Sex was a beautiful, enjoyable, and powerful thing. After all, it brought two people closer together, it was one of the highest forms of pleasure known, and Elizabeth had just broken through the middle essence refining stage because of it. Power thrummed through her, like a raging storm. And this time there was no gunk sticking to the surface of her skin.
After the deed was done her master started his long aftercare routine. This was normally reserved for after an intense training session but today it was to make sure all her essence pathways were in supreme condition. This meant a message, very tasty pills, and being flooded by his essence which was just a few steps below the pleasure of sex except it was a lot more relaxing.
It was an effort not to go right back to sleep even though she had been up for less than an hour after her nap.
"Master..." she said softly.
"hmm?..." he was currently not in her peripheral as she was laying on her stomach as he gently applied pressure on her back to allow a better flow of essence. But as attentive as he was she believed she could still hold a conversation.
"What are we going to do about the invitation?..." she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Do you want me to read it?" he asked softly.
She only shook her head up and down.
"An inner elder has invited us to a cauldron-master exclusive club."
The reply was so instant that she was shocked, a small vestige of drowsiness leaving her body. She turned her head to look accusingly at her master.
"What is it?"
"You already read it?" Elizabeth did not care that he already did, but what did matter was that he asked her permission about it. That felt like a slap to the face.
"It is just a piece of paper with ink on it. Takes less than a moment for my soul sight to pick it up." He looked at her in an amused fashion. The same way a parent looked at a child when the child got surprised at something routine to the parent.
Now Elizabeth was slightly annoyed at herself. Even after so long, she often forgot how straightforward her master was. 18 years was a lot of time to ingrain expectations and habits and even now she sometimes had trouble accepting how open and candid he was about everything.
The absolution allowed her mind to focus on what was said on the piece of paper.
"An invitation for people like us?" She was very hopeful and her voice rose to match. She had thought her master was the only one with a cauldron. At least that was it felt like. To now know that there were others like her made her heart almost skip a bit.
"Do you wish to accept?" Samuel looked thoughtful.
"Yes!" She was completely awake now and was looking at her master very expectantly. A small part of her mind worried that this was some sort of bullying tactic but she doubted it. Her master was very naive when it came to social cues but his mind was absurdly sharp. If there were some sort of weirdness he would have pointed it out.
The truth was Samuel did not care either way, he was powerful enough to shrug off any petty plow even from inner sect elders. But Elizabeth did not know that. A combination of hope and her relaxed state combined with the high from just breaking through a minor barrier made her completely disregard any pitfalls that could exist.
Nobody could blame her either, she had a severe lack of friends in her childhood and grew up reading a lot of fairytales many of which glorified such bonds.
"Very well, there is no set time mentioned but we are free for the next two days. Rest and stabilize your new cultivation base. We shall depart upon sundown. Till then, I must do a few things."
What Samuel wanted to do was pinpoint where the fuck the place was located. There was mention of an address. Presumably, the inviter assumed that they already knew the location he was talking about but Samuel was a special case. He probably had less knowledge than most inner disciples when it came to location recognition.
That stemmed from his reclusive nature, something he was beginning to understand was not very conducive to living in a society.
Well... at least he was strong enough to brute force the situation.
Find a location that congregated the soul tether that he and Elizabeth shared. How hard could that be?
The answer was that it was easy, barely an inconvenience. He surprised himself with how easily he found the spot. There were smatterings of the soul tethers elsewhere but it was very focused on a particular location at the western edge of the stadium and Samuel was willing to stake a lot of wealth to prove that it was the location they needed to be.
His business was solved and so he 'world stepped' back into the hut much to the shock of Elizabeth who thought the errand would take longer than an actual minute.