Kenja stood in front of a sign that had a rough map of the sect on it.
The day wasn't over, and now that most people were focused on the sect's blessing, he could tour the rest of the city without walking through crowds of disciples.
"If we want to purchase my wax, we should go to the smithy." Snail suggested in anticipation.
Kenja ignored Snail as he mentally noted the important locations on the map.
Kenja's first official day touring the sect had been quite fortuitous. Over the course of a few hours, he had essentially become the richest disciple in the sect.
While his accrued wealth in Ryuga was no longer at the level of a pauper, he had not been rich enough to spend on luxuries. Naturally, he was excited to reap the benefits he could only dream about before.
'The pill apothecary, architect's studio, smithy, servant quarters, bazaar, lecture hall…' Kenja's excitement grew as he surveyed the variety of places to visit.
"What am I going to do? No one wants to trade my credits for their spirit stones!" a Body Tempering disciple complained to another.
"Give it up and go to the Treasury. No one will give you their spirit stones now that the river is flowing," his friend advised.
"You are right, but I wish they weren't so expensive."
"It is your fault for not stocking up. You can't cultivate credits, so you should have saved some spirit stones," he lectured his despairing friend.
Kenja couldn't help but overhear their loud discussion. He turned his head and asked them, "You can trade your credits for spirit stones at the Treasury?"
They paused to look at him, about to admonish the eavesdropper, but they held themselves back when they saw it was an inner-sect sister with a higher cultivation than them.
One of them smiled and replied, "Yes, senior sister, you can trade your credits for spirit stones and other things at the Treasury."
Kenja's interest was piqued. "I can purchase other things as well?"
The other disciple smiled even wider and stepped in front of his friend, "Yes, senior sister, you can also purchase lecture passes for attending certain lectures or exclusive items put up as prizes by the elders."
Kenja nodded his head, satisfied with their explanation. "Thank you, junior brothers."
"If you need a guide to the Treasury, senior sister, I am heading there as well. I can lead you to it," added the disciple who was desperate for spirit stones. Chances to get close to an inner-sect disciple were infrequent and sought-after by them.
"That is unnecessary, but thank you for the offer." Kenja turned his head back to the map and looked for where the Treasury was located.
The two disciples were regretful that the interaction was over, but they turned away and continued their earlier discussion.
"Is disciple thinking of going to the Treasury?" inquired Snail.
Kenja memorized the Treasury's location and walked past the sign.
"Yes. I need to know what I can do with all of these credits before I decide on my next course of action," he answered plainly.
Sakura let out a soft hum imperceptible to anyone other than Kenja and Snail.
"Yes, yes. The snippy bitch is quite right. Disciple, you are quite mature and level-headed for your age. Even I am surprised with your foresight! Perhaps, only I could be considered your superior in this regard."
Kenja wanted to give him a smart comeback, but he was startled by the incredible bloodlust emanating from the left side of his waist. Sakura didn't make any sound or movement, but her intentions were quite clear.
Kenja heard murmurs from several disciples standing nearby.
"Who is she?"
"...sssshhhh, stay out of her way."
"Why is that senior sister so upset?"
The few disciples that were still present on the street began looking at Kenja and stepping out of his way.
Kenja gave them an awkward smile as he grasped Sakura's hilt and stroked it gently in an effort to calm her down.
"Snail, can you try and not upset Kimura-san while we are outside," pleaded Kenja.
"Disciple, you jest. The saying 'Ugly girls have ugly tempers,' is merely a saying," he stated, pretending to not feel Sakura's bloodlust.
Sakura began sliding out of her scabbard while Kenja tried to hold her down.
"She's drawing her weapon!"
"Hurry up and get out of my way!"
"Someone fetch a vice elder!"
The onlookers panicked and began running away.
While elders were the governing force in a sect, vice-elders managed the daily activities of the sect. No one had the audacity to bother an elder for the sake of dealing with a mere disciple in the sect.
Finally free of the pedestrians' stares, the sword began chasing Kenja's ear in order to strike at Snail. Kenja held onto Sakura with both hands, fearing that letting go would mean his head would be sliced through.
If anyone had stayed to watch, they would see Kenja moving in a manner similar to a dog chasing his tail.
"HAHAHAHA! Look at how slow she is disciple! How pitiable for a bitch to be both ugly AND fat," Snail mocked her while hanging onto Kenja's ear and wagging his shell.
Kenja was reaching his limit as Snail's words seemed to egg her on.
"Kimura-san, please don't listen to him. He is just a snail. Why would an exceptional lady such as yourself be bothered by what a snail says?"
