Chapter 95: A Simple Happiness
The next morning, Baiyi and Mia left the dorm and was getting ready to move to Tisdale’s mansion. Both of them did not have much luggage as they had put their belongings inside their storage pouches. Only the pots of flowers that could not be placed inside the pouch needed to be carried by hand.
Mia was dressed exactly the same as she did the last time when she went to the town with Baiyi— a white dress coupled with a large sunhat that made her looked as cute as a little angel. In her arms was a kitty coin bank that was filled with a white flowery plant that Baiyi had plucked from the road side some time ago. Excitedly, she skipped and hopped along the dormitory’s corridor beside Baiyi. Well, it was the first day of the holiday after all. Baiyi, on the contrary, cast a spell to make the other five flower pots float behind him, making him look like he was holding on to a few helium-filled balloons as he walked.
The Celestial Fortress Academy was a lot quieter than usual as many students had already left the academy a day before. Even the group of ‘retired workers’ from the Seniors Park came to bid goodbye to Baiyi one after another the evening before as they followed their pract.i.tioners back to their respective hometowns to spend the rest of the holiday.
For that reason, the two black carriages that stood in front of the dormitory particularly stood out. One could easily guess that the two visitors must have came to see Baiyi.
The first person who came down from the first carriage was a fiery red figure. The hot and humid summer was already agitating enough and the moment he opened his mouth, he had successfully made the whole situation even more irksome, “AH HA! Master Hope! You finally came out of that door!”
That person was none other than the Magi-breaker who was crippled by Baiyi into eight whole pieces last time but now that Baiyi looked at him, he seemed to have already recovered to his usual state. Looks like he has managed to find for another powerful blacksmith, eh? Then again, this anti-magic material itself is soft and malleable so I guess it must be pretty easy to get it fixed.
“Master Hope! How are you? I’ve brought you the best fabrics from the city of Arfin. Look! There are a variety of colors right here, just pick whichever that you like. It should be good enough to compensate for your cape, shouldn’t it?” As he opened the door of the carriage, Baiyi could see that it was stuffed to the brim with all sorts of colorful fabric inside
Does this guy really intend to compensate for that cape that he destroyed? But h.e.l.lO! That was not just a normal cape that you can simply reimburse with any fabric…
His pract.i.tioner, a golden-collared pin boy came down from the other side of the carriage. After giving a polite bow towards Baiyi as he secretly glanced at Mia a couple of times, he finally said, “It just so happens that my family is in the fabric business. These are a few batch of high-grade fabric that we keep in stock for our own use. Feel free to choose any color that you like, Master Hope. And of course, Mia, you can pick a few for yourself as well. We are more than happy to contact a tailor to custom design some clothing for you as long as you are happy.”
Er… Are these two guys even sane? Other people usually bring me gold or expensive magical materials as gifts to forge a close relations.h.i.+p with me and you two bring me a carriage of fabric instead? Baiyi was rendered speechless by the action of the two idiots.
On the contrary, Mia’s eyes lit up instantly— probably because she heard about new clothing or something, who knew?— as she exclaimed excitedly, “Whoa! Really? B-But… But that cloak was only made from a curtain cloth…”
W-WHAT? You idiotic girl! Why did you have to announce THAT out loud?
Baiyi was already feeling embarra.s.sed over his own pract.i.tioner’s words but who knew that the boy who kept staring at Mia would be even more embarra.s.sing. In the face of Mia’s question, he responded immediately, “Ah? A curtain cloth? Oh, wait! I have it inside here too! Let me find it for you. I remember that there’s one fabric that can change color according to the weather. There’s nothing more suitable to be made into a curtain cloth than this one right here!”
This boy has been looking at Mia since just now. I’m sure he is not even aware of what he’s saying right now, right? My goodne -Oh sh*t!!
Quickly, Baiyi pulled Mia back to his side from the carriage’s door— that girl had been charmed by the piles of fabric and she almost climbed into the carriage when Baiyi was thinking to himself. Pretending to be composed, he casually said, “Just pick one color that is right for you, don’t take more than that.”
“Eh? Oh…” Now that her new clothes were gone, her heart sank at once. Turning her head to look at Baiyi’s armor up and down, she asked tentatively, “Err… how about green color then? Let’s pick a cool color since the weather is so hot now.. EHHHH? Sniff… M-Mr. Hope! Why did you suddenly pinch my cheek?”
You imbecile! Don’t you have quite a good taste in dressing yourself up? Look at how nice you look! So why the h.e.l.l would you pick such an ugly color when you’re dressing me up? Seriously? Green color? Should I spank you?
To his disbelief, the Magi-breaker suddenly voiced his opinion and supported Mia’s bizzare fas.h.i.+on choice as well. With a clap, he exclaimed excitedly, “This is a great idea! Green is a great color! Why have I never thought of that before? I should go back and paint myself green as soon as possible!”
E-Excuse me? Are you a Magi-breaker or a prophet? Is your surname, by any chance, Ud Ura Zahubu 1 ?
In short, at the end of the day, Mia picked only a small amount of black ordinary fabric and immediately, those two guys left without making any idle chit chat as there was still another carriage waiting behind them. Somehow, Baiyi had a feeling that the next time he sees them, the Magi-breaker would be covered entirely in green color.
