Balancing unsteadily on the invisible Sakura, Kenja exited the hole and barely avoided crashing onto a stone platform located below him. He landed on his two feet, wavering slightly from the heavy impact, as Sakura's hilt slipped into his left hand.
PLOP
As Kenja regained his bearings, Snail took advantage of Kenja's moment of distraction and squirmed out of his other fist to land on the ground. He looked around the room they had entered as he crawled to the edge of the platform.
"Hoho, they have Willars here. A bit archaic, but not bad, not bad."
Kenja looked up at his surroundings and felt his breath escape him.
He was faced with a grand sight.
A bright white loomed over Kenja as if he were standing under a sky completely draped in clouds, not leaving a speck of blue anywhere. The white stretched into the distance to form an imperceptible horizon with a vivid blue.
Kenja was baffled to find himself stranded in the middle of what appeared to be a sea with no end.
Strewn about the surface of the sea, countless stone pillars of varying heights jutted out vertically, reaching for the sky. They had a rough, cylindrical shape with mystical engravings on their sides and enough flat space on top for a person to seat himself comfortably.
After surveying the sea and pillars, Kenja examined his foothold.
Despite the lack of a moving current or external breeze, the surface he stood on had been smoothened to an extreme point reminiscient of an eroded rock. In the center of this still and serene sea, this stone platform was the sole sanctuary he could stand on, as the pillars emanated an untouchable and mystical aura that made him wary of approaching them, let alone standing on them.
Kenja approached the edge next to Snail and looked down. With an opaque blue background, he saw his reflection staring back at him. The water's surface was motionless without the slightest ripple, a calming tranquility pervading the body of water.
"Where are we?" asked Kenja, turning his head upwards to inspect the way he came.
In one moment, a dirt hole hung in the white sky with no visible foundation like a single mole on otherwise flawless skin, and in the next, it vanished from his vision as if it never existed in the first place.
Even with the absence of a sun, it was brighter than any of the clearest afternoons Kenja had experienced in his life. If he hadn't fallen through a downward tunnel from an underground cave, he would have believed with absolute certainty that they were outside again.
"Hmph. It's just a little trick using spatial expansion and distortion. Don't be surprised over every little thing, disciple. Now, how about we start with this Willar first?"
Snail crawled towards a massive structure towering over Kenja, causing him to turn around and examine it.
When he first fell through the tunnel, he had thought this rectangular stone structure was some sort of building that one would enter for the challenge, so he chose to look at his surroundings first. But with Snail's comment and its regal aura repelling him, he discerned a strong resemblance to the pillars poking out from the sea.
Bearing no opening or entrance, the wall he faced was one of four congruent sides with ancient engravings on it. From the brief glimpse earlier, he had seen that its top was flat as well, except five or six dozen cultivators could sit on it instead of just one.
If it was the same structure as the other numerous pillars dotting the sea, its magnitude was a dozen times greater: a king amongst men.
…
Kenja shook his head roughly and turned his gaze to Snail, furrowing his brows at him. The challenges could wait; there was something more important to attend to.
Feeling Kenja's stare accompanying a bout of silence, Snail turned to face him. "What's wrong? Just come and wake this guy up, so you can challenge some of the previous records."
With the volume of stones Kenja had dumped in the various caves encircling the sect, the supply of Yang energy inside the sect was depleting at a rapid rate. On the way to the challenge pit, they had noticed that even the color of the moat surrounding the sect had begun to darken with a higher concentration of Yin. For this reason, Kenja hoped to dip into the sect's natural energy reserves by accomplishing more of its challenges.
Kenja continued to stare at Snail without saying anything.
"What? Do I have something on my face?" A small mirror materialized in front of Snail as he checked himself out thoroughly. Before returning to look at Kenja, he gave himself a playful wink that most snails were incapable of doing.
Kenja's eyelids thinned his gaze further. Deciding to give Snail a hint, he lifted his left hand that held the invisible Sakura. Snail's eyes looked at the partially-open fist with a look of indifference.
"Oh, that." The sword's appearance faded back into view, allowing Kenja to see her once more. "No need to thank me. It goes without saying that a master must care for his disciple when he is in trouble."
Kenja's eye twitched as he continued to stare at Snail with an unsatisfied expression.
"If I had not hidden that rusty trumpet, who knows what kind of trouble this Robber fellow would have dragged us into. Good thing you have your Snail-sensei here to watch after you!"
