Kenja’s rising anger from hearing Snail’s response aggravated him into another coughing fit.

Could a drowning person calmly inform someone that they were drowning? Logically speaking, he could utilise the Wind Whisper technique to let him know telepathically, but if Kenja could do that in this situation, he would not have needed his help!

He reflected on his own failure in being thorough. Although he had Snail as a safety net, he had forgotten to agree on a way of communicating his situation to the mollusk.

It was dark in the tunnel, and rather than seeing where he was going, he followed the current that pulled him along. But the tunnel stretch endlessly upwards, and he reached his limit after some time. When he realized he could no longer hold his breath, he tapped on Snail’s shell to let him know, but there was no response. Panicking and desperate for help, he reached for Sakura’s hilt and squeezed it desperately.

Almost immediately, she took off and rushed through the tunnel at an incredible speed. Kenja held on for dear life. Every time he was about to lose consciousness and release the hilt, Sakura inserted immense amounts of Qi into Kenja through his hand to keep him from fainting.

Kenja’s coughing finally stopped. He brushed his wet bangs to the side with his left hand so that he could inspect their surroundings.

Directly above them was the bridge belonging to the moat that he crossed when he first arrived at the sect. He didn’t notice before but underneath the moat’s surface lay countless tunnels, including the one behind him that he had just exited from.

He speculated that the other tunnels must be the source of the Immortal caves’ pools of water. It was truly a great camouflage to hide the secret entrance to the challenge pit. Kenja took note of the entrance back to the Dragon’s Basin before climbing out of the moat.

He paused to let Snail dry him off, gazing at his reflection in the water.

There it was again…the appearance of Hirai Hikaru staring back at him. He let out a long sigh.

Using his two hands, he covered up the reflection so that he could examine each aspect of his body separately. His hair was loose and disheveled. His eyes were nothing special, aside from being large and brown. With thin lips and a strong chin, these traits normally gave off a boyish charm that he accepted readily. Combined with his flat chest and straight back, he felt there was a zero percent chance of anyone mistaking him for a girl.

But when he moved his hands away and took it all in, his masculine profile seemed to vanish into thin air and a demure girl with glossy skin and a sliver of tomboyishness replaced it.

Kenja lamented until Snail finished wringing the water out of his hair. Then without saying another word, he hopped on Sakura and glided to the caves where he left his deposited quantities of tribulation stones. With each cave, he fished out and stored all the tribulation stones into a storage bag.

“Disciple, shouldn’t we wait until we’re done before checking how many credits we’ve accumulated? Else, we’ll be wasting a lot of time going back and forth.”

It was a rational suggestion to make, but Kenja did not explain himself. He decided to let Snail stew in his curiosity as a small way of getting back at him for his near-death experience with water.

“You’ll see.”

Snail did not push for more and decided to withdraw into his shell instead.

The sect was crowded and bustling like never before. If it weren’t for Sakura’s skillful maneuvering, the boy standing on his sword would have crashed into idle cultivators a dozen times already.

Kenja took the increasing number of people as good news since that likely meant more Flowing River Sect disciples had rented out their keystones to the exchange shop supervised by Puchi.

After collecting the last tribulation keystone from the final cave, he made his way to the servant’s quarters. To Kenja’s pleasant surprise, an orderly line extended from the entrance filled with servants and outer-sect disciples. The previous times he returned to retrieve the newly-gathered keystones, the line had only reached to the stairs of the main hall.

He walked past the line and approached the entrance. When he tried to squeeze past the outer-sect disciple blocking the entrance, the short-tempered man rebuked Kenja, “Hey, what’s the big idea, blockhead? Wait your tur—eep!” After getting a good look at Kenja, the man quickly shut up and backed out of the doorway while bowing his head.

“Please forgive my rudeness, senior sister.”

He was thankful that his head was bowed because a deep, red blush had appeared on his face.

The hierarchy within a sect was an absolute and inviolable thing. The outer-sect disciples must afford the proper respect to the inner-sect disciples. If the outer-sect disciple happened to have a higher cultivation than the inner-sect disciple, they would still go through the motions while the inner-sect disciple would display a humble reaction.

The man’s sudden yelling and apologizing caught the attention of the others standing in line who were busy daydreaming about the items they would exchange for their tribulation keystones. They immediately took notice of Kenja wearing inner-sect robes, causing them to break into hushed murmurs amongst each other.

Inner-sect disciples would rarely come to the servant’s quarters. If they needed something or desired servants to perform a task, the inner-sect disciple would arrange for an outer-sect disciple to come here in their stead.

Moreover, Kenja’s appearance was not initially eye-catching which was how he had reached the front entrance before being noticed, but once examined, they could not turn away from his entrancing silhouette for some inexplicable reason. The disciples focused their gazes on him as the males held fervent expressions while the females were filled with admiration and envy.

Needless to say, Kenja was irked by the sudden attention and looks they were giving him. He quickly forgave the outer-sect disciple, “No need. I was also at fault,” before hurrying through the doorway. He was momentarily startled after hearing the female version of his voice again, but he managed to avoid stuttering.

The bowing disciple finally stood back up and fell into a trance with the other servants and outer-sect disciples.

Who was that kind senior sister?

Kenja continued travelling to Puchi’s room on the first floor, quickly leaving the line of people behind him. On the way, he whispered to Snail, “Can you reduce the effect of your disguise? I don’t like attracting so much attention.”

