"Begin!" said the referee. I have been hearing this a lot lately.
This time, I cast Invisibility and shifted to the side of the sparring circle. My plan was to use one of the Daoist illusory spells that I had gotten from the Dao Repository in this fight. Specifically, there was one that caused serious confusion in the victim, but it required a bit of time to ramp up even when you were perfect with its use, and I was barely competent.
I had been trying to fight just a little differently every time. Not so much differently than it gave away all my tricks, as I was being observed, but enough that it sent a message that I wasn't a one-trick pony. It was a hard row to hoe.
Sometimes, I'd used Phantasmal Force; another time, I used Hold Person again, and one time, I had even used Hideous Laughter, but I always tended to lead off with a crowd control effect. It could be said that showing a variety of control spells like this was dangerous from the perspective of one watcher in particular, but really, showing the same one over and over was also dangerous.
It wasn't that I was exactly afraid to fight fairly; it was just that if it was a fair fight, then I wasn't trying hard enough.
I walked the perimeter of the sparring circle as the enemy scanned around the circle, all the while emitting something akin to infrasonic soundwaves laced with Qi through this technique. I could cast these Daoist spells without ending Invisibility if they were subtle enough, which was quite a bonus.
I had been fighting once a week like clockwork for the past five weeks, but I think that this would start to dry up pretty soon. Miss Dexin wasn't sending her own people after me, and there just weren't that many more people that she could ask to challenge me that also had a chance of beating me anymore.
After all, we did not officially have any disagreement. She even privately sent a card apologising for her follower's behaviour. It was a polite fiction, and I was a little weak against this type of social-fu, but I was learning fast.
I had expected some pushback right after my original "fight", but what I didn't expect was for Mean Girl #3 to show up at my door and give the spirit stone she owed me to my butler very politely. I had even set a schedule for girls in my clique to challenge each other to avoid being bullied to counter the expected serious escalation.
You still had to seriously spar in these situations, even if you challenged a friend, but it didn't have to be a one-sided beatdown like it might otherwise be, and you could structure it so the money and contribution points just shifted around the group, with nobody really losing anything.
This wasn't a long-term solution, as the Outer Sect deacons would rule that any continual, systematic schedule to challenge friends and followers this way was against the spirit of the rules. Otherwise, everyone would just need three friends to cycle friendly spars through and be safe. But they wouldn't make such a proclamation right away, and with the size of my follower group, it would have taken us a few weeks to get warned, so that would have
bought me some time.
But... there had been no retaliations to my girls themselves. In fact, Mean Girl #3, who I had, more or less, briefly tortured in front of all and sundry, didn't seem upset. I was hoping for this outcome and, in fact, had designed the encounter specifically with her in mind.
Perhaps it was a sign of my insanity, but I not only didn't think a little light torture was so bad anymore, but I also understood how many cultivators in Magicland China thought, or at least I thought I did.
By both privately talking to her through Messages and "privately" chastising her by ensuring she couldn't cry out in pain, she had not lost nearly as much face.
I punched her hard. That's all the spectators saw, really. But nobody would care about that. It wasn't humiliating. This was a martial arts school—everybody had been punched in the face here or before they came here.
It wasn't the same level of humiliation as telling her starkly what I thought of her and what I would do if she continued to be rude while demonstrating total power over her. Not only would she have lost the spar, but she would have lost all face and been completely humiliated.
One punch was ending the fight cleanly.
Humiliation was a hundred times worse torture than a brief period of pain in this culture. These types of "forced spars" could become incredibly humiliating, too, if they weren't cleanly ended, and I got some points for not inflicting that on her—especially because I doubt very much that she would have been so merciful.
I think we might have become irreconcilable if I had done that, and that might be the reason that Chen Dexin did not elect to retaliate against my subordinates. Still, she couldn't not respond. She had to be seen to protect her girl. So, she had a number of people challenge me once a week while publicly playing nice, if icy and snootily, with me.
It was all quite socially complicated, and I was not too fond of it.
After thirty seconds of this spell, I could tell it was working. My opponent was walking around in small circles or just standing still and staring off into space. He might start drooling, even.
I nodded and walked towards him. I'd give him a prick with my sword, and that would be—I froze.
Something was wrong. I couldn't put my finger on it, but the way he was moving was wrong.
