"Master... I... did... it..."

Elizabeth's body fell unable to hold her own weight but never made an impact on the ground.

Instead, she now lay unconscious in the arms of her master who appeared next to her the moment she was lost to oblivion.

As she rested in his arms, the master sighed. He had overdone it, the last couple of months were a wild ride for so many different reasons. He had learned what was to connect with another human being, He guessed this sense of fulfillment was why everyone was so gung-ho in getting disciples despite how much they ate into their path to immortality and power.

He brushed her hair out of her exquisite face as it stuck on her, wet due to sweat and her own 'ice' element. Samuel had misconstrued her devotion and desire for him as laziness and made her regime while accounting that she would try to slack off. What he did not expect, was that she would give everything she had to finish his entire training regime and try to do extra.

First, he was going to apologize to his disciple, then he was going to re-arrange the whole regime. Slowly caressing the wet and sticky cheeks, he took her into an outdoor bath where he had already prepared a host of medicinal herbs and alchemical pills, all augmented by his World Seed. He carefully disrobed her kicking himself upon seeing all the bruises that had been left on her and all the micro-injuries on her internal organs.

None of these would impact her negatively. Other elders would even say, "She must learn the hardships of being a cultivator."

He would tell those other elders to go kindly remove themselves from the sect. They did not understand the hardships she had gone through before meeting him. It was bad enough to turn into a drama, he had personally watched multiple days of said drama.

One could make an argument that most of it was her fault, she could have just gone with the flow and given her fellow disciples her chastity. Samuel would personally like to see who they were, he wanted to have a very fruitful 'conversation' with those people.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

He fussed about, carefully placing her into the comfy tub he had handcrafted, slowly putting the medicine in, and keeping his fly out in the open next to her face in case she wanted a snack when she woke up.

What he did not know was that two grand elders and dozens of their disciples were looking in at his outdoor bathing arrangement.

His show all those months ago had not gone unnoticed and many people had taken a keen interest in him. Most did not have the balls to do anything, such was his might. But the grand elders and their disciples were much stronger than him still and he could not begin to think to challenge even the disciples of the two ancient monsters of the sect.

The said monsters were currently sweating bullets as their disciples looked at their dynamic green with envy.

"Master. How come we never got anything like that?"

"Yeah... How come she has more effort being spent on her than we get combined?"

The accusations came flying as the old masters desperately tried to keep their disciples in control.

"Well... You see... it... It is because she is a cauldron and he treats her as a dao companion!"

"Really. Because I do not even get half as much attention as that 'cauldron'."

"Well... That's because she is only a cauldron! Yes! He is bound to get more and then you will see! I give my disciples much more attention than him! I simply have too many disciples!"

"Oh... really..."

"Yes! All of you must simply wait till the next sect tournament! He is putting all this effort to market his own value. I am sure he simply wants a harem of accursed cauldrons at his beck and call. He is just laying a honey trap!"

Many of the disciples were looking at each other, a myriad of schemes going into their heads.

The masters were both annoyed and concerned. Samuel was too good of a cultivator to just kill off because of the offense he had unknowingly caused, but their lives would be very difficult if the young one continued on his current trend. They too were devising schemes in their heads.

If that was not bad enough, his legend had only grown over the last couple of months as most masters were terrible gossip. Some were thinking of offering themselves to him, just to see if they would be taken.

Samuel was currently playing house with his one and only disciple, with only the intention of getting another in the form of her relative. At that moment, he was just enjoying taking care of his Elizabeth as she sleepily suckled on him trying to think of better ways to train the sexy girl.

The naive genius was completely oblivious to all the dominoes he had unwittingly set up. All of which were on the verge of tipping over. The gears were slowly and they were all converging on the master-disciple pair that were simply minding their own business.