Stones

Sho bent over, grabbing a bluish rock off the ground, and depositing it into a dark yellowish bag. After evaluating the contents of his bag, he looked up, seeing two other boys and a girl, all of them about his age.

One of the boys, noticing his gaze, smiled. "You good, Sho?"

Sho simply nodded back.

When Sho had gotten back to his room, he'd looked around. The room's furniture was arranged around a circular mat. Besides this, there wasn't much to note. There were, indeed, some clothes in his room.

Something which had confused him a little bit was how they would get clothes to fit him despite not knowing how big he would be. However, unlike the pants and shirt that Lia had bought him, the clothes within his room were just robes. They were designed large but could be folded and tied to fit smaller people.

Before he'd gotten a chance to change clothes and try it on, someone knocked on his door. He saw a guy about a couple years older than him, when he answered.

"Hey, what's up? What's your name?" A bright voice spoke to him.

"Sho", Sho answered. While he wasn't cold, he wasn't very expressive. He still felt something was missing from him.

"Sho, huh. That's a nice name. I'm Juge." Juge revealed a bright smile as if he was talking to his best friend.

Sho couldn't help but wonder if it was possible to get sect points from befriending new disciples but he ruled it out. Lia didn't seem that interested in being his friend, just helping him become a disciple.

'Maybe she thought I was ugly' was the first thought that popped into Sho's head following that reasoning. He inwardly shrugged at that, dismissing it. It didn't matter anyways.

Sho and Juge talked for a while, Sho gradually opening up to him. After about 20 minutes of talking, Juge asked Sho to come with him on a mission.

Sho had suspected this as a reason for why Juge would suddenly start talking to him but he'd dismissed it. There had to be a lot of other people who Juge could ask. Why would he ask some random newbie?

Still, Sho heard him out. This was how Sho found himself looking for minerals in a cave near the sect.

It turns out this 'Southern Bosque' sect had control of the nearby forest Sho had been running in earlier. This was likely why Sho had only met with a mutated bird instead of some more dangerous creatures. The sect had wiped them all out.

Sho's sect had two main geographical characteristics. To its north and west, was the forest they controlled while to their south and east was a large river.

The sect almost never held operations sending the weaker disciples southeast from the sect town. The mutations that lay in and around the river were an immense issue.

Because of this, most sect missions would be in the forest, coincidentally named 'Southern Bosque Forest.' This was exactly where Sho was, with Juge and a couple of other people.

Their mission was simple, really. They'd find a specific cave and harvest some minerals that had been located there. It was so simple that Sho really found himself wondering what Juge's aim was, by asking him or anyone else to come here. After all, now he was obligated to share the sect points he'd receive from this mission, considering he'd sought their help.

He'd actually asked Juge this question and received nothing but a friendly face telling him it was to help those new to the sect.

The group dove into the cave, collecting bluish gray stones called river cobalt. They didn't have a specific quota to fill, only that they'd get more sect points the more stones they got.

It would be easier to get more stones with more people, Sho thought.

After collecting the few they could find around the entrance, they delved in deeper. Using some light, they continued to find more of these stones, casually talking amongst themselves.

Back in the sect, a rotund man in his early 50s paced outside an office door. It was clear he'd been waiting there for at least a few minutes. Still he waited even longer.

When the door finally opened greeting Inner Elder Bachi, he smiled, nervously.

"Greeting Core Elder Lahon." Bachi said as he bowed to a tall man with wrinkles. He had a hawklike face, as if everything he gazed down upon was his prey.

Lahon nodded dismissively. "What's the purpose of this meeting?"

Bachi began to explain. "I found a strange disciple. His physical and spiritual ability are both at least A tier in all regards. The issue comes with his Path. The Path-Sensing Orb was unable to detect his Path."

Lahon stared at Bachi, ruminating over some possibilities. "When you say 'unable to detect his Path', what exactly do you mean?"

"The orb never changed color."

Lahon kept thinking of possibilities before his mind seemingly struck on something, his beady eyes lighting up a bit.

"You say disciple meaning you allowed him into the sect without fully knowing what dangers he posed, correct?"

