Cultivator in a World of Angels, Demons, and Super Heroes

"Okay… done!" Kotone pats Ran's head as she finishes her massage treatment to the child.

"Thank you Kotone-nee!" The little girl excitedly hops off the massage table and rushes to the bath house beside the children's house, to soak in a prepared medicinal bath.

Kotone then starts cleaning the massage table for the next person.

"Hahahaha"

"*splash*"

"CHIHIRO! STOP THAT!"

"Sorry ojii-san!"

"Just don't do it again! Your bathwater is very expensive!"

Hearing the commotion outside the massage room, "Sheesh…", "haha" Yoshiko and Kotone share a giggle.

"Gin-san is not that patient with kids…" Kotone shakes her head.

"He is plenty patient. He has it hard. Boys are more naturally… unruly." Yoshiko empathizes with Gin's plight.

"Huh… would he have been the same?" Kotone tries to imagine Haruto being a healthy child like Red's adopted children.

"Hm?" Yoshiko is confused at Kotone's words.

"Nothing. Anyways. Are you ready?" Kotone gestures to Yoshiko at the massage table, the young woman being her final massage for the day.

"I'm excited." Yoshiko says as she strips off her kimono and lies down on the table.

Kotone immediately starts her massage.

"Uhmmm…" Yoshiko is about to ask something, but holds herself back.

"Yes, Yoshiko?" Kotone is sensible enough to notice and she welcomes any questions.

The two ladies also dropped their formality to each other. After all, it has been a month since Yoshiko's first time on the hill, and three weeks since she moved in. The two are also only a year apart with Yoshiko being older by a year.

"There's something bothering me…" Yoshiko still hesitates.

Kotone already has some guesses of Yoshiko's concern. Yoshiko has already spent enough time on the hill to notice some strange things.

"Please, speak freely, Yoshiko-nee." Kotone urges, as she applies a hint of spiritual energy to her massage strokes.

"Hmmmff…" Yoshiko cannot help but groan in pleasure.

"The children… they are very… energetic than normal." She asks, her muscles relaxed, making her drop her guard.

"And so are you." Kotone adds.

"Yes, yes. But… how?" Yoshiko asks.

"It's a result of the training. Adding the perfect diet, the massage treatment, the herbal baths, it's only natural." Kotone explains.

"Huh…" Yoshiko simply grunts, not satisfied by the explanation.

"Don't worry. When the time comes, Kichirou-san will tell you himself." Kotone notices Yoshiko's skepticism.

"Will he really?" Yoshiko almost scoffs. She has noticed that whether it is Fumio, Kotone, or Gin, whenever she asks them about Red, they all refuse to say anything and would all skillfully change the subject.

"Yes. He will. But I'll give you a hint." Kotone's words make Yoshiko perk up.

"Just work on completing one breath cycle at each of the 16 poses, and maybe he'll tell you things himself." Kotone reveals.

"*Sigh* It's been a month and I'm only on my seventh pose." Yoshiko sighs.

"I noticed…" Kotone nods.

"In fact, you're doing quite well." She figures that Yoshiko being flexible and has some fitness prior to the start of training, provided Yoshiko with some advantages.

"I myself was only at pose five or six after a month." She reveals.

"I see…" Yoshiko nods.

"How about the kids? How do you think they're doing?" She asks about the children instead.

"Uh… I don't know. It's my first time teaching children." Kotone is not confident about her assessment of the children.

"But I can say that they all seem to be doing well. Aside from their lack of  focus in the breathing technique, I am satisfied that they can bear the struggle and pain of doing the poses." She evaluates.

"Is the breathing technique that important?" Yoshiko asks. "Yes. Very." Kotone simply smirks and does not explain further.

<><><>

A few minutes later, Kotone is done with Yoshiko's treatment.

"Thank you. Your hands do wonders." Yoshiko sincerely thanks Kotone.

