After reading through the rest of Cherry’s books, Kain and Serena met up with the rest of the members of the orphanage for dinner.
What should have been a celebratory meal in a warm atmosphere due to it being his first time home in a while, instead was full of tension.
Cherry was the loudest voice in the house, and so the chattering voice that was practically like a constant background hum that they’d all grown used to was now gone.
Had she been there Kain was certain that he would have been undergoing interrogations about his first year in college, what the National Tournament was like, and probably also a lot of teasing due to bringing home a beautiful girl.
Instead, the room filled with people had only a crushing silence.
Serena wasn’t too picky about her living accommodations and didn’t mind staying in Cherry and Jasmine’s room. Thankfully, Jasmine also didn’t mind her presence and, since she’d seen her strength at the National Tournament, she claimed that she actually felt much safer with her around. In fact, the two youngest girls Sunny and Melody, also seemed to think the same way and somehow all four of them ended up crammed into a single room.
Similarly, all of the boys had been squeezing into a single room with Bridge to feel safer, but now with Kain around they split into two rooms. Kain was rooming with the eldest Milo and the two youngest boys Parker and Charlie in the room that was originally shared by Milo and Jasmine’s twin Jasper.
Meanwhile, Bridge, Jasper, and Key had taken over the room Kain shared with Bridge.
He had heard from the director how difficult it had been to get everyone to sleep immediately after Cherry’s disappearance, so he was pleasantly by the deep breathing and snores he quickly heard. Although he hadn’t found Cherry yet, at least he’d managed to help in some way.
However, Kain himself was suffering from insomnia. How could he sleep when his younger sister could be being tortured or even killed right now?
So he instead spent the entire night absorbing spiritual power with the boost provided by the System’s Planetarium. If he’s lucky he may even be able to break through to 4-stars within a couple of months.
‘Maybe I can even pass Serena,’
Kain thought with anticipation.
That was until he woke up to find Serena eating breakfast in the morning with a suddenly increased spiritual power that she was unable to restrain. Bridge was sitting next to her in shock, meanwhile, all of the ordinary members of the orphanage seemed to suddenly find her presence to be pressuring due to the power she kept unconsciously emitting.
‘Who the hell completes a breakthrough to 4 stars within a single night?!’
As the level increases, so does the time it usually takes to breakthrough to the next level. For Kain’s own breakthrough, he was prepared to have to suffer for at least a week. However, she had managed to successfully breakthrough in only a few hours.
Kain felt as though he had been hit in the head and even began to fall into an intense self-doubt.
‘Have I been doing it wrong? No! Everyone takes around that long. The abnormal one is her!’
However, the secret to her overnight breakthrough needed to be put aside for now. Finding Cherry was the most important thing.
They had already worked out a plan for the next few days on how they were going to gather more information about Cherry—and it was going to start with this corrupt principal of the elementary school that seemed to have some kind of intersection with Heather.
However, to avoid potentially startling the mastermind behind the scenes by going around and asking questions, they couldn’t exactly interrogate him directly—but they also didn’t need to.
Thanks to Bea’s new evolutionary form, they had managed to sneakily infect him with one of Bea’s splits when he stopped by the local coffee shop on his way to work like he always did and that split has been continuously feeding back information to Bea—from his memories, to relaying his actions in real-time.
As an ordinary person, the principal had no way of resisting the infiltration.
While rifling through his memories, although they found many many
problems
with this principal. Most of them involved accepting bribes, embezzlement and other forms of corruption. He was not directly involved in the kidnapping cases—at least not knowingly.
However, unable to continue just waiting for more clues to appear, he decided to be proactive and actively control the principal to fish out Heather.
In his office, Principal Baker adjusted his tie nervously, his thoughts swirling with mundane concerns about budgets and minor disciplinary issues. But, as Bea exerted a subtle nudge, an impulse arose in his mind—a perfectly logical desire to call Heather Frost, disguised as his own initiative.
He picked up the phone and dialed.
“Ms. Frost,” Baker began, his tone overly accommodating, “I’ve been reviewing some of the profiles you asked for. There’s one student I thought might interest you, her grades dipped recently and could definitely use the help of an excellent teacher like you. However, convincing her to accept your help may not be as smooth as previously…”
“Oohhh…and why would that be?” Heather asked finally, her tone filled with barely restrained irritation.
“It seems as though some idiotic student started an unpleasant and completely untrue rumour about you. It seems as though you were spotted before several of the students disappeared, and you just so happened to tutor two of those students…But do not worry Miss Frost, we are in the process of hunting down the source of that horrid rumour!”
Kain suppressed a smile. The story about a rumour was completely fabricated—a soft push from Bea to set the stage for the next stage of their plan.
“You damn well better! And when you do find out who is defaming me, make sure to tell me as well!” She screamed through the tone in a venomous voice. Thankfully, their rumour starter was completely fictional, otherwise he’d be quite concerned about their safety.
“Oh course! Of course… So I hope you can understand why our exchanges cannot occur at the school during this period, and I was hoping that there was somewhere else off campus that we could meet.” This was the true purpose of their call.
Heather rarely left her home, not finding anything worthy of her attention in the small Brightstar City and due to the strength of her parents, she was probably in the most heavily guarded home in the city. Therefore it was hard for Kain and Serena to get to her. They needed to create a suitable opportunity to infect her with one of Bea’s splits.
There was a long silence. Kain felt his pulse quicken, waiting for her response.
“Alright…” She finally conceded with obvious reluctance. “I will send you a suitable location where we could meet.”
Shortly after, an email was sent to the Principal containing only an address and a time. At the designated time and location, the Principal went to meet her, with the profile of a fictional student—they couldn’t put a real student in danger after all.
The location was a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with barely any customers, so Kain and Serena would have stood out if they were the only other individuals inside.
Therefore, they sent Bea in alone while carried by the Principal and she finally found a suitable opportunity for infection.
Heather was wearing several pieces of enchanted equipment, many of which were focused on warding off the invasion of mental attacks. However, the power they could exert was limited since she, as an ordinary person with minimal spiritual power, couldn’t channel any spiritual power into them.
Therefore, Bea was eventually able to succeed in her mission—
‘Bingo!
‘ Kain and Serena thought almost simultaneously while glancing at each other with slight smirks.