"What!? The prices have increased, you say?"
"I'm sorry, fellow practitioner. Due to the inflow of so many cultivators in the town, the number of cultivation chambers are limited. The only reason you even get to rent two chambers is because you came here early. Otherwise, you'd have to make reservations at an even higher price," The young practitioner sitting beside a wooden desk explained courteously. He seemed like a new employee.
I was frustrated. First, I hated not being able to cultivate but more than that, I bloody hated being poor. I was poor back in my previous life.
Because of the damn poverty, I had to spend my childhood and teenage years living a very compromising life. I learned the tricks of trade early and chose finance because I couldn't stand being poor. Scamming and robbing people had become a second nature to me by the time I turned 28. Truthfully though, I just wanted to afford a happy life.
By some otherworldly intervention, I was born as a divine prince, but I couldn't even enjoy that life for long.
This won't do. I had to get rid of my low-money status. In modern earth terms, I had to become 'financially free'.
I took out 20 silvers from my pouch and asked Chunu to hand over her empty pouch. Putting the money in it, I gave it back to her, telling, "Here, keep this with you. This is all we have now."
I then slammed my money pouch, that seemed so light now, on the desk and asked with a frowning face.
"Here are 60 sliver kins. Is it enough to rent for two chambers?"
"With 55 silvers, Y-you can have two chambers until the sun sets," softly replying, the practitioner behind the desk stuttered.
With an audible sigh, I looked at Chunu and found her gazing towards a far corner of this room.
I squinted my eyes and saw a large table with lots of coloured scrolls placed on it.
"What's that?" I asked, pointing towards the entrance of another lobby.
The clerk appeared to be visibly confused by the question. Shaking his head nonchalantly, he said, "That's the mission area."
"No no, I mean what are those scrolls?" I asked again, stretching my right hand a little more.
"You can see the mission table from here?" he asked, amazed by my question.
It was then, I realized that I'd let my tongue slip. What was I asking? Of course, the clerk here didn't have my enhanced vision.
"Err..." As I struggled to give a reasonable excuse, my sister came to my rescue, saying, "Brother, I can see Guoguo coming out of that room."
"I-I was just pointing at the... scroll that Guoguo is carrying!" I followed up right after Chunu.
'Does he even know who that is?' I asked myself
So sure that the clerk was suspicious of us, I hurriedly asked him to lead us to the cultivation chambers.
Fortunately, the clerk knew who Guoguo was.
"Oh, I know him. Ah, he's coming over here. Looks like he's with young master Chai again." The clerk casually leaned on the desk as he spoke, looking at the two incoming young men.
'It is this grasshopper again... and the aloof practitioner seems to be a young master,' As I looked at who I had spoken of, the clerk spoke to one of this colleagues and introduced him to us.
"Fellow practitioner, he is kang. He will guide you to your rented cultivation chambers." The clerk pushed a shorter young man at us and went toward the incoming young men.
"Hey!" I called, but he just turned his head and rapidly said, "Don't worry sir, I've already given the tokens to kang."
"I'll tell you about the scroll later," said he and brushed past me. He looked as if he was trying to run away from me.
"This way, fellow practitioners." the clerk named kang tried to lead us.
I took a long glance at the direction where the first clerk went and nudged Chunu, "Let's go, little Nu."
On the way to the cultivation chambers, Chunu and I discussed about what type of techniques to use to temper our bodies.
Generally, the body tempering methods for male and female practitioners were slightly different. For males, it waa usually the growth in body strength, agility, endurance, flexibility of bones, hardening of skin by extensive training. For females, however, the hardening of skin part was omitted and there was light but precise training. Instead, they usually go by purifying the skin, making it softer in the process.
Most initiation realm techniques heavily relied on breathing methods, and it was the same for both genders. The only difference here was that feminine arts usually went with the 'soft approach' while masculine arts were trained by the 'hard approach.'
There were exceptions certainly and... I was one of those exceptions! I didn't care about this differentiation! I was going to make my cultivation process as painless as possible.
To gain more benefit, you don't always have to pick the difficult way instead of the easy way. There is another way. There is always another way; And it is the smart way!
Smart person, smart life, smart cultivation!
With Clerk Kang leading us siblings from the front, we decided to discuss in hushed voices from behind.
"Little Nu, you had the mythical 'Immortal Fountain Body' back in heaven. I know what type of cultivation method suits you the best," I began.
Chunu leaned closer and taking a peek at the clerk, softly expressed, "Eh, but big brother, I've already decided to use the Surging River technique."
"No, little Nu. NO. You should use the method that yields the best results!" My voice like a snake's, I disagreed taking a long breath.
"Use the forbidden techniques!" I whispered.
"But..."
"No but-ts, little sister. 108 Droplets technique suits you the best. After your body is tempered, you'll be able use THAT technique to open your meridians," my tongue nearly made a pun right after I started speaking, making me seem less serious.
Little Nu was about to say something when the clerk's voice came from ahead.
"Here we are, fellow practitioners." He said, stopping before a large metallic door.
Giving us two identical tokens, he fished out a set of large keys from his robes. He neared the metallic door, and inserted one of the keys into a visible hole on the left door.
Twisting it from left to right, he took the key back, and started pushing the doors.
"Hnnggg!!" Popping up more than three green veins on his brown shaved head, he slowly pushed open the tall metallic doors.
As the creaking and resonating sound of metals rubbing against the floor resounded in the lobby, sunlight flooded in from behind the doors.
When the doors were fully open, we saw a long corridor stretched out in front of us. At the both sides of this corridor, rooms were lined up till a large window at the back.
Breathing roughly, the clerk prompted us to follow and started speaking.
"This door was supposed to be opened by two guards after a while, but since you are here so early, I myself had to open it."
"Where are the guards then?" little Nu asked, hopping a little closer. Due to looking at each closed rooms with more-than-required curiosity, she was lagging behind.
"They have gone to sleep. Daylight guarding is left to another pair of guards who'll come here after a while." he replied while checking the doors.
"It seems the first three rows of rooms are already occupied. Of the remaining five rows, four are reserved. You can choose any two chambers out of the six left," said he, pointing at the chambers near the large window.