"Hey, hey, hush!"
"What is it?"
"Don't you see that beauty over there? Who is she?"
"Look at her tails. Isn't it obvious? She must be a member of the Kitsune Snow clan, her status must not be very high if she's from such a clan."
"Don't be ridiculous, even though she's hidden half her face, how many women with that demeanor and elegance have you seen? And also, if she's from such a lowly clan, how come she's sitting in an area only Kings can enter?!"
When those around heard this, they were quite surprised and realized the pervert was actually on to something.
Ri very rarely went out. In fact, it could be said that aside from going to take her trials, she never stepped foot outside of the Snow Clan's Palace.
She did this partly for safety, and another part was that she just couldn't be bothered to. She was entirely focused on cultivation, and nothing else.
Because of the rules decided between the Kitsune and Shruti clans, internal strife within their Corner was not allowed. Those found opposing such rules were to either give proper recompense to the current Key Wielder's clan, or were subject to permanent banishment from their Corner.
In truth, this wasn't so straight forward. This was because not only did the price to be spared vary drastically, the key wielder could also choose to reject attempts at forgiveness as well.
Of course, a key wielder could only kick another out during 'fog barrier' phases. When the fog barrier disappeared, all the key wielder could do was freeze the individual, or individuals, out of using their teleportation formations.
For these reasons, Ri was completely safe within the Snow Palace because if the Void clan younger generation dared to attack her there, the Shruti clan would be within their rights to kick many of the Void clan members out. And since Saru had made it clear that she didn't want anyone to act against Ri, this was an added assurance that would last for as long as the fog barrier remained up.
But today, Ri made an exception. In fact, she was trying her best to calm her beating heart and maintain her cold outward appearance. Today was the day she'd see her husband again, and she couldn't have been any more excited.
Every now and again, she was sip the tea in front of her to hide were wide smile. If the Snow Clan younger generation saw such a scene, they would definitely rub their eyes to check if they were dreaming. Over the recent years, Ri had become something of an Ice Queen because of her bottled up anger. However, all of that seemed to dissipate into nothingness at the thought of Dyon, replaced instead by endless pride in her husband.
At the moment, Ri sat in a restaurant in the largest city of the Epistemic Tower Inner World: Central City. The restaurant itself was one made of all place, giving it a pristine and pure appearance, but it also happened to allow those outside to see the finer living of the wealthy.
Although Ri hadn't gone out often, there was no doubt that with the energy stones left to her by Dyon, she was among the wealthiest young people in the entire inner world. Dyon might say that he was poor in comparison to large clans, but it wasn't as though large clans handed their vaults to their children, now was it?
Because of this truth, Dyon's wives essentially had more capital than practically anyone among the younger generation. So, eating at such a restaurant for Ri was hardly a drop in the bucket.
Still, Ri tried to remain frugal. Aside from cultivation resources, and the occasional dress, she didn't spend on anything else.
When Dyon met Ri, she absolutely abhorred dresses. However, that was a product of her trying to escape her past as a Princess. That past brought her a lot of pain, so she wanted to become something other than what she truly was in order to fight for her right to rule her Kingdom once again. But, when her birthday came around, Dyon reminded her that she no longer had to worry about such things.
She inadvertently smiled when she remembered his words, reminiscing about their dance. He might have missed many birthdays since then, but that memory would forever be with Ri.
That aside, in line with those frugal thoughts, although Ri could enter the Emperor floors of the restaurant, she chose not to, instead remaining on the King floor as she lightly played with the Ice Petal's Dance before her, remembering yet another memory between her and Dyon.
By now, Ri's proficiency with the way of the sword was more than enough to peel this fruit alone now. But, she still wanted Dyon to do it for her.
"Wait a minute. Did you say a member of the Snow Clan, that's able to sit on the King floors?" A person who was walking by heard the common and looked up at the restaurant, seeing the otherworldly beauty lightly sipping another cup of tea.
"Yes. Do you know her?" The slowly growing crowd asked curiously.
"Are you all living under a rock? Over the last 10 or so years, there've been beauties with overwhelming power cropping up everywhere!" The passerby became lively and animated, enrapturing those around him in his tale.
"One of them entered the Duke trials and easily placed in the top 10 rankings for all 5 trials. Then she entered the King trials and placed top 20 in all 5 trials! Then…" The crowd waited with bated breath. "This same beauty entered the Emperor trials and placed top 50 in all 5 trials!"
The crowd gasped. They had heard of this story, of course. Everyone knew it. It was just that they hadn't connected the name of the girl to the one sitting above them now.
"Her name was Alexandria Snow!"
Gasps of realization spread through the crowd.
Kitsune's were easy to spot and name. This was because the color of one's tails was different depending on your bloodline. For Ri's tails to be so snow-white, it was clear and obvious that she was from the Snow Clan. If those tails were black, she'd be from the Void Clan. If those tails were golden, she'd be from the Heaven clan. If they were silver, she'd be from the Jikan Clan. So on, and so forth.
However, usually, other than being quite beautiful in outward appearance, snow-white tails didn't come with any sort of cache until Ri. This was why their first reaction was to drool over Ri's beauty, and not her power.
Now that they knew the truth, they couldn't help but drip in a cold sweat. Many of them had been thinking about approaching this young lady to wow her with their powerful statuses. Now that they realized that they were about to show off their little ability in front of an Emperor, they couldn't help but thank their lucky stars that this passerby had saved them from themselves.
Any woman who ranked so highly in the Epistemic Tower world was arrogant beyond belief and also had many guards up. It wouldn't have been a surprise to anyone if Ri lashed out and killed them all. This was because the martial world was still very conservative in many circles, and the reputation of a woman was highly important. So, oftentimes, the most powerful of women would draw a fierce line between herself and her pursuers.
In line with this logic, strong women were thus only pursued by the strong, and weak women were only pursued by the weak. Only if you were strong could you guarantee you wouldn't die if you rubbed a strong woman the wrong way.
It was only now that the crowd realized just how stupid they were. They were so blinded by lust that they hadn't even thought of counting Ri's number of tails!
"She… She has ten tails!"
"Have you ever seen such a thing?"
"No, never! Even the best geniuses of the Void, Heaven and Jikan clans only have 7 or 8! Only Aki Void has 9. How could she possibly have 10?!"
As the crowd was practically losing its mind, an inconspicuous person left the surroundings, three black tails waving around behind him.
'This is my chance! If I get this information back to the Palace, I'll be rewarded!'
He scurried away down an alley, not truly looking where he was going before he slammed into a solid figure that sent him tumbling back.
