*Knock, knock*
Rio heard a knock on his door so he went to open it to see a girl, that should be around the same age as him, or should he say his body?
"Hello, young master Rio, I've been sent by Miss Elise to guide you to your new residence, are you ready to go?" She asked respectfully
'From her white robe she's part of the inner disciples' Rio thought before nodding his head and signaling her to lead the way After about a couple of minutes of walking, we left the academy, and they picked up the pace, although Rio found it suspicious, he continued to follow with his guard up, his instinct should be able to warn me if anything seems amiss'
After about 5 minutes of traveling, they stopped in the middle of nowhere, as if feeling his confused gaze, the girl took a couple of steps in and disappeared
"...?"
before Rio had time to even react she once again reappeared and politely asked him to follow her, so... Rio followed and the next thing he saw was something he didn't expect, in front of him was a massive lake and just beyond the horizon, he could barely see a shore
The young girl started walking towards two pillars standing side by side and pulled out a token, after inserting it into a placement, it started generating light and eventually turned into a hole that was continuously rotating.
"This way, young master" she bowed and politely said
'Seems to be some sort of teleportation device' Rio concluded before saying
"After you" who knows if it's safe, it's best she tries it first
As if knowing what Rio was thinking, she let out a smirk and went into the portal, since he had seen her go into it, Rio determined it should be safe enough.
Rio stepped into the portal and a whole new scene appeared. There wasn't sand nor earth on the floor like Rio expected from the short glance he took before, instead…there was neatly placed pavement, plants, and trees seemed nicely managed and the mana in the air felt more condensed and abundant.
For any disciple that was living in the academy, this would seem like heaven to them. It seems the young girl is used to this as she didn't show any noticeable expression on her face
After a pause, she continued walking, and naturally, Rio followed, after a couple of minutes of walking and seeing different kinds of buildings and manors.
Finally, we arrived at a huge black gate with a raven crest on it, she simply pushed the gate open and we walked in, the front door was about twenty-five meters from the gate
Even the door didn't show any meekness, instead, the door was around fifteen feet tall, showing its majesty in all its glory
'Seems these buildings are what the disciples reside in' a brief thought not showing any surprise on his face before following the girl
She turned around and said "Young master Rio, this will be your residence from now on" As she handed Rio a token she told him to insert some mana into it
Rio did as she said and faced no obstruction as he poured it into the token after the token lit up for a couple of seconds, it dimmed back down, however on the back of the token an engraved word "Rio" appeared
"Now that you inserted your mana inside, the formation is active around your residence and will immediately know it's you, giving you no obstruction"
'Formation? As expected of the treatment of the core disciples' Rio thought as he nodded to the girl
"This token can also be used to activate the spatial door to get to the island, There are different types of facilities at the island, including everything you would find on the main site, If there's nothing else, I'll take my leave"
Rio nodded and she was about to take her to leave,
"Oh, I nearly forgot, here you go. This can be used to contact young miss and vice versa"
She said as she passed him a square mirror with a bronze exterior and no handle; before finally taking her leave
After she left, Rio started fully taking notice of this manner and could feel a connection between him and the formation outside, seems to activate it, and deactivating could be done with just a thought
Outside the manor, the mana seemed very condensed which was already shocking enough, however, in this manner, the mana is twice as condensed compared to the outside
'Since the mana in here is this abundant, let's set up a mana-gathering formation in my room and cultivate the rest of today I went to my room looking forward to the cultivation session in this new setting'
Once Rio got to his room, 5-star would be an understatement at this point, firstly, although the door wasn't massive, the size was slightly exaggerated, if an NBA All-star player was to jump with full power, their head would maybe barely touch the top frame and the width got fit at least a small truck if need be
Once inside, space is the last thing that was needed, the interior was a glossy sheen white color with an emperor-sized bed. The in-built bathroom couldn't obviously be forgotten, even the bathroom could be said to be a massive room on its own.
Apart from the bed, the manor hasn't really been fully furnished yet, probably because everybody has their own preferences on how they would like to decorate their abode
But Rio didn't mind this fact and directly set up the mana-gathering formation, although it wasn't a high-level one, it was enough to at least concentrate the mana that was here, making it twice as abundant.
This means Rio would get four times the already abundant mana that is outside, which is satisfactory for him, 'if I stay in seclusion for 5 years Rio wondered how much improvement he would have as he sighed in joy
For an ordinary disciple, staying in cultivation for even a couple of months would sound like a drag, however, the 5-year long seclusion sounds like peace and strength to Rio
After making sure the manor formation was active, Rio closed his eyes and started cultivating
After that a week passed smoothly with him cultivating non-stop until someone was by his gate, he checked out the window and saw a young man around the age of 18, but he wasn't wearing any disciple clothes, instead, he was wearing plain brown robes.
'Must be a servant' Rio thought since he didn't sense anything wrong with him, so Rio activated the token to allow him access and met him at his door.
"Hello, Young Master Rio, I have something sent by the Young miss," he said respectfully
"By young miss, are you referring to Elise?" Rio questioned since he didn't say any name at the end of the title
"Yes, young master, she sent me here to give you this," he said as he handed him a slim package and an envelope and directly left
Rio entered back into his manor and opened up the package to see a luxurious set of purple robes with golden outlining
'This must be the robes for core disciples' Rio thought and opened the letter
'Dear Rio Casmir
If you are reading this then you probably got the package sent by one of my people, I figured you forgot to go to the council to get a rank change so I did it for you, normally this isn't allowed but I pulled some strings. These are the robes for core disciples, wear them from now on.
Kind Regards, Elise Zathis'