Chapter 40: Scouting
A month has passed since the three thugs last approached. Karni has been in a bit of an overdrive making soul tools to make enough money to give to the bastards. Of course he didn't forget to cultivate during this time.
In the end not only did he gather the thugs' crazy demand for more money, he also managed to break through in his cultivation. He was now rank 29, the same as Siduo; though she was closer to rank 30 than he was overall.
Just the previous week, he gave her the money needed for the next payment. At the moment, Karni, Siduo and Tiao were all in the same place as they were last month, watching the display of the hospital room.
Tie Tiao commented. "I hate this. I feel so helpless. I can only watch from here and even then I have to leave all the work to you two."
Karni sighed. "If we didn't have to, we wouldn't want to do this." He glanced at Siduo.
Siduo then nodded and Karni continued. "We actually talked to the school faculty about this. Teacher Ye, who's a Soul Emperor, told us to leave it alone as we can't do anything."
Tie Tiao took a moment to take this in. "You're saying even a Soul Emperor doesn't want to meddle with this, but then… Aren't we doing something really dangerous."
"Well, we have our reasons to think it shouldn't be too dangerous. Teacher did as well, but she didn't want us to take any risk, so we're doing this in secret. I hope you can keep it that way." Karni turned to look Tie Tiao in the eyes.
The boy gulped and nodded. "I'll keep it a secret."
Siduo then interrupted them. "They're coming out, Kiki."
Karni nodded and activated his second soul skill on Siduo. "Be careful."
Siduo nodded. They began following.
… … …
The three police brothers were in an incredibly good mood today. The shortest one of the three looked particularly satisfied. "To think that hag would actually bring what we asked for. What a pushover!"
The other two nodded. "This woman must have some hidden stash, next time we should demand more."
"This time Big Bro will be really happy. You think he might put in a good word for us?"
The oldest and biggest of the three sighed. "Unfortunately not."
"Just because the boss is away, doesn't mean he can't praise us a little bit." The second, pale one noted.
The biggest turned to look with a sharp look at his second brother. "You better not say this to Big Bro, you think he'd let it go?"
The pale brother shut up and looked a bit frustrated. It didn't feel fair to him, they were doing great this past month.
The eldest sighed. "I'm not supposed to tell you this. Boss went into closed cultivation. She's trying to break through to Soul Sage."
The other two's eyes shone brightly. "Holy shit, imagine the influence we'll wield when she returns." The youngest immediately became dreamy.
"Will she want to keep us though? I get Big Bro vouches for us, but…" The second brother was more sceptical.
"I get what you mean, but trust our Big Bro. He's dear to her, and we're all brothers here. You think he'd just throw us away?" The big man held the middle brother's shoulder in comfort.
"How long do you think the boss will be in close cultivation?"
"I don't know. Breakthrough could take incredibly short if lucky, or very long and arduous. All I know is that, should the boss not succeed, she'll return after a year."
"Can we hold on for that long?"
"If nothing else works, we'll have to. Big Bro said he had it handled." The second brother calmed the younger two.
All this while a single small silhouette was following the three conversing brothers. Far behind her, another two small silhouettes followed the first silhouette.
Much like before, the three brothers turned towards less populated streets and finally pulled into an alleyway in which they turned around last time. This time they were determined to celebrate their victory thoroughly.
Tie Tiao and Val Karni were getting a tad nervous now, especially when seeing Siduo follow the three thugs into the alley. They sped up a bit. Karni had to keep her in sight to keep his ability working for an extended amount of time after all.
The two peeked from the side only to see Siduo at the other end of the alleyway looking from the corner similar to how the two of them were. She glanced back and waved at them, showing them to come closer.
The two closed in and looked at what she was looking at. There was no one there. The three thugs were gone.
"They went into that building." She pointed at a run down building which seemed part of another older building in this street. It wasn't a shady street, there were a lot of small businesses here, they were just old.
Karni thought of their plan of action. "We can wait in one of the other buildings, a bakery, restaurant, somewhere when it won't be suspicious. When they come out we can scout out the place from the outside."
"You sure that's a good idea, what if there's someone else?" Tie Tiao was biting his nails right now. He has been for a while. This was really stressful for him. Unlike the other two, he was an actual ten year old. He was here mostly because of his stubbornness, curiosity and his sense of not yet so defined justice.
"It should be fine. Based on their conversation, there should only be four of them. Here's what I learned."
She explained the missing unknown boss, the big bro and the little part she understood between their relationships. Her senses were telling her this was a small group of people.
Karni was given a bit of hope. "Maybe we should go back to Teacher Ye with this information."
