Chapter 28 - Discipleship

Yu Yin gawked at the bronze locket that had suddenly sprang into action and watched in horror as a glowing orb of light jumped out of it and flew towards Seeker.

"NOOOOOO!!!!"

He reached out his hand to grab the orb of light, but he was too late. The orb of light launched itself at Seeker at a speed that Yu Yin could never hope to match and flew into Seeker's glabella, disappearing from sight. Silence flooded the room as Yu Yin and Seeker made eye contact. Seeker wasn't crying anymore. Instead, his facial expression was constantly changing. First he had an expression of shock, followed by an expression of realisation, followed by an expression of complete and utter fear.

Yu Yin looked again at the bronze locket and snatched into his hands. The floral patterns had disappeared from its exterior and the locket itself was completely empty. Yu Yin examined it again and again to be sure. Yup, definitely empty. He looked at Seeker, then at the locket again, and then at Seeker again as his brain tried to compute what happened. Then, he finally realised!

He calmly strapped his Silver Qilin Horns to his holsters and put the rest of his treasures away in his storage ring before double checking that all his treasures were absolutely safe before he had his breakdown. He nodded his head in satisfaction when every treasure was definitely accounted for. At that point Yu Yin snapped.

"FUUUUUUU……"

Yu Yin yelled at the top of his voice whilst he lifted the desk up and threw it across the room. He went over and kicked it over and over as the desk shattered into sharp splinters that scattered over the floor. After the desk was completely pulverised, Yu Yin just stood there and looked to the ceiling. A few tears flowed from his eyes and he let them flow for 5 seconds before we wiped them away. He blinked a few times and took a deep breath. Okay, breakdown over.

He turned around to look at the petrified Seeker. The boy obviously wanted to leave if the sweat rolling down his forehead was any indicator. Was he trembling as well? Yu Yin let out another sign. He was just lamenting the loss of one of his Darlings, surely it wasn't that scary right?

'Wait, no! I refuse to believe that my treasure is truly gone!'

Yu Yin looked Seeker up and down. Seeker started trembling even more under Yu Yin's sharp gaze. Yu Yin took that as a sign of a guilty conscience. He had to be hiding the glowing light somewhere right? There's no way it had just disappeared!

'...strip…' Yu Yin mumbled under his breath.

"W-What?"

"I SAID STRIP!" Yu Yin yelled. "Don't make me say it another time!"

"What! No!" Seeker stepped back and raised his arms to cover his chest.

"Bitch, give me back my locket now or strip before I strip you myself! I'm getting my treasure back one way or another! Don't make me do this the hard way!"

Seeker looked back defiantly at Yu Yin but his determination crumbled under Yu Yin's relentless gaze. He had a resigned expression as he slowly began to take off his shirt.

At this point, an internal battle began within Yu Yin's mind. On one side, his greed and his lamentation for his lost treasure. On the other side, something extremely important that absolutely couldn’t be lost or else Layla would confiscate his man card for real the next time she saw him. After watching Seeker for 5 more unbearable seconds, his greed finally yet reluctantly conceded.

"Wait! Stop! STOP!! What the HELL are you doing? Ew! Put that back on!"

Yu Yin quickly turned around before Seeker could scar his eyes any more and rubbed his eyes in an attempt to remove those accursed memories from his mind.

"Did you really just start stripping?! Are you retarded or something?! Why would you do that?!"

"But you said…"

"Enough!!" Yu Yin stopped Seeker from speaking to avoid the remainder of his stupid mistake. However, Yu Yin still refused to give up on the lost contents of the bronze locket. He walked up to Seeker until they were only half a meter apart and then stared him down.

"After the blue light entered your body, did you feel anything different"

"Urm, uhhh…"

"Lie, and you're going out the window."

"Ah! No! I mean, I felt light-headed for a few seconds and then everything went back to normal."

'Wonderful!' Yu Yin thought sarcastically. 'If it affected his mind, then the darn thing is probably sitting in his soul abode.'

There wasn't really another conclusion. The soul abode was the only non-physical container that Yu Yin knew of that Seeker could possibly have. However, the bad news was that it would probably be difficult to recover the mysterious contents of the bronze locket. Suddenly an idea appeared in Yu Yin's mind. He smiled mischievously at Seeker.

"So, you said that you need to learn cultivation" Yu Yin's eyes glistened as he spoke. "And that I'm the only person in the world that could possibly help you?"

"Yeah…" Seeker nodded hesitantly.

"Then it's decided!" Yu Yin stated. "I, Yu Yin, the greatest mor… cough* cultivator in all the worlds shall take you in as my first disciple."

"You mean you'll help me?" Seeker's eyes suddenly lit up.

"Of course, but at a cost however." Yu Yin said. "Now Seeker my disciple, let me give you my first piece of wisdom. Nothing to be gained in life is free. Everything costs money. Therefore, if you want to be happy you must be as rich as possible!"

Seeker nodded attentively as Yu Yin spoke. He took out a small notebook and pencil from one of his pockets and began to write notes. It seemed that all of the fear and apprehension from before had been replaced by enthusiasm for having gotten what he desired. Yu Yin nodded in satisfaction. If he was going to have a disciple, he might as well do his job well.

"Obviously, this applies here as well. Therefore, as payment for your discipleship, you'll pay me…" Yu Yin quickly thought of a random number in his head. "1000 spirit stones for every month we remain together."

Seeker almost choked on his own tongue.