When I tried this spell on Xiao Li and my butler, they moved around a lot more. It was an actual random movement, and they ended up really far from where they had started. Here, he was moving in circles, seemingly randomly, but mostly staying in the centre of the sparring circle. Not really random.
I backed up, and as I did so, he stopped pretending and rushed me. I already had the words to Slow on my lips, and I cast it as soon as he took a step, becoming visible once more. I followed that up with repeated casts of Ray of Frost at full strength. Frostbite was something that the spirit doctors could heal remarkably well and quickly, too.
Had he seen me the whole time? Playing me? I hadn't met anyone who could see through Invisibility unless they were at least in the Foundation Establishment and had a built-in spiritual sense.
But that didn't mean that they didn't exist. Or alternatively, he might be using a different sense, like enhanced hearing or smell. I would have expected that if he was a diremonster, but there were plenty of techniques and cultivation methods that would improve your senses way beyond the baseline. It would have to constitute a "special sense" or "magical sense" in order to work and bypass Invisibility, though.
I supposed it didn't matter. He blocked half of the icy rays, but one got him on the shoulder, and I got him in the centre mass with the other, getting a wince each time.
He was running pretty fast, even Slowed. Wait, he wasn't stopping—was his plan to bowl me over and take me out of the ring? That was a valid strategy, even if he went out, too. The referees would say it was his action that caused me to go out. Therefore, I would lose.
I quickly ran through plans as he was getting closer. Web? No. Sadly, it was pretty ineffective against cultivators. I could use Rime's Binding Ice. Very few people would willingly run through that, but... No. I knew what to do.
I waited until the very last second and then cast Misty Step to teleport right behind him, bypassing his bull rush. I didn't count on him not stopping, either. Cultivators could stop on a dime, but not when I drop-kicked him in the back, propelling him out of the ring with my full strength.
"Winner, Mei Wen!" cried the referee. I had been hearing that a lot, too.
The guy wasn't a sore loser, and he chuckled, wincing as he cleaned the frost off some exposed skin, "I thought I had you there." He walked out of the ring, and I followed politely, although I almost stopped when I realised he was leading us directly to Chen Dexin, who made it her habit to watch every fight. She stood there, looking elegant, beautiful and infuriating.
We didn't get in the way as the medics rushed over and saw to my opponent. The spiritual doctor trainees reminded me of medical Iryō-nin from Naruto in that they used a combination of serious anatomical knowledge and glowing hands to regenerate the man's skin somehow, even as I watched in real-time.
It was an interesting set of skills, but I had little desire to practice them. Necromancers, like Merildwen and now myself, did know a fair bit about anatomy, but it wasn't really enough to be anything but a dangerous hobbyist. Plus, I had the feeling that I would find it difficult to practice the magical life-glowy hands spell, too. It was obviously a specialised yang technique, and just being so close to them while they were using it kind of made me want to sneeze.
"Do you have some sort of special magical senses?" I asked curiously, stepping another meter away from him until I couldn't notice the itchy sensation in my nose anymore while deciding for the moment to ignore Dexin.
Despite my reaction to it, I had long ago verified that the technique would still work on me. It just felt very uncomfortable for me, like the feeling of insects crawling on my skin. Otherwise, I would have objected to sparring at all if I hadn't been able to be healed in the event the technique was contraindicated with my body.
He grinned, "Perhaps. I am also very resistant to illusory techniques."
"Ah. She thought you were the silver bullet, then," I remarked dryly, glancing at Chen Dexin.
He coughed, glanced to the side and said, "I'm not sure what you mean."
It was common in cultivator culture to abhor lying. The idea was that with sufficient strength, deception was useless. People were often hypocritical, of course, so they lied all the time, and this wasn't a universal factor, either. For example, both Chen Dexin and I lied to each other's faces with smiles. Of course, we each knew the other was lying, so perhaps it wasn't really lying at all.
But it wasn't uncommon for battle maniacs to abhor it. Especially sword cultivators, and as this was a sword school, it was a pretty common taboo amongst us disciples.
What he had said was obviously wrong, but it was still on this side of being either theoretically possible or merely him being polite rather than an actual lie. I wouldn't make any friends if I pressed, repeated myself and forced him to just decline to answer, so I let it go.
Honestly, I found it stupid, but I think that was Merildwen's memories talking. She had been born after the cult her parents had been a part of was eradicated, but from what her parents taught her, actual Wizard Schools in their world wouldn't be out of place on Korriban.