Tie Tiao agreed. Siduo didn't. "She might agree with us. She might also ground us and never let us out of the school again though. The big bro isn't the big shot, but he's stronger than the Soul Elder. He might be one as well, he might be a Soul Ancestor. I somehow doubt he'd be a Soul King though. We should be fine on our own."
Tie Tiao was doubtful. "You sure you can take on a Soul Ancestor though?
Siduo shook her head. "No way. I was going to wait until we're Soul Elders ourselves. Kiki and I are almost at the bottleneck after all. The only thing missing now is for us to evolve our Spirit Souls."
Karni nodded at that. If the two of them became Soul Elder. He was confident they could take on a single Soul Ancestor. But they would still have to prepare carefully.
"Think about it. We tell the teacher, she might just lock us away because we risk angering that boss who's currently trying to reach the Soul Sage stage. If anything, that very fact will make her not let us do anything. But." Siduo made a twisted smile.
"If we solve this situation before that boss comes back and the boss finds out later on, the academy will have to protect us. Especially considering we're Mo Qing's disciples."
Karni was speechless. "You can be really fucking twisted at times you know that?"
"I had a great teacher." She smiled.
"Oh? Who?" Tie Tiao asked. He wasn't weirded out by their actions. He was used to these two's vocabulary by now.
"I'll tell you some other time." She answered and glanced at Karni.
He guessed it was something to do with her previous life.
… … …
They were in a restaurant about 200 metres away. It was decently far away, had window seats and was just the right angle for them to see anyone entering or leaving the building they were watching.
Of course they ordered some tasty food. None of them were particularly poor. Karni was perhaps the most, if only because he had to give the massive amount of money he made to Grandma Ying.
"When are you going to tell her?" Siduo suddenly asked while they were eating.
"I don't know." Karni answered quickly.
"She deserves to know you know?" Siduo then said.
"I know."
"So why aren't you telling her? The longer you let it be, the harder it'll be."
Now Karni got frustrated. "Oh yeah. Because it's that easy eh? If I had complete control over my emotion or was an emotionless being, you think I wouldn't? If it weren't for our stupid emotions you think we would've had a fight for a month? Self awareness doesn't automatically help me with this."
Siduo now turned away her eyes. "I'm sorry."
Tie Tiao just sat there. He was in between the two. It wasn't a comfortable position, but he could tell that he shouldn't meddle right now.
"I'll tell her about our investigation on Monday when I visit." Karni gave in.
Siduo just silently nodded. She was feeling rather guilty for pushing him right now. She understood they had different values, but it still frustrated her to a degree.
"I'm sorry I can't tell you everything about… me."
Karni understood what she was saying. "It's not like you can help it. It's really me that's the problem there. Just like here."
"Kiki, I didn't mean-"
"I know. I'm sorry too. I'm frustrated with myself, not you, Sisi."
The three sat in silence for a while. Karni and Siduo were mostly staring at the food.
"They came out." Tie Tiao suddenly pointed out.
Karni and Siduo came back to their senses. Right. They were on a mission.
All three came out, much to their relief. It's been about an hour in the restaurant. Luck was on their side right now.
The leader of the three was clearly on the soul communicator. He was most likely talking to their big brother again. After the three left the premises completely, the trio began to move towards the building after paying for their food.
Looking at the windows, everything was covered up with curtains. They couldn't see inside at all. On the other hand, they didn't dare to break in. Who knows if they had security installed. It wasn't really hard to break in, but it was hard to sneak past safely, if there was a security system.
Karni raised Siduo so she could catch the ledge of the second floor. There were curtains here as well. They were at a dead end.
"Hey, how about this? If one hides here, they might be able to hear what's going on in the building."
Karni and Siduo took a look at what Tie Tiao pointed at. It was a ventilation system. Small enough for a grown person to be unable to do fit, but for a ten year old child? It was perfect.
"Give me a sec." Karni said.
He activated his Purple Demon Eyes and his first soul ring, Golden Insight. When used together, it produced quite a strong effect. Golden Insight on its own enhanced perception, a sixth sense of sorts. But Purple Demon Eyes were a direct visual enhancement.
When he combined the two, he could perceive the place in better detail even with places he wasn't looking at, but it required quite a large amount of soul power and spiritual power.
Since he's been training in the Purple Demon Eyes every morning for the last two months. He's become quite proficient in its use. On their own, he could use them just as easily as his other soul skills by now.
The combination was enough to analyse the ventilation system and where it led to without going inside.
