20 Coast

Silence.

The host, Klaire, and the crowd were completely silent.

"You said you'd do anything right?", Ireya said.

Klaire's eyes grew teary, even so with her shaky hands she reached down to her robes, she slowly pulled at them.

The crowd looked at her silently, most felt pity for her but some were excited.

Ireya watched Klaire slowly pull off the first layer of her robes with her bloody hand shaking and staining her robes, at this moment the pain in her hand had completely disappeared and the only thing she could feel was absolute shame.

She looked down at her hands and couldn't stop the tears from falling.

Pat pat pat...

Suddenly a cold hand was placed on top of hers.

"Huh?", she looked up and saw Ireya's eyes staring at her.

"I'm sorry for making a bad joke.", Ireya felt sorry as she didn't think that this girl would truly listen to whatever she had to say. She had expected her to deny the request, but instead, she abided.

"As for the request, we can do that later. For now, you should go back and rest.", Ireya fixed up her clothes and turned around to leave the arena.

"Wait!"

Ireya turned and looked back at Klaire.

"I'll beat you next time, also I'm sorry for pushing this challenge onto you when you only just arrived.", she apologized seriously.

"No problem.", Ireya waved back and walked away.

Getting off of the arena most of the crowd felt fear towards her, they hadn't expected her to be so ruthless.

None of them believed that she was only at 19% Ablution, it was impossible for someone that weak to beat someone at 85% Ablution. She was probably lying and was at around 90% Ablution or so, but knowing that she was much stronger than all of them the crowd backed off in fear and split giving her a path out.

Back on the arena Klaire had walked off with her friend while the crowd looked at her with pity and mockery in their eyes, in this world the loser would be mocked by the common crowd no matter how strong they are. This was simply due to the ignorance of the common crowd, most of them were weaker than her but after seeing her lose believed themselves to be stronger.

The host looked at Ireya as she walked off and truly felt fear at this moment.

He understood that she wasn't joking when she said that she was at 19% Ablution, the people in the crowd weren't strong enough to identify her cultivation from the fight alone but he could. And he could tell for sure that she was telling the truth.

For someone with such low cultivation to beat someone much stronger, there could only be one reason, either skill or a weapon.

And after seeing both he was confident that her strength was fully based on both, she had really good skill but her weapon was also extremely powerful.

'I have to report this', he then disappeared into the crowd

---

"Over here Ireya!", Raya stood in the distance and waved Ireya over.

"How well did I do!", Ireya hopped over like a bunny waiting for its reward.

Slap!

Her hand smacked at Ireya's forehead.

"What was that for!", she rubbed at her head.

"Why would you tell her to strip? Are you stupid?"

"It was just a joke...", she looked down at her feet like a child being told off.

"Sigh... Forget it today we're going to go fight some Oceanic Beasts."

"Beasts!", her eyes shone with excitement.

Raya pinched Ireya's cheeks, puffing them like a pufferfish. "Stop being a battle junky."

Stroking her cheek Ireya replied, "But its fun..."

"But you can die.", Raya was prepared to lecture her at this moment but then Ireya took the lead and ran off towards Martial Town.

Martial Town and the Martial Arena were quite close to each other to make things convenient.

"Catch me if you can!", Ireya shouted as she ran away.

"Sigh... Why do I even bother warning her?", she laughed at herself for a second then followed behind her.

After arriving at Martial Town it was clear that news had spread very fast, the crowds of people that had followed them before had disappeared and fewer people followed them this time, but even then the ones that followed them were not in their right mind as all of them were much weaker than Ireya.

"How did they find out so quickly?", Ireya asked.

"Using messaging runes, every person's token has a certain frequency assigned to it and as long as you know that frequency you can send them a message. You currently don't have enough Oceanic Points to buy it but if we trade with people using the materials we collected or go back out to Felicia City and buy using money we could get some."

Ireya understood the value of this messaging rune immediately, with it you could call for back up if you were surrounded by enemies or were in the middle of escaping from enemies.

"How expensive are they?"

"They're pretty cheap, but neither of us has enough Oceanic Points remaining now so we can only trade for them with other people or go out and buy some."

She thought about her words for a moment and then went back to silence.

Soon after they arrived before a large building, within it many people were walking in and out. Quite a few were injured while others were just tired, "This is the place.", Raya said.

Raya walked in and held Ireya close to her so she wouldn't run around as usual and cause trouble.

A short while later they arrived at the counter, "Requests?", Raya asked.

The man sitting behind the counter looked up, "How strong are you?"

"Both of us are at 95% Ablution.", the man looked back down and then picked out a form.

"Sign this.", he handed it over alongside a pen.

After they signed it the man gave them the location of the request and waved them away.

"What about the pay?", Raya asked.

"100 Oceanic Points each and more if you do it well."

"Deal.", she took the forms and walked away with Raya.

Whistling, Ireya followed Raya out of the building, "So what do we have to do?"

"Save a village from Oceanic Beasts which are about to invade."

Ireya licked her lips seductively, "How strong are they?"

"Very strong, so don't die.", Raya said offhandedly.

Ireya didn't mind her last few words, she was used to almost dying, it happened many times already in these past few years.

"We're gonna be going out to the Outer Coastal Region, if you have nothing to pack we'll go right now.", Raya informed Ireya.

"Let's go right now then, people are in danger, right? If so we need to save them.", Ireya may be naughty at times but in heart all she wanted to do was see the world as a nice place to live in.

The two of them headed towards an exit out of Fifth Alliance City, after walking through a long tunnel they ended up in an empty room with a single door, opening it up they were greeted with the outside world.

Once they left and closed the door behind them Ireya saw that they had just come out of a normal restaurant, she was just about to ask how that possible when they were in an empty room just now but then she just remembered the man she met when she first arrived.

If he was able to turn fish into people then something like this was perfectly normal.

Smack!

A hand grabbed onto her ass through her robes and played with it momentarily.

"Ignoring me now?", Ireya turned with teary eyes towards the menacing Raya.

"Follow me already.", Raya ignored her pitiful expression and walked off, she looked down at the same hand she had just used and smiled for a second.

---

They arrived at a market which sold many goods, Raya took out some money she had prepared beforehand and bought 20 10 Mile Messaging Runes, 10 for each of them.

It used up a good amount of their money but it was worth it, they then bought 50 First-Grade Energy Pills and 10 Second-Grade Energy Pills each.

With that, they had used up almost all of their money combined.

"Hey beauties, if you ever want more goods you can come to me!", an old man waved at them whilst they walked away.

"Sigh... Everyone is just staring at us, do we stand out that much?", Ireya asked.

"Is this the fifth or sixth time you've asked me now?", Raya ignored her constant nagging and walked towards a Beast Stable.

There were many types of Beasts but the most common was a simple Savage Fay, a horse combined with an eagle.

"Excuse me, would you like to hire a Savage Fay?", a nice young woman came up to them.

Ireya walked up to her and held her hand, "Hey do you think I look good?"

"Hahoooo..."

Taking in a deep breath Raya calmed down for a second, and then her hand came flying over.