"What?! How am I supposed to find that kind of money?"

Yu Yin had no idea how much value spirit stones had in comparison to gold coins, but from Seeker's desperate expression perhaps he asked too much. Oh well, no take backs.

"This is for your own good my disciple, so you can learn the valuable lessons that life has to offer" Yu Yin explained, making things up as he went along. "Gathering these spirit stones will help you learn the spirit of the great Get-Rich dao. You should thank me for giving you this great opportunity!"

Seeker looked at Yu Yin with a conflicted expression. Perhaps he was regretting his decision. After a few seconds he steeled himself and gave a little bow.

"This disciple thanks the Great Master for his wisdom'"

'Ah…' Yu Yin thought as the familiar feeling of discomfort washed over his soul. He decided to name the strange feeling the 'bullcrap detector'. He had no idea why he had it, but he decided to accept it at face value.

"Another thing Seeker, whilst under my discipleship, there will be a few rules that you must follow."

"Yes Master" Seeker responded as he readied his notebook and pencil again. Yu Yin sighed in relief when he didn't feel the bullcrap detector go off. At least Seeker was sincere when he called him Master.

"You know that thing that you do where a load of lies or insincere crap comes out your mouth?"

Seeker stood there in a moment of silence before responding.

"Yeah…" he responded.

"Good. Don't do that with me. Failure will cost 200 spirit stones per offense."

Seeker had a sombre expression as he reluctantly nodded.

"Other rules include obviously obeying me and not questioning the wisdom of your great Master no matter what" Yu Yin continued. "One last thing…"

Yu Yin took out a single gold coin from his interspatial ring and tossed it to Seeker. His new disciple was flustered by his sudden action and spluttered around as he struggled to catch the coin, but eventually he managed.

"This place is called the Earthen Wyvern Continent right? Could this coin be used as valid currency?"

Seeker examined the coin. The gold coins of the Frigid Enigma Continent were about 2 centimetres in diameter and half a centimetre thick. On one side of the coin the Yu character was engraved, and the other side depicted a Silver-Horned Qilin, the emblem of the Yu Family.

"The style of this coin is strange but it should be accepted." Seeker said, causing Yu Yin to let out a sigh of relief. "After all, gold is gold."

After confirming that his ungodly stash of gold coins wasn't useless, Yu Yin put out his hand and glared at Seeker. The boy got the message pretty quickly and tossed the coin back to Yu Yin who put it away with a snap of his fingers.

"That'll be all" Yu Yin said. "Now scram!"

"But…!"

"I need to rest; come back here tomorrow morning and we can talk further about your cultivation." Yu Yin explained. "Now leave before I start charging you for my time!"

Seeker got the message pretty quickly after that and left Yu Yin alone in his room once again. He sat down in his chair and clicked his tongue when he remembered that he inconveniently no longer had a desk. He needed to think about his long and short term goals before making any moves.

'So after being forcefully transported to another world, I've now gotten into conflict with the ruling faction of this continent along with a terrorist group that goes against it. I've lost the contents of my bronze locket to some random hobo and have accepted him as a disciple, and now I'm probably going to protect the brat from getting recaptured by the Crimson Cross or something.'

Yu Yin wasn't sure what being a seeded of the Crimson Cross meant, but he didn't like that they could push Seeker to do their bidding. What if they showed up and took Seeker away? If that happened then the contents of the bronze locket would be lost for good! Yu Yin shuddered at the thought. Such a thing could absolutely not be allowed to happen. Helping Seeker was in his best interest for now until he could somehow retrieve his treasure from Seeker's soul abode.

As for his other goals, in the end all Yu Yin wanted was a place to live his life in peace without having to worry about others stealing his wealth. He also wanted more treasures. Yeah, more treasures would be nice. One way of accomplishing all this would be to use his Silver Qilin Horns to enhance his talent, but that seemed like a far-off goal.

'For now I should get out of the Windwing Village' Yu Yin thought. 'It would be a disaster if somebody came to look for the priest-like man and found out what happened. The sooner I leave, the better!'

That being said, Yu Yin couldn't leave right now. After having rested for a bit his bloodforce was only at 20% and his injuries were still pretty bad. He'd have to leave tomorrow with Seeker. First, he had to heal all the damage that Vakhtang had done to his body.

"[Aspect Acceleration: Efficiency]"

Yu Yin self-casted his bloodline ability using up 10% of his bloodforce. He was now at 10% again and was feeling extremely exhausted, but this was something he needed to do. The bloodline magic would speed up his body's natural recovery. He had diluted the buff so that it's duration would last all night, so hopefully his injuries would be healed by the next day.

His fight with Vakhtang had been close. If he hadn't been against a carrier, it would have been an easy victory, but the fact was that if he wanted to help Seeker and recover his treasure, he would eventually have to go against an entire organisation of carriers. There was also that fact that if the priest-like man hadn't showed up, Yu Yin would have given up the fight and would have never gotten his spirit stones. That would have been an unforgivable misfortune. Yu Yin needed to get stronger.

Yu Yin snapped his fingers and took out the [Myriad Blades of the Endless Night] from his storage ring. The studied the exterior of the dark gray tome and admired the silver lines that decorated its borders. He hadn't read past the introduction and the details reaching the [Rousing Soul] realm as he hadn't really found a place to sit down and read it since he was transported to this world.

Determined to get even just a little bit stronger, Yu Yin opened the book and started to read.