Gifts

Glory has two sides: extra attention and gifts. Guests attending my lessons were mostly cooperative, yet some weren't. I literally had no time for their shit and had to kick each one of them out. I even made a blacklist of those unwelcomed bastards. This has earned me even more glory and enemies.

Breaks was another matter - I was hounded by either guests or stuff or students for advice in improving their scriptures. My response was always the same - it's their personal matter as practitioners.

There were also spies invading my apartment and office every 10 - 15 minutes. At least they were leaving things in their proper places ... most of the time. Sadly, some of those were perverts who stole most of my underwear (and a couple of dresses). A few of those things were really nice.

As a trade-off, there were gifts (a lot of them), yet no underwear to replace stolen stuff. My spatial rings were stuffed by the end of the second day, therefore I declared that I'll be accepting only jewels, swords, demon-beast spirits. Most of the third morning was spent turning a nice gold bracelet into a spatial device of high capacity (to be my treasury), using local inscription.

Among all these people, Sacred Family has shown itself as a bunch of petty, greedy, arrogant idiots. They were trying to monopolize my time for free (by referencing familial bonds and old favors). In result, half of my blacklist entries started with Shen - it was humiliating to be related to them. I even began to consider helping Nie Li in his vendetta.

My rising fame and filtered sun-aligned mana have pushed my cultivation up. I met the fourth day at the top (five stars) of my silver rank. The day began with a visit from brother Hong - the head of the Sacred Family. He is a tall, gray-headed man with long hairs, beard, mustaches - old enough to be my grandpa. On top of that, his fourth (black-gold) rank cultivation provides high magic resistance (among other benefits). Overall, his imposing figure radiating fury gives the impression of discount Berserker. My morning was ruined even before he said a word.

- Good morning, brother Hong. - Discount berserkers can't phase those who fought real thing.

- Impudent girl, how dare you shame our Sacred Family? - Feet stomping, hands waving, he was like a child throwing tantrum. It would have been funny - if he wasn't so dangerous.

- Big brother, why are you attacking me? It's those fools, who shame both of us. Look here, - I brought out my blacklist, - these outsiders are bribing our relatives to disrupt my lessons and discredit me. Yet, they don't even give me a share, how about you?

- No, do you know how much? - His fury lost to greed.

- You should know their prices better than me. But that is just a pittance to the amount you can squeeze out for my resignation. And even better, I can return on the same day. Here take this list home (and I will send updates with Yue'er), I want ten percent and a warning to prepare my return.

- You were always my favorite sister, Xiu'er. - He said on his way out, those words chilled me to the bone.

Two of my elder sisters became his mistresses, two other "mysteriously disappeared" (after being raped by him and then by some of our uncles). It always began with his favor.

That evening, I was summoned by vice-principal Ye Sheng. Just as Shen Hong, he was tall, gray-headed, spiritualist, yet he had his charm - his wife and mistresses are quite happy (they work as his assistants here in school). Actually, he was one those VIPs three days ago. He informed me, that he just broke into the fourth rank (thanks to my lesson) and now want to suitably reward me. I asked for a sword with a history.

We had a long talk, even discussed my future resignation and return. By the end, the old man has squeezed out my intention to make a "Hill of Swords", to focus sword-aligned energy. Then he jumped to conclusion that it's intended for our Fighters, there are a few millions of them, so the effect on the city's military strength would be enormous. It was a good explanation, which granted me the support of the entire Snow Wind family. Yet, my real intention is to make space aligned with Archer's reality marble and use my memories to summon him (now even without Grail's help).