While he understood an inner-sect disciple would naturally gather attention, he could tell that was not the only reason the crowd became so fixated on him. Snail was putting maximum effort into his appearance.

Without a hint of his contrary attitude, Snail explained to him, “I understand your concern, disciple, but I think it is wiser to remain this way for a while. If I hold back at all, those searching for you might see through it. With every bit I hold back, a little of your masculinity will show. Be patient till the storm passes.”

Kenja frowned but did not argue with Snail. He still remembered how surprised he was to see an ink sketch of his face plastered all over the sect with a list of all the items he had presumably stolen.

He reached Puchi’s room which was locked with a regular key,

Puchi could not afford his own Immortal’s cave yet, so he slept here with a roommate. He had roped in the roommate to work alongside him, and in return, Kenja would borrow his key to go in and out of their room. This way, Puchi could safely pass the stones to Kenja without requiring him to wrestle his way upstairs to the shop through the sea of customers.

He opened the room and walked over to the bag of rice sitting in the corner. Reaching his hand into the bag, he fished in the rice for several breaths before pulling out a faded silver ring. It was one of the storage rings he purchased from the bazaar that held a good carrying capacity.

Both Kenja and Puchi were reluctant to leave the stones lying out in the open, so Kenja suggested this method once he learned Puchi kept a rice bag in his room.

Kenja transferred the new keystones to one of his storage bags along with a book of receipts catalogued by their return dates. After emptying the ring, he discovered that there was a white note left inside.

Kenja took it out and read it.

‘Senior Brother Kitamura,

Please, take care.

Use room if needed.

-Migawari Puchi’

Deeply touched by Puchi’s note, Kenja let out a happy chuckle.

He had already identified Kenja as the primary suspect behind the Rusty Robber incident, yet he had not turned him in, rather choosing to become an accomplice.

More than that, he was impressed with the super succinct yet extremely eloquent message.

With just seven words, he had expressed his loyalty, warned him of the creeping dangers and offered his own home as a sanctuary all while excluding any incriminating evidence, in case someone else discovered the note.

Kenja left him a note with additional instructions on it as well as a couple of questions before departing from the servant’s quarters. This time, he left from the back exit!

Sakura soared in the direction of the challenge pit where they ran into Hirose Hide and her class atop the coliseum arena. Kenja was curious to see what all those idle disciples were doing waiting for his return. If possible, he preferred to use this tunnel to return to the Dragon’s Basin instead of the underwater tunnel.

The coliseum itself was dug into the ground, so one normally entered from the top and made their way down towards the center arena. He stayed at the top and surveyed the entirety of the coliseum. It was filled with disciples seated and meditating as they seemed to be waiting for something to happen. In the center of the arena, he was surprised to see his Senior Aunt Hirose waiting to receive him, but the surprise turned to shock once he recognized the pushy Sora Yu meditating next to her.

Kenja left faster than he arrived. He was unsettled repeating that experience, but it seemed the underwater tunnel was the best way back to the pillars presently dining on food. They made their way back to the bridge, and he dived sword-first into the water without stopping to explain to himself to the screaming Snail, “WAIT! WHAT ABOUT THE STONES?”

The rapport between Kenja and Sakura had improved greatly within a short period of time because she instinctively understood his intentions, pulling Kenja back through the tunnel they had left from previously. He was unsure whether it was thanks to Sakura leading from the start or because he took an extra large, deep breath, but they resurfaced without any trouble.

Sakura dove back into the water and positioned Kenja’s feet above the flat of her blade before elevating them onto the surface edge. He had the appearance of an Immortal standing still on the water’s surface.

Unable to hold back anymore, Snail jumped from Kenja onto the sword and questioned him again with an accusatory tone, “Disciple, why did we return before dealing with the stones? Every passing minute will cost us countless credits! Truly, I thought you were smart. When did you become so stupid?”

Snail wanted to hurry and divide the stones into the different caves’ pools to begin gathering the sect credits asap. He could not understand why Kenja returned here first.

Having checked to see that the pillars were currently eating some type of quiche, Kenja looked down to stare at Snail with a vacant expression that seemed to question his intelligence. He reached into his robes and pulled out a bag. He loosened the opening and turned it upside down, allowing countless keystones to fall directly to the bottom of the Dragon’s Basin.

Snail’s jaw dropped in utter amazement as he realized Kenja’s true plan.

It was not until the stream of stones dried up that Kenja pulled out the second bag and repeated the same scene.

Snail finally collected himself and jumped onto Kenja’s face. He used his sticky eyeballs to pat the side of Kenja’s face in a congratulatory manner.

“Like I always said, a genius master always raises a genius disciple! You have passed my test.”

He had already learned that the more stones that were together, the greater the speed at which they gathered sect credits. The individual pools within the disciples’ caves were large enough to fit one or two persons, but one could not place a mountain of tribulation stones inside a single one.

Kenja had found a big enough pool to safely store all their keystones!

Kenja wanted to flick Snail into the water, but he decided to play along. He continued dumping bag after bag of tribulation keystones.

“Really? What is my reward?”

“Reward? Oh, yes, reward, of course! Truth be told, I was going to take 25% of the sect credits we gathered, but you know what? This Supreme One will stick to the 5% we agreed on. You’ve earned it, disciple!”

Unperturbed, Kenja had a disturbingly, peaceful smile on his face. He rose his free hand to Snail’s shell and flicked him into the water.

…

Three days passed in this fashion, and the day of Elder Kazane’s return arrived.