Shuddering from the cold wetness, Kenja let out a cough as Snail reluctantly dried him off again and Xiang Xin widened the ice platform to a more substantial and stable size by freezing the surrounding water.

“Junior thanks senior for his kind words.” Kenja bowed to Xiang Xin before turning his head away to glance confusedly at Elder Grunty.

“Have I done something to offend senior?” While his question was referring to Elder Grunty, it was directed towards anyone willing to answer.

He understood that no one liked having their own abilities surpassed before their eyes, but surely that didn’t warrant such drastic retaliation. If a Pillar of Will crushed anyone that beat their personal records, wouldn’t the challenge pit be meaningless? Or was it just Elder Grunty being petty on her own?

Kenja’s question caused both of Elder Grunty’s eyes to twitch madly as her spiky hair loosened further into a maddened cactus bush.

“Hahahahahaha, disciple, your ruthlessness is quite entertaining to watch!” Snail broke out in laughter, “After displaying your blatant lack of experience, you still break that old bat’s ancient record in just a few hours. And you made all those faces at her while doing so, yet you still have the gall to act innocent. Truly, the shell does not roll far from the snail!”

After listening to Snail’s explanation, Kenja lifted a hand to cover his mouth with lucid eyes. He realized that he had forgotten himself earlier, and his bad habit sneaked up on him again.

Whenever he was faced with a tough problem, he would focus wholeheartedly on solving it and stop paying attention to his surroundings. While Kenja liked to think of himself as cold and calculating, he had difficulty maintaining an indifferent expression on his face whenever he contemplated difficult issues.

This tendency of his had been pointed out several times by those close to him.

His emotions would show on his face clear to the world whenever he pondered something deeply, and they had cost him many card games of ‘Carpet or Camel’ with Shizuka, Yoshie and Baba. Even their next door sword master, Frederick, had advised him to work on controlling his facial expressions in the midst of their occasional spar…after repeatedly landing blows on Kenja’s head with a wooden sword.

Although Yoshie and Shizuka comforted Kenja with words like, “E-e-elder brother is best when he smiles,” and, “Baba told us that there are men who think and men who don’t. Knowing which group elder brother belongs to is comforting to us,” he still decided that he should work on this quirk of his.

And work on it, he did!

Instead of spontaneous scheming in public, Kenja privately planned his actions ahead of time and in detail before carrying them out perfectly. Like how he persuaded Wise Man Satoshi to accept his raised price for the crushed spirit stone fragments, or how he acted like the usual and kind older brother until the moment he severed his familial ties with Shizuka and Yoshie to keep them from throwing away their Immortal fate.

He had prepared beforehand so that his tough-to-control habit wouldn’t give his intentions away, and this worked for most of the important matters…just not the card games and sparring. But since those matters weren’t serious, he chose not to worry about them.

Kenja sheepishly scratched the back of his head; a look of embarrassment surfaced on his face.

Thinking back to the recently completed trial, he wore a smile while practicing the technique, but when he fell into deep contemplation, his expression had, indeed, changed several times.

In retrospect, it definitely could have been misconstrued as ‘making faces at Elder Grunty’ while unwittingly surpassing her record, especially if you considered his notorious, sinister smirk that his sisters dubbed the ‘Bad Guy Smile’. Although Kenja did not intend to bully the senior, he found that his unintended actions deserved some of the blame.

Kenja turned to face the restrained Elder Grunty and bowed apologetically. “Junior offers his apologies to senior. I was not intentionally making faces at you. My mind was focused somewhere else, so please be lenient with me.”

Several seconds passed without anyone saying anything until Kenja looked up once more.

Elder Grunty appeared frozen like a statue. Her eyes stopped twitching; her hair stopped flailing into thinner and sharper strands; and she was no longer trying to break free from her brothers’ arms.

…

Suddenly, her hair fell flat onto the sides of her head and her staunch eyes became meek. A look of utter sadness flashed on her face before her body dissipated and the white gas left behind flitted towards her Pillar.

A heavy silence fell on the baffled Kenja and the others, but before he could inquire what happened, Snail’s boisterous laughter once again echoed throughout the basin.

“Ruthless! You are ruthless!”

Kenja looked at Snail who struggled to speak against his own uncontrollable laughter.

“You were ‘focused somewhere else’? You broke her record while being so distracted…where will she ever put her face now!?”

Kenja was unusually slow on the uptake as he glanced at the uncomfortable expressions of pity on the other spirits’ faces. Even though many of them believed Kenja’s intentions were good, their moods drew a sharp contrast with the jovial snail tottering on the back of his shell in a hysterical laughing fit.

It dawned on Kenja that his very explanation for his disrespectful behavior was more insensitive than the behavior he was attempting to excuse.

A heavy voice reverberated through the basin, “It seems there is more to you than meets the eye.”

The stationary platform Kenja was standing on began surfing towards the center of all the pillars, where the giant pillar and its grand pair of eyes waited for him to arrive. Once the platform reached the center platform that he had fallen onto originally, the ice he stood on visibly melted, forcing Kenja to disembark back onto the center platform.

“Whoa! Don’t forget—OOF!”

