Chapter XXVII: Pre-Victory Party II

Onin

Sengoku Empire

The Great Plateau

Month of the Pangolin 9, 172 ,328 DE

The humans have weak Minds, but Magabe's almost arrogant self-assurance still annoys me. I frown at him. "Why are you tagging along with me?"

"Entertainment."

"Entertainment?"

Magabe smirk does change in the slightest. "As Young Jones said, you are a trouble magnet and a troublemaker. I am old and bored. Watching a few children's squabbles before another boring entrance examination will at least provide a diversion."

Repressing an annoyed sigh, I stare at the elevator doors while waiting to reach the top. Feeling the odd resonance centered on Magabe fill the Eidos, I clench my teeth. It feels like he is trying to provoke me. This shitty old man annoys me as much as the shitty old man I have been living with for most of my life.

As the elevator doors open on the lobby of the Sky Tower, most of the fifteen or so people standing around glance toward the elevator. A few of them frown and stare intently through my location. Those three seem to be, at least, subconsciously aware of my presence. When I walk out of the elevator and weave my way through the lobby, their eyes continue to follow me.

"Takeda-san, what are you staring at?" A girl standing next to one of three poke him, Takeda-san, in the arm.

"It's nothing. My mind is just wandering." Takeda shakes his head and looks at the girl. While his Cultivation only feels like it is in the early part of the Formation Building realm, he has an air of bloodthirstiness that is uncommon in a human. If I could not tell from his scent that he should be a pure human, I would almost think him to be half Ferocious Beast.

Beyond the lobby, the main dining area of the restaurant opens out. It only takes up a little more than a third of the disc, so there should be smaller private rooms. Since the few high class restaurants in Shizukana Gake have layouts like that, I expect this one to be the same.

At a head table, set up along the outer wall, a group of young Tokugawa scions reigns supreme over the party. In the center of the room, plate upon plate fills a group of tables. The rest of the party guest sit at table surrounding the food table, and they seem to be serving themselves.

Out of the more than thee hundred humans in the dining area, less than twenty glance in my direction, and a few moments, all but one shake their head, sigh, or roll their eyes and turn back to the people they were talking to. The only one that continues to stare at me is a gaijin, and he seems to see me clearly. I cannot determine his Cultivation realm, but it is without a doubt above the Martial Warrior realm. As Magabe step out into the dining area, the gaijin Cultivator's eyes shift to him.

"Ho-ho-ho. It looks like McCandless is interested in someone from this backwater empire. How unusual."

Apparently hearing Magabe's soft-spoken words, the gaijin Cultivator, McCandless, frowns. His lips move, but while I cannot hear the words he speaks, Magabe smirks at him and chuckles. "He is so easy to work up. It's been almost a thousand years since I first ruffled his feathers, and he cannot let it go."

McCandless' face turns an angry red, and he looks away.

Still chuckling, Magabe glances at me. "With your bloodlust, you have no hope of hiding your presence from even mediocre Martial Kings like McCandless."

"Who is he?"

Magabe shrugs. "He's from Iron Mountain University. It's ranked number eleven of the Twelve Great Cultivation Colleges. After entering the twelve, the headmaster, McCandless' grandfather changed the name from College to University. He thought it made his school sound more important, but it didn't change their ranking. They have always been number eleven."

Magabe used the Trade Tongue for the school's names. Ningen no Gengo has no equivalent for the word University. Compared with the Trade Tongue, Ningen no Gengo is a severely limited language. Old Man Jones says that languages that use characters instead of alphabets are inherently limited. He says the limited character set of such languages restricts the breadth of thought of the native speakers. While I am not sure about whether or not he is correct, the native speakers of Ningen no Gengo tend to be rigid an unimaginative in their thoughts.

As I scan the dining area, I notice McCandless watching the head table. The okama and a number of younger generation humans around him have similar features. They should all be part of the Tokugawa clan. It appears that one of them has caught McCandless' interest. If compared to Shizukana Gake, they all have strong Cultivation levels. The weakest among them, a slender, waif-like girl, who looks out of place in her formal kimono, stand solidly in the middle of the Qi Condensation realm. With the exception of the Okama, who is at the peak of Foundation Establishment, the rest range from the girl's level to near the middle of the Foundation Establishment realm.

With attention on the food in front of her, she had shown no signs of interest in the rest of the young Cultivators, but she abruptly raises her head to look in my direction. After she scans the humans near me, he eyes settle on the area where I stand, and a frown twists the corners of her thin lips downward. Out of all the Cultivators at the main table, she appears to be the only one to notice my aura. The rest of them continue to eat, drink, and boast.

