Chapter 31: Convictions

Elias was meditating inside the villa that Jeffrey prepared for him, in his front, the three disciples of the Eternal Sun Sect were sitting waiting for him to finish.

-" So, what's the situation there?" Elias finished his meditation session and quickly asked.

The three ladies in front of him had dark faces, Elias knew that new developments had occurred.

-" There is a lot of soldiers patrolling the area, while they aren't focused on the spot near the cave entrance, for territory with troubles in manpower, there is too many soldiers there." One of the ladies began to inform the elder about their findings. " We found some interesting demonic beasts there too."

The lady took one Wolf carcass from her spatial ring. Elias's eyes shook in surprise, the Eternal Sun Sect was studying the underwater cave for years on end, so Elias was quite familiar with the energy there.

-" Looks like the thing down there reached maturity sooner than we thought." Elias's face looked horrible as he saw the wolf. " Did you only find this one?"

-" No, the forest was full of those wolves, the soldiers there were hunting them, so I couldn't risk revealing myself to them."

Elias frowned as he heard that, now he knew what Philips was doing a few days ago. " Looks like news leaked, we need to be careful as we proceed, even with less manpower here the Duke's forces aren't to be trifled with, especially if that weirdo moves, only Sect leader can challenge him."

The girls were shocked as they heard about someone who could confront their sect leader, to them the Sect Master was a godlike figure.

-" Weirdo? There is someone who can put a fight against Grandfather here?" The youngest of the girls was the most shocked one, she was the one who interacted the most with Jalen, the Eternal Sun Sect Master, and her grandfather.

Elias nodded as he looked sullen. " Not only he can fight Sect Master, I doubt the fight would be decided so easily, it's normal that young people like yourselves never heard of him, he barely showed his face even decades ago." Elias looked nostalgic as he talked. " Maven Strafhampton, the Green Feather isn't a name that people now think as one of the strongest, but, he is one of the most talented youth a few generations ago."

-" Maven Strafhampton? Is he from a side branch of the Duke family?" One of the girls tried to search their memories of any information but she didn't come up with anything.

-" No, he is the father of the current Duke, and was supposed to be the previous one, but, he always loathed the matters of the nobles and secluded himself for the mortal world for most of his life."

Elias's tone was serious, he felt that teaching this was important to them, the young girls in front of him were all top talents of the Eternal Sun Sect.

-" For the Heigong, there is only one person who is more of a threat to them besides Sect Master, and that person is Maven, thirty years ago he seriously weakened the Heigong after some of their elders invaded the Strafhampton territory and tried to consume the vital essence of one of the blessed beasts that live in the nearby mountains, this infuriated Maven who invaded the Heigong territory alone."

The girls were completely immersed in the story, they never thought that such a figure would exist here.

-" The aftermath of the battle was massive, the current weakened state of the Heigong is because of this confront, if not for Maven distancing himself from the world and weird personality the Strafhampton would be one of the strongest family of the continent."

-" Is he in bad relations with his family?" The older girl was curious if there was such a legendary figure in the Strafhampton family it was weird that no one heard from him for so long.

-" Quite the contrary, He is quite close to his family, actually, the only thing that makes him leave his dwelling is if something happens to his family, it's just that the Strafhampton wouldn't use the name of Maven to obtain benefits, they value honor above all."

All the three girls were quite impressed, as sect cultivators, they have some preconceptions about cultivators that involved themselves ins matters of mortals, but, now their impression of the Strafhampton family was better.

-" We should finish the storytime here, there is something else I need from you, Madeline." Elias was careful as he talked to her, even as an elder from the Sect, the young background was too special and he needed to be careful around her.

Madeline's gaze hardened and nodded as she listened, the last time she obtained permission to leave the sect the group mission ended in complete disaster, they were even saved by random villagers.

Most of the people in their group blamed her, but, due to her family they couldn't express their feelings openly, so they decided to ignore and distance themselves from her. Madelia was young still and this impacted her, she wanted a chance to prove that she was capable to their sect companions.

-" There is someone that picked my interest I want information about him, but, I tried to ask my contact here but they didn't find any information about the background of the young man, the only information that I received was that he was quite close to Jeffrey, the Duke's second son, and someone called Byrth." When Madeline heard Byrth name her eyes picked with interest, she learned the name of the villager who saved her after the rewarding ceremony.

-" Do you want me to keep an eye on him?" She was disappointed as she understood what Elias wanted from her.

-" Yes, I want you to find out about everything about him, Byrth is really close to him so you can use him to approach Luckas."

Madeline felt biter, she still felt indebt towards Byrth, even if her father gave the young man a reward she thought that she should pay him back, not her family, and now she was ordered to use the young man to spy on one of his friends.

But no matter how she felt, Madeline knew that she needed to accomplish this task, if she couldn't complete something like this, how useful could she be to the sect? Madeline pushed her feeling of guilt to the back of her mind and nodded.