Chapter Forty Two - But I have nothing for breakfast

Leon crossed his arms and tilted his head to one side at Jin Li's audacious statement. He would have attempted a retort, but in touching his body, he recalled the mess that he was currently in and decided to worry about that first.

"Let m-me wash up first," Leon said with a slight sigh as he ducked into the small shed. Jin Li followed, noting the badly sewn curtain of fabric that hung from a few nails creating a makeshift door way into the fixed outbuilding. The metal tub that they had purchase was currently filled with water, cold he presumed from the lack of steam, but it happened to but it happened to sit next to a large pot on above a small pit in which remnants of ash lay. But apart from the new additions, the shed still remained a shed, with tools, a broom and an old barrel lingering to one side.

Leon noted that his clean robes were not quite dry, still a little damp around the seams, but seeing as his current set were marred with the black substance, he had no choice but to use them. He glanced over his shoulder, pointedly at Jin Li, but the youth made no attempt to leave. So with a slight huff, Leon stripped from his soiled clothes and slipped into the cold water, shuddering as the temperature stole away the heat of his skin.

"This is so g-g-gross," he muttered in complaint as he wiped his skin, turning the water murky with in seconds.

"That is a layer of impurities having been expelled from your body," Jin Li mentioned.

"This happened d-d-due to b-breaking through?" Leon asked, shivering slightly. Jin Li nodded his affirmation. "Will it happen again? When I b-break through to tertiary?"

Jin Li raised an eyebrow over the assumption. "Don't you mean if?" he jeered, but not with cruel intent. "At this level, the impurities are forced from your skin. At the next breakthrough, they will be forced from your muscles and blood. And as one enters quaternary stage, they are expunged from your bones. At this point, one's core will also form."

Leon dunked beneath the frigid water to cleanse his scalp, before breaking through the surface with a gasp. Quickly, he jumped out of the dirty bath water and grabbed the cloth that he used as a towel. It was still damp from the previous evening, but it dried his skin well enough, even though it could do little for his long hair. Still he squeezed out what water he could before throwing on his clean robes. He picked up the dirty ones from the ground with a sigh. There was no way that he could clean these robes in the water he had. He would need to collect from from the lake in order to do so.

For now, he tossed them into an empty barrel near to the bath, slipped on his boots and wandered to the fire pit. It didn't take too long to encourage the flames to dance over the firewood, so Leon set up the tripod and placed the kettle upon it in order to boil the water within. "I d-d-don't have m-much food left," Leon told Jin Li as he entered the hut to grab two cups, his small jar of honey and tea leaves. He recalled that he did have some dried fruit, seeds and nuts stored and hastily through some into a bowl before taking all of this outside.

Jin Li looked at the 'breakfast' without enthusiasm, but proceeded to pick at the nibbles while Leon made him a cup of tea. This he did enjoy; he approved the idea of sweetening the bitter liquid, that he had grown up drinking, with honey. He naturally asked for a second cup.

"I see that the door was fixed," Jin Li noted. Of course, this has been the first thing he had seen when he had arrived at the hut in the morning, shortly before seeing three individuals who were clearly up to no good. At first, he wasn't sure whether he wanted to bother with them, but then he had felt the disturbance in the air and realised that the spiritual energy surrounding the hut was in turmoil. As these fools had still remained adamant that they would stoop low enough as to disturb a tricky moment during cultivation for their own purposes, Jin Li had decided to intervene.

At first, he was disappointed that the boys did not represent much of a challenge, even compared to the new martial art students of the outer school, but he was glad that he had beaten those who would destroy his.. his servants stuff.

"There have been other changes as well," Jin Li added, seeing the greatly expanded garden, the carved decorations and a few new dangling ornaments, though definitely not the number there had been when he had first come here.

"I've n-not d-done m-m-much," Leon murmured, feeling shamed that he had actually been wallowing in self pity for a little while now. "B-b-but I have m-made m-more p-p-pills. I n-need to hand them in. You can come too if you like." Leon added, realising that there was no point hiding Jin Li now the youth was enrolled in the institute with him. It shouldn't matter that they were from different schools, right?

Jin Li thought about this for a moment, then thought about the real reason he was here. In the end, he gave a decisive nod of agreement.