A Snail's Wisdom

In just a little more than four days, he victoriously pa.s.sed the entrance examination of the Flowing River Sect, gloriously made a breakthrough to the Qi Flourishing stage shortly afterwards, and easily obtained several Qi Accelerant Pill that normally took disciples of his station half a year to save up enough credits to purchase.

He accomplished all this and even got a chance to see the future wife he decided on, Princess Ryu Hanabi, and two potential concubines, the Kobayashi twins.

Since their insolent, older brother Kenja decided to end his own life by running into the Lost Forest, there was no longer anyone standing between him and the two sisters. Moreover, they were part of the inner sect. If he could enlist their help, getting closer to the princess and being promoted to the inner sect would become a cinch.

His father was right! The Heavens would always pave the way for a Kitamura!

Now, he only had to wait a few days before retrieving his cave"s keystone from that servant shop run by Migawari Puchi, and he could advance his cultivation further with the help of these pills and the recent bestowments of Qi to the sect.

With a puffed chest sticking out and some pep in his step, he joined the lengthy line of an onigiri stand. This was his fourth time eating here since joining the sect.

The line was filled mainly with servants and outer sect disciples, primarily those who were still at the Body Tempering stage or had recently attained the Qi Flourishing stage. This stand was the one and only place in the sect to obtain a free meal once-day, namely a pair of plain, white rice onigiri with no filling.

"The line is very long today…" Bolo muttered to himself in surprise.

The line was long everyday since most disciples scrimped as much as they could to conserve their sect credits, but today, it was several times longer than usual. The other food stands had only one or two people placing orders in front of them.

"This is to be expected, senior brother," an unknown voice from in front answered him.

Bolo looked at the two servants casually standing ahead of him in the line. In their mid-twenties, they were both at the early Qi Flourishing stage and, despite being older than him, afforded Kitamura Bolo the proper respect a servant would hold for the outer sect.

The servant with an amicable smile and plain face continued speaking to Bolo, "Everyone has been renting out their keystones to Brother Puchi, so unless they bought food beforehand or know a brother willing to treat them, this stall is their only source of food."

Everything in the sect operated with sect credits. Even if you wanted to use your spirit stones to make purchases, you must trade the spirit stone for credits first. But without a keystone, one could not exchange sect credits nor make legal purchases within the sect.

His dopey-looking companion corrected him, "You should address him as Big Brother Puchi now."

Migawari Puchi"s station had risen in the eyes of everyone. It had been just one day since the rental shop in the servant"s quarters had opened up, and even the outer sect disciples addressed him respectfully now.

"Oh, you"re right! Perhaps soon, we"ll have to call him Senior Migawari," he chuckled with a hint of envy.

Servants who fell into the good graces of the seniors inside the sect would often be promoted to the outer sect or given resources to advance their cultivation.

Migawari Puchi had won the lottery by a.s.sisting a senior kind enough to share his wealth with the entire sect. His compensation must be plentiful.

Bolo nodded in agreement.

He, himself, had just dropped off his keystone due to the irresistibly fantastic deals the store offered, and it would be surprising to find someone stupid enough to still be holding onto their keystone at this point unless they were loaded with credits. When he was renting out his own keystone, "Big Brother Puchi" was repeated hundreds of times by the people standing in line.

With an expression that looked down on the world, Bolo boasted to the two servants, "I could go several days without eating anything. The length of this line means nothing to me." Bolo"s slightly big stomach tightened against him.

This boast was mostly a lie.

Some could go a few days without food if they were forced into such a situation, but a spoiled, rich "young master" like Kitamura Bolo had never experienced such a situation.

Thanks to his enlightening experience with the Orb of Eventuality and the cultivation manual that was on his bed when he woke up from his fainting spell, the same fainting spell that he claimed was a "manly overexertion that led to a sudden need to rest", he was able to advance his cultivation from the peak of Body Tempering to Qi Flourishing after three days of meditation in his cave.

But if one had spectated the entire process, one would have seen him exit and enter his cave several dozen times carrying two to three plates of food each time.

Yes, the single digit number of sect credits his keystone acc.u.mulated every few hours was used entirely on food, and he didn"t forget to grab the free pair of onigiri everyday. When that wasn"t enough, he bartered away his fancy robes, family heirlooms and a couple of "Immortal" goods that his papa gave him in case of emergency, netting himself more than eight hundred credits. He justified their sale by telling himself, "An Immortal must be ready to part with worldly possessions," right before buying an eye-catching, gold earring in the very same stand that he sold said possessions.

And although his frequently-interrupted cultivation could be considered "seriously cultivating" for Bolo, the main reason he pa.s.sed through the final bottleneck and successfully gathered sufficient Qi into his dantian was due to the timely portion of Qi given to the sect"s disciples from the triumphs over two of the sect challenges.

Not that Bolo was aware of this at that time.

For him, he suddenly felt an influx of Qi fill up his cave and envelop his body when he needed it most…twice.

Truly, the Heavens paved the way for him.

He was even more convinced of this shortly after he returned from the orientation and quickly learned about the never-before-seen opportunity in the sect to rent out his keystone for cultivation resources and that the shop was open for anyone in the sect with a keystone.

