Chapter 4-New Discoveries

When Shinju woke up it was very early the next morning. As she silently glided to the window, she could she the sun just starting to peek past the mountain tops and a few stars in the sky that were gradually fading away. Because of her lack of status within the palace, the Emperor had sent her and Rei to live on the very outskirts of the palace at the very bottom of the mountain. This part of the palace rarely had any passersby and was as neglected as the princess that resided there. The Queen Dowager did not fight the Emperor of his decision to send the Old Shinju there because it would offer her more protection from the schemes of the palace. After all, one of the things that the Old Shinju was known for was her, to put it nicely, child-like mindset which other people saw as her stupidity. She could easily be schemed against and frankly had been schemed against as a child before everyone realized the Emperor did not care about his daughter at all.

But this worked out very well for the new Shinju as it gave her the privacy that she needed to fulfill all of her plans in the future. The only one sent to keep an eye and watch the Old Shinju had been her only servant Rei. Rei was easy to slip away from because, according to the Old Shinju's memories, Rei only comes to bring food two times a day when her grandmother is gone for the month-long retreat. Otherwise, she is preoccupied with other things during the day and rarely will she be with Rei for the whole day. This was not weird at all to Shinju because Rei had been doing it for years, ever since she was a young girl, and it was a normal occurrence at this point in her life. On the month that the Queen Dowager was absent from the Palace, Rei did not even bother to serve Shinju. Oftentimes setting the food outside the door for Shinju to grab. Of course, Rei always was there to put Shinju to bed and give her food twice a day but otherwise Shinju had hours of free time to exact her plans. Her first plan was to train her body so that she can at least defend herself in the palace. After all, the Emperor's favorite Consort just gave birth to a child. Even though Shinju is not heir to the throne right now, the consort could possibly see Shinju as a threat to her child and have her assassinated. This could have possibly worked if it was the Old Shinju but, now that the body belonged to Nemesis, the world's number one assassin...it is a very slim chance of successful assassination. Rei would not come until the time was about ten and Shinju can estimate the time to be around five due to the position of the Sun. This would give Shinju five hours to start her plans to train her frail body.

Shinju finally finished looking out of the window at the sunrise and started to lightly stretch her body. While she was stretching her mind wandered back to when she was meditating last night. "So that was Aura Particles. But, according to the memories, the Old Shinju's talent was very low in cultivating magic." After some thought, the only explanation was that talent with absorbing Aura Particles had something to do with the soul or whoever sent her into Shinju's body upgraded the body into a higher talent. These are the only explanations that can logically explain why the talent of Shinju changed just after she took over the body. "Well, it is a boon in my favor and I will not find answers...at least not at my current level! This body is too weak! I have to take advantage to train for now then, try to figure out a perfect plan to leave this dreadful palace!" thought Shinju with a determined gleam in her eyes.

With the next step of her plan in mind, she went to the door of her chambers and listened very closely to any sign of movement. After a minute of silence, she went over to the pitiful wardrobe made of molding wood and looked inside for clothes made for ease of movement. Finally, she found an old dark gown that looked as though it was the Old Shinju's old night clothes. She then glided back to the window, opened it, and then jumped out. "Ack!" She was able to cut off her cry of pain at the very last moment. "It seems like this body is weaker than I thought!" thought Shinju. "I definitely have to train my body to the limit during this next month!" With that last thought Shinju took off running into the wilderness of the mountainside.