Sakura paused her chase, and her bloodlust weakened.
Seeing her anger subside, Kenja continued to reason with her, "If you were to continue, I fear I might not keep my life and that would be his victory. You wouldn't want a mere snail to win, would you?"
Her bloodlust dissipated, and she allowed Kenja to sheathe her back in the scabbard. She let out an aura of satisfaction, having been defended by Kenja.
"What do you mean 'just a snail,' disciple?" Snail asked, dejected with Kenja's evaluation.
'This snail hurls insults all day but pouts the moment one is thrown at him?' Kenja rubbed his glabella.
He raised his twin sisters himself, but he thought his role as a parent was over. When did he adopt two more kids who were much worse than his twin sisters?
At this time, the street he was on was completely empty, but Kenja could see someone quickly approaching from the sky. They wore robes with the same design as Vice Elder Shirou and had a high-level Core Crystallization cultivation.
Such a person could sneeze, and Kenja would be reduced to dust.
Kenja furrowed his brows and sighed as he quickly told Snail, "Get out your damn bracelet."
Snail who was acting upset with Kenja's words suddenly let out a pleased voice as he materialized the bracelet in Kenja's hand, "Alright, I will overlook your transgression since you have shown me your sincerity."
Kenja rolled his eyes at Snail who was happy to see him putting on the bracelet. He placed the gold and silver bracelet on his right arm, tore his robe a little at the shoulder and to Sakura's dismay, moved Snail to his left ear.
He turned to face the approaching vice elder who must have been called here by those who ran away earlier. The descending vice elder was a bit chubby with a baby face and several chins.
"You there," the vice elder called out to Kenja as he landed on the ground, but before he could continue, Kenja ran up to him panting.
"Vice elder! A sister I didn't recognize wielding a rusty sword stole my earring and ran toward the marketplace. I tried to stop her, but I think she intends to rob others of their valuables," explained Kenja with his hands on his knees.
Kenja felt Sakura vibrate slightly in protest, but she stopped quickly, understanding Kenja was putting up an act.
The vice elder raised his left eyebrow at Kenja, assessing the truth of his words. He was told that an inner-sect woman was running amok with a sword and swinging it around wildly on the street.
"Why would she steal your earring, and why didn't you run away?" he quizzed Kenja, still determining whether to believe this person who matched the description of the servants that ran to him.
They had told him that it was a Qi Flourishing, inner-sect disciple wearing a single shell-earring on her right ear. The sword was rust-covered, and the disciple's hair was long and black like Kenja's.
"Vice elder, my earrings were passed onto me by my mother. They assist me with my cultivation by reinforcing the last eight acupoints of the San Jiao meridian," lied Kenja as he leaned his head to display Snail.
As if on cue, Snail circulated a little bit of Qi to show a replenishing effect coming from his shell.
"I couldn't let her go after taking my earring! I even had the servants go fetch you, so I waited here to inform you of her whereabouts," Kenja declared righteously with a pitiful look.
The vice elder showed signs of hesitating. Kenja showed no signs of insanity and displayed in-depth knowledge on the acupoints located in the head, so his story about the earring's ability seemed realistic.
Even though Kenja matched the description of the perpetrator, he could see Kenja's torn robe and the expensive-looking bracelet that also seemed to have a beneficial effect for cultivation. Also, Kenja's earring was on the left ear, not on the right. If that wasn't all, Kenja's scabbard was made of expensive red jade.
Why would such a wealthy-looking disciple have a rust-covered sword and keep it in such a fancy scabbard?
Kenja was glad to see the vice elder yielding to his words. He didn't want to deal with any incurred punishment for what happened because it truly wasn't his fault. Who liked being punished for something that was out of their control?
In this manner, he had a chance at evading any penalties and continuing on his way, but the lie would fall apart the moment he was asked to draw Sakura. He would have stowed her away, but the vice elder was close enough to see his scabbard disappear from his side.
If his lie was revealed, he would just say he was too embarrassed to admit his strange behavior and accept the penalty. Showing his remorse to the point of lying should convince the vice elder to be more lenient with him, so this lie was a win-win whether it would be found out or not.
"Please, vice elder. I am worried for the safety of my brothers and sisters. You must save them! Her hair is long and black like mine; you can't miss it!" implored Kenja.
The vice elder gave him one more look, finally believing Kenja, and nodded his head. "You stay here. I will bring back your mother's earring after I punish your troublesome sister."
Kenja smiled at the chubby man's promise and eagerly nodded his head.
