these two likely didn't want to hunt with her any longer, feeling depressed by her show of force.
"Oh well, you're right, we still want to make cake too." Shrugging, Yui transported them back into the pavilion, her mind still on the plans for their new school and what she would do with such a place.