Dexin glided over to me, placed her hand on her hip, smiled and said, "Another flawless victory again, Junior Sister Mei Wen."
"Of course. I won't let you actually learn anything useful, Senior Sister—in case you ever challenge me yourself someday," I replied archly. That had been my guess as to why she got someone to challenge me every week. She made a point of watching every time, so I assumed she was making a note of all of the abilities I displayed and any weaknesses she could identify.
Chen Dexin laughed, her bosoms bouncing hypnotically in front of my face, which I carefully ignored, keeping eye contact. Given our height differences, that necessitated me having to tilt my head up, "Ohohoho, Junior Sister, you jest! I would never do that. If we ever had time for a bout, I'd just show you a few pointers."
She lied, and the worst part about it was that she did the Hime-laugh a hundred per cent better than my best efforts.
Realistically, I didn't have much of a response here. My social connections were weak, and the only people I could ask to reciprocate and challenge her to learn her secrets were my clique, and the whole reason they followed me was so that they didn't have to do things like that.
It would be like asking someone who was afraid of lions to poke a lioness with a stick to see what happened. I wouldn't do that to my girls.
Dexin's connections extended further into the Outer Sect and included battle maniacs who didn't mind losing fights, getting hurt or paying a few spirit stones and contribution points now and then. Most were of the type like Xiao Li, who would consider it a small price to pay for a good fight.
Speaking of, it was a shame that both Xiao Li and Senior Brother Liu had left for the Inner Sect. Otherwise, I could have asked them to challenge her and then watched smugly on the sidelines.
Xiao Li didn't have any kind of misplaced chivalry that she could manipulate to have him go easy on her, either.
'She's a fighter, I'll give her a fight,' would be what he would say. Or something like that.
I knew this because I had already tried manipulating him this way once when I wasn't in the mood for one of our scheduled spars. Although... charisma was still, clearly, my dump stat.
I exhaled slowly, choosing my words carefully to stay well on the side of a polite junior, "Is there a particular reason you've approached me today, Senior Sister?"
"Ah, yes, I suppose there is," she smiled, "I'm going to be out of the Sect on a mission for several weeks in a couple of months. Unfortunately, this time coincides with the once-a-season Outer Sect Disciples Connection meeting."
I frowned, "So?"
"Well, you see, it is normally my responsibility to see to all of the logistics involving the meeting. Refreshments, food, entertainment, and the like," she simpered, "Since I won't be available, the Disciples Council has nominated a promising new disciple with the honour—you!"
I ground my teeth together. She was the Outer Sect Disciples Council President. It was little more than a student union at a university, really. It wasn't responsible for anything more than a few social things like this and the running of the community centres.
I hadn't been yet, skipping the first meeting, but the Disciples Connection meeting happened once a quarter, and it was really just a get-together. People talked about missions they did, about sudden epiphanies or problems they were having with the sword, or just shot the shit and drank—usually this.
I didn't think for an instant that she was actually involved in the logistics at all. That was why we had a clique, so this was obviously an attempt to get me to do it for some reason. Perhaps so that I would fail and look stupid?
I shook my head, "I don't want to."
"Oh, it's alright if you don't feel capable of it. Not everybody has the logistical and management skills," she said in a sing-song voice.
That was an obvious psychological ploy, and I wasn't going to fall for it! I ground out, "That's not what I said."
She sighed exaggeratedly, "I'll just go to the Missions Hall. I'm sure someone with the ability will want the one thousand contribution points that organising the meeting will pay."
"Wait," I said decisively.
---xxxxxx---
Back at my villa, I sat down in my study and buried my face in my hands. Oh, that was sooo stupid! But there were a bunch of things I needed points for. More formation books, as well as personal lessons in sabre, spear and an unarmed martial art. I was already almost broke, again, too. The Dao Repository was just so tempting!
I didn't want to get to the pinnacle in any of those weapons, but I wanted to reach the stage of being "not bad." Ideally, I'd like to be "not bad" with every common type of weapon there was and multiple martial arts, at least one "hard" and one "soft" style. It would help me understand how other people could attack and kill me so that I could counter them and survive.
I had plans of my own to make more points, too, but they weren't ready yet and depended on me learning more formations and also translating some spells to talismans.
