Cultivation Through Artifacts

Chapter 5: The Envelope

Walking down into the hall, Khal followed Liza into a small eatery on the left side.

Just like any other part of the orphanage, this room had also cracked walls and windows. The wooden tables and charts in the middle of the room were visibly carved with pure hands, while the bowls and flatware were made out of poorly forged iron.

The forks and spoons were curvy and had a strange shape, while the bowls’ external surface was already rusty, showing just how long they have been used without finding a new one.

And just to show how bad the situation really was, Khal could see that inside the bowl, the food was a very small amount of mashed potato with a slice of bread and a bottle of water on the side.

Even the food was ‘poor’.

While Khal watched all of this with a somewhat stunned expression, suddenly Miss Mary walked out from the side with a smile etched on her face.

“You kids are finally here. Sit down and eat. You deserve it.”

Seeing that Liza was already in her seat, but Khal was still standing in one place, Miss Mary looked confused and asked, “Hey? Are you with us?”

Khal, hearing Miss Mary’s voice flinched slightly and after coming back to his senses he nodded and said, “Yes, Ma’am. Sorry, I was just dazing off a bit. Maybe I’m just tired because of the work…”

“Haha, not a problem at all. You cut and carried away those huge pieces of grasses and trunks from the building in only under an hour, so it’s not a surprise at all that you have become tired. Sit down and eat. As I said, you deserve it.”

Khal nodded slightly as an answer and sat down next to Liza.

Miss Mary seeing that both kids were sitting, followed suit and sat down too. Putting her palms together, and closing her eyes, she started to pray quietly.

Khal seeing this frowned slightly, but the moment he saw Liza do the same thing realized that in this world it was only natural to do something like this.

As a result, he too put his palms together and closed his eyes, however instead of praying he thought, “Now that I think about it, I did the same thing back in my old world, but because of my father found it stupid he beat me up almost to death.”

As he thought about that moment, the bad memories surfaced yet again, making Khal’s mood to worsen for a second.

But only for a second, because the next moment Miss Mary’s voice sounded.

“Thank you for the gift.”

“Thank you for the gift.”

When Liza said the exact same sentence as Miss Mary with a smile, Khal smiled too and said quietly, “Thank you for the gift.”

And just as those words left his mouth, Liza and Miss Mary picked up the spoon from the side, and without saying anything else, both of them started to eat.

Because Khal was hungry from the work he did, he too picked up the spoon from the side and after putting a small piece of mashed potato onto his silverware, he put it into his mouth.

However, the moment the food touched his tongue, and the flavor expanded in his mouth, Khal’s eyes widened with great surprise.

“This… This is delicious!”

Swallowing it down, Khal instantly put another amount of mashed potato into his mouth, but this time instead of swallowing it right away, he started to savor it with carefulness.

“It’s not raw, there are no huge pieces, and not salty at all. It’s just perfect. And there is this unique taste that I have never eaten before… It’s amazing!”

While Khal was tasting the mashed potato with a delightful expression, Miss Mary smiled slightly and said, “It seems you have finally started to like it.”

Liza on the side noticing Khals’s expression too looked surprised and said, “What happened with you? You were always saying you will not like it no matter what. You even threw the food away the last time, just to show you won’t eat it ever again.”

Khal hearing this knew that they were referring to the previous Khal, so he just scratched his neck with a wry smile and said, “Well… You see, I realized I was at the wrong. Also, if I want to get stronger, I need nutrients, no?”

As he said this, he flexed his arms with a wide smile on his face, but the moment he did that, he instantly regretted it.

Forgetting that he was currently in a 16 years old boy’s body, who was only eating potato and a few slices of bread for years, his body was not strong at all.

And because of that fact, he only had a small number of muscles on his body, making that flexing position of his quite embarrassing.

However, even like this Miss Mary just smiled and chuckled happily, while saying, “Haha, that is what I like to hear! That’s the spirit!”

Khal seeing Miss Mary’s smile, blushed slightly and got a little bit of embarrassed, but not for so long.

The reason why was because on his side he noticed Liza’s deep frown, making him look at her with a confused expression too.

“Huh? Did I do something wrong?”, asked Khal calmly.

Yet, Liza just turned her gaze away from him and after swallowing down a spoon of mashed potato, she shook her head and said quietly, “No, you didn’t.”

Hearing the answer, Khal didn’t know how to react at all, but didn’t really care about it.

“Well, it’s not like I will understand her soon, so…”

With that in mind, Khal could just simply sigh and after sitting back down, continue to eat slowly.

While Khal and Liza were deep in thought as thet ate, suddenly Miss Mary put down the spoon from her hand and cleared her throat gently.

“I need to announce something very important for both of you, so please stop eating for a moment.”

Hearing what Miss Mary said, Khal and Liza looked at each other, but still, both of them did what she asked.

The moment both of them put down their spoon onto the table, Miss Mary stood up and took out two envelopes from her pocket.

Each envelope was average-looking with white color, but even with this appearance, because of the colorful stamp on its middle, it was very eye catching.

Seeing the two letters, and the stamp on it, suddenly Liza’s eyes widened, and after jumping up from her seat, she asked with utter shock.

“It’s from the Cultivator’s Organization?! Don’t tell me…”

“Yes it is.”, said Miss Mary with a smile.

As Khal saw Liza’s startled expression wanted to say something, however, before he could have, Miss Mary did.

“The Cultivator’s Organization will allow both of you to take place on the Ceremony, and obtain your Cultivation Talent in Moon City.”