Chapter 14: A Meal For LaterZhao Linghua pov:

  *yawn*

  Slowly waking up, I look out of the window. From the brightness, I can conclude it to be early morning.

  Looking at the bed opposite of me, Master is still sleeping soundly without a care in the world, tho if I look closer, I can see a lot of barriers around him. With that, even a six-core assassin wouldn't be able to get near him without alerting him.

  From my previous experience, I can conclude that Master will sleep until te morning. This happens regardless of the circumstances. He also for some reason only sleeps when he can't keep the tiredness away.

  It's somehow like he's scared of sleeping, tho...thinking back to that scene with the bandits I shiver. How could that devil have any fears?

  Looking at his behaviour before, it seems like he somehow gets a thrill out of trampling on arrogant young masters. By now, I'm sure that my stupid brother was baited.

  Back when I told him about the secret realm, I mistakenly thought the reason for his excitement was to visit the secret realm but now, I know that he was just happy to see new targets to humiliate, or rather to face-sp, as he calls it.

  And I'm probably also only bait. That realisation, that hit me when I saw his blood soaked appereance, brought fear to me. It meant that I was repceable. My only worth is my beauty and I'm not so conceited as to think there aren't other people as pretty as me.

  From then on, I resolved to give it my all to make my worth rise. And so every free time I have is spent cultivating, just like Master told me.

  Ah, I'm happy I don't have that needless pride the other noble dies have. Otherwise, I would have probably died long ago.

  For the next three hours, I cultivate with the purified stones Master gave me. At first, I felt special because they are really hard to make and Master gave me them just like that. It was one of the reasons I was so casual with him, but by now, I have looked reality in the face and realised that he most likely has a quick way to procure them. Otherwise, he would never give a disposable like me something precious.

  After two and a half hours, I notice the Magicules move by themselves. I know what that means and become very excited. I'm about to become a three-core. Soon after, the pull stops and the core is completed. Now I can start forming my fourth core.

  I'm almost on par with those geniuses now, all thanks to Master. Once again I become conflicted. Master is the reason for my breakthrough but also the reason I need strength so desperately.

  MC pov:

  *yawn*

  I was finally awake. I hated sleeping. It made me feel vulnerable no matter how many barriers I put up and I hated feeling vulnerable.

  Pushing my upper body up, I looked around. Zhao Linghua wasn't anywhere but I wasn't worried. I could sense her just outside the door.

  Don't underestimate a six-core. As the number of cores increases, so do your senses. That was not to mention the whole lot of spells I applied to myself, like:

  {I can see through walls if I want.} or

  {I know of all presences within a five-meter radius.}

  Right after, the door to the room opened and she stepped in with food, before sitting next to me.

  "Shall I feed you, Master?", she asked.

  "Yes.", I answered.

  I was a bit surprised at first but then I realised that she probably realised her position. This improved my view of her. I like people who are smart and capable of throwing their pride away. But if I thought about it, it contrasted her previous behaviour with the bandits.

  'Could it be that she believed that my strength was more than enough to defeat whichever person was behind them? No, that seems illogical and she would have told me. Then is it that her common sense is crooked?'

  Coming to that conclusion I stopped thinking about that incident and thought about another one instead.

  'Then why did she fight me, even bet with me, if she was smart? Hmm, I guess my ability to control my Mana was so great that I really seemed like somebody who could defeat her brother but would be defeated by her.'

  With that, my doubts were cleared. After I finished eating, I spoke again.

  "I wanna go tour the city. Guide me."

  "Yes, Master."

  As we were moving out, I spoke to her again.

  "You've broken through, haven't you?"

  "Yes, Master."

  Soon we toured the city. We looked at the great statues those guys put up everywhere of supposedly big shots that came from this city. Somehow in everybody's title, there was either Dragon or Phoenix.

  Then we visited the marketpce. I had hoped to find a rare treasure but I didn't have the protagonist-luck.

  Finally, we visited a high-end restaurant and there my preparations finally came to fruition. Finally, somebody picked a fight with me because of Linghua and the slightly shabby clothes I had put on just to bait an idiot like him.

  Let's go to the start. We had just found a seat and ordered when a young man approached us.

  He looked her up and down and he said girl, you're looking fine. Then she pulled out a...

  Well, jokes aside, he mustered Linghua for a moment, especially her upper body, before fixing his gaze on me, pinching his nose in an exaggerated matter and asking:

  "Do they even allow beggars in here now? The quality of this restaurant really is declining.", all while waving his hand as if he was waving away bad odour.

  In response leaned my head back as if I were dodging a wave of bad air and answered:

  "I can understand that you can't stand your own smell but it is very impolite to wave your odour toward others."

  He somehow didn't seem to like my advice on manners and immediately shouted:

  "You bastard!", before trying to punch me.

  I quickly set up a barrier, before asking the staff that had come because of the commotion:

  "Do you actually allow violence here?"

  "No, sir."

  "Then how come you didn't send him out yet?"

  "That is..."

  The staff hesitated.

  "This guy is the young master of a neighbouring city lord.", Linghua came to his rescue.

  "So he has the same status as you?"

  "No, his city is as big as Linghua city and as such, his status is way higher."

  "But he's worse than those dragons we saw before, tho.", I said looking at his one-core cultivation.#

  "He's known as a waste."

  "Oh, in that case", I started moving, "let's go eat at a different restaurant."

  Linghua made a surprised expression followed by one of understanding the moment she saw the letter I had slipped into this young master's clothing.

  I couldn't beat him up now and risk being thrown out of the city, so I made sure that he would bother me after I came out of the secret realm.

  And so we left under the ridicule of the young master and ate at a different restaurant. Later we returned to the inn and slept. Tomorrow would be the qualification test and I was already looking forward to it.