Mia wasn't in a hurry when she moved through the streets of the city.
Right now was the time of the dinner. Most of the doors around her were closed; the streets themselves were empty.
Everyone was busy enjoying their first meal of the day. The meal would help them fare through the rest of the day, giving them the strength to do whatever they had to do.
'It's so peaceful,' Mia thought, soaking in the chilly atmosphere.
After the intense negotiations back at the auction hall, this was exactly what she needed.
'Just what's her agenda?' Mia thought, unable to find the answer to the question.
The meeting with that female clerk was strange.
She appeared to be pretty helpful and eager to fulfill Mia's requests from one side.
'But on the other side,' Mia hesitated, her lips turning into a thin line.
The girl couldn't really put it into words. It was a weird feeling, right at the border of what Mia could perceive, that set the girl off.
As if there was something hidden deep below the mask that she adorned.
'Still, I can't deny how smoothly it went,' she thought, looking back over her arm for a moment before turning her eyes towards the front.
Now that the matters with the auction hall were settled, she had to push forward her own tasks as well.
'Not a second to take a breather,' Mia thought, tightening her lips. 'I guess that's the only kind of life that's worth living,' she thought, her lips curving up into a smile.
Whatever was the reason behind her actions, Mia continued to move forward. She would use every second of her time to squeeze the most out of what she had.
'So many things to do, so little time,' she would often think, unsure what to put her hands to next.
'Doing everything that I can, can be pretty fulfilling,' Mia thought, a shy smile creeping up on her lips.
This small smile decorated her face as she returned to the training ground.
'They are nowhere to be seen,' Mia thought, looking around to find her group.
Her smile widened a little.
'Diligent bastards,' she thought, feeling a strange sense of pride warm her heart.
"Everyone!" Mia shouted as soon as she made her way to the middle point of the training ground. "Gather up!"
The training ground would soon undergo a massive change. But for that to happen, it had to be empty.
'I need to throw them a bone if I want to get rid of all of them,' Mia thought, steeling herself for what would come next.
"This paper here," Mia shouted a few moments later, raising her hand with a mission-prescribed scroll. "It allows any and all of you to go and gather Suon Grass at the outskirts of the city!" Mia announced.
This was the one mission that she left for this occasion. One mission that she didn't share with her group.
Because it was so damn profitable. And if she wanted to get rid of all those disciples, the bone she would throw them had to be a big one.
"For each bundle of fifty, you will receive a single monster core at the distribution center!" Mia shouted, finishing her act.
Her words were true. Those were indeed the details of the mission. But what she didn't announce was how she was the one who set it up.
Using the auction hall, she organized a mission that most of those normie disciples could easily fulfill, albeit by taking a long time to do so.
'At least I will have no issue with the cost of this mission,' she thought, staring down at the shocked faces of her colleagues.
A vile smile appeared on her lips.
"The requester only wants a hundred bundles!"
Mia's words were the spark that fell on the powderkeg that the crowd in the training ground was.
'That went quickly,' Mia thought when the entire place got deserted in less than a minute.
The jealousy was there. All those disciples that Mia didn't include in her plans didn't have the chance to participate in her miracle.
They all wished for the opportunity. And now, Mia gave them exactly what they wanted.
'I could actually use them,' Mia thought, looking towards the gate. A small seed of plan materialized in her head, slowly setting its roots in her mind.
She couldn't see even a single disciple, not even when staring down the road.
The last warning really did wonders to make them hurry the fuck out.
"Huh?" Mia shrugged when she noticed a small group approaching the training grounds. 'Who are they?' she thought.
But soon, it became apparent.
"Hello," a man heading the group approached Mia before nodding his head. His long hair rustled in the air as he did so. "I came here to dabble with some formations," he announced.
'So quick!' Mia thought, startled.
Sure, she requested some formation masters to help her remodel the arrays in the training ground... Even then, Mia didn't expect the female clerk to work so fast!
"Ah, welcome," Mia finally shook off her shock and lowered her head in response.
Just the quality of the man's robes showed her how high his status was when compared to her own.
"So this is the place," the formation master didn't bother wasting any time. He looked over Mia's shoulder, only to click his tongue and move around the girl to get a better look.