I had already spent most of the points that I had earned on the curry recipe, too. There was a large influx at first as a lot of chefs bought it, but now the income would be pretty low.
Why was a simple social gathering worth one thousand points a quarter? That was like four thousand points a year. I thought about it for a while, and I got the idea that it was intentional. While swords obviously were the focus here, if you looked around, you could see ways for every type of cultivator to thrive. And social bee was, actually, a type of cultivator.
I cast Sending, not even bothering to do it as a ritual. I burned my third-level slot for it, as I wasn't leaving my house any more today. I sent a message to Nalani,
I used this spell mainly to keep in contact with Merildwen's parents and now Xiao Li since he was temporarily sequestered in the Inner Sect.
I wasn't sure if it was a function of Merildwen's spirit seeping into my soul, but I had gotten rather attached to them, second only to my grandparents. But both my grandpa and grandma were with Jesus now, and Merildwen's parents were still alive.
They were so proud of me for deciphering this world's magic, even plainly jealous, and it made me feel good. I felt almost like a cuckoo bird, soaking up all of the love and affection of someone else's parents, but that didn't stop me from doing it at all.
While it had been over a year for me, it had been only a little over a couple of weeks for them. I didn't message them every day—otherwise, they'd get no sleep.
They still hadn't found civilisation, just traces of it, but honestly, they had stopped looking because they had found the ruins of an old city that seemed to be tinged a bit with necromantic energy. Corpses were plentiful, so they were setting up shop in ruins right now, using skeletons as an archaeological excavation force while at the same time studying the magic tomes that they'd collected.
This was exactly the sort of adventure that they and Merildwen used to find themselves in, and it made me feel weirdly nostalgic despite me never being involved.
I sat up and glanced at my desk. I was close to making a breakthrough on the most difficult formation in the "Beginner's Big Book of Formations." It was the cheapest tome on formations that I bought, and surprisingly, it was the most profound. All of the formations in it used very little energy, too, which meant that the materials necessary to create them were basically free—stuff like Qi-infused inks that I could make myself, rocks, spiritual water, and the like.
Nalani had standing permission to enter my villa whenever she wanted. I had added her to all of the Arcane Locks on the exterior doors, so my butler didn't stop and announce her. She was also very quiet—like she was an owl or something. I didn't jump, but she did startle me when she suddenly asked, "What kind of formations are these?"
I held a hand up and finished the last bit of it before pushing myself back from the desk and admiring my work. I admitted to her, "Training formations."
I pointed over to a small sheet of blank paper in the corner, "This is the first one I learned." I held my hand to it, and it started glowing red.
"What does it do?"
I frowned, "You're looking at it. It creates light." It converted Qi into photons, actually, but I didn't word it that way. It was like the light cantrip, but it was a lot more complicated. The Light cantrip used the Wizard's mind to create the colour, but with this, you had to specify the wavelength yourself.
I pointed to the next one in the row and grinned. This one was one of my favourites. I activated it, and six dots lit up, "This one does math."
"Math?" she asked, then nodded, "The answer is six?"
I nodded. The answer was always six in this formation. The equation, a simple addition problem, was baked into the formation. This was why the author of this book, an incredible genius, I thought, felt that these were good formations for a beginner. It was really complicated, and any small error would result in a wrong output, which would be not only immediately obvious to the student but also safe.
The first formation I had read in other guides usually recommended a simple Qi concentrating formation. It was simple, but mistakes could and would result in explosions. It also cost at least one spirit stone every time you tried to create one, the stone being completely used up in the activation process, which was also the general source of explosions.
I pointed to the next few, which were multiplication and division operations, but didn't activate them. Finally, I peered at what I was working on and sighed, "Well, here goes nothing."
I activated it and pulled my hand away. It made noise. A periodic clicking sound, like a metronome. Steady and constant.
"For musicians?" she asked, glancing at my zither on the far table and homing in on the fact that it could keep a steady beat.
I shook my head, "No. This is a timing circuit formation... although I suppose you could use it that way."
This was an essential component of ritual magic, too. It was comparable to the quartz crystal oscillator in a watch. In Merildwen's world, the ritual magic equivalent to this formation was a fundamental piece of magic that had to be used any time you cast a ritual with anything more than an instant effect.
For example, if you wanted a smooth level of magical energy to be supplied over a period of time, you would have to use this type of spellform combined with a magical reservoir of some sort.
