Xing Deng gritted his teeth while looking at the smirking Zhang Clan member in front of him, it would be easy to wipe these ten fools out, but what would happen after that. The mention of the core formation expert that they had in town was a strong enough deterrent for even this overbearing clan of mobsters. The Xing Patriarch calmed himself down, then leaned back in his chair to ask more questions.
“What do you mean with this? How many spirit stones do you want?, it’s my son we are talking about, won’t the Zhang Clan give me some face and forget about the whole thing?”
The Zhang Clan elder looked to the sides, knowing well that if a fight broke out they would be at a disadvantage. He wasn’t planning on just barging in and taking the boy by force, he would ask nicely first. If they couldn’t come to an agreement he would just retreat and ask for Zhang Zhi to make an appearance, or more foundation establishment warriors to make a difference.
“I don’t think you understand, this is an order coming straight from our own Patriarch. You will have an opportunity to defend your son, if he is deemed innocent than he will go free, if not he will be sentenced.”
“Sentence? Opportunity to defend? What do you mean, explain.”
Xing Deng had no idea what this man was babbling about, no one really bothered with taking time in sentencing other people. If they were strong or had some backing then they would usually just pay up if they offended someone equally strong. If someone offended a stronger person with stronger backing they would be at their mercy and that was it. The cultivators at the top never cared much about the weak, they were far to busy with trying to reach that next realm.
The man started explaining, he had it memorized down by now. How it worked was that the person that was found doing some shady stuff would be apprehended, if someone witnessed the transgression they would be used as witnesses. The witness would testify under oath, or to be precise under a formation that forced them to tell the truth along with the one that was getting accused. This formation forced anyone to say the truth if the cultivator’s resistance was too strong, they were other ways to weaken them so that the formation would work.
The Zhang family member didn’t go into much detail about that part though, he mostly just mentioned that the Xing Clan Patriarch’s son was caught assaulting some street kids and almost killed one and that one particular elder witnessed the whole thing. They now would apprehend the youth and the father could come to his court case to see it happen.
Xing Deng’s face contorted in various ways while the Zhang clan member explained what they were doing. He still thought this was some kind of joke and that the Zhang Clan was just doing it as a sort of scare tactic. Though they could be serious as well, he couldn’t take that option off the table just yet.
‘Who is this witness… does that mean if the witness is gone then my son walks free?’
The man had a particular way of thinking, he didn’t even think about bribing the so-called witness he instantly went with getting rid of him. This was one of the things these new policemen weren’t thinking about, witness protection. They should have probably taken the man in and given him some bodyguards, or just kept them at their police station that was well protected. They also thought that even with the missing witness they could just force the reported criminal to say the truth with their formation.
“So… you want my son… when will this so-called ‘trial’ be held?”
The Patriarch in the room leaned back, the gears in his head turning already as he gathered more information about the police procedures.
“After we apprehend the suspect, he will get a court date… shouldn’t take longer than a week…maybe two…”
They already had many cases, lagging behind slightly. There were far more criminals in this city than expected and the roundabout way of dealing with them was causing the police force a headache. Would be a lot faster if they could just trash every criminal, then throw them outside the city or something.
“So, you’re not willing to just trade… your Patriarch has a strange way of doing things…”
He said without trying to seem too disrespectful, everyone knew that you couldn’t be impolite towards the clan leaders or against people stronger than them. He would relent, for now, he wasn’t stupid he knew if he denied them they would just bring more people next time and if he slaughtered them right here their clan might be the one being extinguished, he just didn’t have enough strength to go against them just yet.
“Fine… you can take him, but I want to speak to Senior Zhang Zhi, maybe we can work something out.”
He already knew who the stationed captain in this city was, he didn’t think this family would be so unreasonable. They were losing out on a lot of spirit stones, the just needed to ask for some protection money the old fashioned way. But now they were trying to imprison his son, he still believed that this was some kind of scare tactic to just milk his clan for more money. If not, he would be making arrangements for this so-called ‘witness’ to disappear. From what they explained, this witness was a key figure to getting his son out of this predicament.
“Call Shie over and escort him to this so-called police station.”
He begrudgingly gave the order out, he hoped that spirit stones could make the Zhang Clan give him some face even if the verdict was not in his favor. But while the policemen were leaving with their captive along with the Xing clan escort, he moved one of his hands up which was a signal for a shadowy person to appear.
The man was covering his face and looked quite a bit like a ninja, you could only see his beady eyes while the rest of his face was hidden behind a black mask.
“Find this witness and make him disappear, he can not make it out alive, do whatever it takes!”
