Chapter 227 - How It All Began

Mia's moment of weakness lasted for only a short moment. 

"It's okay if you need some time," Arganar said, clearly aware that something was going on in the girl's head. 

"Thank you," Mia lowered her head, hiding her face from the man. 

Even if it was as little as her expression, it was born out of an emotion reserved for Arthur. In Mia's current state of mind, showing it to someone else would be akin to cheating. 

'I can't let my emotions get better of me,' Mia thought, wiping her eyes from the residual tears that crystallized there. 'Still,' she thought as she sniffled for a second. 'This situation is pretty damn bad,' she realized. 

If it was just a single instance of institutional bullying, she could accept it as nepotism or using one's backers. 

But the second her theory about the missing ring was proven, the entire situation expanded by a lot. 

'It's not just some small group that dislikes me,' Mia thought, breathing out a deep sigh of exhaustion. 'But most likely an entire faction that I unknowingly picked a fight with,' Mia closed her eyes as the realization dawned upon her. 

'This is the one thing that relentlessly training won't help to prepare me for,' she thought, gathering her wits to kill the uneasiness that spread throughout her bones. 

"Sir..." Mia raised her head and opened her eyes. Yet, the second the elder's face came into her view, Mia trembled. 

'Can I even trust him?' she asked herself, shocked by the sudden notion. 

'He came bearing gifts, helps me out with anything I ask, appears to be against what's going on...' Mia thought, counting down the qualities of the elder. 

'Isn't he like,' she hesitated, swallowing down a gulp of salvia. 'Too good to be real?'

"What's wrong?" Arganar asked, looking at Mia's face with a puzzled expression. 

"Ah, nothing, forget it, sir," Mia backed off, coming to a decision. 

'What if he is here just to see how much I do know? Or whether I want to do something about what I discovered?' Mia asked herself.

She constantly felt guilty at how passive she was back at the Skyladder guild. 

Because even if she didn't allow those thoughts to her head, she was still aware of one insanely simple thing. 

Back at the Skyladder sect, Mia supported Arthur only a little. And even then, he never really bothered her with his plans and struggles. 

'Thinking how that situation ended,' Mia thought, tightening her hands. 

She could still recall the look of anguish on Arthur's face. That expression, that desperate yet distant cry for help, hidden beneath an overwhelming amount of fury. 

It was a split-second worth of memory, but that single image made Mia as motivated as she was. 

'I made a mistake by leaving Arthur to do all the scheming and planning,' Mia thought, taking a deep breath to relax her body. 

'And I almost made a similar mistake by trusting others too easily,' she lectured herself, relaxing her fingers and stabilizing her breath. 

'But for now...' she thought, finally calm enough to pick up the discussion.

"I'm sorry, sir. Even if it was an unfortunate mistake, I still couldn't help but get angry about it," Mia put a wry smile on her face, closing her eyes as she directed her face towards the elder. 

"It's perfectly fine," the man shook his head, relaxed when he saw Mia returning to her usual self. "Assuming that you have some resources in that ring, maybe you could've won that tournament?" Arganar threw out in the open, putting a thoughtful look on his face. 

"That's exactly what I thought about," Mia quickly seconded the elder, already eager to hide somewhere to inspect the content of the ring. 

'Maybe there is even a letter there?' she thought. 

Perfectly aware that her discussion with the elder was coming to an end, her former excitement started to take over. 

Sure, this ring went through all sorts of hands. Licking it would be repulsive. 

But whatever was stored inside was only touched by Arthur himself. 

Mia's tongue started to itch again. 

"Well, I will keep you informed once I discover more about this situation," Arganar proved to have some basic social skills by recognizing when his presence was no longer welcomed. 

He raised his hand at the girl before turning around and leaving. 

"I will be back in a few moments," Mia threw to her team, even though she was aware no one was listening with how busy they were with their training. 

'To think that our struggle would change from lacking resources to lacking time to consume those resources,' Mia thought, a small grin appearing on her lips. 

It was truly a satisfying change. 

Just a week before, Mia would have to walk all the way to the sponsored area to return to her lodging where she could get some privacy. But along with all the cultivation resources that Arganar sponsored because of her advancement to the fifth rank, different privileges came along. 

The right to choose the location of her own residence and have the sect pay for it was along with them. 

In theory, Mia could pick up any and all buildings within the sect outside of the outer royal palace that was reserved for the royals only. Yet, instead of finding a mansion, Mia settled on a simple house close to the training grounds. 

And while it was far from extremely comfortable, Mia didn't care. For her, the time she saved walking to and from the training grounds was worth all the money in the world. 

'Now, let's see,' Mia muttered when she finally closed the doors behind herself and stared down at the ring. 

She never left the vial with Arthur's blood. Despite lacking the storage ring to use it on, she turned the vial into a token of sorts, keeping it on her neck at all times. 

'Drop the blood and say the codeword,' Mia recalled the instructions as she unlocked the storage ring. 

'Woah,' she moaned in shock a moment later, unable to believe her own eyes. 

She was already used to the sight of many cultivation resources stacked in a single place. But what was within the storage ring went beyond that. 

'Aren't those a grade higher than the one we were using?' Mia thought, staring down at the orderly stacked piles of spiritual cores. 

'Ah,' she shrugged a little when she noticed a new desire birthing in her heart. 'I don't really want to sell it,' she thought, pulling her focus out of the ring only to press it tightly to her chest. 

This was the most logical course of action. Right now, she had all the cultivation resources that she could want. But there were quite a lot of other things that she could make great use of.

'But to sell it... No,' Mia decided, shaking her head. 'The stuff from Arthur, I won't sell,' she thought, pressing the right so hard above her chest that it imprinted itself on her skin. 

Yet, there was one thing that bothered her. 

There wasn't any letter within the storage ring. 

'Did he forget? Or maybe he didn't bother to write one?' Mia grumbled, pretty unhappy about this one aspect. 

And then, she slapped her own forehead. 

'I forgot he doesn't know how to write!' she exclaimed in her thoughts as a wave of relief washed over her body. She then released a small giggle. 'Well, it's not like I'm any different in that regard,' she realized the hypocrisy in her own thoughts.

Yet, the sourness was deeply stuck in her mood. 

'Even if... It would be nice if he went for the extra mile to write something.'

For a moment, Mia lamented over her own lack of fortune. And then her eyes flashed. 

"Wait," she muttered to herself, her eyes widening.. "Aren't I the same?" asked herself, hiding the storage ring in her pocket. "Rather than waiting for Arthur to write to me, I can send him a letter instead!"