One Last System

And to put it shortly, it wasn\'t good.

\'Auditors? Auditions? Three major clans?\' I thought, hardly capable of swallowing so much information at once. \'What is this, some kind of culmination chapter of a third-grade novel?\' I asked myself, ridiculing my own situation.

A bit of internal humor was something I desperately needed right now.

"I guess that\'s a bit more than I could chew right away," I muttered instead.

"Right now, you two are safe," Vaner announced in a reassuring voice. "But from the looks of things, if you are not willing to get separated, something that even a loner like me can notice, then you are in for some hard times," he said.

\'Yeah, even you would understand that we don\'t want to go separate ways if you caught us right as we were about to get on with the action!\' I whined in my thoughts.

I was just a lowly virgin, a virgin that was about to lose that title. There was no way my saltiness would vanish just because the world appeared to scheme to put Mia and me into a deep shit!

"That\'s right," Mia said. "I\'m with Arthur, no matter what great opportunity I will have to miss because of it," she said.

"As I said, it\'s going to be hard, then," Vaner announced, scratching the skin behind his ear. "Hard, but not impossible," he added, smacking his hands against his knees before standing up from the couch and starting to circle around the room.

"Arthur," he stopped in his place and looked at my face. "Right now, you are going to have it the worst," he said as if trying to discourage me from what I already decided on. "I\'m not going to ask just how the hell did you manage to grow so quickly... But you cannot flex it anymore," he said.

"Do you think I was flexing it before?" I asked, puzzled by his words.

"It doesn\'t fucking matter!" Vaner snapped, only to take a deep breath and calm himself down. "I know that you have yet to appreciate the seriousness of the situation. I\'m sorry," he apologized before resuming his journey across the room.

"You will need to pretend to lag behind, all the while working even harder than you did to advance. Now that I took the two of you as my disciples, we need to make everyone think that you are the weakest link of the chain," Vaner explained his idea.

"Is that why you apologized back then?" Mia asked, almost jumping on her seat. She leaned herself forward and looked with an intense stare at the elder. "Back when you said something about throwing me to the wolves," she explained what moment she had in mind.

Even though I could only look at the girl from the side, I could still notice the sparks of excitement appearing in her eyes.

What, was she excited about being in the center of attention? I always knew that it was a natural instinct for women ||note from the author - those are MC\'s thoughts, who never really interacted with them, don\'t bash me, it all has a meaning|| but to think that she could be a true attention whore...

\'No, that\'s not it,\' I quickly reined my thoughts back into order. I knew Mia for long enough to understand how little she cared for others\' thoughts about her or if they did think about her in the first place. But if that was not it, then what was she all excited about?

Mia sent me a quick look, a satisfied smile growing on her lips. Before I could decipher its meaning, though, she quickly turned her face away. The one thing I could notice from the side was how her cheeks turned red.

Did that mean that her excitement had something to do with me? Could it be that she was excited... Because she could draw the attention of people to herself and shield me from attacks by doing so?

If that was the case... how could such a lovely girl even walk on this unholy land?!

"That\'s right," Vaner finally confirmed Mia\'s guess before releasing a deep sigh. "I can tell that you grew quickly not because of your innate talent, but because of Arthur," he said to Mia, instantly making her lower her eyes. "Right now, what you need to do, is to protect this secret with all you have," he instructed.

"Wait a moment," I suddenly said, leaning forward and placing my hands flat on the table. It didn\'t matter that Vaner was currently roaming behind my back. My drive for theatrics was just too great to hold back. "There is one important thing that I need you to explain," I said, standing up and turning myself towards the elder. "Why are you even helping us out so much in the first place?"

Vaner sighed deeply before finally returning to his seat. For a few more moments, he just sat on the sofa with his head lowered.

"The entire audition process is nothing more but a fancy selection for those with talent. Only those worthy the effort and grooming will go to the real sects operating in the part of the world where the Qi is actually dense enough for one to cultivate," he explained in a hushed voice. "Once you advance past the barrier, there will be no longer any need for you to use that training contraption you abused over the last two weeks."

\'Barrier? Dense Qi? A world beyond the barrier? Training contraption?\' I thought before releasing a deep sigh. \'Why is that with every Vaner\'s words, rather than getting some answers, I\'m only getting more questions?\'

"It\'s pretty hard to learn so much about the world in such a short period of time," I complained out loud.

Because I came from another world, I was used to the vast quantity of information that the information era was all about... Yet, learning so much so quickly? There was a limit to how much of it I could actually digest!

"And this is what this crash course is all about," Vaner nodded his head as he spoke. He then somehow conjured a bottle and three glasses before placing them on the table and filling them with a sea-color liquid. "Drink this; it will clear your head a little," he said, raising one of the glasses himself.

At first, I threw a quick glance at the girl. In this unknown world, she was likely to know more about what this strange liquid was all about.

But instead of fear, I could only see a massive shock over her face as she alternated her eyes between the glass and Vaner.

"Elder, are you sure?" she asked, finally settling on looking at Vaner\'s face. "If I\'m not wrong, this drink is way more than we could ever pay for," she muttered.

"Consider this my welcoming gift," Vaner replied, raising his glass in an obvious cheer.

"Mia, it\'s not good to refuse a gift like that," I intervened, quickly quelling the protests that I could see welling up in Mia\'s head.

"Ugh... Fine," she said, grabbing her glass at the same time as I did.

"To the bottom!" Vaner cheered before throwing the entire content of the glass right down his throat.

I was used to drinking all sorts of alcohol... but that was true only for my body back on earth. Even if my mind transmigrated to this world, the tolerance I built over the years of solitude had nothing to do with this world!

After all, one\'s ability to resist alcohol was the resistance of his flesh to this toxin, not some kind of innate power enforced by one\'s mind!

That\'s why, rather than downing the drink, I carefully took a sip of it. In an instant, a whole bouquet of delicate flavors exploded in my throat, only to cast a relaxing spell all over my flesh.

\'This could be easily classified as a drug back on earth,\' I thought, worried that this single sip was all it took for me to get addicted to this wondrous substance.

"Anyway," Vaner picked up his lecture as soon as we watered our throats. "For now, all you need to know is to work hard and keep your strength hidden," he said, pouring himself another glass. "There is a shitload of things I still need to talk to you about, but for now, this will suffice," he said, finally taking a sip of the drink with appreciation fitting its quality.

"What are we supposed to do now, then?" I asked. After all these lengthy talks, not even the drink in my hand could make my brain restart quickly enough to understand what Vaner was thinking.

"Once you go to the corridor, there will be doors at the end of it. They lead to the room that\'s yours from now on," Vaner explained as he looked towards the glass-covered window. A rare piece of luxury I didn\'t expect to see in this world.. "As to what you will do there?" he shrugged his shoulders as a smile appeared on his lips. "Do you know this saying; it\'s good to be young?"