Bodhi Fruits

After leaving the room, the headmaster went down the hall with a usual expression on his face again, yet many students who interact with his often knew of his strange nature to quickly adapt his emotions to the changes of events. Once he entered his office, he was met with the sight of the dorm leader before him.

The guy watched him with a huff of annoyance, "So, nothing, huh?"

"There was no change." Crowley responded with a sigh as he sat on the cushioned chair behind his desk with a sigh, "From the start, I don't know what made you believe he was capable of magic. The mirror is never wrong. The Ebony carriage has never been wrong for the last hundred years either... Mister Kingscholar."

Leona flicked his tail and hummed in thought, "I see..."

"I'll have to let her instructor hear of the results as well." Crowley sighed in disappointment before turning to Leona, "However... it would seem that you still aren't convinced."

Leona shrugged, "If the mirror said he has no magic in him, then he doesn't have any magic."

With that said, he left the room to probably laze around the dorm now that he was free of the two people.

.....

After returning to her room, the first thing Lotus did was enter her spatial ring. Almost at once, she had Xiao Li take out the man within the mansion walls so as to prevent him from leaking information of the spatial ring's full space to him. At first, Little Jun used him as a training puppet till he could no longer move a finger after the child vented out his anger at him.

He was tied up and smacked awake by Xiao Li ruthlessly as Lotus thought for a bit, "Hm... What should I do with you, then?"

The man was gagged with a dirty table cloth. So, she handed Xiao Li a pill and gave him some instructions. She then left the room to Xiao Li after promising him some good medicinal herbs. Then, she went to go check on Little Jun and Crystal. Little Jun had gone to train himself after the last incident with the dream realm. So, he ended up running about the little realm inside her ring making the small part of the realm his track course. As for Crystal, she and her butterfly parade had made the forest in the little realm ring their home where they got to work producing a lot of silk while Crystal took the chance to cultivate and Little Jun occasionally joins along.

When Xiao Li was done, he came back out and gave her a full report. After leaving the room and finding her in the library, Xiao Li reported, "Master, it's like this..."

Apparently, the man was one of the hired assassinators sent by an unknown employer. Not to mention, the man was from the Twin Needle Sect.

"Twin Needle?" Lotus raised a brow.

"After we killed his people, his master sought out the Black Lotus Sect." He clarified, "The people that came here was from that sect."

"The Black Lotus Sect came here themselves." Lotus thought curiously, "I wonder what sort of presence they have in our society... If only, I knew more..."

Xiao Li grumbled nervously, "I'm sorry I don't know more before the guy decided to bite his tongue off."

"Oh?" Lotus smirked, "That can't be. You didn't undo his binds yet, did you?"

"Of course not." Xiao Li grumbled, "I was going to burn his body away and we have plenty of ropes to go."

"Good." Lotus smirked, "I coated the pill with concentrated ghast grass. His wounds would clot the moment he's injured."

"But, that's a high grade herb!" Xiao Li whined bemoaned, "What about my share?"

Lotus raised a brow, "You can pick whichever herb you want from my room, but, if you want the grass, I can give you some instead?"

"From your room?" Xiao Li looked to her in surprise before his face turned to awe, "Th-Then, you won't scold me if I take a bodhi fruit, right?!"

Lotus laughed, "If you can follow my next sets of instructions later, you can take two."

"Two?!" His eyes lit up in awe, "B-but, there won't be more till the next five years!"

"Bodhi fruit?"

Lotus turned around and saw Little Jun prance inside curiously with Crystal in tow, "What's a Bodhi fruit, Sister Crystal? Is it that shiny, one thousand year old tree that Sister Ying talked about?"

"Ah," Crystal answered, "that's right. The fruit the tree bears is special as well. The bodhi fruit is like a red cherry that glimmers like jewels but is said to taste light and fragrant. However, other records have said it was able to melt in the mouth and is bittersweet. However, many who-"

"Um... Crystal." Lotus spoke up with a dry smile and glanced over to Little Jun who was already drowling at the corner of his mouth.

Crystal sighed as her antenna lowered slightly, "Perhaps, I should change my choice of words."

"Sorry..." Little Jun pulled back his ears sadly as Lotus helped wipe away the drool.

Lotus laughed, "It's fine, Little Jun. The fruit does sound tempting just by description and it would be difficult to find other words to describe the taste too, Crystal."

"The bodhi fruit can clear the impurities in the body and revitalize the body strength." Lotus continued, "The fruits are like jewels, but it is difficult to cultivate the tree. It must be grown in areas of high spiritual energy. There aren't much known about it, but, after it sprouted, it won't continue to grow without high spiritual energy. It take five years in the area to grow the fruit or else it would've never bear fruit for a long time. but the growth from a sapling maturing into adult takes a thousand years. This one in this little realm spatial ring was planted by Xiao Li. It was only able to bear fruit very recently."

"Since Little Jun also wants to have some..." Lotus hummed in thought, "Since it's like this... Hm..."

Lotus thought for a bit before Xiao Li spoke up curiously, "Why not make them into sweet pills? It shouldn't be too hard for you, right?"

Lotus smiled and nodded as soon as she heard this, "Are you sure? This is meant for you?"

Xiao Li grumbled and sighed in defeat, "I have so many younger siblings here. If I don't share what good things I get sometimes, Ying Hui would probably just take stuff from me again as her own."

"All right." Lotus shrugged and smirked, "But, first, we need to dispose of that guy."

"How does Master wants me to dispose of him?" Xiao Li asked courteously at the reminder of his reward with an eager smile.

Lotus thought long and hard before responding with a smile, "Since he thinks that women can't amount to anything without a man, have him clean the dungeon cells. Keep him alive and working like this for the next few weeks. Since you're so familiar with this area, I leave him to you to use. Don't disappoint me."

Xiao Li's jaw dropped when an idea hit him and he smiled mischeviously then bowed, "I understand."

.....

That night, she was scolded by Zhang Li before they were able be surprised to hear that she had already acquired the jade. With how things were planned, Lotus sent out a message to Jade that night as she returned to her room to observe for the night.

She watched as the people walked out of the room did a little conversation threw another fight before leaving back to their room while some have done so with a smile.

.....

Inside his room, Leona huffed, "Hmph. No magic, huh?"

His eyes shifted down to the vials of leftover antidotes with a sneer, "Hah... I'm really to tired to play around with you fresh babies... Got it, 'Lotus'?"