SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 638: The Palace Mistress at the Door

Han Suwen returned on the first morning and remained for two hours.

By the time she left, she and Vyra had established the entire administrative structure of the household.

They sat at the long table in the outer hall with three ledgers open between them. They discussed the monthly allowance, how it was drawn, and how requesting materials instead of spirit stones could provide better value if the order was submitted a week in advance.

Han Suwen opened separate contribution accounts for each attendant, although all four currently held nothing. Vyra narrowed the permissions granted to the outer staff. Repairs went through the formation hall, missions through outer administration, and household attendants could access the general foundational library but nothing restricted.

”The missing delivery token,” Vyra said near the end.

”I found it.” Han Suwen produced a record slip. ”A maintenance crew received it during the second week and returned it correctly, but the notice confirming its return was sent to a disciple in seclusion.”

”So the fault is in the notification route.”

”The fault is that Jade Moon Palace has four hundred residences and assumes someone reads every message sent to them.” Han Suwen closed her ledger. ”You will find more errors like it. Send them to me, and I will correct the ones within my authority.”

They did not become friends. They resolved a month’s worth of administrative problems in two hours and parted with a mutual recognition of competence, which was enough for both of them.

Over the next two days, Leon found himself drawn into everyone else’s projects.

Seraphine walked him through the residence’s defenses on the first afternoon. Two of its six arrays were self-contained. Three depended upon scheduled maintenance from the formation hall and would begin degrading if those rotations stopped. The sixth, hidden beneath the main hall, was Ji Liansu’s work.

Seraphine had spent an hour studying what little of its structure she could perceive and had come away impressed and irritated.

”If the Palace ever wanted to restrict this residence, it wouldn’t need to attack,” she said. ”Stopping three maintenance rotations would weaken most of the outer protection within a season.”

”Is that a warning?”

”It’s a fact I want both of us to remember.”

Ira returned from the western platform on the second day in a foul mood.

She had spent four hours there and defeated two Foundation Establishment disciples without revealing anything unusual. An Early Golden Core disciple had then offered her a match, apparently expecting an amusing afternoon against a household attendant.

Ira had declined.

”I could have beaten him,” she said, dropping onto a bench.

”Probably.”

”Probably?” She glared at Leon. ”Definitely. His stance was—”

She stopped.

”It doesn’t matter. If I defeat an Early Golden Core disciple in front of thirty witnesses on my second day, people begin asking why a Peak Foundation attendant can do it. Then someone who understands what they’re seeing comes to watch the next match.”

”That’s the correct conclusion.”

”I know it’s correct. I hate it.” Ira stretched her arms above her head. ”Eventually, I’m going to have to lose one deliberately.”

”That would be convincing.”

”I’d rather be stabbed.”

Loriel had the eastern corner of the garden turned over by the end of the second day. She had begun exchanging the fern’s soil a double handful at a time and written a schedule on a board that only she seemed able to understand.

Ji Liansu arrived on the third morning without an announcement.

Leon sensed her a fraction before anyone else. The outer staff fell silent in the delivery court. Han Suwen, who had come up with a supply notice, straightened and moved aside.

The residence formations did not react at all. They recognized their maker and allowed her through.

Ji walked up the path alone, dressed in pale green and silver-grey, her veil covering the lower half of her face.

The four women were already waiting in the courtyard when Leon reached the door. Vyra had arranged them properly without being told.

They bowed.

Ji allowed the gesture, then motioned for them to rise.

”You are Leon’s household,” she said. ”You are not his possessions, and you are not mine. I want that understood now rather than assumed later.”

”Palace Mistress,” Vyra acknowledged.

”You are under his protection, which places you under mine as well. Both are real. If a disciple or official attempts to exploit your status as attendants, report it. Jade Moon Palace will address it through its authority rather than allowing private retaliation.”

Her gaze moved across them.

”It also means your conduct reflects upon Leon. He is my direct disciple, and there are people on this mountain who would welcome a reason to say that accepting him was a mistake. Do not provide one.”

”Understood,” Seraphine said.

Ji studied the four women without releasing a probe or pushing spiritual pressure into their foundations. Her attention remained calm and unhurried.

”Your foundations are more stable than those of any Peak Foundation Establishment cultivator I’ve examined in the past decade,” she said. ”Your control exceeds your recorded realm, and all four of you move like people with considerable combat experience.”

Nobody answered. It had not been a question.

”Your inheritance is your own,” Ji continued. ”I have one recommendation. Do not rush Golden Core.”

She stepped closer to Loriel and examined the faint soil beneath her fingernails before returning her attention to the group.

”All four of you reached this point at a speed I do not fully understand. That does not mean you should decide the next breakthrough by a calendar. Consolidate your foundations. Learn how your new circulation responds under different conditions. Study how Golden Core condensation is practised here before assuming manuals have taught you everything. Most importantly, find materials compatible with your individual paths rather than accepting whatever is easiest to purchase.”

”How long would you recommend?” Vyra asked.

”For an ordinary Peak Foundation cultivator with good resources? Years.” Ji tilted her head. ”For the four of you, a number would be misleading. Break through when your foundations, comprehension, and materials are ready—not when impatience chooses a date.”

Ji spoke with Leon alone afterward as they walked along the inner path.

”Your cultivation route?” she asked.

”Clean circulation for more than a week. Some stiffness when I push too much volume through the lower-left junction.”

”Then continue what you’re doing and attempt nothing clever. You will not touch the second stage until the stiffness is gone and your channels remain stable under full circulation.”

”I wasn’t planning to.”

”That answer would reassure me more if I hadn’t watched you invent the first stage.”

Ji stopped beside the plum tree.

”The garden has been dug up.”

”Loriel claimed it.”

”Mm.”

She looked toward the turned soil in the eastern corner.

”You are talking more.”

”Am I?”

”You answered four questions this morning without first deciding what each answer might cost you. You haven’t done that since arriving here.”

Ji resumed walking.

”I approve. A disciple with nobody around whom he can relax eventually chooses the wrong place to become careless.”

That was all she said about it.

Han Suwen waited at the gate after Ji departed, holding a folded notice bearing a seal Leon did not recognize.

”This arrived an hour ago. I held it until the Palace Mistress had finished her visit.” She offered it to him. ”Supreme Elder Wei Shouyuan requests permission to visit this residence. He will be accompanied by Wei Zhaoran.”

Vyra took the notice, read it, and passed it to Leon.

”Is Wei coming to apologize,” Ira asked, ”or to request another beating?”

”Neither,” Vyra said. ”A Peak Earth Immortal does not request permission to visit a Golden Core disciple’s residence unless he intends to settle something formally.”

Ira’s eyebrows rose.

”Peak Earth Immortal.”

”Which is why,” Seraphine said, ”you will stand somewhere quiet and refrain from speaking.”