One Last System

"You are crazy."

Veila shook her head. There was no anger in her voice.

She hung her head low.

"No matter how much we train, it won't change a thing." Veila raised her eyes.

She cast a long, longing stare at someone clearly unaware of the reality.

"And why is that?" Mia asked. She stood her ground with a small smile on her lips.

"The boost from the resources is just too great," Veila answered without any hesitation. "You came here only recently. You don't know the despair..."

Veila hung her eyes low.

"Do you even have eyes?" Mia asked with a small chuckle.

"What?" Veil's face, for the first time, appeared in darker colors. Her patience was running low.

"Right now, I achieved when the people from the sponsored area are trying hard to achieve for the past two weeks," Mia said happily.

She took a step forward and reached out.

"Do you know what's the only difference between them and me?" Mia asked, pressing the issue.

"You train hard?" Veila replied in a slightly raised voice.

It wasn't the thing that Mia asked about.

It was all about what this question implied.

"I believe we can use the resources that I will receive to achieve far more than the sponsored disciples themselves," Mia finally explained. She then looked down at her hands.

"Maybe it's because I trained with my everything on the stake," Mia muttered before shaking her head and raising her eyes up.

"Anyway, I just got to Spirit Manifestation rank," Mia chirped before drawing her eyes towards the massive crowd all around them.

"I reckon we can support about five people with this stipend," Veila muttered under her nose. She squinted her eyes. "Is this what you are planning to do?" she asked in a straightforward manner.

"That's right," Mia sighed and locked her hands behind her neck. "If we want to develop, we can't just rely on the outside," Mia added in a slightly hushed voice.

It appeared as if she was speaking to herself rather than to Veila or the people around them.

Mia brought her eyes down on the girl.

"Sander, You and me," Mia counted down on her fingers. She then pulled three of them down. "Two more. Could you set it up?" Mia smiled.

For a moment, a cloud of strange, comfy vibe filled the room.

'Huh?' Mia got stunned for a second. 'Did I just gain some kind of ability?' she thought before calming herself down.

"Why me?" Veila raised her eyes. "If you are going for people with talent, why do you count me?" she asked.

Her eyes were calm. There was no hint of sadness, shame... or any other emotion at all.

Veila's expression was completely blank.

'Woah, her face changes quite a lot,' Mia thought, slightly weirded out.

"Right, I forgot to mention," Mia added, suddenly changing the tone. "I'm kind of reaching the peak of the rank..."

Mia's expression was stifled. The excitement was clearly reflected in her eyes. It shone through her slightly confused appearance.

"You what?"? Veila asked, her expression turning into one of a troubled sibling.

"But that proves my point," Mia took a smug look on her face. "If you drive yourself hard enough with the training, the effects of using the cultivation resources can be greatly magnified," she announced.

Out of nowhere, Mia's face darkened. A certain thought nested in her head.

'How could such a blatant mismanagement exist?' she thought, horrified. 'There is no way a sect like this one wouldn't know about it,' she started connecting the dots. 'Just the folly of letting the sponsored students monopolize the tournaments improves nothing...' Mia's eyes sunk deeper into her face.

'Someone has to be inducing this behavior intentionally.'

It was a simple thought, a stray idea.

But once it laid upon the fertile ground of Mia's head, it rooted itself instantly.

"We are still going to lose," Veila suddenly said, forcing Mia out of her momentary mental stun. "It's going to be fifty ganging up on our five," she shook her head before releasing a deep sigh.

"The more I think about it, the easier it gets," Mia chuckled. "Listen, what we do is pretty simple. We will focus all we can on the standard training to improve quicker than the sponsored students, right?" Mia asked.

"That's right," Veila squinted her eyes as a slightly annoyed look crept onto her lips. "Most of whom are already on fifth if not sixth stage," she added.

For a moment, Veila shook her head over the ignorance of her friend.

"That doesn't matter," Mia's smile brightened. "Because we will be out there with trained bodies and experience," her eyes curved into a slightly vicious sneer. "And we will be against a bunch of pissants who only know how to laze around and waste themselves away," Mia announced.

