“So basically that’s the whole story.” Jack grinned while Leo had confusion written all over his face, “Laura Cloud’s poisoning was cured, the Angelic Dawn joined the Sacred Order, establishing the all female elite division and their territories were given away. Although the help of the Golden gate might’ve seemed expensive, the Angelic Dawn never had any spirit stone mines, thus in the grand scheme of things their territories were worthless. Of course, the merchant sect needed those in order to strengthen their influence in the Aurora mortal realm, but that has nothing to do with us.”
“But …” Leo wanted to get a word in, but his friend was too excited to notice.
When the Seven peaks army left and lady Evelyn finished her victory speech, Leo was forgotten almost in an instant. Every single disciple of the Sacred Order was more interested in the beauties who suddenly became a part of their sect. Male disciples for the obvious reason, of course, while the girls wanted to join the newly established division themselves.
To be ignored so suddenly was not what Leo expected, but it was not like he longed for attention. Unfortunately, before he could have a chance to sneak away to have a word with grandpa Noel and master Torben, from who knows where Jack finally showed up and pulled him away. Now they sat in Jack’s room where Leo was ‘filled in’ by his older friend.
“I know what you want to ask!” Jack said, “Where the hell was the sect master all this time and how did they manage to suddenly get thousands of people over, right? From what I heard, during the past two days she teleported over multiple times to stealthily observe the situation, but in between organized the forces of the Angelic Dawn and the Golden gate. She knew them showing up with a large army will end the war in an instant, but everything had to be done properly nonetheless. Obviously to teleport a whole army expenses were enormous and dried up the spirit stone reserves, but that’s not our problem. In fact, I must say, we have to be thankful to the Seven peaks for their attack otherwise hundreds of beauties would’ve never joined us on their own …”
“No, that’s not …” Leo went for an another attempt to interrupt him, but it was another futile one.
“You mean – how did they teleport such masses over so quickly? What you saw in the initial crowd was only a thousand and a half, so not that many and teleporting them in batches of thirty to forty did not take too long.” Jack expertly explained, “The main luck lie in the fact that both the Angelic Dawn and the Golden gate were located not that far from the second teleportation platform in our realm. Otherwise they would’ve never made it on time. Although with just three Nascent soul stage cultivators it might’ve been enough anyway …”
“Jack! Stop!” Leo finally couldn’t take the blabbering anymore. Some people might’ve found that information interesting or useful, but he cared more about something else, “Where in the world were you all this time? And how come you knew the right time to show up? I was looking for you during the past days and actually would’ve thought you died or something if not for your name on the stone slate ...”
Leo was happy and upset at the same time to finally meet his friend and now, after finally being able to utter a couple of sentences, for some reason suddenly felt huge relief. They both were kind of home and safe after all.
“Oh, that!” Jack sneakily looked around his tiny room and put the index finger to his lips indicating they shouldn’t speak, “I was among the others all the time, you must’ve missed me. Listen, why don’t we go to the city? I know a good place where we can chat.”
On the way Jack filled Leo in on all the interesting events that transpired in the sect during the past years.
The main news was him somehow becoming the personal disciple of elder Cooper. Of course, apart from Jack the head of the Artisan division had a handful of disciples, but the freshly acquired status propelled the youth to new heights and allowed him to use the sect’s resources and form the core. Obviously he immediately became one of the sect’s geniuses and, hopefully, a pillar for the future, but no one needed to know of their plans of running off to the Golden city.
Unsurprisingly all the other news were regarding Jack’s love conquests and when Leo also tried to brag a bit, he got immediately interrupted with another tale of Jack’s adventures. It did kind of spoil the mood a bit, but he missed his friend during the past years and decided to ignore his quirks.
Jack seemed to suffer from an oral diarrhea and continued to blab non stop until they arrived at a strange looking tavern. The three storey establishment build in red and white stones was located in a part of Avila city Leo had never been before, but they were still far from the outskirts.
“This is ‘Heart and soul’.” Jack said and for some reason Leo noticed a tinge of relief in his voice, “Here we’ll be finally able to talk properly.”
Leo almost tripped hearing his friend intended to talk even more. After all up until now they hadn’t had anything that could resemble a conversation since Jack was the only one who spoke.
Despite Leo’s love for the Firewater during his early years, for understandable reasons he never frequented inns, taverns or alehouses. Still, the ‘Heart and soul’ was not what he expected from a regular drinking establishment, especially the large amount of poorly dressed waitresses and the lack of customers inside. Of course, he was not going to complain about the slender legs and naked flat bellies, and the many pairs of plump breasts that were barely hidden by strange, but firm clothing Leo had never seen before – all of that was a pleasant feast for his eyes.
“Master Brown?” The moment they stepped in, Jack was recognized and a middle aged lady, who contrary to everyone else around here was dressed in a proper robe of dark red color, came forth to greet them, “You’re early!”
Unfortunately the robe was not the only thing that separated her from the crowd of waitresses – she was triple their size, in width, of course, and despite her facial features being rather pleasant, Leo only glanced at her and then continued to gawk at the half naked beauties sitting and standing around the large hall the two friends just entered. He was so busy staring he didn’t even notice the place didn’t have the characteristic Firewater aroma and smelled like something sweet and flowery instead.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Good morning, Francesca! You’ve always said I can come any time!” Jack happily greeted her, “Leo, meet madame Francesca Ricci!”
“Good morning!” Leo said with a nod, but madame’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Don’t tell me … it’s that Leo?!” She almost shouted, “Legendary Leo?”
“Hahaha! The one and only!” Jack laughed in return, but madame’s earlier words strangely woke up all the waitresses who were lazing around.