You'd fill the reservoir up with energy, and the timing circuit would take a little bit out at a time, every cycle, creating a smooth supply rather than dumping all the energy into the next part of the spell at once, which could result in an energy spike—frying delicate ritual components and potentially causing an explosion.
It kind of reminded me of what little I knew about electric circuits and electronics, but honestly, I had never been an expert in that area. I might have worked on nuclear reactors, but I was a glorified mechanic. While I was qualified to fix basic electric circuits and electronics, I didn't fix anything on the component level. I just replaced entire boards if they weren't working. We had depot-level maintenance people or the device OEM to repair, overhaul and refurbish components after they broke.
It sounded similar to how I thought electronics worked, though, based on my training combined with watching and giggling at the ElectroBoom YouTube channel.
The same timing magic existed here, too! This was it! But the way it was done was wildly different, but it accomplished the same basic task. I was learning tons about how formations differed from rituals by learning and then extrapolating based on these differences.
I noticed that while formations differed a lot from ritual magic, many of the fundamentals were similar in function, at least—the "meta" stuff, like this timing formation, or how they each moved energy around, functioned somewhat similarly.
It was like a class on comparative magic. Already knowing one side made it very educational.
I stared at it, and then after a few more seconds, the beat started getting uneven, and finally, the thing suddenly stopped, literal magic smoke rising from the sheet of paper.
"Well, it was better than last time," I said, mostly to myself. It really was! Progress! I knew what went wrong here, too.
Now that I could avoid things anymore, I sighed, "For some reason, I agreed to organise the next Disciples Connection meeting."
"Why would Senior Sister Dexin give up this benefit? To you, in particular?" asked Nalani, curiously.
I shrugged, "She is probably hoping I screw everything up and ruin my reputation in the Outer Sect."
"Maybe," Nalani allowed but frowned as if that didn't quite seem right. Finally, she also nodded, "Did you ask for the event guide? I remember when Senior Sister Dexin first organised the meeting five years ago, she was running off a guidebook and seemed a bit flustered."
I blinked. I had said that the only way I would do it was if I had her notes on how to organise the event. I had assumed she would decline, but she handed me a small leather-bound book that looked like Sean Connery's journal from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
After she handed it to me, she left promptly before I could say anything else. I hadn't yet looked at it because I was afraid it would just have "figure it out, dumb bitch," written in it. That would have stung since "dumb bitch" was exactly how I was feeling.
I produced the book from my spatial pouch and nodded, "Yes. I got tempted by the thousand contribution points, and when I realised I was making a mistake and looked for a way to back out, I demanded all of her notes on the event."
"You should read that first, then I will read it, and we'll make plans from there," Nalani decided firmly.
I nodded and then asked curiously, "You remember when Chen Dexin came to the school? How long have you been a disciple here?" Her cultivation was only in the fifth level.
Nalani made a face, "Ten years now, but I have had to restart my cultivation once. As you no doubt know, that's very difficult for us."
Us? Diremonsters? I kind of felt bad pretending to be one of them, but at the same time, I wasn't human anymore, either, so I felt it was alright.
I thought about it and nodded slowly. All diremonsters could transform into humans at the first stage of the Foundation Establishment realm, but many could do so earlier. But it was very rare for them to be able to do so at even the first level, much less "level zero," where you start when you just start collecting Qi. For her to dissipate her cultivation base meant she probably had to spend a fair bit of time as an actual owl.
How would that even work? She would have had to bank tons of contribution points for the period of time so she could recultivate in peace and quiet. Perhaps she took a leave of absence from the School and did so somewhere else. As Outer Sect disciples, we could do so or even disenroll anytime we wanted. That was possible, but it would be very dangerous.
From what I could tell, most Diremonsters who came to human cities did so because they didn't like the laws of the jungle, after all.
"Okay, I'll read it first. While you're waiting, take a look at this..." I said and fished around my large desk until I found what I was looking for. I handed it to her, along with a small package of homemade mozzarella cheese from my storage space.
While I was never a great cook in my past life, I did have a lot of time on my hands, and one of my hobbies for a while was making homemade cheese. What can I say? One day, I reached a weird spot on YouTube and watched a video where the YouTuber called me a "curd nerd" and spent twenty minutes showing me how to make cheddar cheese at home.
