CHAPTER 66 **Ranking up**

Sahara slowly heads off towards the eating place and as she got closer, more and more people looked at her.

Having forgotten about her looks, she was wondering if there was something on her face, so she put her hand over her cheeks, to find nothing.

I’m sure I fixed them up…

But Sahara’s hand did come into contact with the little shithead, and she realized that he must be the reason why everyone was staring.

Suddenly, in front of her, a familiar figure was in a daze and staring at her with sparkles in his eyes.

She smiled happily at him, “Samuel!”

“Sahara!” He ran to her and picked her up, turned her around and dropped her. “Ah! You are here!”

“Mmm.”

“My sister is here!” He said, happily repeating himself.

Sahara looked at him and shook her head as she chuckled, “Yes, I’m here!’

“It’s eating time soon, eat with your big brother!?” Samuel asked, smiling like a goof ball.

Raising her eyebrows, Sahara had to admit that this was nice. If Samuel can help her not think about a particular person…

“Sure! I’ll eat with my big brother!” she said, taking his arm.

“Tell me, Sahara, what are you learning?” Samuel asked, walking in no particular direction.

“Dispersion.”

“Mmm, should I learn that?” Samuel said, thinking out loud.

Seeing him like this, Sahara asked, “What are you learning?”

“Force. Father wanted me to become stronger, so that I could become…Someone for you to rely on.”

Samuel looked at his sister seriously for a moment, and then smiled happily, “I am very happy to see you again! I will tell Father everything you say today!”

Having been silent and thinking warm thoughts of Talon, Sahara snapped out of it and laughed. She said very quickly, “I was here, here I was, was I here? Yes, I was!” She cheekily looked at him, “Did you remember all that?”

He had lost his smile and looked at me seriously, shaking his head after a moment. “Sahara, I don’t understand. Can you repeat it?”

“Nope!” Sahara laughed, looking at his crestfallen face.

“Please, I didn’t remember it!” Samuel said.

She stopped and looked at him then, “I was joking with you…”

“Oh!” Samuel replied, giving a smile and then a shake of his head.

Then, the tokens went off, blinking and letting us know that we could go and eat.

When she got inside of the big eating hall, it was different to how she saw it last time. Sahara saw ‘token’ foods and then general food that did require tokens.

Fruits and vegetables didn’t have tokens but made dishes did.

Making her way through the selection, Sahara believed herself a little unlucky now, with only having a silver token and coming after eating yesterday.

What she had stolen, had been leftovers and none of the ‘cultivation token’ or ‘sum token’ food.

Sahara could have general dishes, but the exquisite food was most definitely a lot more appetizing!

“Sahara? You…You have a ‘silver token’?” Samuel asked, holding a very delicious looking meal.

She blinked, taking her eyes away from it, “It’s fine.”

Sahara sent over a star to a meal and had it suddenly disappear from the table, making a few people close by step back in fright.

A smile came across her face as she looked down at her tray upon the ‘cultivation token’ food and looked back up at Samuel. “Let’s eat!”

The biggest thing on people’s minds, when it came to ‘Sahara’, was questions…

Samuel, of course, knew that Sahara could teleport, but teleporting other things? And taking from a place that she wasn’t actually entitled to? Did she feel bad about it?

Samuel would often look at Sahara in a daze, while he was eating, trying to answer a few of these questions…

Then there was Naruto…Who had his own gourmet meal, and he was eating it on the table. His tails happily swished from side to side as he took his last bit of the meat on the plate, having not touched anything else yet. Sahara really couldn’t see this beast becoming a vegetarian…

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Is ‘Force’ meditation good?” Sahara asked Samuel, feeling a bit strange with all his stares…And some other type of looks…

“Mmm, ‘Force’ is mostly an offensive measure, and I thought I could help you the most with my strength!” Samuel said smiling.

Sahara finished eating what was in her mouth and said, “I’ll come by sometime and check it out.”

Wow!

Samuel lit up like an overpowered light bulb…His smile was huge, his eyes were sparkling, and she nearly wanted to duck her head down…

“Please! Come, come and see big brother!” Samuel said, rather loudly.

“So, this is your little sister, Sammy?”

Sahara looked up, to find someone about the same size and age to Samuel.

Samuel smiled openly at him, “Ye…”

Stopping midway, he looked at her with guilty eyes.

“No! No, we…” Samuel was never good at lying…

Sahara laughed at him, shaking her head, before she continued to eat. She wasn’t worried over what Samuel will say, she wanted to see how he would handle this, being the person that he was.

Naruto had finished now and gone onto Sahara’s shoulder, licking his paws and teeth.

“…If she isn’t your little sister, could this be…A very close…Friend?”

Sahara let out a frustrated sigh.

Why does everyone think it’s marriage or family? Marriage this, marriage…

Stopping herself, she took a deep breath…

Standing up, she said, “I’m going back.”

“Wait!” Samuel said, but she’d already left.

“I guess she doesn’t like you that way. Sorry brother!” The other said, hitting Samuel on the shoulder.

Sahara hadn’t wanted to be rude, but she was unable to help it! She didn’t want to talk about that subject, and she wanted to focus on something else!