They immediately gathered around the two and apart from ‘good morning’ Leo had hard time discerning what they were saying since everyone spoke at the same time.
“We need the ‘special’ room!” Jack shouted in Francesca’s ear and the lady stormed through the waitresses like a carriage through a flock of sheep.
Both friends immediately followed and the relentless girls right behind them as well. Fortunately waitresses didn’t follow them inside the room madame brought them to, although judging from the loud murmurs behind the door they all were still there.
The room Jack and Leo now sat in was surprisingly small – not bigger than a hundred square feet. In the middle of it there was a small wooden table with two larger, dark red colored sofas at opposite sides. Walls of the room were of a similar dark red color and the lighting formation that madame Francesca turned on only accentuated it. To Leo the choice of color did seem strange because it made the place feel rather dark and maybe even gloomy, but since they came here to have an undisturbed talk, it didn’t matter how bright the room was, right?
“What can I offer you two?” Madame Francesca asked, “Do you already have particular girls in mind?”
“We’d like to chat undisturbed first, if you don’t mind.” Jack said.
“’Undisturbed’ costs spirit stones, master Brown.” Madame seriously said, but her expression immediately softened up the moment Jack showed several spirit stones in her hand.
“How long do we have?” He asked, “Does it buy us time until noon?”
“If you want until noon, it’ll cost you double you gave me.” Madame sweetly smiled back and when Jack added another bunch of spirit stones, said, “The drinks are on house this time! After all we have the honor of finally meeting the Legendary Leo!”
Then she placed several spirit stones in hidden sockets across the room and elegantly walked out. Few moments later one of the waitresses brought in a tray with snacks and a couple of bottles of Firewater, closely looked Leo in the eye, smiled and left.
“Daaaaamn! Man! How could you do this to me?!” Jack pretended to be upset, “I’ve been trying to get her attention for months, but you just show up and get Bianca without lifting a finger!”
“What?” Leo was completely confused.
“Sigh, doesn’t matter. I’m just a bit jealous.” Jack waved him off and opened one of the bottles, “It’s finally safe to talk without getting overheard. Francesca payed some serious money to purchase the shielding formation from the Golden gate, but at least now even a Nascent soul stage cultivator can’t hear a thing even if they stand behind the door. No wonder this place has the highest reputation in the city. Maybe even in our mortal realm.”
“But you just spent a fortune!” Leo’s friend got him confused over and over from the moment they met. While this amount of spirit stones was nothing much in the Golden city, here it had enormous value here.
“Well, my friend! We can afford it!” Jack happily laughed, “We’re rich!”
It kind of did make sense Jack could’ve amassed large amount of money with alchemy, but trading spirit stones was illegal in Avila city, at least few years ago. And if he worked under the supervision of elder Cooper, it was unlikely he would’ve been able to regularly steal from laboratories.
“It’s not what you think!” Jack said, noticing Leo’s perplexed expression. Then took a sip from the glass he just filled, widely grinned and whispered despite them being in a secure room, “I used your technique and cleaned up the storage unit in one of the spirit stone mines!”
“What?” The more his friend talked, the more Leo got confused.
“The rumors of the Seven peaks attacking the Sacred order circled around for some time and when they showed up at our doorstep no one really was surprised. In fact, I made some preparations and plans in case it happened.” Jack explained, “As you can guess I have no suicidal tendencies and didn’t intend to die just because someone else wanted me to ‘fight for the cause’ or some other bullsh*t, thus I sneaked away. Initially I thought both of us could go through with the plan after you got to the Core formation stage since my combat capabilities are severely lacking, but since you were not back at the time I had to do everything by myself.”
“What?” Leo couldn’t do anything else, but to repeat the same question. While talking Jack used familiar words and phrases, but put together they didn’t make any sense.
“Remember? Before you left, you broke into one of the warehouses.” Jack continued with the explanation after taking another sip and pointed at Leo’s chest where under the shirt was hidden the black amulet, “Of course, only now I know where the missing supplies went, but it became clear only last night when I first heard about your ‘heroic deeds’. No need to look at me like that – by now everyone in the Aurora mortal realm knows that Legendary Leo has a spacial treasure in the form of an amulet.”
Even though he didn’t like it, with the last part, of course, Leo had made his peace. The problem was that his friend up until now hadn’t actually explained anything.
Jack probably guessed it after glancing at his younger buddy’s expression and finally made an effort to clear up his confusion.
“Anyway …” He said, “When the Seven peaks arrived I rushed to one of the spirit stone mines, the one with the weakest security, and, using the method you employed the last time, broke in their storage and … ‘borrowed’ a bit of spirit stones. Well … mostly the higher grades and ... almost a full wagon. It was obvious that the Sacred Order would loose thus I never intended to hang around and, dressed as a woodcutter, pulled the damned wagon for two days. It was only on the second evening when I joined a camp of merchants where everyone was telling tales about an incredible youth who was taking on the whole enemy army by himself. At first it sounded like a complete nonsense and even if the description of the hero kind of fit you, I didn’t pay much attention to it. Only when your ‘grandpa Noel’ was mentioned, I realized you were actually involved and I had to return. Thus I buried the cargo, pushed the wagon in a river and rushed back.”
The story did seem rather unbelievable, but it surely sounded like something Jack could’ve had done. And the fact they now had a pile of spirit stones was good news.
“Did you get enough immortal rank spirit stones so we could teleport to the Golden city?” Leo asked.
“I think so.” Jack nodded, “Not many though. And after we chill here for a bit … after it gets dark – we should go and store everything in your thing.”