The person who came down from the second carriage was a standard aristocratic butler. With just a simple greeting, he flashed a griffin-carved crest to Baiyi before taking out a storage pouch from his coat and handed it over to him respectfully with both hands. After Baiyi had taken it, he turned away without saying another word. In the whole process that lasted less than five minutes, he only uttered one sentence— “This is the grat.i.tude from milady”— not even a word to indicate which family he was from.
Hmmm… This fellow is quite efficient! Putting the storage pouch away, he silently praised the professionalism of the n.o.ble aristocratic’s butlers.
“What’s that?” Mia asked curiously.
“I guess, it’s a gift from your previous opponent, to apologize for her misconduct in the ring,” Baiyi simply said.
“Is that so? Oh, that Vidomina is quite nice then,” Mia murmured softly.
How naive can you be? Without another word, Baiyi bent over and took the kitty coin bank and the fabric from Mia before holding her hand as they slowly walked out of the Celestial Fortress Academy compound.
When they reached Tisdale’s mansion, the two girls immediately burst into an excited mode looking at the fabric. Tisdale quickly took out a whole set of sewing kits from G.o.d-knows-where and the two of them started to bury their heads together in discussion of what kind of cloak they should make for Baiyi.
As for Baiyi, the first thing that he did when he arrived at the mansion was to arrange the flower pots nicely. Once he was done with them, he opened up Vidomina’s storage pouch and spilled the content out over an empty table. Not bad! Nothing that is ordinary like gold coins and such but these are all expensive magical ingredients and equipments!
Without wasting another second, Baiyi used his Psychic Energy to check all of the magical equipments that she gave. Necklaces, rings, bracelets— Wow! All of these are really high-grade stuffs — before putting them away at one side and focused on the magical ingredients. Other than the five bottles of White Dragon’s blood that he already had, the others were all high-grade Water-type ingredients such as the Iceblink Gem, Elixir of Capriole and so on.
Nevertheless, amongst those ingredients, the most eye-catching one was no doubt the two stones that was respectively red and blue in color. The two strange-looking stones were called Soul Booster— an extremely rare ingredient in that world, but it was crucial for a Soul Armature as the two stones functioned to increase the distance of a Soul Armature and his pract.i.tioner by several folds. Just like the two small stones that Baiyi held in his hand, if one were to embed it in the armor of the Soul Armature and the other one was worn by the pract.i.tioner, it would allow the Soul Armature to have a huge distance range that could basically cover the entire city of Arfin provided that the innate capability gap between the two of them was not too huge.
In short, Vidomina’s generosity indeed far exceeded Baiyi’s expectation. As expected from a prodigal Duke family, she first gave a Saint Quatz staff to Baiyi and now a huge number of high-grade magical equipments and ingredients that were quite suitable for Mia? Needless to say, she had successfully raised her impression in Baiyi’s heart now— or in a gaming term,Favorability +1.
“Still, other than the Soul Booster, the rest of the ingredients are all Water-type ingredients. I feel like this is all prepared for the sake of that doll!”
“If we really put all these materials in that doll, I think it would probably evolve into one of the Sea Kings in One Piece!” Somebody piped up and sure enough, the topic of the hammerhead shark doll evolving was discussed heatedly in the Void.
“We should transform it to become like a fleet equipment that can provide both protection and firepower and then put it on Mia so that she can become a Fleet Girl 2 ! Oh yeah, it’s best if it has asakura holographic background 3 !”
“Ptuii! What a disgusting idea! If it was me, I’d say let’s just create a battles.h.i.+p and let Mia be the driver instead!”
“JESUS! Can you guys be more pragmatic? Obviously, the best idea in this circ.u.mstance is to forge the Rising Heart 4 for Mia!”
What the h.e.l.l goes through all your minds? This thing that we’re talking about is only a doll! h.e.l.lO?? It’s a fluffy, soft, white-bellied toy, the kind that most girls would like y’know! How is it possible for a doll like this to evolve into whatever-stupid ideas that you guys have for it? Baiyi snapped at those good-for-nothing guys but unfortunately, no one paid him any attention at all.
Exasperated, he gave up and decided to secretly enter Mia’s room while she was still busy sewing the cape for him. Hastily, he took the hammerhead shark plus.h.i.+e and cut open the belly before he replenished the Mana that had been used up in the battle a few days ago.
As for what extra modification that I can add to this doll, well, I guess it’s better for me to just wait for those guys in the Void to come up with a feasible conclusion first. Yeah, let’s just put the rest of the ingredients aside. Since it’s the peaceful and quiet holiday period right now, this fellow can just continue his work as a plus.h.i.+e doll and that’s more than good enough, Baiyi thought to himself.
When the sun set in the evening, the two girls finally finished sewing the cape. Maybe it was because there were two of them doing the work together, the workmans.h.i.+p of the cloak had improved greatly compared to the previous one. Adding on to the fact that the fabric was in black color, which suited Baiyi’s grey armour really well, it made him appeared more dignified and mysterious.
Not only that, there was a tiny detail that the two girls failed to mention but somehow Baiyi managed to discover it some time later. As he picked up the corner of the cape to have a look, he saw two tiny lines of embroidered word— it was the names of Mia and Tisdale respectively.
How lucky I am to have two good girls as my students… Baiyi silently thought to himself.