Sitting in the middle of them, the okama looks inordinately pleased with himself and disdainful at the same time. Every few minutes, another group of younger generation scions approaches the table to suck up to him. Off to the side a table with middle-aged male and female humans looks on, while sucking up McCandless, who sits at the center of table. With sharp-eyed and envious expressions, the older generation escorts for the young scions focus the middle-aged Tokugawas' table, paying little attention to the actions of their young charges.

Hidden from the senses of the Cultivators by my awareness obfuscation, I watch the humans shift around among the tables. From the bits of conversation I overhear, this party seems as much a chance to make or shoe up alliances, but. many among the various groups vying for the approval of the Tokugawas do not appear to be overly friendly with one another, or friendly at all. In less than half an hour, more than a dozen arguments break out among them. One argument quickly devolves into a fist fight. None of the participants draw on their Yuan Q, and a few adults, all in the Foundation Establishment realm, break them up.

I am not sure what I should have expected, but I see no opportunities to injure or eliminate any of the Tokugawa clan scions. My only real chance to get them will be in the sparring competition during the exam. As I am I getting ready to leave, the waif-like Tokugawa girl rises to her feet, and with none of the other Tokugawas seeming to notice, she wander through the party guests in my general direction. Out of curiosity, I stay where I am.

Stopping a few meters away from me, the Tokugawa girl intently examines the area and the other humans around me. While tall for human female of these parts, her frail build makes her look like she could just disappear in an instant. Sticking her hand inside her kimono, she takes out a four or five centimeter long, metal cylinder. Dozens of tiny sigils cover the outside of the cylinder, and when she raises it to her eye, the sigils glow with a faint silvery-blue light.

"I don't know who you are, but I am curious how you are hiding yourself from me. I can sense that you are here, and the positioning of the people around you makes you location obvious." The sharp gleam that fills her eyes stands at odd with the rest of her demeanor. Just moments before, her eyes looked lost and barely aware of her surroundings.

The nearby humans look at the Tokugawa girl like she is touched in the head, but no one so much as whispers a comment or conjecture about her. If anything, as they stare at her, the other humans appear to grow tense and nervous.

At this range, her Mind is clearly perceivable in my awareness, and it is strange. I have never encountered a Cultivator with a Mind like hers. Could it be the result of a Bloodline? While she has not practiced Coalescence, her Mind is stronger than her Body and Soul. Something she is or has done has specifically strengthened it, and the result is an imbalance between Body, Mind, and Soul. She smells healthy, but I do not know enough to know if the imbalance will cause problems for her. It could be advantageous, but other than being a bit curious about the final result, I do not really care.

Forming a Telepathy thread, I reach out to the girl's Mind. As I touch it, tension fills her, and her Body stiffens. She is far more sensitive than I expected, but she has nothing that could be called close to any sort of defense around her Mind. I find it amazing that the majority of Cultivators can be foolish to simple rely on the strength of their underdeveloped Minds as a defense against Mind attacks. Though this girl's Mind is already stronger than the Minds of any Formation Establishment Cultivators I have encountered, I could kill her in seconds with the strength of Mind I currently possess.

*Your Mind is stronger than a normal Cultivator.*

The girl's jaw drops open, and it takes several seconds for her to close it with an audible clacking of her teeth.

*Focus on what you would like to say but do not speak. I will "hear" your thoughts.*

*Who are you? What do mean by my Mind is stronger than a normal Cultivator? The word Mind is strange the way you say it. Why is that? How are you Thought Speaking? It feels very different from when Sacred Master Creation Forge uses Thought Speech. What can't I see you? I feel something odd touching my Sea of Consciousness. It is so dark and violent. It is not Mind Force. What is it? … *

The girl's questions continue to bombard me in an unending stream, but I tune them out.

"Ho-ho-ho! You seem to have found a friend among your enemies, but do you better understand how that bloodlust of your affects humans?" Magabe's smug smirk makes his face look extremely punchable.

After several seconds of silence, I notice an annoyed expression on the girls. Despite still not being able to see me, as I focus on her once more, she glare right at me. *Who are you? Why are you our enemy?*

I frown; though the girl cannot see it. *The okama at the head table came to Shizukana Gake to kill me and friend of mine.*

As a cold expression settles on the girl's face, the other humans in the area scatter leaving a rather large area around us empty.

The girl looks toward the head table. *Are you the one who crippled Akira?*