Chapter 7 (Shenanigans)

  I got up off the grass and walked into the admin building, skipping right past the entire line. I was in an orange robe, and no one was brave enough to even raise the modicum of a protest at my passage.

  Striding directly up to a desk currently occupied by a bedraggled looking [Clerk] at level 392 on one side scribbling frantically into a ledger while some jackass sat across from her making demands. I overheard something about his station requiring better dormitory accommodations than what he had received earlier this same morning before I stopped caring. I picked up the chair with him still seated and placed it to the side, facing away from myself and the clerk both. They appeared to both be human, but a brief skim through the clerk’s status sheet with [Debug: Data Snoop] revealed that to only be partially true. I guessed that she was in the Biomancy program.

  I smiled and addressed the clerk cordially, “Hello, I believe there should be some documents around somewhere that I’m supposed to sign, and possibly a particularly heavy shipment may have arrived with my name on it as well.”

  She blinked a few times, possibly trying to process how I had replaced the pompous buffoon before her with my own self. I only needed to wait a moment for her to capture her bearings. “Oh, may I have your name, please?”

  “Of course, I’m Ada. That’s three letters in most languages, including Hakka.”

  “Any other names or honorifics that may identify you?”

  “Countless, but none that I’m using this time around. Everything should be under Ada.”

  “I.. ok. Thank you, wait just here while I go and check.” The clerk stood and passed through a door behind the row of desks.

  I felt a projection of what was probably intended to be intimidating, clearly a skill from my erstwhile chum beside me, but I let it roll across my body as I ignored the effect. Still, I was curious about what the aura was intended to do, and spun up a separate process to analyze the skill.

  I actively ignored the idiot, and made sure he was aware I was doing so. I wasn’t sure if he was colorblind or just stupid, as being rude to an immortal at my projected level was frequently a sift way to becoming a statistic. I wasn’t going to do anything violent, per my promise to Flora, but he didn’t know that. A sense of self-preservation, he had not.

  I guessed my silent treatment had been enough, because a moment later, he reached up and poked me in the shoulder. Actually touched me. The man either had nerves of steel or really was just this plain stupid.

  “Excuse me,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Huh, what?” I turned to face him and had to look up, as I was still only a bit over 160 cm. I was perfectly average for a woman in this particular part of the world in this particular time period, but that still put me at least a hand’s breadth below him. “Oh, are you lost? Do you need help finding the stables?”

  I may have let a small smirk show as I watched his face turn a delightful shade of crimson. It may be an odd hobby, but I had always enjoyed watching the blood pressure rise in men way too full of themselves to realize when someone was messing with them.

  “Do you have any idea who I am?” He didn’t wait for a reply before barreling right along, “I am Ru Zhong, inner disciple of the Obsequious Quokka sect, and I demand that I be treated with the respect I am due.”

  Oh, a cultivator. That made complete sense. I looked him over again, taking note of his purple robe, the fancy embellishments to the edges that were more than what the standard issue school uniform robes had, and the white silk he had on under that. I guessed it was probably a Gi of some kind, but honestly didn’t care.

  “Hmm, no thanks.”

  I turned back around and spotted the clerk returning from the back holding a small stack of papers, likely my employment contract, and a slip of paper. As she returned to her desk, she smiled and handed the stack over to me.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Here is the employment contract and the offer of employment letter. Please sign and return the last page at your leisure anytime up until a week before the start of the next semester. As of first block this morning, that gives you three weeks and four days.”

  She handed me the slip of paper next.

  “This is a delivery receipt. You can go around to the receiving area in this building, or once you have a house assigned, you can arrange to have it delivered from here. Speaking of which, we need to arrange housing for you.”

  The cultivator beside me was growing increasingly more irate. I could tell from the way his expression turned completely blank at the same time his eyes narrowed. He was glaring at the nice clerk now instead of me.

