Chapter 65 - Facilites

A lazy voice drifted out from within the house, "Who is it?" It was not even necessary to check who the voice belonged to, it was clearly Jiang Bai who had become curious about who could cause his friend, Fu Chen, to take so long to welcome.

Fu Chen, who was completely unprepared, almost slammed the door in Luo Xiao's face, causing the youngster to frown as he inserted his foot in between the door and the doorframe, making it impossible to close.

Seeing that he could not close the door, Fu Chen had no other option than to admit to the fact that Luo Xiao was there, "it is the annoying kid you were tasked to look after," he sighed, surrendering himself to the harsh criticism he would receive for not having chased him away.

Contrary to his expectations, he was not chastised for not letting him in, instead, he was knocked at the back of his head, "if he is here, then let him in. I was tasked to look after him, so if I turn him away in front of my door, won't I be seen as unreliable?"

Fu Chen was surprised when he heard this, and then he quickly nodded his head, opened the door and allowed for Luo Xiao to enter into the house.

The furrow between Luo Xiao's brows did not vanish when he thought of the words that Jiang Bai had said. It was clear that Jiang Bai was rather hostile towards him, but because of his brother's threat, he had no other option than to do what he had been tasked with.

It seemed that not even his friends were aware that the person backing Luo Xiao was the seventh prince, and neither of them, Jiang Bai nor Luo Xiao, seemed to have any urge to inform them either.

As they entered the sitting room, Luo Xiao saw that there were quite a few people inside the room, all of them doing their own thing, but stopping the moment Jiang Bai appeared with Luo Xiao in tow.

Jiang Bai paid no attention to Luo Xiao, he had promised to look after him, but he was not willing to babysit, so although he allowed for the young man to be close to him, he did not want to spend time on him at all.

"Everyone, if he comes by just let him in," Jiang Bai announced. He could not forbid him entrance, but he could ignore him and pretend he did not exist.

The friends were rather surprised, but also curious about this Luo Xiao, however even if they were curious, they dared not ask him any questions.

It was clear that Jiang Bai disliked Luo Xiao, so if they crowded around him and paid him too much attention, then they would likely be thrown out by Jiang Bai, so instead all of them just ignored him.

Sensing that he was being treated as air, Luo Xiao was rather annoyed, but he said nothing. This was what had been prepared by Jiang Yao so he would follow what the older male had prepared for him.

Luo Xiao's purpose was to ask about the various facilities at the academy, but whenever he tried to initiate a conversation with the others they completely ignored him and walked away from him.

Realizing that no one wanted to explain to him, Luo Xiao started listening to what was being talked about instead.

Fortunately, points was a very important subject in the academy and all of them bragged about what they had spent their points on.

"I spent fifty points and two days within the Gravity Room," one of them said. "Although I am a Soul Cultivator, I know that it is very important to also enhance my body or I will become an easy subject, so running in the Gravity Room is indeed the best way to work on my speed and reaction time."

"I was at the Resource Hall and bought a pill the other day," another person told his friend, "the pill was a Sky Silken Pill, and it is the first time I have consumed one of them. It is very useful for my Qi cultivation."

"I was at the Essence Tower for three days, so now I am all out of points, however, I managed a breakthrough and am now one star higher ranked than I was before."

"I needed a new skill so that I could prepare for the next time we are going to the forest to hunt for points, so I went to the Skill Depository and purchased a rather expensive technique that allows for one to form their Qi in shape of an oversized sword. It is called Heavenly Sword Slash, and I have been eying it for a long time."

From this Luo Xiao could understand the different places where one could spend their points. For him, the current biggest problem was that he did not have enough points or time to get all that he needed, but he understood that he had to pick between the places.

The Gravity Room could provide him with a lot of benefits as he had a weak body, but to be able to strengthen his body, that would be a great help to further cultivation breakthroughs.

Then there was the Resource Hall. Here he could purchase materials and items. Everything from pills to herbs to ores and metals to armaments. Although these resources were all external help, they could prove to be a great assistance in the future.

Then was the Essence Tower. The Essence Tower was a tower with nine floors. The further up one went the denser the heaven and earth essence would be. This place was a wondrous thing that had been created with inscriptions, but it was also the most expensive place in the entire academy to cultivate.

Although one would want to enter as far up in the tower as possible, one had to be able to follow with their refining speed, so the higher cultivation base, the higher up one could get.