And since Sahara had walked out of eating hall, she had missed someone who was wanting to get a hold of her since the day before…Yet, again, they had missed the chance to talk to her…

Seeing herself being the only one in the ‘Dispersion’ courtyard, Sahara felt some kind of relief.

Don’t think about it! Don’t think about it!

Sitting down in the corner, far from the desks, she took the grey pill out of her ‘storage’ and put it into her mouth.

Naruto got onto her lap and nearly immediately fell asleep…

Feeling no taste from the pill, Sahara could sense it going down her throat and she focused.

Sahara had always wondered what this would be like, to cultivate and take a pill that gives you a boost.

It was different to what she thought, she guessed that she didn’t think of it too much though, because it didn’t look hard to figure out.

As the pill becomes opened inside of her and the spiritual essence comes out the pill, it was like…Cordial…

Having known how much was in the pill, Sahara was very much surprised at how much came to her once consumed. It shocked her to great heights and all she could think of, is…Cordial. A small amount is needed then the rest was just plain old water.

And it was similar to this pill. It was like a mini magnet that got other spiritual essence from close by, into her body, and as more and more spiritual essence came into her body, the pills concentration lessened.

When it all became normal, spiritual essence stopped coming from outside of her body and then she concentrated on circulating what she had inside, and into her dantian.

And through watching what was happening to the pill, by zooming in with the Bending Space meditation, Sahara hadn’t realized that she had ‘dinged’ into being a fifth ranked cultivator!

Sahara didn’t know that others could find out when someone else was ‘dinging’…Of course, the specific rank is still not told, but it is obvious when someone goes up a rank.

When people in the room felt the influx of energy that surrounded Sahara and the quality of the energy rise, they were seriously disturbed!

Did that mean that she had successfully made a pill? Or is she doing another meditation and wanting to look good?

Questions filled their minds, and they didn’t know if they should be angry or scared!

Rising in rank is quick though, so this good quality energy, that was around Sahara, disappears only seconds after it appears. It is unseen but most definitely felt, if one is close by, and the people could not get over the newcomer in the room!

Feeling their stares, Naruto wakes and growls at them. He sat down by my foot and watched the other people with unflinching eyes.

The scary beast wasn’t like this for no reason, he was still worried that his owner was just going to disappear again or get taken by force!

Opening her eyes, to see him like this, Sahara sighed. She guessed that the little shithead is still a little worried. She gave him a pat and looked up at the people that had come back…At some point…

“Is that a beast?” One finally got enough courage to ask.

“Mmm.” Sahara got up, after picking up Naruto, and stretched her neck.

Walking over to the one that asked, Sahara put Naruto out towards them.

They stood back in quick steps and looked at her like they were scared.

Sahara heard Naruto’s growl and said, “Stop it!”

Putting his head down, in an attempt to try and hide it, Naruto looked like a scared, timid creature. His tails were hanging down, with even one of them wanting to go between its legs, but Sahara’s hand was there instead.

“Ha, ah, you don’t want to pat him?” Sahara asked.

The other person narrowed his eyes and nodded determinedly, “Yes! I want to pat him!”

She smiled and held the little shithead up and closer to the person, and they patted him, and then laughed. “He’s so small!”

Sahara laughed and then sat down, focusing, making him bigger.

“How…How did you do that!?”

She laughed again, “He’s special.”

“He’s really adorable.” Another person came, and Sahara looked up at a female that might have been older than herself.

“Yeah, he is.” she totally agreed with her.

Sahara sat back and made him stand there alone, to let both of the people pat him.

Naruto looked at Sahara grievously, not moving and accepting the pats from people that he didn’t know. His cute, big eyes looked absolutely adorable, making him not get any sympathy at all.

Sahara smiled at him and then made him smaller again.

“That’s…So amazing!” Said the first person who had spoken to her, who was a male and about the same age as herself, Sahara assumed.

“My name is Ren, this is Shima. We’ve been here for a year.” Ren said, wanting to pick up Naruto.

The female, Shima, nodded politely at Sahara and said, “We are from the Song family.”

Sahara blinked and tilted her head in thought, “Song family?”

“Yes! And you are?” Ren said, finally picking up the beast and smiling like he’d received a huge present.

“Sahara. Been here two days.”

They laughed, “We know! You just went up in rank didn’t you! We felt it! What rank are you now?”

Sahara looked at Shima, then wondered if she should lie. “Ah…How did you know?”

Honestly, Sahara was curious on how they knew, but it was a good attempt at diverting their attention at giving them the rank of her cultivation base.

“Ranking up is obvious, you’ll know when you see it. But what rank you become isn’t known, you still have to touch someone to find out.” Shima said, patting Naruto who was still in Ren’s hands.

“Oh…Cool, when you go to rank up let me be close by, so I can see it!” Sahara said, nodding to the new information.

“Of course! Actually, at first you were…” Shima had started, but stopped…

Sahara waited…

“Strange!” Ren completed Shima’s sentence.

“No! I didn’t mean that! Don’t talk for me!” Shima said, angrily.

Ren gave an impish smile to Sahara and Shima said, “We are brother and sister.”

Sahara nodded and smiled. Having two siblings in the one meditation…

Perhaps it’s a family thing?

Sahara looked at Naruto and he seemed to have calmed down, even lifting his head, so that they could scratch him underneath his chin.

Lap it up!