After speaking with Mino, Leon decided to get a small bite to eat before returning to his hut. It was fairly noisy in the Food Hall, unusually so, he thought. Although there were set times for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with students making pills or potions, cultivating or trying to grow basic herbs, the numbers within the food hall at any one time varied and the cooks always made sure that there was cold foods available for late comers and bundles for those wanting to partake in a long periods of closed door cultivation. The times Leon had come to eat, there was usually no more than a dozen people sitting about inside the hall.However, during this lunch time, there were closer to sixty, reminding Leon of the busy martial arts school food hall and he had to search for somewhere to sit. He didn"t want to eat outside. Eventually, he found a spot in the corner, when someone took their empty tray back to the front. The other occupants at the table paid him no mind, however as their attention was clearly elsewhere.
One boy sighed. "If only we could have grabbed a seat closer," he said with a melancholic tone.
"Blame Jude," a snarky boy said. "If he hadn"t lost track of time messing about with those blood burning pills, we would have gotten here earlier! Everyone knows that the twin lotuses eat lunch when the sun is at it"s zenith!" Leon vaguely recalled that Blood Burning Pills were a stronger version of the Burning Energy Pills that he had made frequently in exchange for herbs.
"Those pills are tricky," the one, who had clearly lost face, complained. "And how will I get into the inner school if I don"t practice making those harder pills?"
"But, if you get transferred now," the first boy mentioned. "Won"t you miss out on seeing the girls everyday?"
"Do you really think that Miss Merylin will remain in the outer school long, Fin?" Jude asked. "Not only is she beautiful and kind, she has proven to be very talented at making pills. Her pills are already of good quality, despite she and Miss Maimai having only been enrolled for four weeks. I heard Senior Brother Bow say so."
"And what of Miss Maimai?" Fin asked. The boys all paused in their musings and sighed in unison.
"I heard that she had made an almost flawless first fort.i.tude pill the other day?" Jude said with a slightly dreamy sigh upon his face. The first fort.i.tude pill was a basic defence pill. It strengthened the body by ten percent for a period of two hours and this enhancement was stackable; a body could cope with taking three of these pills at once. However, the impurities in the pill were high and a nuisance to be rid of if they built up within the body due to overuse of the pill. A basic purifying potion would not necessarily be strong enough.
"Was that before or after I saw smoke billowing out of her hut"s window again?" the snarky boy asked, but there was not a lot of ridicule in his tone.
"After," Jude replied. "She made it after she obtained her fourth replacement cauldron." Leon frowned as he chewed upon a mouthful of rice. What sort of person needed to replace so many cauldron"s in just four weeks? His question did not remain unanswered for long. One of the boys nudged the other and all three boys seemed to sigh in unison once more.
Two girls in the spring time of their youth stood up from the table in the middle of the room, causing practically the whole room to pause mid bite and silence descended. One girl was quite tall. She was slender and elegant and held herself upright and her soft pink lips were curved into a gentle smile. Her dark auburn hair was arranged neatly upon her head, the long straight tresses having been wound partially into a bun with the rest to hang down her back like a silk cloak. There was an emerald green and gold hair pin decorating her hair and the robes covering her pale skin were of pale green skin decorated by moon birds and flowers.
Beside her was a girl of similar colouring, but a broad smile brightened her pretty face. Her hair was curly and worn in a messy bun that somehow did not look as if she simply tied it back just to get it out of her eyes. She wore a simpler hair pin with pale pink crystals and wore plain pale pink robes, although they were still made of silk. She was slightly shorter than her companion and more curved of figure. They made quite the comparison, but both could be considered beautiful... if Leon was into that sort of person.
"Pink suits Miss Maimai, don"t you think?" a boy from the table next to him whispered to his table mate, who nodded in agreement.
"Miss Merylin And Miss Maimai are daughters of the same sect leader," another whisper reached Leon"s ears. "But Miss Merylin is the daughter of the first wife."
"We are so lucky that the Twin Lotuses chose our school of alchemy," Fin sighed out loud.
It was then that Leon realised that most of the room"s occupants were male. He rolled his eyes heavenward and returned his focus onto his meal.