Bachi stuttered, grasping for words but Lahon continued.

"Where is he now?"

Sho sat in a small circle with Juge and his other partners.

"33 stones."

"36."

"35."

"52."

The rest of the group all looked at Sho who shrugged.

Juge spoke up. "Ok, I think this is enough. Of course, we could go deeper but I'm kinda bored of this. We get a sect point for each stone. We'll split the sect points evenly. 35 plus 36 plus 52 plus 33, carry the one, I think that's 146 so each of us-"

"156." The girl said, a bit sullen.

"Right, 156." Juge smiled at her.

"Split evenly, that's 39 for all of us", he continued, nodding.

A slight frown crossed Sho's face. Wasn't this essentially robbing him of 13 sect points? Still he didn't speak up. After all, it wasn't like he would even be here without Juge.

Juge's smile broadened. "Great, now I'll collect all of your stones and we can leave."

The girl spoke up again. "You can't be serious."

Juge's smile waned as he looked at her. "What? What's wrong?"

"You think I don't know anything just because I just joined the sect? Don't fuck with me. Can't you make it less obvious you want to scam us?"

"Berisa, what are you talking about?"

Berisa snorted, rolling her green eyes. "So you didn't intentionally try to bring down the total stones so you could get 10 extra sect points without us knowing. You can do division but not addition."

Juge shook his head. "It was a mistake, my bad. You corrected me, it's all good now."

Berisa snorted again, laughing a bit. "Again, do you think I don't know anything? The person who takes the mission is the one whose word matters. That's why you get a 10 point bonus simply for completing it. If we show up and it's only you who has stones, you can simply lie and say that you did all the work. Even if we all joined together and disagreed, we'd have zero proof that we actually did anything since everything would be in your bag."

Sho saw a brief look of surprise cross Juge's face before it transitioned to one of annoyance.

"I just wanted to make the process faster. If you're so confident I'll cheat you, then sure you can keep your stones in your bags."

Berisa stared at him, her eyes squinting, trying to distinguish Juge's intentions now.

Still she nodded before picking up her bag and getting up. The rest followed suit, beginning to walk out of the cave. Berisa was the first one to step foot out of the cave which was why she was the first one to see it.

A reddish humanoid creature walked into the cave, its features nondescript. It almost seemed like pure crimson energy taking form.

A sense of deja vu hit Sho as he stared at the being casually walking towards Berisa, its feet creating holes wherever it stood.

Everyone else seemed to be trapped in a horrified shock. However, out of all of them, Juge snapped out of it quickest, running towards the cave entrance. Specifically, he ran towards Berisa.

She immediately snapped out of her shock and backed away towards the edge of the cave entrance, also keeping her focus on what Juge was doing.

To be entirely honest, Berisa didn't trust Juge at all. Her sister, who had been in the sect a bit longer than her, had told her he was notorious for taking advantage of new disciples to get sect points. He would befriend them before taking them on missions, using their work but taking more rewards than he deserved.

In addition, his Path was relatively unique: the Path of Illusion. If he was unable to fool new disciples simply with his words, his Path provided ample opportunity for him to get what he wanted.

So why had Berisa joined him knowing all this?

Missions were an unsustainable source of sect points. They depended entirely on who was asking, they popped up inconsistently, and their difficulty varied. It was people like Juge who depended on fooling others on missions who had essentially mastered knowing when and how missions would come. Berisa wanted to take advantage of that. She believed that as long as she remained on her guard, she would be able to walk away with a decent amount of sect points.

As for the other guy, Sock, he was just gullible.

This isn't to say that Berisa wasn't gullible in her own way. Despite knowing that Juge was notorious for fooling new disciples, she never thought that she would be fooled. She never thought that she would die.

Suddenly, Berisa's eyes 'opened.' She was no longer holding her bag of stones. She looked up to see the cave about 12 meters away from her. An immense sense of danger overwhelmed her but it was much too late to do anything. A hand grabbed her shoulder and excruciating fiery pain devastated her. In a matter of seconds, her torso had burnt up. In a few seconds more, she was gone.