Lastly was the Skill Depository. It was basically a library where all the techniques and methods of the academy were stored. One could exhange points for these skills, and right now this was what caused Luo Xiao most curiosity.

After some contemplation, Luo Xiao decided that the most important thing right now was to get a defensive and one offensive skill. After that, the next would be to strengthen his physical body in the Gravity Room.

Although he was impatient to raise his rank, he understood that if he tunnel-visioned on raising his rank, he was likely to reach an unbreakable bottleneck in the future and that his body would be unable to contain the amount of spiritual energy that would stay within his body.

Luo Xiao glanced at Jiang Bai and his friends one last time before he stood up from the seat he had taken, and left the house. Jiang Bai also sent a swift glare at the young man, unsure of what his purpose had been in coming there, but seeing that he left without causing problems, he quickly ignored the younger male.

When Luo Xiao exited Jiang Bai’s home, he went to the central square of the academy. Here he found the signs leading towards the Skill Depository. Following the signs, he quickly reached his destination.

The Skill Depository was a large pagoda. Students were constantly strolling in and out of the building, some looking excited while others looked listless.

The Pagoda had five floors, and Luo Xiao did not need anyone to explain to him that these floors depended on one's rank to enter.

Luo Xiao entered the pagoda and saw that there was an elderly man sitting behind a desk, observing everyone moving back and forth. He was also dealing with those who had picked a skill and exchanged it for points.

Only having two hundred and fifty points in total, Luo Xiao knew for sure that he would not be capable of buying any amazing skills, but if he would be able to buy two more common skills, and that alone would be a boost to his strength as he was an Astral Soul. Although he was currently masked, the fact was that his Spiritual Energy was of a higher quality than others and he had the potential to challenge higher ranked experts while just depending on the purity of his energy.

Looking at the shelves, Luo Xiao was first looking for a defensive ability. He found many interesting ones, but the one that was the most interesting was the Black Pagoda Art.

The Black Pagoda Art cost a hundred points, and it allowed for one to make their energy into a massive pagoda that would shroud the person and keep all damage at bay.

The skill had nine layers, and the higher the layer, the more damage it could block.

After picking the defensive skill, Luo Xiao went to look for an offensive skill, and here he was much more troubled. He knew nothing about attacking, but he had to make a decision after all, and then he ended up taking the Moon Goddess Hand.

The Moon Goddess Hand was a technique that created between one to hundred thousand palm imprints from Spiritual Energy, and these palm imprints would attack either one or many people, depending on the wish from the caster.

This skill had a high requirement from the user, one needed to be at least a Heavenly Soul to be able to use it, which was why it was so cheap - only a hundred points.

After this, Luo Xiao had picked the token for the Black Pagoda Art and the Moon Goddess Hand and walked to the counter.

The elderly man accepted the two tokens. He then accepted the white card, observed the rank on this card, and withdrew two hundred points before he pressed his finger on the two tokens, a light shone from the tokens, releasing the full skill's information for Luo Xiao to use when he returned to his house.

Accepting the tokens back, Luo Xiao gave a slight bow to the elderly man, "thank you," he said with gratitude, and then he turned around to leave, without seeing the look of appreciation that was in the eyes of the elderly man.

When Luo Xiao was on his way back home, he went by a few stalls and purchased some groceries before returning home.

When he was home he started cooking. He was not very skilled when it came to cooking. Previously his father would have done all the cooking when he was sick, and while traveling together with Jiang Yao they had others to cater for them.

Now that he was alone he was trying to cook on his own, but the food never came out very deliciously.

Still, it was edible, and Luo Xiao ate it to avoid being too picky. After finishing his meal, he quickly cleared the table, did the dishes before entering his room and starting to contemplate on the Black Pagoda Art and the Moon Goddess Hand.

While Luo Xiao was deep in contemplation, the two Shadow Guards were waiting outside the house, leaning against a tree and conversing.

"We have to return to Master with some information about how the kid is doing," one of them sighed and the other nodded his head in agreement, "problem is, who is going to go?" the other asked with helplessness in his voice.

"I don't want to. To inform him that his little lover is being bullied in the academy, we will definitely be sent to receive punishment."

"Well why not put all the blame on his highness Jiang Bai? He was asked to look after him, but he did not."

"I don't think that works."

Both of them turned silent for some time, looking up at the room that was lit in the house, and sighed. This was in no way an easy thing to solve.