By the time everyone had made it to dinner, the word that Cain and his disciples were leaving soon had already spread through the Lotus Blossom Sect, and everyone was waiting to say goodbye to them or share stories of their time here.
"I think the one with the most stories to tell should be Solara, right? Though she joined late, she is the only additional Disciple that the Sect has taken since they arrived here. You must have some juicy details that the others won't share." One of the Lotus Blossom disciples pleaded.
"Yeah, Luna tells us all sorts of good things, but she hides random ones that we really want to know about. You will have mercy on us, won't you sister Solara?" An adorable little Ginger girl begged.
If Solara were really the young girl she appeared to be and not an Elder in a new body, it would have likely worked, but Solara had many years to get used to the antics of young Disciples and was mostly immune to persuasion.
"I think if you want the really good stories, you will have to ask Sect Master Cain. They are his secrets to share, just like the secret skills. So, I can't share them with you all, no matter how cute that pouting face is." Solara replied with a smirk.
"Boo. Elder Cain won't tell us anything. He says that he doesn't gossip about anyone." The disciple complained.
"Maybe you should take a lesson from that and resist the urge to gossip?" Elder Ling suggested.
"Elder Ling, we didn't notice you there. Forgive us for our rudeness." The disciples said with a bow and then ran away.
"Oh, that's priceless. You made her so cute that the Disciples forget she's Elder Ling even when she's sitting right there." Solara chuckled, a bit of her original personality bleeding through the mental mask that she had put on to adjust to her new life.
"Elder Ling has it tough for sure. But she will get used to it." Cain shrugged.
"Yeah, when she has started getting old again." One of the Disciples laughed.
"Why would she get old again? She's already in the Immortal Realm. Nobody ages after that transition unless they aren't fully grown yet." Cain asked.
"Wait, seriously? That's just unfair. She gets to look like that forever, and the rest of us will have to search you out in a century when we have reached the same state so we can get regressed back to our peak states." The young woman sighed.
Cain was too nice to mention that he would be gone from this place long before a century had passed, so hunting for him would be pointless. If they searched anyhow, they might find someone with a similar skill that would help them out, or perhaps even a Mystic Pill that would help them.
Cain hadn't been here long, compared to most, but even he had heard of various Divine Pills that could turn a Cultivator into almost anything, even giving them a body as hard as a Dragon's Scales. How true and how permanent that would be, he didn't know, but he had heard the rumors and gossip going around.
"Why are the monsters gone from the front of the Arena?" One of the Disciples asked, interrupting the line of gossip.
"Elder Ling created this one. I taught her the skill so that the Lotus Blossom Sect could have an arena even after you headed home at the end of the season. The statues are a representative of her power, whereas the last ones were a representative of mine." Cain explained.
"I knew it. She is secretly kind and warm under all those layers of Strict Elder Ling." One of the girls joked.
Elder Ling glared at her for a second, and the girl stammered. "Many, many layers of strict Elder Ling."
The Kitchen Elder came around once most of the crowd had died down and returned to their studies for the evening.
"It will be a shame to lose my helpers, but I suppose you needed to get on with your business eventually." She greeted them.
"Actually, they don't need to leave. I can release them from my influence, and they will lose some power, but they will still know all of the kitchen tasks that you have been relying upon." Cain offered.
"A whole kitchen full of weaker clones of me for the Disciples to bully? I am not sure that is a good idea. They are already getting ideas about undermining my authority." The Elder informed Cain.
"Well, I can teach them to fight if you like. Or I can leave just one for you to take care of?"
That seemed to be more suitable, and the Elder looked fondly back at the kitchen area where the clones were cleaning up at the end of the dinner service.
"That would be alright. Like having a daughter. Will they be able to grow after they have been released, or will they be stuck as mortals?" She asked.
"They should be able to do anything that you could do since I cloned your body to make them. At least, that's the theory. I know there are some metaphysical considerations where some researchers have suggested that it is possible that a clone won't be able to gain power because the original used up their potential, but I have never actually tested them to see if it was true." Cain explained.
"There is only one way to find out. I don't want to play favorites, so could you pick a clone and dismiss the others?" The Elder asked.
"Of course. Done. I will call her over here before releasing her from my control so that you can look after her. Do you want me to start her in the body of a new Disciple since she will need to learn the ways of the Lotus Blossom Sect once she is free of my influence?"
The clone smirked and looked at Solara with a wistful smile. "I won't lose any of my essential skills, even if he changes my size, and I will keep most of my powers."
"But if she is small, she can use her appearance to leverage other Disciples into giving her sweets and special treatment. Just like a certain someone in our Sect leverages the power of cuteness." Solara added before sticking her tongue out at the Puppet.
Luna looked directly at Tena as if she was the culprit while everyone else looked at Luna.
"See, you've done it so well that they don't even notice that you're using your powers for evil," Luna told her fellow Disciple.
"I ate the last puff one single time. Once. You need to move on." Tena informed her.
"But that batch turned out absolutely perfect. It looked so good, and you ate it." Luna complained.
"Of course, she ate it if it looked that good and came out perfectly. Puffs are meant to be eaten, and you can always make more. I didn't make an entire skill book in exchange for that cookbook only to have the food go uneaten because it looked good." Cain admonished his daughter.
Luna spent a few seconds trying to come up with a good excuse before giving up. He was right. She was planning to eat it anyhow, and the kitchen puppets made it, not her, so she couldn't even use that excuse.
"Alright, I'm sorry. But I am so eating the last puff the next time I see it sitting there, even if I'm not done cooking." Luna reluctantly agreed.
"We would expect no less. In fact, it is surprising that one of us actually managed to eat the last of anything with this little glutton around. I swear I have never seen a human eat that much, especially one so small." Penny laughed.
"Do we need to get anything else from inside the city before we leave in the morning?" Cain asked his Disciples.
"No, I think we have everything. I made a checklist, and we aren't missing anything important. The only things that we are low on are our cash reserves and meat, but we can acquire both of those easily enough when we reach the next village we stop in." Penny informed him, as the responsible one of the group.
"I stocked up on everything else that we could need the last time you sent us shopping," Jen added.
"I think starting as a new disciple might be too much. She already has most of my memories, so she should be able to recover fairly quickly, and she is part of the kitchen staff, which wouldn't work if she was too small." The Kitchen Elder decided on behalf of her clone.
"Are you good with that?" Cain asked.
The clone shrugged. "It doesn't matter much to me. I am young enough that a few more years would only be a cosmetic change, and in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn't make much difference."
"Your wish is my command," Cain replied, then released the Puppet from his control so that the Kitchen Elder could take care of settling her into proper accommodations and registering her as a proper disciple.
It took Cain and his Disciples longer than expected to make it across the dining hall to their tent next to the kitchens, thanks to all of the Disciples who wanted to see them off, but eventually, they were all settled into bed, with Penny in wolf form so that the others could use her as a combination pillow and space heater to stave off the evening chill.
[I should really tell them that Sabbat can light the braziers and keep them burning all night while she sleeps. It would be easier on Penny than making her sleep in wolf form every time the weather turns cold in the mountains.] Cain thought to himself as he drifted off to sleep.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