"May I ask why?" Samuel asked seriously, his tone respectful. The battle was over and Elizabeth had left to get her checkup from the sect healers. He could kill a few minutes before he performed his own much more thorough analysis.
The girl who had just asked to become his disciple looked incredibly nervous but stood there determined. His response was equally respectful.
The girl listened, sighed, and then looked back at him in shock. She had not expected a question, in her mind, it would either be a rejection or acceptance.
Samuel was standing on one of the countless public viewing platforms next to mortals and disciples, many of whom had no idea that they were standing to a nascent soul master, only a very attractive 'young' man. They were not strong enough to even begin to understand the depth of his power and the control he held over it, especially as he had it suppressed.
As was common among all walks of life people loved 'excitement' and standing shoulder to shoulder with a master ranked very very high.
Their exchange had opened the floodgates and there were many gasps at the revelation that he was a master. There was now a wide berth between the two of them and the rest of the crowd and everyone now stood in awe of him, as if they had not just stood next to him for the better part of an hour with no fanfare.
Samuel could have joined the private booths squared away for masters like himself to save this sort of headache. But those things were of were rife with sect politics and one thing he knew with certainty was that nothing good ever came out of getting yourself involved in those messes.
But his attention soon focused on the words she spouted out next.
"I... heard that you are kind... and... and! you carried your first disciple on foot to your abode... so... so... I think you are dedicated... I want that sort of dedication..."
Samuel felt that there was something fishy about the arrangement but she had not said or done anything duplicitous so he reserved judgment. He said.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
"Very well. Come find me after the tournament, I shall give you a proper answer then. And thank you for the bravery you have shown, I know it must have been hard to come up and ask me this question."
He gave her the practiced smile along with the rehearsed line that to this day could catch Elizabeth off guard and make her blush.
The girl standing in front of him did blush and he mentally patted himself on the back for being 'suave' as the novel put it. In a few decades, he could maybe reach a state where he could naturally demand attention and not have to resort to imitation but this would make do.
What he did not realize was that combined with his natural good looks that were extremely enhanced due to his deep cultivation, he had captured the hearts of almost every girl, young and old, and many men as well with that smile.
One must remember that the image masters had was generally aloof, cold, and sometimes downright ruthless, and justifiably so. Drinking a master's cum or milk was a very common and a very practiced form of ascension for most non-heaven's-chosen. In truth, masters were outnumbered by multiple orders of magnitudes compared to disciples and their life would be a non-stop frat party where they were the constant main event if they allowed too much leeway. However, most masters learn this at extremely young ages by backstabs and manipulations. Samuel had skipped all of that given his reclusive lifestyle up to this point and he was a nascent soul, a 1% of 1% of 1% even if you took his heaven's chosen out of the equation which was another .1%.
A non-jaded and non-self-centered master was very very rare and he had advertised to a very large crowd that he was accepting disciples. He might not have said as much but the implications combined with his general kind demeanor and good looks, many many girls and some men just deluded that to be true.
However, at that moment most were very stunned and did not have anything 'prepared to offer' yet. It was natural to show off to a master and even if the dreamy man in front of them had different priorities it was good to cover bases. The mortals did not even know what was going on, all they knew that they were in the presence of a revered master. As such he was not approached by other offers.
But the rumors would spread like wildfire and there were many many men and women, boys and girls who wanted a master like Samuel.
However, our socially inept master had caught none of that as he realized that there was no need for random healers to dick around with her soul and body when he existed and as such he simply blinked away, leaving an army of dreamy gazes at his wake.