Kenja was nearing his boiling point, but he decided to play along. "Good thinking, Snail. If you didn't act as soon as senior aunt told us about the robber, we surely would have been caught."
In the short time that Kenja had spent with Snail, he had grasped two of Snail's traits that could be manipulated easily. The first was that Snail believed everyone was beneath him in all aspects, including intelligence.
Although it was obvious to both Kenja and Snail that the sword must have been invisible, at the latest, prior to Hirose Hide calling Kenja over, it was not obvious to Snail that Kenja would realize this.
Snail looked down on everyone as if they were children unable to connect dots, and he had displayed such behavior numerous times. Perhaps he thought highly of Kenja's intellect compared to others, but for Snail, a genius toddler would still be just a toddler.
Kenja was unsure whether Snail had always been this way or his lack of contact with outsiders for several centuries had dulled his ability to estimate others' IQ. Regardless of the explanation, Kenja would use everything at his disposal to trap Snail.
"Ahem…naturally. As soon as she described the robber, my foresight compelled me to take action!" Snail said while straightening up his eyestalks and closing his eyes in feigned pride.
While the first flaw could be mitigated through caution, it was his second flaw that sealed his fate:
He was impatient.
Aracha's tea recipe, the Treasury's wax and high-tier spirit stones and the bazaar's expensive goods—if he wanted it, he would take a step towards it without a second thought or a proper plan, consequences-be-damned. Whatever could get him from point A to point B in the shortest time possible—that was how Snail lived.
Snail could have gone out of his way to correct Kenja's incorrect assumption and create a plausible scenario, but he couldn't be bothered to trouble himself.
All Kenja had to do was offer bait that resolved the situation immediately, and Snail would take it; coherence and completeness did not matter if both parties were satisified by the explanation.
Thus, with Snail's loophole-filled explanation, the ninety-nine percent certainty that Snail was the Rusty Robber was boosted the one more percent Kenja needed.
He looked at Snail with tightened fists by his side, trying his best to retain his composure.
"Snail, you promised me you would no longer cause me trouble."
Without dropping his charade, Snail looked at him with eyes devoid of shame.
"I don't remember making such a promise."
"Come clean, or I will end your life right here," Kenja threatened as he rose Sakura's blade to his own throat. "Why did you steal all those items and keep me in the dark about it this entire time?"
Kenja was not suicidal. His threat was calculated to aim at the only leash he had on Snail: the soul oath.
After having undergone a soul oath himself in his bout with Hizumi, he had a better understanding of how it worked, and why Snail was able to skirt around his own oath. As long as Snail could justify in his heart that he was serving Kenja to the best of his abilities, then he could do whatever he wanted.
Under these circumstances, how could Snail justify lying if it killed the one he served, thereby eradicating his own soul?
Snail stared at Kenja with one eye open and the other closed as he contemplated what to say next. After several breaths had passed, he opened both eyes and dropped the innocent facade.
"Touché, disciple. You are truly this Snail-sensei's disciple. I won't hide this matter from you any longer. I did steal those items."
Seeing that his ploy had worked, Kenja pushed the sharp edge of the blade closer to his throat.
"Why?"
Snail looked at him as if he had never heard of such a stupid question in his life. "Why else does one take something? I desired them!"
Kenja's eye twitched again. They were communicating through Wind Whispering transmissions before, but now, he gritted his teeth and, minding his volume, pushed the words out of his mouth, "You promised me!"
Snail bulged his eyes at Kenja as his eyestalks straightened and pointed at him in an angry manner. He stopped using transmissions as well and spoke to Kenja, "Yes, I promised you! So when did I make you do something against your will?"
After contemplating Snail's question, Kenja was speechless.
Snail had promised to stop making Kenja do things against his will, but he hadn't realized that such a promise had placed him in a precarious position. Instead of causing trouble in front of Kenja, Snail had switched to creating problems without his knowledge.
Snail wasn't finished though. He continued speaking with a frustrated and upset tone.
"After accepting you as my disciple, I have followed you around and helped you with your cultivation and other endeavours, yet in less than a day, you slap my face by taking another master. But I am a grand and benevolent snail, so I permitted it without a single word of complaint."
Kenja listened without interrupting, but his state of speechlessness did not change. Snail's ability to twist the truth to serve his needs was astounding. He never took Snail as his master, and Snail had praised him for becoming Elder Kazane's disciple.