Truly, the Heavens paved the way for him, and even those near him would benefit!

How lucky was this sect to have him, Kitamura Bolo, as a disciple? His luck rubbed off on everyone near him.

The amicable servant tilted his head at Bolo"s smug face. "Junior doesn"t recognize this senior brother. May I inquire senior brother"s name?" His eyes synced with his dopey-looking friend"s eyes who responded with a slight shake of his head. He didn"t recognize Bolo either.

For servants, the outer sect disciples were walking, breathing treasure vaults. They were one tier higher with regards to the sect"s hierarchy and had access to certain privileges that servants did not. Forming a close relationship with the right outer sect disciple could bring them immense benefits in the future, similar to the aforementioned Puchi.

A face that they didn"t recognize could mean a fresh recruit who was not only new to the sect but also unattached to any servants.

Bolo snorted with gusto. "The name is Kitamura Bolo. I was admitted into the sect four—er, five—four-and-half—ahem, less than a week ago."

He was still not used to the day-and-night system within the sect where the glow of the luminescent gra.s.s and the ceiling flames dimmed as the evening came. Going from "bright" to "less bright" back to "bright" was how he determined that a day had pa.s.sed, and he was certain that the cycle happened at least four times since his arrival

The two servants displayed a stunned expression.
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"You are the Kitamura Bolo?" asked the dopey-looking servant.

Bolo was momentarily puzzled before putting his smug face back on and thumping his right pectoral with a fist. His stomach jiggled a bit in response, but Bolo didn"t seem to notice.

"The one and only!"

The friendly-looking servant continued the interrogation, "Does senior brother"s family hold a peac.o.c.k"s tail?"

There were very few ways to ask about one"s personal wealth without being rude. If one was said to hold a peac.o.c.k"s tail, it was an indirect way of saying that he was lucky and/or wealthy. With this method, the peac.o.c.k"s tail was synonymous with "luck" and "fortune" and inquiring about one"s luck was not rude.

Bolo replied with a laugh and two grasping palms, "You could say we hold a tail in each hand and two more with our toes."

To think that the Kitamura family name propagated into the world of Immortals! Papa Kitamura would be delighted to learn of this.

The Kitamura family could barely claim to be in the top ten of the richest families in Ryuga, but for Bolo, this was enough to throw his weight around. The main issue was that the wealth of a mortal family supposedly amounted to nothing in the world of Immortals, but his father must have overestimated the wealth of Immortals.

Both the amicable servant and his dopey-looking compatriot took a large gulp.

Rather than a mortal family with mortal riches, they believed he was the direct son of a wealthy cultivator"s clan.

Kitamura Bolo was the name of the sect"s affluent and philanthropic outer sect disciple that Puchi had praised for the first few hours of the "Lease-Keystone" business before withholding all information about him.

Everyone a.s.sumed that Kitamura Bolo had told Puchi to stop spreading his name needlessly, but the damage was already done. Many curious servants and disciples researched this Kitamura Bolo who Puchi had claimed was "a handsome and gentle senior brother" and an outer sect disciple at the Qi Flourishing stage.

It was difficult to describe this slightly chubby and rough-around-the-edges senior brother as "handsome" or "gentle", but he was wearing the robes of the outer sect and had the correct cultivation realm.

The friendly servant gave him another question, "Is Senior Brother Kitamura acquainted with Princess Ryu?"

The little information they found on Kitamura Bolo was penned down in the directory that the vice elders and senior disciples carried, namely his name, age and date of admission into the sect. The directory was enchanted with a special technique that synced the information between all other directories while also preventing any careless editing without proper authorization as well as hiding any detailed information from prying busybodies.

In this fashion, these two servants knew that the only Kitamura Bolo recorded in the directory had been admitted on the last day of this year"s entrance examination period.

Kitamura Bolo"s heart skipped a beat when they mentioned Princess Ryu.

"Ahem. We"ve exchanged words and pa.s.sed the entrance examination together. What do you think?" His face maintained its smugness, but a cold sweat dripped down his back.

They did take the entrance examination together, and they did exchange a few words: once about the sect"s gate and another about the order in which they should take the examination. Thus, he was definitely not lying!

Besides, it was only a matter of time before she accepted him as her fiancé. After all, the Heavens favored him.

The servants stared at him with amazement and slightly open mouths. Their eyes synced with each other once more before simultaneously giving each other a nod.

"Senior brother, please regale us with your stories," said the friendly servant while stepping aside and inviting Bolo to skip them in the line.

The dopey servant mimicked his friend and continued to bootlick Bolo, "Please do, senior brother. We servants live off the adventurous anecdotes of heroes like you."

Bolo smiled gleefully at their invitation and stepped in front of them. "No problem. What kind of person would I be to shrug off such a small request?" If there was one thing a Kitamura was born to do, it was to be admired by adoring fans!

Truthfully, Kitamura Bolo had missed his entourage of friends since entering the sect. Having two or three insignificant people constantly complimenting his greatness as he proceeded with his activities was something difficult to forget.

Although these two chaps were older and taller than he was, perhaps they could fill the void in his heart that his old tagalongs" absences had created.