Before anyone could say anything Hou held his hand up and threw down the metallic disk onto the floor. In the middle was a red button which Hou pressed his foot onto.
Miasma shot out the sides and then covered the entire room before coalescing onto the walls, shimmering and disappearing.
"We can talk now, she's progressed quite quickly huh..." Hou was the first one to speak as he stepped into his room fully and sat on his bed.
Jin stepped in and leant on a wall, "it's not very easy to get into Tier one, especially so quick...she...-" She looked at the metallic disk as she spoke.
Hamar finished her thought as stood in the middle of the room, "-must have some agenda that needs her to have the highest status or...worse, she might need to be in contact with Hu Li but that's unlikely from what she said yesterday."
Jin nodded, "Exactly what I was thinking, we all have some suspicion on her but at least before she was out of sight, out of mind."
Hou pinched his nose bridge and sighed, "There's nothing we can really do about it, let's just keep a close eye on her and if need be we'll report it and hope she doesn't notice."
Hamar continued to give some context to Jin, "Especially since we know she has some extremely strong abilities that some strong people can't even detect them." He was of course referring to Mo Huai here but did not reveal that fact to Jin.
Jin shook her head, "I get the hint...I'll leave now just...like we say, keep an eye on her."
Hou and Hamar both nodded and watched as Jin walked out and disappeared as a wisp of blood. They turned to each other and began speaking.
"Should be done anything? You said you knew the leader or that Master (Mo Huai) knew the leader, right? We could just hint at something maybe happening?"
Hou ran his fingers through his hair, "I don't know...at least for now let's leave it. After we do the ritual we can then say it maybe. Best not to have eyes on us while we're using magic and exposing some of our secrets. Even this privacy shield would be nothing to the leader probably"
"After the ritual for sure?"
"For sure."
Hamar sat down on the floor and held out his hand palm up, "Then lets get doing my part for now. I think I've got making an aura stone down to a tee"
He closed his eyes and let out aura from his finger tips in small thin threads. Then he began controlling those threads and drawing a complex magic circle.
Aura was not mana but it was created from mana and as such could still be used for magic. It did need tweaking and modifying from their different properties but overall the last few days they got it down and just needed to test it fully.
They had worked hard on theory and individual parts before attempting the full creation. This was because aura stones much like mana stones were hugely compressed energy and if something went wrong in the middle of production...
It would be an explosive failure, something Hou and Hamar wanted to keep to a minimum. So, Hamar continued building up the magic circle using fine threads of aura.
Then once it was done, Hou nodded. Hamar noticed Hou approved of it and he activated the circle.
He poured huge amounts of aura into the circuit. It poured through the different lines, vibrating and sloshing. It consumed perhaps a whole week of mana absorption.
Then once Hamar felt it was finished he let go and the remaining aura circuit dissipated back into the air, turning back into mana.
He opened his eyes to find a heavy and dense dark blue crystal. He felt it in his hands and felt the surface. It was completely smooth and crystalline.
He smiled and threw it into the air and catching it. "Seems like it worked..." He threw it towards Hou with a light toss.
Hou caught it and inspected the crystal from all angles. He squeezed it into his hand to ensure it was stable and sure enough it did not break.
"Congratulations Hamar!" He threw it back, "This is your first experience doing 'real' magic, and it was a great first time. It succeeded and that's always matters."
Hou looked at Hamar sat in the floor and for a moment in his mind he thought he saw someone else..."Junior" Hou muttered something then looked up.
He blinked heavily and stopped his tears from falling, "I'm fine, don't mind me"
Hamar had a smile, not a happy smile though. He stood up and put his hand on Hou's shoulder, "it's okay, I'll leave. Do what you need,"
He walked away and returned to his room. Just as he left Hou whispered, "thank you". He looked back down and let the tears flow.
"Junior...I'm sorry I couldn't teach you like this,"
The rest of that day, Hou did not practice. He did not cultivate his mana or laws...he did not train his willpower nor intention. That day was for him and him alone.
Two days later, Xiao Ye did not do anything. She participated in class normally, doing well at points and worse at other points.
To an outsider she seemed like a totally fine student, nothing suspicious at all. She seemed to be aware that Hou, Hamar and Jin were keeping their eyes on her but did not mind.
Then after those two days, it was ritual day. The previous night Hou had turned his blood into normal blood removing the Celestial Law Amplifying Physique's influence. He did this with the help of magic circles mixed in with Flowing Divine Script.
Then he used his quasi-Nascent Soul with Healing laws to combine the two creating 'healing blood'. This was his payment, and Hamar had the aura crystal he made; his payment.
"Here they are," hou and Hamar held out their payments in front of Master Sheng.