166 Jayde's Rebuke

When Jayde exited the tower, she was surprised to find White waiting for her outside, he was casually leaning against one of the pillars. Seeing Jayde White straightened up and walked over to her.

"So how was it? What level did you reach?" he asked.

"It was okay, but you could have least have given me some sort of briefing before sending me off to the tower," Jayde said.

"You're not a baby, Jayde. No reason to spoon feed you."

"True, but good intel makes a difference to the success of any mission, as a trainer is it not your responsibility to ensure your students succeed or are you trying to set me to fail?" Jayde said coldly giving White a flat stare. "I need competent people on my team, and I am sick and tired of your prejudice, if you can't give me your support then it best for us to part ways now, I don't need this shit."

Jayde was fed up with White attitude and had decided that she would longer tolerate his attitude. For months now Jayde had been gritting her teeth and putting up with White's obnoxious attitude, but enough was enough, she had tried to win him over by being an obedient student, but since that hadn't worked, she had decided to stop pretending to be meek and mild. It's about time for him to realize that I am not a pushover, Jayde thought.

White's head jerked back slightly at Jayde snappy retort. So she has finally decided to bare her claws, White thought, about bloody time.

White paused, glancing towards Jayde. "You are right, I apologize" he finally said. "My bad, next time I will give you a better briefing."

Jayde nodded slightly in acknowledgment of White apology. Jayde decided to give White one more chance, but if he ever pulls another stunt like this, she had no problem with severing their teacher-student relationship.

"So how many levels did you complete?" White asked.

"Four."

White's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. He had figured that with no information about the tower that with her skills Jayde would make it to the third level, so he was startled that she had made it past the fourth level.

"Good, how did the Blood Tower evaluate you?"

"Average, satisfactory, good, and excellent," Jayde replied succinctly.

Again Jayde managed to surprise White, while he did expect her evaluations to increase, he never expected her to receive an excellent rating so soon.

"You did great," complimented White. "How did you manage to receive an excellent rating in the fourth level?"

Jayde shrugged. "Not sure, guess it was due to be completing it in ten days."

White's forehead furrowed. "Your assessment is not just based on how long you take. The tower takes a lot of other factors into your grade."

"Really, such as?"

"Adaptability, preparedness, flexibility, how you engage the enemy, technique, learning curve, just to name a few," answered White.

Jayde and White discussed each of the levels in the Blood Tower on the way back to her cottage, during their conversation Jayde figured out how she managed to achieve an excellent rating in level four. The creatures on level four were attracted to fire and light, so every evening when Jayde had made camp she had unwittingly been luring the monsters out to attack. The tower had given her bonus points for this.

Jayde cursed herself for not picking up that her fire had been luring the creatures, she had written off the nightly raids as part of the tower's test. Can't believe I made such a rookie mistake, Jayde grumbled to herself. Thinking about how many times she had drilled it into her cadets never to make assumptions, she was feeling slightly embarrassed that she had fallen into the same trap she always warned her young cadets about.

"It's going to be a lot more difficult next time," White said interrupting Jayde's thoughts.

"Huh? What is?"

"The Blood Tower, now that it's got more data on your capabilities, next time it's going be more challenging. Also don't expect such great rewards, after level five you only receive pills and potions, treasures will only be rewarded at level ten, twenty, thirty, and level forty, and no one knows what you receive for passing level fifty and completing the tower."

"Hmm."

Jayde wasn't disappointed after hearing about the treasures in the tower. She was happy to finally have a place where she could practice her martial and magic skills, that she could fight alongside Yinxin and Reiko was a bonus as far as Jayde was concerned.

***

Jayde waved goodbye to White once they reached her cottage. Jayde spent some time chatting to Yinxin, Isha, and Reiko and showing off her cloak. After playing with the three hatchlings for a while, Jayde and Isha strolled over to the Pavilion. Jayde wanted to see if she could find any books on how to strengthen her armor without using runes on the inter-dimensional market.

On the way, Isha and Jayde discussed the next upgrade to the Proteus artifact since Isha had sold the latest batch of herbs Jayde now had five thousand two hundred points. The two of them decided that Jayde should purchase the alchemy room as potions and pills were more profitable than herbs, and Jayde needed the training.

After purchasing the alchemy room for a thousand points, Jayde navigated to the herb garden upgrades to see what the next upgrade would cost. Jayde was surprised to see that under herb garden upgrade, this time the screen didn't have an upgrade by a small arrow indicating a submenu.

Tapping on the screen to open up for herb garden upgrades, Jayde let out a small gasp at the number of grades now available. Reading through the list Jayde noticed that she could purchase a level four upgrade for six thousand points, which would upgrade the herb garden to sixteen acres, she also had a choice of purchasing single acres for a thousand points per acre.

There were also different types of terrains available, such as frozen, desert, and swamps to name a few. But the real surprise was that Jayde could now purchase time distortions, which would increase the time difference between the pavilion and the herb garden. Each increment was eight hundred points. Since Jayde had four thousand points left, she immediately purchased five increments, which would bring the herb garden time increase to fifteen times the time outside the artifact.

Going back to the herb upgrade menu, Jayde then tapped on the seed section to see what sort of seeds were available for purchase, while she had spent most of her points, she wanted to note down the costs of seeds for future reference. Shit, these seeds are expensive, Jayde thought as she noticed that rare seeds were over three thousand points for a small packet of ten seeds.

With only two hundred points left, Jayde navigated to the inter-dimensional market to have a look at the books available. Happy to see that this section was neatly organized Jayde spent the next hour going through various sections. Unfortunately for Jayde, the prices of the books on the inter-dimensional market were high, Jayde hadn't expected that these educational books would be so pricey.

Jayde finally managed to find a book that suited her needs, {The basics of armorsmithing and tailoring}. The seller had been decent enough to upload a few excerpts from the books, and after reading through them, Jayde was happy to note that the book had many methods on how to magical reinforce armor using various ingredients. The book also stated that it contained detailed images of the plants and metals as many of the dimensions had different names for the same items.

The seller wanted a hundred and fifty points for the book. Wincing at the price but determined to get the book Jayde tapped on the buy button. While Jayde waited for the system to deliver her book, Jayde turned to Isha and informed him about the upgrade she had purchased for the herb garden.

While Isha would have preferred more space, he agreed with Jayde analysis that having herbs grow quicker was the better option.

"By the way how is the hamadryad doing?" Jayde asked.

The corners of Isha's eyes crinkled. "It's only been three days," he said amused.

"Oh right, I forgot," Jayde said sheepishly. Although one couldn't blame her, Jayde thought, it had been over three months for her.

Just then the inter-dimensional market pinged, indicating that Jayde book had arrived. Bending down Jayde opened the slot and retrieved her book. Jayde's eyebrows shot up at the heaviness of the book. Looking at the thick leather-bound book in her hands, Jayde was pleasantly surprised. Must be two or three thousand pages, Jayde thought.

Opening the book, Jayde paged through a couple of the pages. Jayde immediately saw that the paper used was of excellent quality, and the illustrations were extremely detailed. Happy with her purchase, Jayde waved goodbye to Isha before returning to her cottage.

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