I laughed until my stomach hurt. “Come on, you guys, open your eyes. This is art.”
“Face the walls,” said Kharli to Lari and Mo.
They obediently turned away from the sculpture.
Shaking my head, I stifled another laugh and said, “Okay, give me a minute. I’ll cover it with a blanket.”
[Divine Sculpture:
A timeless masterpiece, frozen in clay. Two figures, entwined in an eternal embrace, radiate an otherworldly energy.]
It looked like Rodin’s The Kiss which showed a man and woman embracing. Unlike the original, these figures were both modestly clothed, but Lari, Kharli, and Mo simply weren’t used to seeing such a passionate scene depicted in a sculpture. Lips twitching in amusement, I draped a large bedsheet over it.
“You can take a look now.”
They turned around. Kharli was grinning, while the other two looked extremely embarrassed.
“More importantly, how many points did you all get?” I asked them.
“Fifteen,” said Mo.
“Seventeen,” said Lari.
We waited, but Kharli didn’t say anything. She looked up at the ceiling and pretended to ignore us until Mo pinched her arm.
“What did you get?” Mo gave Kharli a suspicious look. “Did you get like twenty?”
Kharli moved behind me and said in a mock-terrified tone of voice, “Teacher, please save me! It’s not my fault I got thirty points.”
I put both my hands up in a “stop and calm down” gesture. “Guys, you know as well as I do that Kharli has the best stamina out of all of us.”
It was true. By the last ten minutes of the game, Lari, Mo, and I were too tired to do more than slowly swing our tools with a little bit of force. Meanwhile, Kharli was still hacking away with great gusto at every spawn point.
“That’s because of the Wu family martial arts training I do every day.” Kharli stepped out from behind me and did the White Crane Spreads its Wings pose. “You two should practice the forms Scholar Wu taught us if you want more points.”
Lari and Mo rolled their eyes and groaned.
Kharli followed it up with Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain pose, and they did a mock battle with various martial arts forms like Part the Wild Horse’s Mane, Grasp the Bird’s Tail, Cloud Hands, etc.
I waited a few minutes and said, “I think we should allocate our points now.”
They all stopped what they were doing, and their facial expressions turned into looks of deep concentration as they exchanged their points for exp.
I had eighteen points and used all of them on Cooking.
[Congratulations, you just advanced a Cooking level!]
[Your Cooking level is now 10.]
My other skills were more useful, but Cooking was the hardest for me to level up since, for some unknown reason, I tended to burn stuff instead of cooking it properly.
“Three Mining levels,” said Lari.
“Me, too,” said Mo.
“Four levels for me.” Kharli grinned at the others’ envious looks.
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“Wonderful! I got one Cooking level,” I said. “Shall we go back out of the portal? Are your reports done?”
The three of them huddled together and had a whispered conversation. When they were done, they all turned towards me, and Kharli said, “Teacher, we have a question about the Vermillion Bird clan. Scholar Wu won’t tell us anything because discussion about their zidan is taboo.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What question?”
“You’re going to the North in two days, and we’re worried. Why do the clan members think you can’t get the Vermillion Bird clan to join the war?”
“Pfft. There’s no need to worry. I won’t fail, and even if I did, I wouldn’t be blamed for it since they think it’s an impossible task.”
Prince Baiyu’s mother, the Lady of the West, said it was hopeless, but had agreed to my plan simply because I had done so much for the clans that it was hard for them to refuse.
Kharli frowned. “But why is it impossible?”
I shrugged. “It’s many things. You know how they lost their zidan, right? That part is taboo to talk about, too, but there are many stories about it anyway.”
My apprentices nodded.
“They say the Vermillion Bird clan’s ruler was called the Red Hand because he liked to butcher babies,” said Mo. “He was trying to determine if the saying ‘an innocent person’s heart has seven apertures’ is literal.”
“I heard he made a Forest of Corpses and a Lake of Blood in his palace garden,” said Lari.
“Scholar Wu said those were exaggerations,” said Kharli.
“Hmm.” I wasn’t too sure about that. A lot of the literature from that era had the same stories in them. “In any case, the fact that most of their population was killed in a disaster and the survivors lost their zidan is considered heaven’s judgment. Only another equally powerful sign from the heavens would cancel it out.”
Lari chuckled. “Isn’t the upcoming demon war enough of a sign?”
I put my arms around Mo and Kharli’s shoulders and said, “Yes, but it’s a negative omen. They seem to think it’s further proof that the Vermillion Bird clan is cursed. But why are you guys asking me this?”
“Teacher, when you asked us to stay here to look after the farm while you go North, we wanted to stay, but…” Kharli’s eyes flickered nervously, darting around the room as she struggled to find the word to express what she wanted.
“We all want to go, too!” Mo burst out, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “It will be a historic event.”
“And there will be a huge feast,” added Lari.
I laughed. “Okay, but one of you has to stay and take care of the crops and animals. Mo, are you sure you don’t want the exp?”
To my surprise, Mo stood firm. “Yes, Teacher, I’m sure.”
Lari grinned and said, “They heard there will be a lot of handsome, half-dressed male clan members there to ogle.”
Mo rolled her eyes at him. “We all know you’ll be the one ogling people the most!”
“Half-dressed?” I asked, confused.
“Traditional formal wear for the Vermillion Bird clan looks like this.” Kharli took out a book from her inventory and showed me some drawings. “The Southerlands isn’t a desert, but it’s very hot, so they don’t wear much.”
In the drawings, men and women wore loose trousers and long, fitted linen tunics held up by two shoulder straps. The caption at the bottom noted that these were the basic garments and that clan members also covered themselves in tons of heavy, intricate jewelry. The clothing was not particularly immodest by modern Earth standards, but I could see why the kids thought it was too revealing, especially the part about the tunics being thin and, in some parts, transparent.
I handed the book back to Kharli. “No comment. We’ll draw lots to see who will stay.”
We went outside where the kids gave their tutor their written reports. I wrote the kids’ names on three pieces of paper and folded them. I wanted the kids to draw lots themselves, but they insisted that I do it.
“Lari and Kharli,” I said.
“Yes!” Lari did a little dance.
“Too bad, Mo,” said Kharli.
“Cheer up,” I said to Mo. “Think of all the exp you’ll get.”
“We’ll bring you back some jewelry,” said Lari. “The market there is famous for it.”
“Sorry, but I don’t think we’ll have time to shop.” I patted Mo’s head. “I’ll give you double the usual pocket money next time you guys go to Anwei.”
Though Mo wasn’t as concerned about acquiring wealth as Lari, she did like to shop, so this cheered her up a bit.
“And if there’s a next trip, I’ll bring you along,” I said. “Let’s leave. Scholar Wu is waiting.”
The kids stepped through the portal before me without incident, but when I went through, I got a surprising System notification.
[You’ve won a Special Prize for completing The Divine Sculptor's Arcane Atelier minigame.]
[Would you like to collect your prize now?]
I immediately clicked on the [Yes] button and examined the prize that appeared in my inventory.
[Ancient Wisdom Garden Seed Mix:
A special prize you won from a minigame.
This packet contains the seeds of five Ruling Plants.]
Mentally clicking on the “Ruling Plant” part of the item description yielded a System text that made my heart beat faster in excitement.
[Ruling Plant Seed:
Just as humans have rulers, so do spiritual plants. This packet contains five random seeds that will grow into a supreme being with dominion over a specific plant species. It possesses the ability to influence and control the growth and development of its subjects.
Effect: Boosts crop growth and quality for its species]