A wicked smile, much like Siduo's, appeared on his face. "It's perfect. If one is silent, it's perfect for eavesdropping. There don't appear to be any detectors here either."
Siduo now wore the same wicked smile, while Tie Tiao simply had a cheerful smile. You know, like a normal ten year old. Not like those two weirdos.
Siduo silently summoned her martial soul. She gained little claws on her fingers. She used them to unscrew the plate over the ventilation system and went inside. When she returned she had an even crazier smile.
She was giggling a bit unsettlingly. "They won't know what hit them. When we become Soul Elders this will be a perfect ambush spot as well."
Just thinking about it put her in a good mood. Meanwhile Karni wondered where her parents went wrong. "As long as your little brother doesn't turn out like you."
"Whatever do you mean, he'll be perfect if he takes after his big sis."
… … …
They decided to return. Karni and Siduo were going to start scouting out this place regularly from now on.
While returning Tie Tiao wondered. "Hey, why are you two doing this anyway?"
"Er, it's a personal thing really." Karni answered.
"C'mon, it's something to do with that old lady right? What's happening here really?"
"I'd rather not tell." Karni was honest with him.
Tie Tiao frowned a little. "Don't I at least deserve to know since I'm here?"
Karni scratched his chin, but Siduo frowned instead. "You know we told you not to come right? You decided to."
Tie Tiao stopped. They were right. This was their thing in the first place, it's not like he was really helping, he was just here because he wanted to be included.
"Here's the deal. We won't tell you anything,but I promise to teach you how to conceal your presence better." Siduo offered.
Tie Tiao sighed. "Fine." He was aware that Siduo was already being generous with this. The concealment won't truly help him in battle against Ma Fai, it was more of a bonus from her. Though that's not what Siduo was thinking. If anything, the sneaky abilities were going to play the main role in his battle against Ma Fai in the future.
"I'll tell you some things when everything is over, but this is for your own safety. Sorry." Karni was honest. He was afraid that the more Tie Tiao knew, the more danger he was in.
Karni and Siduo silently decided not to take Tie Tiao on these scouting missions anymore if it was possible.
… … …
Karni was in his room looking over some blueprints. On the side were some of the notes from Siduo. He was currently comparing them with the blueprints of prosthetics.
All of these had one thing in common. They were energetically quite inefficient, but they were still expensive. He was attempting to fuse the Tang Sect research into the prosthetics.
He already had most of the basics of prosthetics figured out by now. At their core, they were all connecting the nerves with that of the artificial ones in the prosthetics. But he felt like he could improve it. What about prosthetics from soul masters? What if there are less array inscriptions and more mechanical engineering from Tang Sect? He could use the energy cores that Siduo gave him from her research and made 4-star prosthetics better. Cheaper. More accessible.
He was currently in the process of attempting to remove a lot of inscriptions which took up most of the space on the prosthetics. The easier prosthetics to try out right now were the legs. They didn't require the intricate nerve connections with fingers. Most of them had a foot without the toes and that was perfectly fine for people. Toes weren't that useful to most humans.
Every time he hit a roadblock, he imagined Tie Tiao's sister, Tie Kexin. Just how miserable it must be to be required to rely on other people for the simplest of things in life. He has found good motivation in her.
Grandma Ying was also a great motivation for him. She was always laying in the hospital bed without moving. Perhaps not prosthetics, but augmentations of the limbs would work for her. Those weren't that different from prosthetics either.
He realised something he never thought of and he wondered just how it had never occurred to him. Why was she in the hospital in the first place? He never asked. He could guess some things from her stories, but what really happened?
In the beginning, he never asked out of politeness. He was a stranger then. But now it was different. The two have grown quite close. Told each other many things. Though Karni still had secrets.
He sighed. He had to tell her about the tailing as well. Tell her he's a soul master. Perhaps she'll figure it out based on what she heard from those corrupt policemen, but he was willing to take that risk right now.
It's time to tell her some things. If she figures it out? Fine. If she doesn't say anything? He won't either. Right now he had to focus on other things, and whether she figured it out or not, once he was finished with those brothers, he'd have nothing stopping him from telling her anymore.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
AzKoPo
AzKoPo Boop. I have nothing to say today, or, well, I couldn't think of anything. Been focused on creating a DnD character backstory and character sheet recently as the friend group of mine will start playing again. I guess that's a noteworthy thing haha.
Enjoy!
Edit: Well, I guess there is something, the end in this chapter was me realising, back when I originally wrote this, that I haven't given a concrete reason as to why Shi Ying was really in a hospital haha. Well, that's that. Enjoy again!
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