Misdirection

Several days went by in a flash before anyone noticed. Probably due to the relief brought by the end of Academic Scholastic Trials, people seemed to be more relaxed and at ease. Satoshi and co weren't an exception to this.

Three days had gone by and several notable things had taken place.

The ash rain had ceased yesterday, it went away as quietly as it came. In the end, no one could determine any external influence to cause the phenomenon, thus it was chalked to natural disaster.

Sepphira had returned to the Palace Museum after staying for another night at the Lah's Mansion. She and Satoshi spent the whole night together when she did. There were many hushed voices among the mansion workers about what the two of them were doing together, but no one was sure about what really happened.

Satoshi had accepted Oda's offer to become a correspondent.

Since he would need to keep his eyes and ears open anyway, Satoshi thought that it would be nice to be paid doing it. Oda was thrilled to hear the news and quickly went ahead to prepare for Satoshi's credentials.

Mulah had also arrived from Xinjia-kor. He wasted no time whatsoever to capitalize on his newly earned time-off and took the fastest mode of transportation he could to get back home.

On this day, he stood side by side with Satoshi, a weird looking two-wheeled vehicle was parked in front of them.

Satoshi carefully inspected the two-wheeled vehicle. It looked old and worn out, but was mostly intact.

The vehicle was roughly three meters long and almost a meter wide. The rear driving wheel was spherical in shape, and made from a combination of metal alloy and rubber. The steering wheel at the front was round, and was connected to the steering unit via a pair of large suspension struts.

The spherical driving-wheel could move in every direction and had a lot of torque, thus giving it a lot of maneuverability despite its size.

This kind of vehicle was made to traverse long distances with uneven terrain, thus the driver seat was made to be low with a slight incline to offer a natural sitting position. Thus the driver wouldnt get tired too fast.

SLAP!!

Mulah suddenly slapped the front part of the vehicle, where the fuel tank was.

"This bad boy can fit a lot of bitches on it." He smugly said to Satoshi.

Satoshi gave Mulah a side-eye and saw that he maintained that smug look on his face.

"I'm gonna tell Mahalini you said the B-word."

"No! Don't tell her, I was just joking!" Mulah panicked as his smug look instantly evaporated.

"Alright, since you helped me look for this vehicle, I guess I'll just consider us even."

Mulah was startled that Satoshi just easily and one-sidedly decided the favor to be even, over a simple B-word.

"Aihh…you jackass."

Satoshi chuckled at Mulah's helplessness, "Where did you find this, anyway?"

"Surprising, right? Told ya I have my own means."

"Yes yes yes, you are indeed amazing…"

"Of course I am! More importantly, are you sure this will be enough? Isn't this rather…outdated? It's still using a combustion engine for god sake…"

"Yeah, it's fine. Since it's outdated it's possible for me to buy it instead of renting it.

Besides, I specifically seek one of these because it is still using a combustion engine and runs on fossil fuel."

"Are you planning on making your own fuel? Won't that be dangerous?"

"Nah, I asked Unsui to upgrade the hand wraps, it should be fine."

Satoshi grinned as he admired the old vehicle. Although it was old and outdated, this was Satoshi's first personal vehicle. Moreover, it wasn't rented but fully bought instead. That means it fully belonged to Satoshi and no one else.

"With this, I should be able to avoid a lot of attention." Satoshi said.

"I still can't believe you came up with all that preparation…you really are a bit too much sometimes…" Mulah wryly smiled as he remembered Satoshi's reasoning for acquiring this particular vehicle.

"Well, better be careful than sorry. It is a trial after all." Satoshi shrugged.

Academia Scholastic Trials. Trials, not tests.

The reason it was called trials was two fold. First, it had something to do with how difficult it was for an Aspirant to be granted the rank of student. In some sense, the preparation itself could be considered some kind of trial.

The second reason was the temporary acceptance token.