He took off on his sword in the direction of the marketplace which was on the other side of the town, opposite of the Treasury.
As soon as he disappeared from sight, Kenja immediately drew Sakura and flew off in the opposite direction. He wasn't about to stand around for him to come back.
"Say, how come you are so knowledgeable about the acupoints?" Snail asked, impressed with him.
Kenja shuddered in reminiscence.
After his first year of cultivating, he had tried performing acupuncture on himself in order to stimulate his acupoints and improve the flow of Qi through his meridians. Even his sisters helped him place needles at points where he couldn't reach, but there was no improvement. Eventually, he gave up on it.
"You never know what knowledge will be helpful in the future," he answered vaguely.
Snail went quiet for several breaths before interrupting the silence again.
"Disciple, I might be 'just a snail', but you're 'just a snake'," Snail insulted Kenja gleefully as if he had been waiting a long time to get back at his earlier insult.
"Last time I looked, snakes eat snails," Kenja retorted, grabbing Snail and placing him back on his right ear.
"Ahem—" Snail coughed loudly. "I mean to say you're just a snake leaf, and snails eat leaves."
Kenja didn't respond and dropped the conversation. If he tried to fight against Snail's shamelessness, not only would he lose, but he might as well consider himself as dumb as this 'imaginary' leaf.
He had arrived at a large building made of white marble. The walls and neighboring streets were being cleaned by several servants.
He disembarked from Sakura and walked inside.
The room he walked into was grand and round, similar to how the entrance hall to a palace might have. Lining the wall, several counters with multiple TDs were present with several attendants sitting behind them.
In the center of the room, a glass case stood displaying three large, golden stones. Their contour resembled the shape of a spirit stone, but they were at least five times larger.
Out of curiosity, Kenja approached the display. The stones looked majestic, and Kenja could feel a powerful magnetism to them as if they could collapse everything here into them.
"Whoa, this sect has three high-tier spirit stones," Snail verbalized his amazement.
Kenja's eyes widened in shock.
He had only seen low-tier spirit stones before, and his only connection to high-tier spirit stones were the stories and rumours that go around Ryuga. It was said that most cultivators would go their entire lives without seeing one, and here he was staring at three.
Kenja was admiring the stones, wondering if they could be useful for his constitution, but he shook his head and turned back to the counters with people in front of them.
'One thing at a time,' he told himself, mentally crossing out one thing from his bucket list.
Each counter had around a dozen outer-sect disciples standing in a line except for one counter which only had two inner-sect disciples in line. Kenja got in line there and waited for his turn.
"Say, disciple, what do you intend on buying?" Snail asked out of concern for his future wax.
"Hmmmm," Kenja pondered, pulling out and looking at Hizumi's keystone.
He had solved two long-standing challenges and obtained a fortune in credits, but for him, this opulence was like a double-edged sword.
Whenever he would make a purchase, anyone nearby would see his cave's number on the keystone and the TD's dial pointing past its maximum. Even the apothecary attendant now knew where his cave was situated and had witnessed him solving one of the challenges.
He wanted to avoid attracting anymore attention to himself.
Perhaps he could go unnoticed if the range of the dial wasn't too large, but he had already seen more than a dozen TDs, and the smallest amongst them had a maximum value of fifty thousand.
"I'm here to see what I can purchase as well as ask them a few questions about transferring credits between keystones. Like I said before, I only want to see all my options before deciding on my next course of action."
While he could purchase nearly anything in the sect, Kenja was a businessman by nature.
What kind of businessman travels around with a pot of gold on his back with his name scribbled on it for everyone to see
In the past, he had observed the way many clerks and store owners handled their customers. For him, a loaf of bread would cost him one or two copper pieces, but if a noble walked in, everything was suddenly worth its weight in gold.
Greed was a sin for him to conquer, not be conquered by. Kenja was practical and pragmatic; he didn't want to be taken advantage of, and showing off his wealth and name could only lead to trouble.
Anonymity was too powerful of an advantage to give up, thus, he had obtained the extra keystones to accomplish this goal. Now, he could place a reasonable amount of credits on one of their keystones and use it for shopping without letting others know who he was or how many total credits he carried.
Additionally, Kenja had another reason for obtaining the keystones, but it was unlikely to be relevant to his immediate goals.
Snail nodded his head in agreement. "That's right, disciple. 'Snail-sensei's Teaching, Number 1111: Prudence is the predecessor of profit!' You truly are my disciple."
Kenja stumbled from Snail's words, turning a few heads to look his way.
'How come it sounds like you don't practice what you preach?! And how many of these teachings do you have in the first place!?'