Story 10 - The Spy Who Rocked Too Hard (Part 31 🎸) (Patreon)

Author’s Note:

Thank you for being the best readers on Patreon! Here is the link to the Google Docs for those who prefer it.

Part 31

Little Spring’s POV

After leaving my immortal cave, I headed toward the treasure pavilion. Almost immediately, the scent of a rodent hit my now-advanced sense of smell. 

I’d picked up an unwanted follower. 

I ignored her and her giant mouse ears that were curled in sadness. Because I was finally done. I was not going to let her pull me back into her aura especially since there was something more important I needed to focus on: the spy mission. 

To lose her, I traversed a few twisting mountain pathways. I even ran between two dark courtyards where the loud sounds of pounding from training or fighting echoed eerily.

But she still didn’t leave.

Irritated, I hopped onto my flying sword and zipped in the opposite direction of my target through heavily forested sections of the peak.

Thankfully, I didn’t notice her behind me. I hoped she finally realized that I didn’t want to see her. Especially after I heard her conversation with sister Lin when she thought I was dead. 

***

When I entered the treasure pavilion, it was just as crowded as it had been the last time I visited. Disciples from every peak clamored at the front desk, calling out for ingredients, pills, or weapons. The difference was that everything sounded louder. Also, the scents that I used to ignore were intensified.

If this was what Senior Noxious Fangstrike felt every day, it was no wonder he was such an irritable person.

I quickly headed to the side of the room and into a dark and empty stairwell before I became overwhelmed. The sounds from the room muffled as soon as I took my first step up toward the quiet second floor.

An older Golden Core cultivator with wrinkles around her eyes stepped forward as I reached the top. Pressure from her higher cultivation base gave me pause, but it wasn’t exactly a deterrent. It made me wonder just how much stronger I was after the bath.

She glared and opened her mouth to say something, but I showed her the token the Alchemist gave me before my bath. “I’m here for a weapon.”

She nodded and gestured to the desk where a Foundation Establishment woman waited with her hands clasped elegantly in front of her. I could also feel the spiritual energy from another Golden Core cultivator in a hidden back room somewhere. There could be even more if they were hiding their presence.

If that were the case, then the security here was way too tight. Like they had something they needed to protect up here that was more valuable than treasures for mere Foundation Establishment disciples. Possibly the scroll we were looking for? Or maybe something else...

If I couldn’t place the recording spiritual tool here right now due to this security, then I’d fail my sister. And I would have gone through that horrible bath and almost died for no reason. There was no way I would let that happen.

No matter what, I had to find a way. And the place I had to put it needed to be somewhere I could come to collect it later. 

And none of this was accounting for the fact that I had to stick it where the security or a random disciple visiting here wouldn’t accidentally bump into it. 

There was one good thing though — sister Lin had added an obfuscation enchantment to the device. The bad part was that it didn’t turn on until it was placed.

Actually, it had been really amusing watching her craft the tool...

Sister Lin kept humming a strange song as she worked. Her focused eyes seemed to glow as she managed to shrink the tool from the size of a fist to that of a mustard seed.

“Is that rock too?”

Her brows furrowed. “What?”

“The song you’re humming.”

She grinned and continued working. “Well, in a way. It’s actually the ultimate double-oh-seven spy song.”

I had no idea what that was, but she looked happy.

With a twist of her wrist and a simple incantation gesture, the tool enlarged. She pulled out a handful of medium tier spirit stones, crushed them between her fingers, and infused them into the tool along the complex lines she’d carved there. 

Then she shrunk it down and placed it on the table. It seemed to vanish. After a simple grabbing motion, it suddenly showed up in her hands at the original large size. She drew a square with a hand seal. A mirrored image of us appeared on the device of how we looked a few seconds ago while a moment of sound echoed through the smith. She made a gesture like she was polishing the crystal orb and the image vanished.

“Muahahaha! I’m better than Q!”

“Who is that?”

She jumped. 

Had she really forgotten that I was still here?

She cleared her throat. “Think of him as… a genius spiritual tool smith who was an expert at making amazing weapons and devices that are extremely tiny or that look like ordinary items. For example, a camera lens so tiny it could be hidden in the center of a nailhead.” She held up the orb and shrunk it back down. 

Seeing the joy on her face was so priceless that I forgot to ask what a ‘camera lens’ was.

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I walked past shelves where several disciples quietly flipped through incomplete manuals and placed my token down on the counter. “Can I see all the swords available with this?” Since it would be awhile before sister Lin and I could forge a new sword together, I decided to get something that would suit me. 

The clerk nodded and brought over a storage bag from the backroom. As she started to set out various beautiful wood boxes, the girl I had been ignoring walked up the stairs and into the room with her tracking mouse on her shoulder pointing its nose directly at me. Beads of sweat had gathered on her forehead and she wiped them away with a handkerchief. She’d definitely run here as quickly as she could.