For a good while, he simply stared down at the complicated arrays filling the floor of the training ground.
"Tsk," he clicked his tongue again, only to rest his arms on his hips. "It's even worse than I thought," he added in a half-tone.
The man then shook his head before turning his face back to Mia.
"It will be the easiest and most efficient to rip it all off and start from scratch," he announced to the face of the still shocked girl before turning his eyes to the side and waving his hand up. "Guys! Clean this place up for me!" he shouted.
Soon, the area filled with a massive crowd of robust workers.
They didn't bother wearing any sort of complicated clothes. A simple piece of cloth was wrapped around their nether regions, allowing for a perfect airflow all over their sweaty and bulky skin.
And they were more than eager to start their job.
'It looks like there is some visceral joy in destruction,' Mia thought a few seconds later, astounded by how happy those men were to join in the fun.
Hammers were swung. Pickages struck down at the stone slabs making up the training ground's floor. Huge pieces of broken stone were sent flying as the men cleaned up the area from its old setup.
"Right," Mia finally shrugged off her surprise as she approached the Elder. She then pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper before passing it to the man.
"Respectable elder, this is the schematic I wanted to show," she said, passing the document over.
It was the fruit of her painstaking efforts to map out every last mark on the surface of the sponsored training ground.
This single piece of paper reflected several nights that she spent with a torch, working hard while everyone else was long asleep.
"Don't bring up this old-school garbage to my eyes," the man said a moment later, throwing the paper away. Yet, there was no hostility in his eyes.
His pupils sank, his face froze.
'He is already deep in thought,' Mia realized, kneeling down to pick the paper from the ground.
'It hurt a little, you know?' she protested inwardly at the cold treatment towards the effects of her hard work.
"As long as you can improve this place," Mia muttered as she averted her eyes. Her voice revealed just how dissatisfied she was.
"Ah, sorry, was I rude or something?" the man finally shook himself out of his daze as he glanced over at the girl. But before Mia could even open her mouth, he had already moved on. "What budget do you have for this task?" he asked instead.
Mia released a deep sigh, letting go of her silly emotions.
"Any and all amount of the cores," she replied, passing over the storage ring she received from Arganar.
Most of the cores and other treasures within were long gone... but that still left a hefty amount inside.
"That should... Yeah, it should be enough," the man looked inside the ring and fell into a moment of thought. "Here," he added, passing the ring back to Mia's hand. "Go and sell it all. Buy as many monster bones as you can get in exchange," he instructed snapping his fingers.
A massive, wooden table appeared beside the man. It was as if the air condensed into a certain shape only to suddenly be replaced with the real thing.
The formation master didn't waste a second. By the time Mia processed her new task, he was already bent over the desk, scribbling some formulas on the piece of paper he pulled out from his robes.
"Bones?" Mia echoed the man's words, raising her eyes on the man's face. She was extremely confused by the development. "Sir, did I hear it right?" she asked.
It was the first time for Mia to hear of anyone having any need for the bones of the monsters!
'Aren't those, like...' she hesitated, 'a waste leftover from hunting?' she thought, before shaking her head.
"That's right," the formation master smiled a little. "It's a new idea I got pretty recently," he replied before his smile suddenly froze. He cast a quick glance at the girl's face, only to avert his eyes a moment later.
"Could it be?" he whispered to himself, clearly shocked by something that he just thought about.
But Mia heard it. Her cultivation stage was so high that even her senses were affected, allowing her to notice the sudden change in the man.
'Huh?' she shrugged in surprise, only to cut her act and pretend like she didn't notice anything.
'Whatever he just thought, since he is hiding it from me, let's not put any pressure on him,' she thought.
If anything, this man's status was too high for the girl to risk insulting him in any way or form.
'For now, it's better to just stay silent,' she decided, swallowing down a gulp of saliva.
The man didn't comment on the momentary situation either.
He simply smiled happily as he turned his attention back to the drawing. Soon, a piece of charcoal started leaving marks on the paper as the man immersed himself in projecting his idea onto the field of the training grounds.
Mia turned around and left for the auction hall to fulfill the man's strange request.
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