"Finally..." Kathia stretched her arms to the sky as she moaned with satisfaction. "I was getting tired of waiting," she added.
"I can't help but be excited," the usually silent Usan kept an anxious look on his face. His body was trembling as he followed the rest of the group.
'I wonder how Arthur's doing,' Mia thought, keeping silent as the sponsored students moved from the compound to the distribution center.
This was the single major office for their group that laid outside of the main sponsored area. The march for the resources, or the march of flex as normal disciples called it, was a biweekly occurrence during which all the sponsored students would travel to get their sponsorship benefits.
It came to be because the logistical center of the sect's area was a lot older than the institution of sponsorship and contractors. Because of that, the rules of the latter were adjusted to the infrastructure that already existed.
But now, it was nothing more but a procession of smug students trying to rub their status into the normal disciples' eyes.
'They are getting so much attention on their backs because of it...' Mia thought, walking through the open streets of the sect. 'What's even the point of doing this like that?'
There was no need to go all at once. They could all go for their haul at their own discretion without needlessly stirring up the conflict with normal students.
"Now you will understand why people like us shouldn't associate ourselves with those normies," Dirk said, a smug smile plastered all over his face.
'Did you come here just to make yourself look even more villainous?' Mia thought, rolling her eyes. 'This feels like some idiot plot in the adventure scriptures,' she thought, worried that she might be a heroine of some third-grade novel for a second.
Soon, the people started to gather at the distribution center. And just like expected, outside of a very small number of internal disciples, the place was filled with other sponsored students.
One could cultivate all the way to the sixth stage with just the amplification arrays and training alone. That was also the level that one had to reach to become an inner disciple and unlock missions allowing him to earn his further cultivation resources.
That's why only a few inner disciples were present. Not only were the missions hard and dangerous, only a few disciples a year managed to make the cut. And with the possibility to advance to the lower headquarters, where the mana was a lot denser...
Rarely does anyone spend more than a year as an inner disciple of the outer Tuxi sect grounds.
Outside of those few internal disciples, teachers and elders, sponsored students were the only group that received resources.
"Sylvana! Mia!" someone called out from the list.
"Here," Mia and one other girl quickly reported to one of the officers.
"If you wouldn't mind coming with me for a while," the man said, sending a peculiar look at the girls.
Mia soon found herself in a deserted part of the building. Yet another official sat behind his desk right in front of her, looking at some papers.
"Lass, I know this is not your fault, but your sponsor failed to meet his obligations for the current quota," the man said, finally raising his eyes from the paper he held in his hand. "This is the warming-up period, so it's pretty natural for him to struggle a little, but if it happens again..."
The man cut his sentence in a suspenseful tone, giving a clear message.
"Then I will become a normal student?" Mia asked. "Or will I be kicked out of the sect?" she added another guess. Yet, she didn't look the least concerned about the topic.
"No, it's not that harsh," the man shook his head. "You will only become a normal disciple. The one thing worse is that you will never be able to become a sponsored disciple again," he added.
For a moment, Mia looked at the man as if he was an idiot. She then sighed and rolled her eyes.
"Then it's all good," she said, shrugging her shoulders and turning around.
"As for you," the man muttered, turning his girls towards the girl that was called along with Mia. "I'm sorry, but that's the end of the sponsorship for you," he said.
'So people are actually losing the sponsorship from time to time,' Mia thought, moving towards the exit of the room.
By the time the girl managed to return to the main hall where her classmates were gathered, they had already gotten wind of the news.
"It looks like your sponsor isn't all that great after all!" Dirk was the first to start ridiculing the girl. It appeared that the second her hand slipped, he was ready to bash on her.
'Well, that was only to be expected,' Mia thought when she noticed all kinds of stares all over her face. 'The moment I started shifting my attention towards normal disciples, they were bound to start disliking me,' she thought, rolling her eyes once again and then moving towards the exit of the building.
"I can't wait to see her kicked out of the sect!" one of the disciples that Mia never even bothered to get on the first name basis with uttered in a hushed voice.
'You don't even know me. Where is all your hate coming from?' Mia scoffed, amused by the reactions of her former companions.
She no longer considered them as such.
'Still, I can't wait to see who will progress faster,' she thought, turning around and leaving the building.
"I wish your guy dies a dog's death somewhere in the wild!" Dirk, encouraged by the lack of Mia's reaction, uttered with a bragging look on his face.
Mia stopped in place. She then slowly turned around.
She continued to ignore them only because they didn't cross the line. But now, Dirk has gone after the one thing she was unwilling to forgive anyone.
"We thought he was good enough for a beauty like you, but it seems he is your usual trash!" Dirk continued to push on his situation, finally getting some reactions out of the girl.
"He..."
"I dare you to fucking say that again," Mia whispered in a soft voice, hoping that Dirk wouldn't even hear her words.
Yet, from how the corners of his eyes rounded up as he smiled, it was clear that he did.
"I wish he would..."
"I will make you unable to cultivate for the rest of your life," Mia warned, her spiritual energy furiously permeating through her flesh in preparation of a showdown.
"You?" Dirk openly laughed out. "And how do you think you can do that?" he chuckled, amused to his tears.
"It's hard to cultivate when you are dead," Mia's expression was serious. As the lines that held her emotions back continued to snap one after the another, she started to slowly walk towards Dirk.
Yet, before the matters could turn ugly, Mia managed to get the rein herself.
'Right now, acting out is the worst that I can do,' she thought, staring her former colleague down only to turn round and leave.
The arrays in the sponsored area were the best in the entire sect. Now that she had made her first enemy in this place, she had to use every last opportunity to get stronger.
Otherwise, they would come after her the moment their strenght, boosted by all the resources they would recieve, would overshadow hers.
For now, they were still leagues behind, lacking in spirit, determination, and dedication. But if cultivation resources couldn't bridge that gap, then nothing else could.
"This bitch..." Dirk squeezed those words through his mouth, sending a hateful stare after Mia's back.
'She might be cute, but just who the hell does she think she is?!' he screamed out in his mind, unable to control his rage.
'More importantly, why did I back out momentarily back then?' he asked himself. 'Why didn't I keep pressing her?' he asked, recalling the moment when Mia's face turned serious.
The answer was plainly simple. Back at his sect in zone zero, Dirk wasn't anyone important. He became a sponsored disciple, half because of pure luck and a half because of his extensive schemes. Only by cutting off his friends, cheating and swapping the scores of others, and doing all sorts of prohibited acts, he managed to make the auditor think highly of him.
He did all of that just to become a sponsored student and have smooth sailing through life from now on.
Yet, ever since the first day, this damned girl continued to obviously look down at their accomplishment.
'While we had to do everything to obtain scholarships from our sects, he just got some dick to do it for her,' he thought, his face darkening.
He knew why he backed down because he recognized the feeling that she gave him back then.
It was the same feeling that he went through whenever he bothered a small minority of the disciples back at the sect, those that didn't like others interrupting them.
And it was fear.
'If she managed to get someone willing to sacrifice themselves for her own benefit... she must be insane in bed,' Dirk thought, tightening his hands into fists. 'I need to make sure she repays me for this insult in this way, then!'
"At least now we know why she was so chummy with the normies," Kathia commented, her face torn between sadness and disgust.
'And here I thought I would make a friend....'
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