  “Oh, that’s alright, I don’t actually need any housing, but if you must assign something, I can make do with whatever is available. Other than that, I would like to get a permanent lab set up in the Dangerous Workshops building. I’m sure I’ll need to add some enhancements to the standard warding and shield formations, as I think the council would be upset with me if I blew up the island.”

  “In that case, I have just the house for you.” She pulled out a form from a drawer, placed it on her desk surface, and began filling it in. When she got to the address field, I recognized it as one of the fancier and more elaborate buildings, often reserved for students of royal lineage. That status could certainly be applied to me, but she shouldn’t know that. The dummy, Ru, next to me saw this as well, and actually spoke up, interrupting the clerk.

  “Hey, that’s the house I just requested. I demand that it be assigned to me or there will be consequences.”

  He then reached out and grabbed my shoulder, and I think he tried to push me out of the way. I didn’t move, of course. My physical mass, plus what my vitality and dexterity were doing for me meant he had more of a prayer of stopping this island from moving than he did at making me start to move. I didn’t even need to anchor myself to the island’s spatial coordinates. Very stoppable force, meet immovable object. Instead, he stumbled, apparently surprised at my complete lack of movement.

  I addressed the clerk, “I’m sorry, but I have to deal with this. Don’t worry, I made a promise to the White Witch that I wouldn’t damage any of her students.”

  She actually smiled at me as she replied, “Actually, Master Ru isn’t a student. He is on the island renting a room in order to use the school's wards to protect from divine tribulations.”

  “In that case, this will only take a moment,” I said, returning her smile.

  I then wrapped myself and the robed moron within a Null Entropy field, separating us from the natural flow of time. Time still passed outside the field, though considerably slower than it did for the two of us inside it. It didn’t quite accelerate us to the speeds that I could operate on when I wished, but it worked to bring the mortal up to a more hilarious timescale.

  Turning, I reached up, grabbed the front of his robes, and dragged his body down so that his face met mine.

  “Hi.” I left a lengthy pause before continuing, “Let me start by explaining myself. When I walked in, I observed you being aggressive and rude to this woman, who is merely doing her job. You yelling at her does not change what she is allowed to provide to you for housing when you are not a professor or even a student. Therefore, I am completely justified in my actions to interrupt you berating her. I will not apologize to you for doing so, and I will not give face for your very public embarrassment. I do not care who you are. I do not care what sect you belong to nor your position in its heirarchy. I do not care where or what family you are from. The only thing I care about when I judge the worth of a person is the actions and the ability to treat another sapient person with dignity and respect. Furthermore, as I’m sure you are unaware as I can only assume that you are both colorblind and completely lacking in an identification skill, it is generally considered unwise to annoy someone astronomically more powerful than yourself. It is also considered uncouth to grab anyone, let alone a student of the school working in the service industry, without that person's explicit permission. I will forgive that point if you choose to apologize to me and then remove yourself from my presence. If not, then perhaps you need an education on what true tribulation from a creature older than the concept of time itself feels like.”

  While I was delivering the last line of my monologue, I activated [Gaze Into the Abyss] and let him peer through my eyes into the vast darkness of nothingness that was the Void between the cracks of reality. I then released my grip on his robe and ended my skill. Ru Zhong crumpled to the floor and let out the briefest of whimpers. I turned back to the exact position I’d been in before altering time and dismissed the entropic shield, returning us both to the normal flow of time.

  The clerk gasped, which I supposed was only natural. From her perspective, she saw me flicker briefly, and then the cultivator was on the floor, weeping. She whispered softly in my direction, asking, “Is he going to be OK?”

  “It’s fine, he’s only experienced a bit of emotional trauma. I think he’s probably earned a bit of humility and hopefully some amount of personal growth, and I'll bet that he gets offered a magenta quality class at his next advancement. And I am sorry, but I don’t believe I ever got your name?”

  “Right, um, yes, I should have introduced myself. Hello, my name is Alexena. Everyone calls me Xena, but just between you and me, I actually prefer Alex. Oh, what the heck? What is this [Soul Bonded] skill?"