Ask and Ye Shall Receive

The 'feast' was somewhat subdued. The four of them ate in silence. Three of them were lost in thought whilst Ma Sa was hungrily munching down everything on the table as quickly as possible. It was a long while since he had tasted anything so good! Dinner at Old Guan's was always a bare-bones affair. This, on the other hand, was truly amazing! Never would Ma Sa have imagined that he'd enjoy eating the stewed paw of a monstrous bear, python gallbladder sashimi, or monster Tiger carpaccio. Demon beasts were delicious! More so than the taste, it was the rich natural Qi that pervaded the meat that stimulated Ma Sa's appetite.

"Hrmhrrrmm!" Su Won cleared his throat as Ma Sa shoveled the last of the venison dish into his stomach. "Kid, you're a bit of a weird one, you know that?" Ma Sa looked up at him and couldn't help being a little bit hurt but also amused. Before he could reply Su Won continued to clarify:

"You finished my test in a time that I couldn't even imagine was possible. You then cultivated in some spooky black cocoon and froze my courtyard. You look like a mere Martial Initiate but you flicked your finger and broke the air; something only high tier Martial Warriors could achieve... And, just so you know, Little Ya even thinks you're some kind of evil demon because of those freaky eyes and hair of yours.

"You're definitely my disciple now as, since my little brother trusts you, so do I. So don't worry! I'm not gonna send you away or anything... I'm just way too curious! So, wanna talk?"

Ma Sa really liked his Grandpa Su's personality. Despite his age, he had a childlike sparkle in his eyes as he spoke. He also had an interesting way of phrasing things that somewhat tickled Ma Sa.

"I don't really know how to go about explaining things, Grandpa Su... But I can show you my true cultivation level, I guess?" Ma Sa looked at Old Guan for confirmation. On seeing his teacher's dignified blink of assent, he removed the obfuscation of his concealment art.

As his cultivation base roared to life, both Old Guan and Su Won wore shocked expressions while Su Ya, who had never cultivated, remained cold as usual.

Old Guan was shocked as he had only seen Ma Sa's cultivation a few hours ago and it had been similarly fierce in terms of the crazy circulation speed but now it had about a third more Qi volume. Just what rate did this kid absorb Qi at? How could his energy channels contain it??

Su Won was on the verge of crushing his tea cup. Peak Martial Novice! This was not the cultivation of a normal five year old, or even ten year old! The kid had clearly not liquefied his Qi yet but was giving off crazy fluctuations that should, by all rights, be tearing his body apart. Had he cultivated from birth or something?

"Ma Sa, that's enough." Old Guan regained his senses first and spoke in his dignified teacher voice. "You have grown even stronger since the last time. Well done." He took a sip of tea in an attempt to hide his chronically twitching lips.

"Kid, what the hell sort of cultivation is that?!" Su Won was less reserved. "I only have more questions now! Are you really a Xia??"

"Xia?" Ma Sa was momentarily stumped until he hopped into his inventory and read for a while.

Xia. A humanoid race that was commonly regarded as demonic by the Tongnin. They were incompatible with normal Qi refinement cultivation and could only cultivate Yin based arts. The Yin arts required darkness, blood, and the performance of generally unsavory acts to be cultivated to a high level. Yin cultivators were essentially driven to become predators and that made them into an object of primal fear amongst the Tongnin. As a side-effect of being driven to preying upon others, the Xia people eventually grew to view anything other than Xia as cattle. This was something of a coping mechanism built into their culture. Once they had dehumanized every other race and separated themselves as superior beings, it seemed only proper for them to harvest lives to fuel their cultivation.

They were unwelcome in the civilized settlements and could only make homes for themselves in the wilderness of the Jianghu. The Xia people were a common enemy of the Tongnin and sightings of the Xia were one of the few things that would prompt joint collaborative extermination efforts between the cultivators of the Jianghu.

Xia people had certain racial traits which distinguished them from the Tongnin. They had emerald green eyes with reptilian slits for pupils and their hair was blood red. Their skin was paler than most Tongnin with a slight metallic sheen.

As Ma Sa read about this he couldn't help but see why Su Ya thought he was a Xia in disguise. The idea that his current form could be a mix of Tongnin and Xia was not far fetched. Well... Shit! This could cause Ma Sa a lot of problems in the future! He was tempted to immediately hop into the RaceMenu and make himself less distinctive or maybe just distinctive in a different way. After thinking about it for a while he had an idea and opened the console.

*~* help ["Green Contact Lenses" 4] *return*

After spawning all of them to his inventory, he then equipped them before opening the RaceMenu and changing his eye colour to a silver grey. After that he spawned a wig that looked like his current hair and equipped it before changing his real hair to a silver in the same style. Luckily, the way the system's wigs equipped was magical and one didn't have to tuck their hair up underneath it like normal. It was much like equipping a helmet in Skyrim. The reason he chose silver was because, after extensive reading about bloodlines in his inventory, he discovered that silver hair and eyes were the traits of an extremely powerful clan in the Jianghu. They were Sima clan of Eastern Qian. Once he was satisfied, Ma Sa's mind quickly cooked up some bullshit to spin before exiting the menus and putting his plan into action.

"Ah! You mean my eyes were the problem?!" Ma Sa's acting needed a lot of work... "Ummm, they were something my parents gave me to escape from the bandits."

As Old Guan and Su Won watched on in confusion, Ma Sa reached up to his eyes and removed his contacts one at a time before looking the pair, holding the contact on his upturned palm, and then simultaneously unequipping the wig and the contacts to his inventory. He may stand out even more now but at least he wouldn't be seen as evil!

Su Won and Old Guan furiously put the pieces together in their minds in whatever way that made sense to them. They came to the same conclusion: Ma Sa was actually Sima Sa and the bandits that attacked them were likely to be Xia people. His parents disguised him as much as possible to give him time for a teleportation treasure to activate and send him to Tianzhu. Their minds effectively filled in the blanks!

Su Ya was similarly stunned by his sudden transformation but her shock was more due to how handsome and otherworldly he looked in his current form. A slight blush filled her cheeks as she stared at him. She had never heard of the Sima clan and was completely confused about the story but she could tell that his 'demonic' look was the result of a treasure. She couldn't help but feel embarrassed about her earlier behaviour. She was unsure of how to interact with the boy now. It would feel weird to suddenly treat him normally... Her pride wouldn't allow her to appear wrong!

"Hmmph... So that's it! Kid, your parents were truly amazing! They disguised you as a Xia to let you escape! Little Su here also lost her parents to the Xia." Su Won looked over at his cute little granddaughter. "You can probably see why she thought you were a demon..."

Unsure of how to respond, Ma Sa simply looked at Su Ya with pity and remained silent. Now that that was over he hoped it would be time to talk about something else. The silence hung for a long moment before Old Guan, Ma Sa's lord and saviour, spoke up.

"I think it's been a long day and my old bones are tired. How about we retire for the night? I'll need to do something about my student's current appearance as well..."

Ma Sa tried his best to put on a confused look. Why isn't there an acting proficiency, dammit?!

[Acting Increased to 1]

[Level Progress ||||||||||||-------- 16]

Ask and Ye Shall Receive?