In an effort to seem more wronged, Snail amplified his voice while implanting a tinge of hurt feelings in his words.
"After helping you join this sect, I used my expertise and capabilities to gather millions of sect credits for you, but did you ever inquire as to what I wished to use them on? No. When you decided to share millions of my hard-earned credits with your little friends, did you pause to ask whether I was okay with that? No. But I am a wise and selfless Snail, so I accepted it without bearing a single grudge."
The more Snail droned on, the more Kenja's anger dissipated, replaced with a feeling of helplessness.
He had never inquired Snail for his desires because he never had to. Every second spent walking through the sect's streets, Snail wouldn't shut up about buying this or eating that. With his incessant nagging, no amount of credits could make Kenja feel secure enough.
And while Snail did help him with earning the credits, the first challenge's payment was a risk that Kenja shouldered entirely. As for the second challenge, he had figured out the problem himself, and Snail had only served as a replacement for glue.
At this point in Snail's spiel, Kenja sensed an ominous presence stirring from the giant 'Willar' in front of them, but Snail didn't quiet down. He got louder.
"And after I graciously shared my personal library with my disciple, you threatened to abandon me, your master! But I am a merciful and loving master, so I forgave you without a second thought!"
Kenja doubted whether Snail graciously shared anything in his entire life. He was forced to share his library after losing another wager with Kenja. It was important to note that Kenja never abandoned Snail; he was merely keeping him at home in order to avoid potential problems due to his tendency to attract trouble to Kenja.
In hindsight, Kenja's original decision to leave him in the cave was arguably the correct choice.
Kenja sighed as he stared at the angry snail resuming his monologue. He was no longer concerned with Snail's dramatic performance but with the ominous presence that seemed to grow stronger to the point of awakening.
"Can you blame me for my actions? There you were: spending all our credits, buying a bunch of low-end, crappy goods en masse, without stopping for a single second to ask if there was something I wanted to buy! So I did what any reasonable snail would do in my position. I took what I wanted…and for your sake, I only took from the stores you avoided. All because I am a careful and considerate master."
The tension in Kenja's shoulders lessened as he lowered his fists back to their sides and relaxed them. Kenja realized that Snail's actions, despite being selfish, were not designed to harm him intentionally, but he was still upset with Snail's lack of forethought.
If the robberies only occurred to stores unvisited by a specific individual, of course that would bring attention to that single person, especially if that single person stood out by clearing out every store he visited. Considering there were no other leads and that everyone's eyes were staring avariciously at a single buyer, that customer would be a major person of interest.
Kenja turned his gaze up at the huge wall that was making him uneasy, and he was shocked at what he saw. A pair of ethereal eyes bigger than Kenja were floating in front of the face of the wall, furrowed and looking down at them. From the pressure emitted by the eyes, Kenja took in a heavy gulp and assumed a courteous stance.
Seeing Kenja's angry expression transform into one of polite reverence, Snail decided to end on what he considered a high note, oblivious to the additional spectator.
"Then when I saw those kids bullying my disciple, of course I would teach them a lesson! And when those nasty children falsely accused you of being a robber, your master here covered for you, hiding that dirty spoon and giving you one of my favorite ribbons! I don't know why you are angry with me! You should be thanking me!"
Snail ended his speech with a "hmph." He maintained an angry posture as he peeked through one eye to see if Kenja understood how much trouble he had gone through on his account.
A powerful and intimidating voice reverberated through the air, pressing down on Kenja and Snail.
"For a mere Qi Flourishing baby and his pet snail to gain entry into the Dragon's Basin and make all this noise…are you tired of living?"
Kenja felt an enormous weight suspended over him as if all the sea surrounding him had been gathered and placed above his head. Moreover, he sensed dozens of presences awaken around their platform. He glanced at the other pillars in the sea and was shocked to witness a translucent human head popping out of each one, applying their own piercing stare at them.
Kenja was unsure whether he should apologize to the pair of eyes or wait for him to say something else, but the imminent danger he felt when facing Bolo's bodyguard felt as comfortable as a feathered pillow compared to what he was standing against right now.
The next thing spoken echoed throughout the sea in a simple and less domineering fashion, but it carried a greater sensation of danger.
"Pet snail…? Did you just address me as a pet snail?"
Kenja wasn't aware of when it happened, but Snail was standing on his head returning the giant eyes' glare with his own.