"It's nothing." Kotone waves the gratitude off.

"I should thank you instead."

"Huh…" Yoshiko finds Kotone's response odd, but does not ask.

"Well. I'll see you tomorrow." She can only leave to have a medicinal bath in her house.

"Phew…" Kotone stretches her back.

With her physical strength and endurance now, adding to her body starting to be exposed to spiritual energy, she is not tired.

Her muscles simply has gotten stiff by stooping down for an hour while doing massage.

"Kotone-san. Are you done?" Gin peeks his head in the door of the massage room.

"Yeah. Did you put the children to their nap?" Kotone asks.

"Nah. You know how they are." Gin sighs as he enters the massage room and starts cleaning up.

"Heh. Well. Hopefully, their homework from Kichirou-san will tire them out." Kotone only shrugs.

"Uhh.. about those homeworks..." Gin starts. "Is Kichirou-san really teaching the kids magic runes or something?" He asks.

"Uhh.. yeah." Kotone simply nods, but inside, she feels a bit jealous of the children.

Since three weeks ago, around the same time when she established access to spiritual energy, Red started teaching the children how to draw seals. The Spiritual Energy Gathering Seal is the first on the children's learning.

She wishes that she too started learning spiritual energy seals as young as them.

"Still, huh. Kichirou-san really has sentiments to something traditional. I mean… brush and paper? Gin starts to chat as he mops the floors.

"He does." Kotone agrees. "Anyways, I have to go back in." She excuses herself.

"To train again? I admire your discipline." Gin shakes his head.

"Heh." Kotone can only acknowledge, but does not comment.

Even though she does not want to train, she has to.

'I have to get stronger before the demons come back.'

She has a lot to protect now, not only herself and her brother.

"There's Kotone nee!"

As soon as she steps in front of the bamboo gate, she sees the three little boys who just finished their medicinal bath, gathered in front of the bamboo gate, obviously waiting for her.

"Hello." Kotone's heart warms seeing their anticipating gazes.

Even though this scene has already been repeating itself for a month now, it still brings her pride.

"Kotone-nee! Can you wait for the girls?" Chihiro, the liveliest among the boys, asks.

"No. I have to go now." Kotone refuses, she will just have to show the girls tomorrow. Their medicinal bath is more important.

She then approaches the bamboo gate, and the three boys wait in anticipation.

Then, she bends her knees, and she kicks off the ground, propelling herself at least three meters high, around a third the height of the bamboo gate.

"WHOAH!" The boys below her all exclaim in amazement.

Then, she grabs one of the ropes tying the gate together with her fingers, and pulls up, furthering herself vertically until she is two-thirds the height of the gate.

"Grab the rope!" Taishiro, seeing Kotone not grabbing another rope to hold on to, gets anxious.

Usually, Kotone would use the ropes tying the gates, as grips and footholds to climb over the wall, but this time, 'I'll show you boys something new.', she plans a different approach.

She then applies spiritual energy to her palms and feet, and attaches them to the smooth bamboo wall.

"Whoah! Awesome!" Chihiro exclaims.

"*Gasp*" The quiet Osamu gasps in disbelief.

"*Clap**clap*" The straightforward Taishiro starts clapping his hands.

Kotone meanwhile, is relieved that she did not choke on her spiritual energy control in the presence of spectators.

She then starts climbing up the wall like a lizard. Soon enough, she reaches the top of the bamboo gate, and turns around to face the boys below.

"Kotone-nee! You're awesome!"

"Clap clap"

She is pleased with the boys' reactions.

The next moment, from the boys' view, Kotone waves at them, before starting to fall on her back, as if she lost her balance.

The boys however are not worried as it is Kotone's unique way of saying goodbye.

From the other side of the gate, Kotone, while falling, does a maneuver in the air to have herself face the garden and her back towards the wall. She applies spiritual energy on her legs and feet, and lands squarely on the clay road, soundlessly.

