Chapter 22
“So, we just go up and announce ourselves?” Tan asked the villager, a young woman who was balancing a jar of water above her head.
“Yes, that’s right. If you’re looking to join the sect, you go to Elder Yotu’s house and announce yourself. If you are already cultivators, and I think you are, then you should announce yourself by displaying your cultivation,” she explained. “If you are advanced then he will hurry. If you are not then you may have to wait, but he will come if you do not leave sooner or later.”
“Thank you,” Tan said. She smiled at him.
“You … serve the empire?” she asked, looking at the trinket around his neck.
“Oh, yeah,” Tan said, fingering the symbol that each of the children had gotten for turning in the body of the bandit leader. “We provided a service and this was our reward.”
“That is good. The Whispering Guides reward meritorious service,” she told him. “When you are a few years older, you should come back to the village. Many of the young men come to us for drinking and female companionship.”
“I won’t be here that long,” Tan said. He would have blushed if he’d really understood her words and her look. “But thank you for the advice. Here, have a coin.”
He handed her one of the silver coins the empire had given them for the bounty, then turned away as she was thanking him. He stepped over to his friends, who had listened to every word of the conversation. “So, what do you think?”
“We’re not joining this sect, just fetching Hoten,” Pao pointed out. “But we’re also not sneaking about, so we should talk to whoever mans the front gate for them. That sounds like it’s this Elder Yotu. So we should do as she says.”
“Yeah,” Ko agreed. “Hopefully we don’t have to wait too long.”
They followed the path from the village towards the primary mountain of the Whispering Guides Sect’s primary compound and found the elder’s mansion right where the young woman had said it would be. They stepped up to the front door and flared their Qi and their Intent as brightly as they could, just as they’d been instructed.
The result was nearly instantaneous, with a harried Elder Yotu jumping out of a second story balcony a few seconds after they appeared. His eyes were wide as he looked about for the formidable warriors who had just announced themselves, then turned and saw four children in their place.
He blinked.
Children? How could children produce Intent like what he had just felt? Power was one thing; there was a young fire cultivator in their sect who was as strong as the strongest of them, but to produce such intent at this age was…
He swallowed, seeing their weapons. And sensing the intent from the weapons themselves . These were not mere children, and he immediately put on a welcoming smile.
“Hello! Hello! Welcome, young masters and young mistress, to the Whispering Guides Sect. We are honored that such illustrious and noble young sirs and madam as yourselves have come to join our humble—”
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“We’re not here to join,” Tan said, cutting off his speech. “A while ago a young man named Hoten came here. We’ve been sent to retrieve him.”
Elder Yotu blanched. He still remembered that day; it haunted him. The roiling Qi that had come out of that jade slip had been overwhelming. He had put in a good word for the boy, but the other elders hadn’t believed him that the hidden master who had referred the Red Rooster to the sect had been on the level of the sect master. At least on that level. Possibly far beyond; from the humble foothill upon which Elder Yotu sat, he could not see the peaks of such power.
“Has the Red Rooster done something wrong?” Yotu asked hesitantly.
For some reason, the girl snickered at the name.
“No, he hasn’t,” the youngest boy, who despite his age seemed to be the leader of the group. “It’s a family matter. He’s not in any trouble, he just has a filial duty to fulfill towards his parents. He should be able to return in the spring.”
Yotu relaxed. If it was just a personal matter, then there was no problem. “Do you, perhaps, carry a token of the hidden master who sent him here in the first place, to verify your words?”
The youngest boy blinked, then he seemed to remember something. “Oh yeah, he did give me a tablet to give you,” he said, and abruptly he pulled a small jade slip out of a storage--
The boy had a storage ring!
Yotu felt ill. Spatial manipulation items were exceedingly rare and expensive, with the imperial family of the Blue Dragon Empire having a monopoly on the artisans who could craft them. Whoever these young people were, they had deep connections.
And, noticing the talismans around their neck with the imperial symbol on them, he was afraid to question exactly who those connections were, lest they turn out to be exactly as lofty as he feared they might be. It would make perfect sense for a hidden master who served at the Emperor’s discretion to send his pupils on a mission such as this.
Yotu took the jade slip that the boy handed to him, but rather than immediately snap it to receive the message, he bowed to the young masters and the young mistress. “I will need to show this to the leadership of the sect. I am certain that the matter will be approved with no issues; however, in the mean time, I will give each of you a token worth one hundred contribution points. I invite you to visit our contribution points store and see if there are any resources there which might be beneficial towards your cultivation.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah that sounds great,” Tan said. “How long will it take you to check with your higher-ups?”
“I will convene them tonight and we will have the answer in the morning. In the mean time, you may rest comfortably in my house. My servants will be available for your every comfort, I will instruct them to serve you as if you were myself. Do not worry about me, I shall sleep in the inner compound tonight, if I sleep at all.”
“Okay. If you say so,” Tan said. “How do we find the contribution store?”
Having successfully distracted the youths, Yotu rushed off to the peak of the mountain to summon the other elders for a conclave, while Tan and the others climbed off towards the largest compound on the mountain’s girdle to see what the contribution points store had available for them.
Yotu glanced at the jade slip in his hands and grinned as he dashed towards the peaks. This time, there wouldn’t be any doubt about his words. The proof that a hidden master beyond compare lurked nearby would cause waves through the sect, but between fostering the growth of the Red Rooster and bribing these other students with the goods of the contribution store, perhaps they could get on the man’s good side and reap untold rewards.
On the roof of a mansion halfway up the mountain, a certain young man sneezed. Hoten frowned; he had been cultivating for fifteen hours straight. The pill was wearing off, and he could no longer focus.
He had some contribution points left to spend; he’d been saving them for a while. Now that he didn’t have to worry about buying pills or ingredients for pills, he wanted to see what his other options were. So, deciding to forego sleep for a while longer, that is where he went.