Chapter 107 (1) : Call Me Masterrr !

"Goodbye, master ," Xuhan said after cupping his fists respectfully .

"May the heavens be kind to you, master ," Yuen Zhou added after him .

"We'll miss your constant, warm presence, master ," Xiao Wu mechanically followed the trail with his line .

"We'll be back soon, master ."

"Oh no, no need to hurry . Do take your time !" Elder Da Heng  replied to Mu Ran's parting words only, making the rest of the gang feel wronged . They looked on with gazes full of heartache as Da Heng enthusiastically arranged the housing and paperworks for his personal apprentices who had just come over from their previous mountain peaks with their luggage .

"He didn't look that eager when WE came to live here, did he ?" Mu Ran asked, sounding pretty offended .

"Frog in a well, can't see mountain Tai ," Xuhan said after snorting as hard as possible .

"Well said, underling, well said ." Mu Ran nodded thoughtfully while ignoring the creeped out looks from Yuen Zhou and Xiao Wu .

Hundreds of feet away, elder Da Heng's ears twitched as he suddenly narrowed his eyes and looked at Xuhan, making him feel alarmed . But then he proceeded to guide his apprentices up the mountain peak without reacting at all . Han Xuhan failed to come to a conclusion regarding whether he had heard their disrespectful exchange or not .

"A small price to pay for salvation," he muttered sadly in the end and turned to walk away from the foot of the mountain behind the rest of his martial siblings .

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Kong Ye stood at the foot of his mountain peak with an wide smile on his face .

"Finally, some good disciples incoming ! Get ready, system . I'm about to strike it big time !"

Barely had he finished his eager monologue when the sight of his apprentices came into view . The four disciples, three male, one female, were all carrying their luggage and walking toward him at a brisk pace . Kong Ye strode forward to welcome them .

"Good evening, disciples . The servants have taken care of your residences . Feel free to crash there as soon as we get the formalities done . For now, come with me ."

After awkwardly greeting him back, his new disciples followed him obediently . On the way, the four of them kept on being distracted by all the changes he had implemented using Xuan Zi's orders . Multiple times, he had to steer them away from potential surprises, which should should make them enjoy the feeling of an adventurous journey, just as he had planned . The young are always curious and eager to explore, after all .

Entering his own modest residence, Kong Ye gestured at them to sit inside a guestroom .

"I assume none of you want the rest of your peers to be present while we're discussing your personal issues and aspirations that you might want to keep private . Or maybe there is a particular skill that you want to learn secretly . So I'll be sitting inside the room in front of you and call you one by one to discuss what special skills you wish to learn from me . Are you four okay with this arrangement ?"

Just as he had expected, all four of them nodded immediately, although Han Xuhan did look pretty half hearted . But that wasn't an unusual detail . Out of the four, Xuhan was the least talented and least knowledgeable when it came to cultivation and any other subject beyond normal mortals . While Yuen Zhou too had a mortal's background, she had proven herself to be uncannily insightful during his tests and lectures, making him suspect that her background was somewhat fabricated . She certainly had secrets that she wouldn't easily divulge, and the case was same with Mu Ran and Xiao Wu . Only Xuhan's track record was squeaky clean, other than some of the odd, unidentifiable data in his stat screen . But that data had never shown any proof of it affecting Xuhan in any way .

"Then we shall proceed with the personal discussions . Xiao Wu, follow me ."

The large boy entered the next room and sat facing him solemnly . Kong Ye silently cast a spell to block out all sounds going out of the room while the two parties observed each other carefully .

"Be honest about it, kid . From the bottom of your heart, call me master ," Kong Ye said, deciding to go for the kill as fast as possible .

". . .Uh, master ," Xiao Wu said with a strange expression on his face .

Kong Ye observed the dark blue screen that wasn't visible to his disciple . His own stats hadn't changed at all . There were no other notifications popping up either .

"You're not being honest enough, disciple . Say it more sincerely ! Try again . Repeat after me . MASTERRR !"

Xiao Wu looked rather alarmed as he leaned back a few inches . To Kong Ye, it looked like his new disciple was having second thoughts about this whole process for some reason he couldn't fathom . Wracking his brain, he tried to make himself sound more convincing .

"Look . I must hear the sincerity stemming from your heart to placate my inner self . My skills aren't something that any riff-raff can learn randomly . I must feel that you're worth teaching, that you're honest about wanting to learn, that you have no problems or hesitations over our budding relationship as master and disciple . Do you want to learn something worth bragging about ? Do you want to learn something worthy of a legendary cultivator ? Speak up !"






Author's Note : I got stuck in college over some paperworks and applications for an entire day . Hence the halved chapter that I barely managed to write today . I'll finish up the other one tomorrow and release it ASAP. Sorry to keep everybody waiting. Didn't really see that college stuff coming and hitting me square in the face like that .