The Right Price

After returning to her ring that night, Xiao Li and the other came to her almost immediately.

"Master, why did you give them those pills?" Ying Hui responded with a pout, "It took you three entire days to make that!"

Lotus sighed as he took a seat in a chair in the lobby, "The price is right."

Crystal crawled up the table nervously, "My butterflies apologize for this incident, Master..."

"All's well." Lotus responded briefly, "However, be warier the next time you're in the Savanaclaw dorm. Thankfully, Zack had been under his window when Ruggie fell or he'd be seriously hurt than he is right now. Also, Ying Hui, since we were the cause of the accident, it's only fair to make it up to them. If Zack had broken an arm or Ruggie broke his skull, the price would have gone far too high for me to recover..."

"We'll be more careful." Crystal responded.

Lotus handed a green and purple seed to Xiao Li, "See if you can find the environment that would suit this seed, Xiao Li."

She yawned and continued, "I've been running around all day again today, I'm really tired..."

Ying Hui sighed, "If only the school lets their students skip classes without reprecussions, but do you really need those books, Lotus?"

Lotus nodded, "That's right. I've already read the books in Royal Sword Academy, but what they have there isn't what I'm looking for. All that's left now is Night Raven College..."

Xiao Li grumbled in dismay and crossed arms, "They called themselves the number one school, but, if what Lotus wants isn't there, then what makes them think their school is the best?"

Ying Hui sneered, "They couldn't even tell that Lotus isn't a student, much less her real identity."

With a yawn, Lotus shrugged, "It's fine. I had my fun with the books there anyway."

Lotus yawned again as she turned to Ying Hui, "I'm going to rest up in a bit. Come fetch me once it's morning."

"I understand." Ying hui nodded with a wide smirk on her face.

Once she was gone with Xiao Li following her dutifully, Little Jun flicked his tail with a soft huff, "I wonder what Big Sister will reward me with this time?"

Ying Hui pinched the ear with a frown, "You haven't even gotten strong enough to protect yourself and here you are already wanting a reward. Listen well! No matter how strong the enemy is, you need to be stronger. That's when you can start taking breaks."

"Okay..." Little Jun grumbled with a look of disappointment.

"It can't be helped." Crystal responded, "In our world, only the strong gets to live how they want. If you're not strong enough, they would kill you without any adherence to morals. Little Jun, you need to get stronger for your own sake or they'd take you away from Master the moment she becomes distracted. She has her own enemies in that world too and she can't always interfere with your troubles or no one would have respect for your own abilities."

"It's not just that." Ying Hui responded with a frown, "She'll need help to hide her abilities from her enemies. We'll have to support her during that time."

Little Jun nodded his head, "Then, maybe I can use that color changing potion Big Sister prepared?"

"Do what you want." Ying Hui responded with a shrug, "Just don't get injured or dirty. I don't want to clean up after you."

Seeing her turn her back, Little Jun jumped with excitement, "Yes! I finally get to see what those potions can do!"

If only Ying Hui had thought twice about it, she would never have let the little kirin try out potions back then and come to regret not stopping him all those years ago.

.....

It hadn't even been five days when Lotus had to return to her room after hearing that she had a visitor and wasted little time to change and return to her room. Upon entering, she could hear the knocking on her door and opened it to find that it was Stelios Spanallis in his blue dorm uniform consisting of leather geometric jacket, navy blue jeans and black sneakers as to just accompany his clothing. Stelios ruffled his silver hair nervously after seeing that no one was around but smiled in relief when he saw Lotus open the door, "Great! You're here! My dorm is going to be making a replica of the Pumpkin Knight using replicas. Do you want to come and take a look?"

Hearing this have piqued her interest since residents of Ignihyde specializes in creating technological-based stuff, which is no different to mechanisms in her world that are made for cultivators. Lotus nodded ecstatically, "Sure! I was going to head to the library this morning to borrow some books anyway. I can shuffle up my schedule a little bit. Just let me leave a sign on my door in case the supervisor needs me."

"Awesome!" Stelios grinned with excitement, "Then, I'll see you there!"

"All right. Be careful of the curtains. We've purposely had them loosened today, so they could fall."

"Really." Stelios rubbed his neck, "Looks like you guys are working well with the Diasomnia students."

Lotus laughed, "They were very eager for pay back since the Magicam monsters put their dorm leader in a bad mood."

"Ah, I can see that. It was similar to us. Those guys not only disrespected the dorm leader's Little brother but also messed with the books in the library."

"Really?" Lotus frowned, "I'd like to take a look at the books if possible."

"Sure." Stelios nodded with a disappointed sigh, "Well, see ya later!"

.....

Back at the dorm, Riddle and the others had just returned from working in the botanical gardens as he continued reading the books Lotus had given them. His own studies had been finished and he returned to take a peek on these instead. Trey looked over curiously, "It looks like Lotus's books really have information regarding these things."

"Indeed." Riddle looked up as he closed the book in his hands with narrowed eyes and a frown, "It makes it all the more suspicious as to what he's up to and how he got here. Do you recall seeing him in the ceremony for the freshman on the first day?"

"Not that I can remember..." Trey said with a frown as he pushed his glasses back.

Riddle placed a hand on his chin in deep thought before stating, "We'll have to ask the other freshmen students, then..."

Cater, who was sitting next to Trey with the beast book noted with a wide smile, "Looks like we still have to make sure in the end, after all."

Riddle folded his arms and looked to him matter of fact, "Of course. It wouldn't matter if nothing had happened to the students, but there was something that bothered me today when we were walking back."

"What?" Trey looked to him curiously.

"One of the ghosts found drips of 'red paint' behind one of the pillars." Riddle answered, "Our dorm was let off because they knew we always put away our paint as soon as we are finished. However..."

"It's very likely that wasn't 'red paint', you mean..." Trey frowned as he knew the severity of the situation.

Riddle nodded with a grimace, "This means that the situation we saw really occurred, but it's as Lotus said. Peony had someone clean up after the scene."

"Are we going to report this, after all?" Trey looked to Riddle with a frown.

Riddle thought for a bit before responding, "Not yet. The next time we see Peony, we shall tell her to get this done before we return from Winter Break, otherwise, we can only report this to the Dark Mirror since he's in charge of the situation here."

"Eh?" Cater looked up in confusion, "Why not speak with the headmaster?"

"Even if we did tell the headmaster, she probably wouldn't listen." Trey responded, "The Dark Mirror was the one who brought her in. Only it would be able to order her around."

"That's right." Riddle nodded, "This event is also going to affect the school later on. It wouldn't have mattered to us, but it would be difficult to find another school to take us in after."

Cater said seriously, "That's true. Rumors would start about how we are from a school with all that bad stuff."

Trey nodded, "It would be difficult to transfer school after this."

"That's why, we should report to the Dark Mirror instead." Riddle responded with a frown, "If this doesn't clear up by Winter Break. It would become even more difficult to hide it."

"Then, what do we do?" Cater said curiously, "For once, I'm already out of ideas."

"We wait for now and protect the students. Make sure not a single person leaves the dorms after midnight." Riddle responded.

"Got it!" Cater responded with a nod and a wide smile, "What about the other students?"

Riddle shook his head, "For now, we wait. The other dorm leaders would be responsible for their safety. If everything goes well, they would not require the other dorms for help. Peony would need to hurry or else there's bound to be a conflict soon."

Trey nodded in approval, "Then, we'll make sure none of the students leave the mirror at night."