In the meantime, Di Tou had made it back to his abode. Having split up with Fu Hao Xin on the way back, as the young man realized that he still had to make it to class…
That was going to be fun for him.
Fu Hao Xin and Di Tou agreed to meet again the next day, but for now Di Tou was on his own again.
Now that it was daytime and there was better light, Di Tou could get a better look at the level of cleaning he had done the day before. Looking closer… He could see trails that were left in the dust where he had rubbed the table off, and he could see that while the bed was made it looked like someone had sat in it and crumpled the covers a bit. (We must remember that Di Tou fell asleep in the chair last night.)
All in all the room looked cleaned, but it looked like the cleaning of a young man when he realized his parents were arriving in five minutes and his room still smelled like cat p*ss.
Rushed, inefficient, and in the end, still smelling like cat p*ss.
But of course, most people's parents would be too kind to point out the obvious deficiencies left in the cleaning, and at most would sigh in their minds that their child was at heart still a child. Some might even hop directly into work helping tidy up the room a bit, and at the end of the day when they left the young man would heave a sigh of relief thinking they had successfully fooled their way through the disaster and return to their landfill.
Looking at the room that still obviously needed a deep cleaning, Di Tou decided to leave it for a moment. First… he kneeled down to take a quick look at the scroll, and under the reflection tab he found…
<-( )========================( )->
Strength – 2.55 (+2) (1)
Dexterity – 2.38002 (+2) (1)
Intelligence – 2.955 (+2) (1)
Spirituality – 5.26 (+5.2) (2)
<-( )========================( )->
"F*CK* What happened? How did I practically get five times stronger overnight?"
"And more importantly… How did spirituality, this lame leg of mine end up becoming my strongest aspect?"
Taking a closer look at the prompts for spirituality, Di Tou found.
"First usage of spiritual treasure, [Void Wine] +2 attributed to [all aspects]."
"67% efficiency in activity [spiritual guidance] on [Fu Hao Xin], above-average feedback obtained, +3.2 points randomly attributed to [Spirituality]."
Di Tou's eyes brightened. It seemed like that wine was indeed good stuff, part of him was of the mind to go and drink some right now, but figuring that the last time he drank the wine he passed out for a night, he figured he should only consume the wine at night, and when he was feeling safe.
After all Di Tou wouldn't even know if someone had trespassed last night. Thinking of this, Di Tou felt a cold sweat run down his head. F*ck he had been here for less than a day and it seemed like he had already triggered quite a few death flags.
It seemed like he had to be more cautious from now on. After all, it wasn't wrong to make mistakes, but it was wrong to make the same mistakes over and over. If the first could be called inexperienced or foolish, the second could only be called stupid and foolhardy.
As for Di Tou, at the end of the day he had only known Mu Di Bai for a short period of time, to perfectly replicate the man, or to even know how to start doing such a thing would be hard.
Taking a step back, the cultivation world as a whole was new to him. Who knew if it was customary for teachers to beat their students to death, or to initiate duels out of self-respect when they were insulted?
In fact, Di Tou didn't know it, and most people didn't participate it in it much, as there was some level of shared respect, but the rule of dueling for respect was a rather archaic one that was built into the Academy guidelines. Had it not been Li Chang Yin who was Li Chang Hu's younger brother and therefor recognized Mu Di Bai's appearance, there was good chance Di Tou would be in a dueling ring right now, or simply dead from the slap that initiated the challenge.
After all, with the standards of the teachers here, it wouldn't be going too far to say that their casual slap to start a duel might as well be hitting a baseball with a bat in the pro leagues, where Di Tou would either be sent flying and die on landing, or simply disintegrate on the spot.
As for the spiritual guidance… hmm. This would have to be investigated further.
After all, this was the first time Di Tou had ever gotten an above average rating, Both in the sense of the literal rating "above average" and in the sense of a rating that wasn't (at least looking at the term) depressing and sub-par.
In fact, the amount of points he had gotten from the spiritual guidance was higher than the amount of points the wine gave to any individual section, although the wine's effect was evenly distributed so it still ended up being more.
If cleaning didn't work out, it seemed like this could be another path? Going around finding kids who where being bullied and talking to them...?
Just as Di Tou was thinking down this line of thought, he suddenly slapped himself.
*PA*
"Stupid, stupid, stupid. What is wrong with me? I just realized how dangerous it was to go around confronting people. Who knows how many enemies Mu Di Bai has… I was lucky this time, why am I being so greedy?"
While it was true that he had managed to gain quite a windfall this time around, and things had gone quite smoothly, the number of hidden dangers was hard to figure out.
"Hmm, but that doesn't mean I should miss out on any potential avenues for the future. I should have a good talk with Fu Hao Xin to figure out the details."