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"Congratulations!" Krish offered.

"Yeah, no thanks to you..." Marie muttered in response.

"What was that?" Krish retorted with stern disbelief.

"No thanks to you!" Marie reiterated with an equally stern and accusatory gaze.

"Look, I offered to teach you," Krish confessed. "It's not my fault that you decided to look elsewhere."

"You don't even try," Marie responded with a dejected frown. "The least you could have done was entertaining a discussion and brainstorming with me. Are you so unwilling to compromise or bend by even a little?"

Krish pulled his lips into his cheeks and wore a conflicted expression. He was ashamed to admit that he agreed with Marie on that point. Although he'd let the girl off the leash to explore the subjects on her own, he hadn't completely stopped observing her. He was with her every step of the way, albeit only passively.

Through that, Krish gained a better understanding of how his Disciple's mind worked and how she learned. And he also learned how to teach her and get through to her. This brought upon its own set of dilemmas for Krish. For one, it required that he completely overhaul everything he knew and believed to be the right way to teach.

It wasn't all Krish's fault, though. After all, in his lifetime Krish only ever had one teacher, his Master. So everything Krish knew about teaching and nurturing disciples could only be extrapolated from his own experiences under his Master. This in and of itself brought with it the second problem since Krish did not have a particularly spectacular time in his Discipleship. The constant, harrowing assaults that put him near death during the early stages of his Discipleship had jaded Krish quite a bit. Although life became much better after the first hurdle, he could never get over the torture suffered in the beginning.

Krish anticipated that when he would pick up his Disciple, they would also have to go through the same treatment. In his books, it was the only way. Yet it was only after a Disciple was gifted upon him that Krish realised the flaw in that assumption. He really did not want to hurt his Disciple the way his master hurt him. At that time, Krish wondered whether his Master was equally affected while putting Krish through that treatment.

Yet unlike his Master, Krish could not muster up the resolve to torture his Disciple. Through his travels, Krish learned that it was only the mortals - who were cursed with a short life - that had the nerve to hope for a better or different future. An immortal such as himself had seen the futility of that hope and had become inoculated to that emotion centuries ago. Yet, at that juncture, Krish started feeling hopeful all of a sudden.

Maybe it was a gut feeling, or the mortal human within him that urged Krish to leap. Krish couldn't confirm it by himself by gazing into the future. Sometimes, knowing can result in an unwitting deviation and he couldn't afford that. Krish decided to bank on that one per cent chance circling in his mind, and let Marie go about the process her own way. Surprisingly, she succeeded, thanks to Guy. Krish was elated to learn that there was a more humane way to overcome the initial speedbump. This would ultimately become a boon to the future practitioners of The Heavenly Eye!

Krish was preparing himself to continue teaching Marie from this point onwards. Yet this was his second mistake. He had grossly overestimated his capacity to teach and severely underestimated his Disciple's bullish mentality. The girl sought perfection and invariability, he knew that much from her motivation to learn The Heavenly Eye. But her requirements extended to limits beyond Krish's and every past user of The Heavenly Eye's level.

He was stuck. He didn't know what to do to help his student achieve what she wanted. If Krish was given the option, he would simply force the girl to go through the steps he'd followed during his Discipleship and trudge along. However, he recognised that doing so would simply alienate the girl even further. So, he let Marie go about her business until she eventually came back.

Lo and behold, the most inconceivable thing happened. Marie figured out a method to decipher her divinations with frighteningly tight accuracy without using tools or trinkets. What shamed Krish even further was that Guy, a man who has no experience or knowledge about The Heavenly Eye, was the one who guided Marie to make this breakthrough AND achieve perfected resonance.

Needless to say, Krish was at his lowest point at the moment. Being looked down at by his own Disciple did not help in this matter either. He couldn't disparage the girl for thinking this way either. After all, it was his fault and his inability to adjust that led to this.

"What's next?" Marie questioned offhandedly.

"Well," Krish sighed. "You've reached a stepping off point. Unfortunately, beyond this, you cannot enlist the help of others. Doing so, in any way, could result in dire consequences for both yourself AND the other person."

Krish noticed Marie's face droop visibly upon hearing this. He smiled bitterly and added, "I'll try harder, Marie."

Marie's head jerked upwards in surprise. "I want to be a better Master. I really do. But you have to understand, I've lived like this for a very, very long time."

"And it's hard to change your ways," Marie completed the sentence for Krish. "I get it."

"You're a smart girl, Marie," Krish continued. "You are much smarter and more capable than I was at your age. You've contributed more to the legacy of our cultivation art within months, than what our antecedents have accomplished over decades."

"Teacher Larks had a lot to do with that too," Marie pointed out.

"Regardless, I will try harder to live up to your standards," Krish accented with a warm smile. "Please be patient with me."

Marie clicked her tongue and gazed incisively at Krish. "Who are you and what have you done to my Master?"

Krish laughed uproariously.

"Come, let's stress-test your now technique, shall we?" Krish proposed.

Marie approached enthusiastically. "Ask me a question, Master!"

"Will it rain tomorrow?" Krish responded slyly. Marie revealed a sarcastic smile and started to divine the answer. After a short half-minute, she said, "A light drizzle."