Due to the enhancement provided by spiritual energy to her legs, it did not hurt her in any way.

Even if she did not use spiritual energy, she will still not get hurt, but landing noiselessly without bending her knees,  provides Kotone a sense of achievement.

"Pfff. Show off." She is greeted by a scoff from Fumio who is apparently waiting, while chewing on a fruit he just picked from one of the trees.

"Oh. Look who decided to show." Kotone returns a scoff of her own.

"Your lips say hurtful words, yet your eyes show longing…" Fumio says theatrically.

"Longing my butt." Kotone rolls her eyes.

"But seriously. What are you doing here?" She asks.

"Picked up the new volume of boss's manga." Fumio pulls out a stack of papers from his storage ring, shows them to Kotone, before shortly storing them again.

"Nice." Kotone is not that interested in manga.

"Hey. Can you give this to Haruto?" Instead, she pulls out 50,000 yen notes from her own storage ring and hands them to Fumio.

"I will." Fumio nods, chuckling as he puts away the money.

"I don't understand you and your brother. You obviously miss each other very much. Why not visit him?" He asks.

"It's just… " Kotone sighs.

"I know we only have each other in this world, but we have an almost  codependent relationship or something." She explains.

"What? Did boss say that?" Fumio asks.

"Yeah." Kotone nods.

"And it's an issue. We have to learn to live without each other before it becomes a problem." She explains.

"I see." Fumio nods in understanding.

"Well then. Go in the house. It's a special day for you." He is excited for what Kotone is about to receive from Red.

"Okay." Kotone nods, but she is not leaving yet as she is curious how Fumio will bypass the wall.

She watches as Fumio simply bends his knees, applies spiritual energy to his legs, and jumps up, easily clearing the height of the gate, and disappearing to the other side.

"Show off." Kotone rolls her eyes, but is motivated to train just seeing Fumio jumping over the tall wall in one go.

<>

"Kichirou-san?" Kotone, right after stepping in the living room of the house, sees Red kneeling by a spread out futon.

"Kotone." Red nods at her.

"What's going on?" Kotone asks, hoping that she is to receive a massage from Red as it had been a while.

"You have two choices." Red starts.

"First. Upgrade your resistance seals." He says as he pulls out what looks like a ball of yarn, only silvery white in color, from his storage ring.

Kotone gets interested. She did not see how Red applied her current resistance seals, and she is hoping she can watch this time.

"Will you knock me out again?" She asks.

"Yes." Red nods, disappointing Kotone.

"At least you're telling me this time." She can only quip.

"Heh. Yeah. Sorry. I had to do it secretly then." Red says.

"Can I stay up and watch how it's done?" Kotone asks.

While she trusts Red entirely, and has no problems getting naked in front of the man under the right circumstances, she is curious this time why Red would need what looks like silver wires in his hands.

"It will hurt a lot. The last time, I just carved seals on your skin, but this time, it's deeper." Red explains.

Kotone gets goosebumps from the description.

"H-how deep?" She asks nervously.

"Surface of the bone deep." Red reveals.

"W-what?!" Kotone gets scared.

"I will carve resistance seals on the surface of your bones using these platinum wires as my… ink. " Red explains further.

"A-and this is what Fumio has?" Kotone asks.

"Yes. I had them too, but I removed them once I no longer needed them." Red assures her.

"Even though it's painless, as you'll be unconscious during the procedure, you don't have to if you don't want to. That's your second choice. The disadvantage is, your physique's growth in strength will be slower without the upgraded seals. Making the growth of your elixir sea slower too." But he still presents a chance for Kotone to refuse. 

"What's your choice?"

Kotone ponders for a minute.

Within that minute, Fumio's growing strength, the children's being clueless about the ease they do the 16 poses, Yoshiko's quick progress, all crossed her mind.

And those thoughts influences her. 

"Please apply the resistance seals to me, Kichirou-san."