The next morning after the siblings started their journey from Orseya.
Edgar and Fabby traveled on a horse cart toward the north-east. Currently, they were eating breakfast at a road-side hotel together with the driver, an adult man in his late fifties.
Some customers at the hotel were giving Fabby weird and funny looks as they murmured about her bald head. One of the waiters, a child, also asked if she was born bald, to which she replied saying no. The child kept asking more questions, but she didn’t answer most of them, saying he’s not worthy to know answers to such personal questions.
While many men focused their attention on her, despite her bald head, she felt a bit uncomfortable.
“Have you never seen a woman before?” Edgar raised his voice at them, making them
Fabby noticed that there were at least forty jars in the back of the cart. She could smell ale from them. “Where are we carrying all this ale?” “Ah, Mr. Saiga told me to sell this ale along the way,” replied the driver, his eyes on the road. “Can you sell all this in just a couple of days?” There should be at least a couple hundred hundred liters in there, she thought. “The owner of the hotel we stopped by an hour back asked me to sell all of them, but because we didn’t agree with the price, I didn’t sell.” “Oh,” she was pleasantly surprised, “it seems that ale is in rich demand.” “Yes. After the beast tide, the rivers become dirty for a while, and the adults don’t drink milk, so…” “If you don’t want to get cut into pieces, then give us all your valuables,” the head of the bandits, a six-and-half foot tall man, was smiling confidently as Edgar approached. Edgar put the ale case down and said, “There’s ale inside. This is all I can give.” “A few jars of ale won’t even last a night for us. Give us money. And of course, any and all valuables that you got.” “I can’t,” Edgar was blunt. “If you don’t like it, then let’s fight.” “Huh?” the bandits were surprised by his straightforwardness that came across as being more reckless. Why is this brat not afraid of the weapons they were wielding? Surely, he wasn’t thinking that these weapons were just for show, or was he? “Don’t get my brother wrong, rowdy brotWHIT 67 - DELUSIVE PRACTICES
“We’ve arrived,” at dawn, the driver’s voice reached Edgar’s ears.He woke Fabby up. The side of her forehead was injured, so it was covered with bandages.Both of them got down at what seemed like in the middle of a long arching road. On the right side of it was forest, but on the left side was what seemed like a mountain with an opening like that of a cave.“Is this the way?” Edgar asked to confirm.“Yes, sir,” the driver replied. His whole face was swollen from the beating he had received from Edgar. After the bullet barely missed Fabby, seeing her fall down, Edgar rampaged and thrashed the three bandits, especially the driver. If the driver hadn’t said that the bullet missed and his sister was still alive, h
Edgar and Fabby entered the massive cave. After going a couple hundred meters in, the tunnel was lit by fire lamps on either side, so they kept walking without getting worried too much. After covering about two miles, they reached a huge gate that was blocking the whole path. And two guards were waiting. “State your identity,” one of the guards smashed the base of the spear on the ground. “We’re from Vedi, but we’ve got a recommendation letter to join the sect,” Edgar took out the scroll. “Recommendation?” the guards looked at each other and laughed. “Don’t you know that our sect doesn’t take in recommendations?” “What?” Edgar and Fabby’s jaws slackened. “B-but…” For a secon
The second round was taking place in rooms, with the participants using their brains to answer the list of questions. Everyone seemed involved, except for one fellow, whose pen wasn’t moving all that much. “What is this? No one told me there’d be a written test.” This participant’s eyes bulged out as he tried his hardest to understand the questions, so much so that the red nerves had become visible. This person was Edgar. He looked at Fabby, who sat beside him in the next column. Unlike him, she was scribbling like a poet in flow. “Just what’s she writing? She didn’t touch a book for many years.” Edgar couldn’t help but murmur in frustration. “Shh!” the examiner signaled Edg
Hundreds queued in front of a house, and one was entering into the house after another. The third round was taking place inside. “I wonder what’s happening in there,” Edgar tried to peek through whenever the curtains parted, but he couldn’t see much. “Don’t think too much,” Fabby reminded him. “Even if we fail in the third round, we’ll still become foot disciples it seems.” “I don’t know what the difference between a foot disciple or an outer disciple is, but clearly the latter is better than the former, so of course, I don’t want to spoil this opportunity.” Fabby didn’t say anything. (After the second round, his confidence has taken a dent. I guess I’ll just let him be.) S
More than a thousand people gathered at the northern end of the Great Grove in front of a big stage.On the stage were dozens of examiners who watched over the entrance exams. Dubril Zha was also among them.“I’m Ruth Raj. A master of the sect as most of you already had guessed.” One of them, the one with a black hat and a cloth wrapped around his face, was talking with the audience, “More than 15,000 people participated this year, but only a little over 1300 passed. Out of those, only 232 people became outer disciples, and the rest became foot disciples. This year’s pass rate isn’t great, but it isn’t that bad either. Now, we will reward the one who did best overall in the three rounds combined.” He then read out a name. “Fabby Ecstasio. Please come onto the stage and receive your reward.”
After coming out of the indoor testing grounds, the first vast location one would enter into was the Great Cheek, where all the foot disciples would stay.Foot disciples were the lowest level disciples who wouldn’t receive any martial techniques or beast cores from the sect. They weren’t allowed to go to the library either. And they had to live in rooms of at least two. The room numbers were initially drawn by the lottery, but later on, one was allowed to change their rooms within the first month.Every foot disciple was allowed to stay a decade in the Great Cheek, and if they still failed to become an outer disciple, they’d be kicked out of the sect.Edgar was humbled by the vastness of the lands and the tens of thousands of foot disciples living in that region that was easily tens of times larger