I also noticed that she didn’t need a token to get up here. They just let her in.

“Little Brother Verdant Spring. Please talk to me!”

Without acknowledging her presence, I started pulling open each box to look at the spiritual weapons inside. Thanks to my training in weapon forging, I could tell that most of them were medium quality earth rank swords, but a couple were high quality. There was even one a half-step from sky rank. It had a beautiful amber jewel on the hilt. The color reminded me of Lin’s eyes during the times she put me through hell training. 

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My muscles practically ached even though I’d merely remembered it.

If I used a sword like this, would it feel like she was beside me, ‘encouraging’ me to do my best in a fight, even if I was alone?

A delicate hand gestured to the weapon I held. Teasing Mouse smiled nervously. “This one is definitely the most perfect for you.”

And I suddenly didn’t want it anymore.

I scowled down at her. “Why are you even here?”

Her bottom lip trembled. The security guard and the clerk looked at me like I was a terrible person, but I didn’t care.

While she was adorable, I had almost died!

While I had a stronger body now, I also had to deal with uncomfortable side-effects. My hearing was too strong, my sense of smell was almost overwhelming at times and my skin was so sensitive that it actually hurt when sister Lin used her cleaning technique on me. And that was just my new heightened sensations. It wasn’t accounting for the fact that my energy had become so strong I couldn’t use my techniques normally. At least not without more practice.

I would never have had to go through this and sister Lin wouldn’t have to add fixing me to the list of already impossible things she was doing if I’d just listened to her in the first place and ignored this girl.

“S-so you hate me now?”

I turned away from her and noticed that everyone in the room was focused on Teasing Mouse thanks to that aura Lin mentioned she had. Even the security guard who should be paying attention to the disciples who came into the room and left seemed to concentrate on this girl more than her job.

I felt dumb. It took me too long to realize that Teasing Mouse would be the perfect distraction. If I could use her aura against the people here, I could plant the device without anyone being the wiser. But I needed to push her further. I might have to… emotionally hurt her on purpose.

While I agreed that I should stay away from her, I didn’t want to harm her that badly. Especially since she was the beloved little sister of everyone in the sect.

”Junior brother, after talking with a few others, I know I should have warned you about the side effects more. Maybe I should have really emphasized the pros and cons of the bath. Or convinced you to wait…”

”Senior Teasing Mouse, while I’m grateful that you introduced me to so many kind seniors, you can’t do anything to change the fact that I almost died because of your suggestion.”

”But can you please forgive me? I-I still want to be friends!”

”Senior, there are some mistakes that are too big to forgive easily. Even if they were done by accident.”

She swallowed and looked determined. “NO! There has to be a way I can make it up to you!”

I palmed the mustard-seed-sized recording tool and glared at the older girl in front of me. “Maybe if you save the life of someone close to me. But do you even have that ability, senior?”

The room grew deathly quiet. Tears started to fall down her cheeks. She opened her mouth to say something, looked away, then bolted down the stairs.

Ah… now I really felt like a terrible person. I ran after her but grabbed the door frame as if stopping myself from going down the stairs to catch up. Of course, the hand I used to clutch the frame also had the spy tool which I forced into a small crack in the wood as I quietly watched her leave. 

I turned around as if I regretted letting her go.

And maybe I did. But that could also be her aura affecting me, just like sister Lin mentioned.

The clerk sighed and took out a jade box. She pulled off the lid, revealing several beautiful hairpins. “Instead of a weapon, you could choose one of these sky rank defensive tools. They are an excellent gift. Especially if you plan to apologize for being too brutal.”

I glanced at the hairpins and then at the swords. This ended up being a harder choice than I thought it would be. Getting just a sword would be my best option. But…

I grabbed a gold hairpin with a beautiful fire design. It also happened to have the strongest defensive properties. “This one. I have a sister I want to give it to.” 

The clerk beamed at me. 

“And I’ll use pills and spirit stones to exchange for this sword.” I couldn’t leave here without a good weapon, even if I became broke thanks to the horrible exchange rate. Because, well, I might have just made over half the sect unhappy with me.

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Author’s Note: 

Thank you all for reading! You are the best readers a writer could ask for!

For those of you in the USA, happy belated Independence Day!

This is a bit of a shorter chapter... by about 100 words. I honestly thought it would be shorter. It started out at only 1150. By editing, I ended up adding about 800 words to it. It was worth it though. I like how it turned out. We got to learn more about Little Spring’s changes and continue seeing him grow as a person. 

It’s hard to cut out people from your life who are toxic to you (especially when they are just mildly toxic so it isn’t very obvious until you’ve messed up worse than you expected). That’s what he’s doing here. And it is hard. Especially because he’s not a bad person. He has empathy and is very unlike Bloodsword. And she was technically helpful to him, which makes it even harder.