Even though Satoshi technically had passed the Academia Scholastic Trials, he had not officially become a student of the Daojia Institute. That part would happen once he turned in his temporary token of acceptance to the admission department of Daojia Institute once he got there. Before that, the possibility of him losing his spot at the Daojia Institute was not completely nil.

There were two weeks and change after the Academia Scholastic Trials ended and before the new academic year would begin. During that time, newly accepted students would hastily make their way toward their academia of choice, and this was precisely where the trial part began.

Many parties would seek these newly accepted students to rob them of their acceptance token. Those that passed the Academia Scholastic Trials but were not granted acceptance made up the majority of these would be robbers, but it wasn't rare for other kinds of parties to get involved.

The Universal Council of Elders and the various academies were well aware of this practice and implicitly gave their approval. They simply saw it as an addition to their elimination process, to filter out even more unfit individuals. Thus it became a real trial for the students, and as long as it did not get way overboard, the Universal Council of Elders wouldn't get involved.

Satoshi had prepared several things for this so-called trial.

Since it would take him almost two weeks to reach Asira from Istindi, he figured he would need some mode of transportation he could rely on aside from the public ones. Thus the vehicle he just bought.

The fact that Satoshi passed the Academia Scholastic Trials was also a matter of public record, as long as someone were looking they would be able to find it. To anticipate this, he asked Sepphira to spread several rumors within the Palace Museum academia community.

The content of the rumor was: Satoshi was an estranged young master from Dai that received some guidance from the Xinjia-kor's Imperial Descendants of Research.

In case that anyone specifically seeked to make a target out of Satoshi, they would at least have to think twice. If they decided to still go with it, they would mistakenly set their sight on Mulah and his entourage since it was a known fact that Mulah was part of the Hall or Research.

While Mulah would make his stay at Istindi and upcoming return to Xinjia-kor a spectacle, Satoshi would be taking another route to Asira posing as a delivery man.

Satoshi would bring some goods that Mahalini needed to deliver to Sulus, and from there he would ferry toward Xinjia-kor. From Xinjia-kor he would then ferry to Afar-Asira Supercontinent before making his way northward, bartering his way with goods that he had prepared.

No one would suspect that the grand young master of Dai would be traveling by himself, on a rundown vehicle no less.

Aside from that, Satoshi had also arranged for people to pick-up a certain street-urchin from the transport station of Golden Ayodhya. If everything went as planned, this street-urchin would play the part of the Dai young master at Mulah's side while Satoshi took another route.

"I still can't believe that you will be leaving in a bit." Mulah's sigh broke the silence between them.

Satoshi looked at Mulah and could almost feel the tinge of bitterness.

"Didn't you insist that I should go if I have the chance?" teased Satoshi.

"I know, but now that it's really happening…I guess I just need a little bit more time to get used to this." Mulah shyly admitted.

"Yeah, same with me."

"You sure you are not going to see your parents first before you head out?"

"No, there won't be enough time, I'll just send them a letter. More importantly than that, Xiahn will be here in half a year, can you help me take care of him? At least until he's done settling in."

"You don't need to ask, of course I'll take care of him."

Satoshi gave Mulah a heartfelt smile, he felt really lucky to find a friend such as this.

"You just concentrate over there and don't worry yourself with anything else. Just focus on your study and absorb as much as you can. If you make the most of your time, build up experience and get stronger, everything will be alright in the end." Mulah said.

Satoshi took this to heart and considered it as advice from his big brother, "Of course I will."

"If you come back and are still like you are right now, I'm going to give you a beating. I will really steel myself once and really give you a beating! For your own good!" Mulah sternly warned Satoshi.

"Hahaha!! You? Give me a beating? Let alone you, I will be so strong in a year that no one will be able to give me a beating. I will give you a beating instead!"

It was just a joke on Satoshi's part but Mulah shuddered when he heard it. The memory of his vision resurfaced and rattled him deeply.

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