Krish repeated the divination using his cowrie shells and affirmed, "Good. Another question then. When will Kano Reva return?"

The duo continued the back and forth well into the evening, taking frequent breaks to replenish Marie's mana.

"It's uncannily precise!" Krish exclaimed, to which Marie hummed proudly.

Krish's face cycled through a few expressions, starting from a thoughtful frown and settling at an embarrassed smile.

"Umm, Marie?" He started. "Can you... Can you teach me how you did that?" He said with a low mutter.

Marie's eyebrows darted upwards in surprise. A smug smile threatened to form on her face, but she suppressed it immediately after she noticed the sincerity in her Master's request. She realised that he probably had to fight through centuries of indoctrination and inbuilt pride to voice the request to his Disciple.

"I will," she acquiesced. "But I'm warning you that it won't be easy!"

"I wouldn't have thought otherwise," Krish responded immediately with a relieved sigh.

"So, tell me everything you know about mathematics. Don't leave out anything, I need to gauge your starting point," Marie instructed.

Krish never thought he'd be tortured again in this lifetime. He assumed incorrectly...

____

At the same, many kilometres away at Radiant City, a certain individual was pulling his hairs out tracking down the elusive Guy Larks.

"The trail ends here," Jo commented with a voice oozing with exasperation and irritation as he stood in front of the Academy's library.

His past month was a wild goose chase, hunting leads that all tapered into a dead-end. It first began with the Academy. Jo polled his connections to get his hands on the logs of the teaching apprentices from previous years. That led him nowhere since Guy had nothing to his name, no connections, no affiliation, nothing! Jo then looked into Guy's student at that time called Markus. That also led him nowhere since the Academy never took thorough records of students until they were at least tagged as worthwhile investments. Jo could not find any information about Markus' previous homes or affiliations either.

Following that, Jo looked into the relationship between the kid called Kano and the Rasmus clan. This investigation was stopped right from the get-go because he was denied re-entry into the clan's mansion. Apparently, Jo's previous up-front critique of the Clan Leader's daughter and her inability to cultivate had backfired. Jo tried camping out near the mansion to see if he could catch the boy some way, but the kid never left the house without escorts or the Clan Leader himself.

Jo was close to giving up, until through some lucky happenstance, his colleague Mai remembered seeing Guy and the librarian together, conversing in a friendly manner on more than one occasion. It was a weak lead, but even the sound of flowing water is akin to gold for a thirsting man stranded in the middle of a desert.

This was why Jo was making his way through the library, towards the office at the back belonging to the mysterious librarian. Through some probing around the Academy, Jo managed to draw a vague image of the Librarian in his mind.

With each step, Jo started to feel a sense of growing pressure dawning on him. Jo had learned that the Librarian was a mage at the Core Condensation realm. The experience with Keegan had turned into somewhat of a trauma for Jo.

As he turned the corner, he came face to face with the door leading into the office. Jo gulped audibly, trying to suppress the growing urge to throw up with stress.

A heavyweight bore down on him as he made the final approach shakily.

He stood an arm's length away from the door. He held his breath, lifted his hands and curled them into a fist.

Right as his knuckles were about to descend onto the wooden door, a squirrelly voice interrupted him.

"Teacher Way, is that you?"

Jo turned around to face the person who called him. He did not recognise the man. He had a rather unassuming appearance, someone who could blend into the crowd if not for his shrill voice.

Not wanting to embarrass himself and the other person, Jo simply nodded with a courteous smile.

"Are you looking for Teacher Jeeves?"

"Ah? Yes, I am," Jo answered.

"That's unfortunate. Teacher Jeeves just left a few minutes ago. He told me to take over for him."

"Do you know when he might return?"

"He didn't say," the man answered.

'Damn it!' Jo cursed internally. Like a deflating balloon, all the pressure bearing down on him started to dissipate at a frightening rate. Even though he reached a stable point, it didn't stop. His mind was shutting down and entering a state of fight or flight.

​ After bidding the shrill-voiced man a hasty farewell, Jo rushed outside the library and collapsed around the corner.

His breath started to extend, but his lungs couldn't extract all the oxygen he needed. He started to sweat profusely, with growing agitation on his face.

He was hyperventilating.

'What's happening to me?!'

[You're having a panic attack.]

'What? Why?' Jo responded subconsciously. 'Wait! System!'

[...]

'SYSTEM!!!!'

Jo Way wouldn't admit it, but he was scared. The actual fragility of his position dawned on him the moment he was suppressed by Keegan Lang. His assumption of how the world would work was overturned upon realising that there was probably another person like him in this world.

To top it off, this other person was impressively well hidden. His actions were measured and calculated. The way he influenced the world was also thoroughly paced. The man had already accumulated multiple backers without causing a single ripple or leaving any trails.

Jo Way, like any human, feared the unknown. He knew nothing about this other guy, and it was freaking him out. He didn't know the man's affiliation and intentions. He didn't know whether the man had any advantages or abilities like himself. For all intents and purposes, the man was an enigma.

After finally calming himself from his panic attack, Jo shakily staggered upright and walked away. He subconsciously shelved his discomfort to the back of his mind.

"I'll meet you one day, Guy Larks!"