The shadowy man nodded and vanished into the shadows, his cultivation in the great circle of foundation establishment. He wasn’t the only one though, more of those type of men started popping up from within the Xing Clan estate. They had various cultivation levels, all in the foundation establishment. This was an assassination unit that this family was known for, they had made many people that were causing trouble with this family disappear and they were going to do it once more.
“Gather everyone, this takes priority go interrogate the men that were with the young master, get his description, visit the site where the fight happened now, Go!”
First came the information gathering, they needed to know who they were dealing with. They didn’t have much to go off of, they could get his appearance and that he rescued some street urchins. He had a potential relationship with the Zhang Clan, having brought them over here. He might be a worker at one of their shops or even be a member of their clan, which would make things worse on them. They didn’t worry too much as they knew dead men tell no tales.
They soon dispersed, gathering intel on the Senior that attacked their master. They got the description of his looks from their own clan members and gathered more information at the scene of battle. The beggars in the area were quick to tell them what transpired, not really wanting to have anything to do with this situation.
They followed the trail to the restaurant that the elder brought the children too and then even figured out that they were staying at a new Zhang Clan compound, they couldn’t investigate too much further in as there was a powerful defensive formation keeping them out. After some time the trail brought them over to the clinic that the elder was stationed in.
They asked around some more, the man was slowly getting famous. After healing the boy from his near-death injury, other people heard about it and decided to see what was happening at that clinic. Some more patients later it was confirmed that this man was quite an adept healer, he could cure all kinds of physical injuries like broken bones or deep cuts with just some acupuncture needles. This was clearly some master of the healing arts, the clinic even had potent pills that were a lot cheaper than what the Situ Clan was offering up.
The assassins waited outside the clinic in the hopes of trailing the man to where he lived and then doing their murder there. They were in a hurry but still, they waited, they couldn’t just barge into the clinic it could have some defensive formations or hidden experts inside. Though they felt confident in taking care of anyone that wasn’t at the core formation level without any problems.
The man in question was tending to some patients, mostly old people with back problems. He just smiled as the elderly jumped up invigorated after their arthritis was all gone.
Matt was slowly getting in the rhythm of working here, still, he didn’t really want to spend that much time acting as a clinic doctor even the pill forging was better than this.
‘Ah, more and more people are coming in… guess I’m famous now… I’ll stay here till that kid gets sentenced, then I’ll get a new doctor to take my place…’
It was all fine and dandy to help the weak and downtrodden, but he still had to worry about getting backstabbed by the Dark Palm sect or any other equally strong power. From what he gathered, the moment he reached nascent soul status all hell would break loose.
The governing sects have zero tolerance for upstarts like him, they would swoop in swiftly and try to take him out. The best thing for cultivators that reached a nascent soul level would be to get some backing, otherwise, they would be in for a life on the run. But at a certain level, you wouldn’t really find opposition, if you managed to get to the late stage, sometimes into the middle stage that was enough for people to keep their distance.
Even though the nascent soul sect elders were paranoid they were still quite cowardly and calculative. No one would be actually willing to fight someone that could injure or kill them in a fair fight. All those old foggies at that level were quite selfish so making them chase someone for a prolonged time was out of the question.
But even though Matt could probably run away if he reached that level, his Clan would be eradicated in the process. For now, he would just keep it on the low, no one had to know that he was in the nascent soul level. He could wait till he could get more allies, the Feng Clan and Huo Clan were one of those.
He already invested in those two young masters, the Feng Clan Matriarch and the Huo Clan future Patriarch were already in secluded meditation. They were already aiming for that great circle level, then afterward they could try to go for the Nascent soul level. Matt could gift them some good nascent soul cultivation manuals, but getting up to that power level without a system wasn’t quite as easy as with the other cultivation levels. This was a more significant change than just getting a core or some foundation pillars.
You actually had to shatter your core for the nascent soul to appear. The nascent soul created would look like a little version of yourself just in soul form, even if you died at this realm your nascent divinity would remain behind letting you recover with time. So it was kind of second life of some sort, but forming a new body was quite tedious and mostly impossible without some external items.
‘Kind of scared to go through it… I’ll have some kind of small infant soul living in me… that’s going to be weird…’
Time passed and soon it was closing time, the clinic would open tomorrow. He wouldn’t stay here, he liked to wander around town and eat at the restaurants while trying to hold himself back from going into the pleasure district of the city. This time though, he had some unwelcome guests that were trailing him, he knew instantly that they were up to no good thanks to his rather high cultivation level compared to them. Their inferior trailing and hiding skills being useless against this here Dong.
‘Well, they sure move fast… only a day has passed.’