“I’m sorry, sir,” Mia shook her head. “Right now, I don’t have much time to spare,” she added, looking over at the training disciples. 

Sure, she couldn’t cultivate right now. Or rather, doing so would go against the very plan that Mia hatched. But that didn’t mean she had any time to spare on fruitless discussions. 

“I understand,” Arganar smiled in response before averting his eyes. “This place is all the proof I need to believe your words,” he added, looking over at the training disciples. 

“Thank you for your understanding,” Mia replied, lowering her head in a small apology. She then turned her eyes towards the elders standing behind Arganar. 

“Ah, them,” Arganar noticed Mia’s look, his smile widening once again. “I guess they don’t have the time to just linger here and do nothing,” he added before turning around to his followers. 

“Everyone!” Arganar shouted to gather the attention of the elders. “What are you all standing here for? Can’t you see that you have work to do?!” he shouted while pulling his eyebrows together. 

‘Huh?’ Mia shrugged, surprised by the tone of the man. ‘Should I even allow this?’ she asked herself, seeing how the elders unhappily moved forward, clearly set on fulfilling whatever was Arganar’s desire. 

“Arganar!” Mia shouted, only to lower her head and avert her eyes the second later. “Senior…” she added. 

Everything about her body screamed of how little confidence Mia had in what was going through her mind. Yet, she swallowed her saliva, took a deep breath, and then raised her eyes at the man. 

“Senior, as much as I appreciate the offer, I’m not really sure I’m interested in…” Mia took a short pause to glance over at the elders that Arganar brought, “In their guidance,” she added, finishing her sentence. 

For a moment, the two of them simply stood in place, each staring the eyes of the other down. 

“What?” Arganar shook his head in disbelief. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you correctly,” he added with a troubled expression appearing on his face. “Did you just tell that you don’t want their help?” he asked, pointing with his chin towards the group of elders who already started to engage the disciples on the field. 

“Well…” Mia hesitated once again. She then shook her head to throw all the hesitation out of the window. “Senior, it’s not their help that I’m not content with,” she stated, steeling her resolve as she looked Arganar directly in the eyes. “I’m here questioning whether their guidance would be beneficial to anyone in the first place,” she stated, refusing to avert her eyes this time. 

Once again, a standoff of glances ensued between the two. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Arganar asked, more shocked by Mia’s words than angry at what she said. 

Mia took a deep breath. 

“Senior, aren’t those elders the ones who manage the sect affairs?” Mia asked, refusing to directly answer the Senior’s question. “It’s only my guess, but seeing how unhappy they are to follow you, that’s the only explanation I could come up with,” she added to justify her doubts. 

“Yeah, that’s right,” Arganar nodded his head, his shock turning into a curiosity. 

‘Just what is she trying to tell me?’ Arganar thought. 

All his ideas of attempting his chances with this girl rested on the idea of fruitful cooperation. But if he wanted to have any foundation to follow through with his plan, he had to keep the girl happy about his help. 

This was one of the reasons why Arganar used his own resources and contacts to organize the help of those elders who would much prefer to just sit back and relax like they usually did. 

‘I worked so hard to score some brownie points with her, and she is now refusing the favor?’ Arganar thought to himself, feeling a wave of anger slowly building up at the bottom of his soul. 

‘I guess this is the right moment to slowly start unveiling my advance,’ Mia thought, taking yet another deep breath. 

She wasn’t troubled by the potential of turning those elders into her enemies by refusing their, forced or not, help. She was troubled by potentially antagonizing the one backer that appeared to support her cause within the sect!

“Those people failed to eradicate this biased and extremely inefficient system,” Mia said, finally revealing the crux of her problem with the elders’ guidance. She then bit her lips and lowered her eyes. “When I first learned about this sect’s existence, I was told it was a group that valued merit and promoted growth,” she stated while putting her hands on the hips and raising her eyes in a confrontational manner. “Yet, ever since I arrived at this place, I couldn’t help but notice how the sect itself is putting barrier after barrier between normal disciples and their chances to grow!”

The length of Mia’s rant only showcased just how close this topic hit to the home of her soul.

‘Sure, sponsored disciples can grow and even receive the resources to do so,’ Mia thought, admitting to the baseline of the idea that formed the system that the sect operated with currently. ‘But who is the one to decide who is a sponsored disciple and who is not?’ she asked herself, using this problem to question the validity of the system from the bottom’s up. 