She didn't bring her voice down.

It didn't matter if the other party would get to know about her plan.

Hard work wasn't something that one could do in a spur of a moment.

It was a skill on its own. A skill that one had to gently cultivate over the years.

And even since well before her slave times, Mia was long used to training to the limits of her body!

'It's the one thing I can do,' Mia thought.

This single phrase brought her comfort whenever she would end up exhausted beyond her limits.

The one motivation to push just a little bit further, just a little bit harder and longer.

And after an entire year of the nightmare of being a slave in the Skyladder sect, after all the time she spent with Arthur and then training at the Tuxi sect...

Mia finally found a way to help him back.

To prompt her words with action and generous effort.

'If we do it lowkey, it might take others a while to notice. During this time, I will have to secure other sources of cultivation resources,' Mia decided, taking a strategic look at her own situation.

"One last thing, then," Veila asked in a low voice, clearly unhappy about the people still densely filling the area. "My question from before, answer it," she requested.

This time, Veila's face turned calm yet serious.

There was no hint nor shadow of her usual clumsiness.

'Why me?' Veila thought. 'There are others with better talent. If you want results, you should...'

"I somehow trust you," Mia laughed out loud. Yet, just as quickly, her face weirded out in an ugly grin. "I know I shouldn't, but I can't really go against this feeling," she added with a slightly worn-off look in her eyes.

"I brought the people," Sander's words exploded to Mia's side.

For a moment, she had to fight off an instinct to dodge.

"What?" Mia shrugged, unprepared for such a sudden return.

"I brought two for the team," he said and pointed with his thumb behind his back.

It was a pair. A pair in all sorts of ways.

'How could it be so obvious?' Mia thought, stunned.

The pair didn't look any different from than others. There was absolutely nothing striking about them.

There was nothing outside of how clear it was that the two of them had a thing going on.

It was a strange kind of vibe that instantly gave the situation away.

"They are insane together but are still quite weak," he explained.

"I told you," Veila released a deep sigh. "You struck him right into his weakness," she explained.

"What again?" Mia asked; the pitch of her voice rose up as she reacted.

"If anything, Sander is the one that strove to change his fate the hardest," Veila spoke out once again.

The look on the young disciple's face was that of a full focus and commitment.

"He will latch to any hope or even its shadow that you throw at him," Veila sighed heavily, only to strike her cheeks to sober up.

"Good," Mia brought a confident smile. "It will be a hell for all of us, but we are going to make it," Mia warned everyone. "But if we succeed, we might carve a part of this sect for ourselves," she rallied up.

For a moment, silence filled the area.

The five involved stood in a circle. Everyone else simply watched the scene, not daring to as much as to whisper or breathe.

"You will follow my exact training regime, my exact training moves, and my exact directions," Mia announced. "If anything, we know nothing about the reason why my cultivation was boosted so high," she pointed out.

"Only by doing exactly like I did before you can have a shot at replicating it," she explained. "And using this boost and the real experience at fighting, we will conquer the tournaments," Mia whispered.

The vision of the future appeared before the girl's eyes.

A future where she could secure the resources and funds to foster her own growth.

'This is the only way to match Arthur's potential,' Mia thought.

She was devastatingly aware of the difference in their talents.

Mia's cultivation results didn't lag behind Arthur's much... But they did lag. And over the course of time, it was only bound to grow larger.

'But they won't lose at this deal either,' Mia thought, looking down at the face of her four new teammates.

"Anyway, we talked enough," Mia added after clearing her thoughts. "Now, everyone, back to the training. And we will keep at it until the sunrise!" Mia shouted to encourage her new group.

"Wait, sunrise?" Veila sharply brought her eyes to Mia's face. "Sunset, you mean?"

Veila looked to the sky. The sun was still well away from reaching the breaking point on its celestial path. There were still several long hours before it would be the afternoon, not to speak about the night.

"Did I stutter?" Mia asked with a smile, throwing a punch out.