I figured... I could do this, and so I tried. And it worked! And a hobby was born. I made quite a few different types, some with greater success than others.
This mozzarella was my fifth attempt and the first one to actually taste and feel like mozzarella. The previous attempts weren't bad, but they seemed to be more like a Mexican Oaxaca string cheese instead of mozzarella.
I had made some parmesan as well, despite the fact I was as far away as one could be from the Parma province of Italy as one could be, but all of the batches still needed to age for maybe another five months. They looked pretty good, though.
"Pi-Tsa?" she asked curiously and took a bite of the cheese with a thoughtful expression. Finally, she nodded, "This reminds me somewhat of a cheese made by the nomadic horse-people, but they used goat's milk, and theirs is a bit drier. Did you make this?"
Nomadic horse-people? Did she mean Mongols, and if so, how the fuck did Mongolia exist here? Or did she mean actual horse people? Like a tribe of horse Diremonsters? I paused and finally decided that it didn't matter.
I nodded, "Yes, the directions just for the cheese are on the back; the front is the dish I was wondering if you could try to make. I personally like it more than curry, but I'm not sure how other people will react."
She nodded, "A kind of flatbread? It should prove no difficulty."
I had already opened the leather-bound journal and had been reading, but while cultivation hadn't increased my actual intelligence, it did increase both my thinking speed and multitasking ability, so I could carry on a conversation at the same time, "I also meant to ask you... I need to get a précis about the Outer Sect. Like, short dossiers on all the strong disciples."
My gaggle of girls wasn't large enough that I had organically developed an intelligence branch yet, but it occurred to me after today's spar that I should know a lot more about the people who might challenge me. Expecting to steamroll over everyone by divine providence as I had been doing was the mistake an entry-level villainess would make, and that was stupid.
"That's a product that you can buy for spirit stones," she said simply, "I believe the standard price is twenty spirit stones, and it will give you a brief dossier on the top one hundred disciples, or one spirit stone per disciple if you buy them à la carte. This will include their win-loss history, techniques that they're known for, cultivation method, if known, and associates. More in-depth dossiers cost more, of course. I can't remember, maybe five per person. There are at least three groups of disciples that focus on intelligence gathering that produce a comparable product for comparable prices. I believe they've formed a guild and will not undercut each other."
I blinked and then shook my head. Of course. Just today, I said that I wasn't surprised that there would be a generous reward for organising a social event. So why hadn't I considered that there would also be cliques that formed not so much for protection but for shared interests or similar ways of cultivating? It made me very happy that I spent a day casting Arcane Lock on every door and window in my villa.
The fact was that I was just minding my own business, and aside from briefly meeting with my own clique or getting called out once a week, I stayed in my villa most of the time. Expecting a Wizard to not hole up in their tower and conduct research was naive, but perhaps I should be paying a bit more attention to things, too.
"Let me give you some spirit stones. Get the one hundred abbreviated dossiers, as well as the in-depth one on both myself and Chen Dexin later," I told her.
Nalani nodded, "Of course, Senior Sister. I should have recommended this before." Maybe, but I bet that she assumed I had already done so because what incipient gang leader wouldn't have done so? I shook my head. I had to step up my game.
The book wasn't long, but it was written by at least a dozen people, with each new author adding notes or revising things here and there. There were characters written in the margin on each page.
It was also incredibly detailed and exactly what I needed. Not only did the organiser get a thousand points, but there was a serious budget of spirit stones, gold and contribution points, as well to buy everything needed, including names and addresses of vendors and caterers and a recommended rotating list of possible entertainment options.
It was one of the few events where I could, as a disciple, hand out contribution points as I saw fit to those who helped me. Typically, this was strictly limited, and you could only transfer points via spars or via the Mission Hall, where you couldn't strictly pick who actually completed the mission. It was still possible to game that system in a number of ways, but the deacons would punish you if you did it too often.
The school didn't want points to be traded as an actual currency. That would invite hoarding and would create more of an economy around using them. They wanted them to be used almost as soon as a disciple got them, paid directly to the school.
I just couldn't understand why Chen Dexin had actually given it to me. She definitely could have either said she didn't keep notes or created a fake version that was of no help at all.
This event still wouldn't be an easy thing, but after reading that book, I was no longer nervous about it. Moreover, I could structure it so that most of my clique got a lot of rewards.
I handed it to Nalani with a complicated expression on my face.