Sakura swatted the stranded snail off the shrinking platform against the wall of the giant pillar, causing him to bounce twice before settling down on the central stone platform. An imperceptible flicker of joy at the Snail’s misfortune momentarily flashed in the pair of eyes, but it was gone before anyone picked up on it.

Snail gathered himself to glare at Sakura who merely pointed her tip at him in a slightly upturned, casual way that could only mean one thing: You’re welcome!

The leading pillar began to speak once more, “Congratulations on your new record. Here is the reward to you and the sect for your feat.”

The pillar began glowing that serene blue for the fifth time since Kenja had arrived, and it descended deeper into the water to signify the bestowal of Qi to the water which rippled out from his position. The air thickened with a natural energy that made Kenja want to stop and meditate deeply, but he held himself back.

Even if he wanted to circulate the Qi now, with its constant escape from his body, the feeling his body received was like eating delicious food but only getting hungrier with each bite. It was a mild, yet cruel torture that he’d rather avoid right now.

“And I am a rock of my word. Here is my acknowledgment of your accomplishment.”

He repeated the process one more time, but he descended two more cun into the water than before.

“I imparted a little extra to your cave as an apology for Sister Grunty’s…disruption of your trial.”

Because of her outburst, Kenja’s streak was forcibly ended without his deserved failure. If she hadn’t stopped him, who’s to say Kenja couldn’t have cleared more volleys?

Kenja bowed gratefully to the pair of eyes.

The eyes offered Kenja, “Did you want to leave a name on the record? It doesn’t have to be your actual name. A moniker or nickname would suffice, or you can leave your family or master’s name as a tribute to them.”

While he was thankful that Kenja had decided not to leave a name on the previously broken records due to the less-than-fair methods employed, he had defeated this challenge relying solely on himself. The least he could do was offer him the chance to leave a name behind for future sect disciples to remember.

Kenja thought to himself for a moment. Unlike before, he felt a sense of accomplishment for what he had done and would like to leave something behind as proof.

Having come to a decision, his gaze was firm and resolute. He stated out loud, “Student of Fifth Elder Grunty Haruka.”

A comfortable silence ensued as many of the spirits looked warm-heartedly at Kenja, but it was soon interrupted by the formerly proud, nasal voice of said teacher, “Don’t patronize me, little boy! I don’t remember teaching you anything. I don’t need your pity.”

Acknowledging one as a teacher was different from acknowledging one as a master. Kenja was essentially giving credit for his prowess to Elder Grunty even though she claimed to have not taught him anything related to the technique.

On the contrary, she had been hoping for his failure the entire time.

Kenja looked in the direction of the voice. Elder Grunty had not materialized her spiritual form but instead chose to speak from within her Pillar.

“‘The mountain does not bend to the wind’, senior. I have already made this choice, and I will not reverse it. I am deeply grateful for your tutelage.”

Kenja had his pride and believed a man should not brown-nose needlessly, but this was a different matter altogether.

On one hand, he was thankful for her words of wisdom and her continued administration of the challenge for more than six hours. On the other hand, he not only overthrew her lifelong record of fame, but he had unintentionally provoked her wrath with his weird habits.

Since he could not leave his real name on the pillar and recording a fake name was meaningless, this decision was a great compromise where he could leave his mark behind while making amends with Elder Grunty at the same time.

And while he would never admit it aloud, he had a soft spot for old ladies.

“Hmph!”

Her reply to him was terse followed with a long silence.

Kenja exhaled a defeated sigh before turning back to face the giant pillar. Although his actions were done for the principle of the matter, he hoped it would elicit a more positive reaction from Elder Grunty.

Before he could finish tossing it to the back of his memory, Xiang Xin was stretching his non-physical arms stealthily in the same direction that Huai Yi was awkwardly pulling his beard. Kenja furtively glanced back at Elder Grunty’s pillar to see it glowing similarly to Xiang Xin and Huai Yi’s acknowledgements before it made three quick, yet quiet dips into the pool of water.

“It seems sister has given you her acknowledgment as well,” Xiang Xin told him telepathically. Huai Yi affirmed the statement with a nod.

Kenja turned to pick up Snail and place him on his ear before grabbing ahold of Sakura’s hilt and channeling Qi through his body so that he could also execute the ‘Wind Whispering’ technique.

“Why three times?”

Huai Yi replied first, “Why not three times? There’s no limit to the number of times a pillar can acknowledge one person.”

“The first was probably an acknowledgment of your prowess in the skill, and the second was most likely her way of apologizing,” added Xiang Xin, knowing his former master and fellow brother was not explicit enough.

Kenja nodded in understanding. “And the third?”

Huai Yi frowned unsure of why she had given a third acknowledgment, but Xiang Xin smiled knowingly while giving Kenja a shrug.

Known for her cold aloofness and harsh personality, the elder formerly nicknamed Grumpy Grunty had never had a student or disciple to call her own. Even if she had wanted one, sect disciples avoided interacting with her as much as possible, and her reputation of being unapproachable and hard-to-deal with only grew with each passing decade up until her death.

If Xiang Xin were in her shoes, the third acknowledgment would be his form of doting on his new student. Considering Kenja would be her first and only student up to this point, perhaps she was too embarrassed to show her happy and smug face after lashing out at him and was looking for more reasons to grant him acknowledgments and get closer to him as a teacher?