“The only people that receive resources are the people that were lucky enough to get their former sects or a person with massive potential to sponsor them,” Mia stated, pointing out what she considered to be the source of the problem. “In other words, the non-sponsored disciples never even had a chance to become sponsored ones,” she added, pointing out the biggest flaw in the sect’s scheme. 

‘Wait a second,’ Mia suddenly froze when a sudden idea struck her head. ‘What if he is one of the people that created this kind of system?’ she thought, terrified by the possibility. 

Ultimately, Mia didn’t know what this man’s agenda was. She didn’t know what Arganar wanted to achieve by helping her. But in the off chance that he was here to control her movements on behalf of the sect itself…

‘Did I just reveal how problematic I could be for them?’ Mia asked herself, only able to slowly swallow a mouthful of saliva as the potential reality dawned upon her. 

Mia closed her eyes, doing her absolute best to rein the terror from her soul inside, stopping it from governing her actions. 

“Senior, they are the people that either created or furthered the system that I consider to be extremely discriminatory,” she stated, the look in her eyes hardening. “That’s why I’m not going to let them introduce their rotten ideas to the people that grew without them,” she stated, finally taking a proper stance over the topic. 

‘Whether he is with the sect or not, I can keep going even without his help,’ Mia thought, determined to see this topic through. 

For a moment, Arganar’s face froze in a strange expression as he looked down into the girl’s eyes. 

Yet again, the man turned silent. Yet, from the clouded look in his eyes, Mia could tell that he went into a state of deep thought. 

“Eh,” Arganar finally released a sigh, signaling that he reached some sort of conclusion in his mind. “If that’s the case, then I guess there is no point in keeping them here any longer,” Arganar said. 

Arganar didn’t bother to wait to follow his words with action. He turned around towards the direction his group went off into and clapped his hands. 

“Boys!” he shouted, once again proving that his relationship with those elders wasn’t the greatest. “Get lost,” he said the second those people turned their eyes towards him. 

At first, the elders look at each other with confusion, unsure how to understand Arganar’s words. 

“Are you sure we can?” one of the elders stepped forward, asking Arganar to clarify his wishes. 

“That’s right,” Arganar replied, only to squint his eyes as he looked at the elder brave enough to step up. “You are not needed here after all,” he added as a small glint flashed at the bottom of his eyes. “Now, get fucking lost!” he shouted, pointing his hand at the arch that decorated the entrance to the remodeled training ground. 

“I’m sorry, Senior,” Mia said silently, lowering her eyes and refusing to look at Arganar. “Discounting for all the resources that we managed to obtain, we managed to grow so quickly not because we followed the sect guidelines,” she stated before finally raising her head and staring down at Arganar’s face.

“We only managed to get so far because we put our bet on hard work. Not on the sect, but on our own potential,” she stated, refusing to move her eyes even an inch. 

Mia then released a deep sigh as she eased up on her confrontational attitude. 

“We are not going to go back to the old methods if our own methods proved to be superior,” she added before turning her face to the side and looking over at the disciples that quickly returned to their usual training after the momentary disturbance.

“You do realize that it will bite you in the ass?” Arganar muttered, looking cautiously at the profile of Mia’s face. 

With her hair cascading down and the sunrays illuminating the outline of her face, she appeared even more beautiful than usual. 

“Is this a threat?” Mia asked as her face darkened. ‘Is he showing his true colors?’ she thought, refusing to move her eyes back on the man to attempt to verify her guess. 

“Not at all,” Arganar shook his head before releasing a deep sigh. “While I think you might be quite right… If you ignore the sect’s attempts to rein you into their format, you are sure to turn them into your enemies,” he said. 

For the last time, silence ensued between the two, broken only by the noises of training disciples. 

Then, Mia finally turned her eyes on Arganar’s face and faced him. The girl’s determination was written all over her face. 

“Then let them come.” She stated before shrugging her shoulders. “Right now, we might be weaker than them. But once you count my sponsor in?” she asked as her lips curved into a smile. 

“I hate to rely on him. The main reason why I’m training as hard as I do is to get strong enough to repay for all the good he did for me,” Mia said, her eyes clouding the second she brought up Arthur’s deeds into the discussion. Unable to stop herself, Mia brought her legs together to fight the itch that suddenly exploded in her lower abdomen at the mere thought of her man. 

“But if the worst comes to worst, I will be more than glad to enjoy the show of those who dare to raise their hand against me when my beloved comes to pay them their due visit.”