Grand Theft Stone(GTS)

Lin Fang looked towards Heavenly Dagger and said, "Your turn man. Go do your thing."

Heavenly Dagger nodded his head and went up to the guards to get an entry ticket. Since he was a human who entered the city through one of the main gates, he could easily enter the Academy, unlike Lin Fang.

Lin Fang watched as Heavenly Dagger disappeared into the academy as he sat on a table outside a restaurant waiting for him. He ordered tea and sat there patiently waiting for him to return.

As Lin Fang watched people come and go, he couldn't help but think of the conversation with Heavenly Dagger. He really couldn't understand this guy, one second he is all clumsy and foolish and the next second he turns all serious and murderous, just what kind of past did he go through to become like this?

Lin Fang sat there waiting for half an hour before Heavenly Dagger once again appeared on the gate of the academy. His face was expressionless so Lin Fang couldn't discern anything from it. He waited until Heavenly Dagger noticed his position and walked up to him, he smiled as his expression returned to the normal one which was before the 'love story'.

"It's fake, the real one should be inside the castle. The exhibition didn't give much detail on it but the stone should be heavily guarded.", Heavenly Dagger said as he looked at Lin Fang in admiration, if it had been him, he wouldn't have gone to such meticulous details to double check everything.

Sure enough, Lin Fang's eyes narrowed. The Greenwood Spirit was a low leveled demon beast and didn't understand much of human culture. It should have seen the exhibition of the Stone and believed it to be real. But Lin Fang had doubts in his heart, since the stone was so important, it shouldn't have been placed in an open museum like this one, thus he had Heavenly Dagger double check if it was the right one or not.

"Plan C it is.", Lin Fang smiled as he stood up and they both started the journey back towards the City Lord's castle a bit slowly this time.

Since there were too many unknowns in the situation, Lin Fang instead of coming up with one concrete plan for all situations had decided to have different plans for various situations.

The first one was if the stone was inside the Southern Academy and the defense were weak. This was the simplest plan of all which only required them to steal it straight away.

The second one was if the stone was inside the Academy but the defenses were too strong for a straight out steal, he would either have to have a fair trade with the City Lord or distract the guards which would be troublesome.

The third one was if the stone was not inside the Academy at all but inside the City Lord's castle. This was the best possible situation of the three possible outcomes. Since he had already sent the letter and hopefully, the CIty Lord would give in to the greed of the token. If he went, he would surely go with his most skilled bodyguards and since the City was a small one and was already understaffed, the castle defenses would surely be at there weakest at that time.

Lin Fang estimated that the strongest person that would be left in the castle should be no higher than level 6. Since he and Heavenly Dagger were together, if they took the castle by surprise before they could light the beacon and call for reinforcement, they would surely be able to get sneak in to get the stone. The main army of the city rested in a distant camp with only a few but strong guards protecting the City Lord.

This wasn't Lin Fang's overconfidence talking but it was his belief in himself that he had recently built up. A small city, an overpowered class, number of troops, a lot of things were taken into consideration before he decided to sneak into the castle. If he transformed, he should surely be stronger than when he fought Flame Princess. Besides, according to the info broker, for some unknown reason, the security guards in the castle were less than the guards at the academy which was another plus point for them. He had tried to find out about the reason but to no avail.

As for why they were not in a hurry, it was because they had to give the City Lord time to leave the castle. If the stone was in the Academy, then they would have to make a move immediately, as even though it was daytime, the security was far lax than night and the Academy was about to close. According to the information Lin Fang bought, he wasn't confident that they could sneak into the academy at night, if it was day they could take in hostages or do a textbook grab and dash. But things were different now as they were no more breaking into the academy but a short-staffed castle.

It was not that the castle intentionally kept itself short-staffed or they didn't have money to pay its guards fees. It was just that the Secretary of the City Lord didn't trust too many people and only the City Lord lived in a big castle, so he didn't need that many servants or a whole platoon of guards. She felt that she herself was enough...

When Lin Fang and Heavenly Dagger arrived at the Castle, there was still time left until the city Lord left for the meet, thus the two entered a restaurant and paid for a private room.

As they walked in, Lin Fang pulled out something from his storage and kept it on the table.

"It's an old map of the Castle", Lin Fang explained under Heavenly Dagger's curious gaze. He had originally bought this map in the black market for a fortune thinking that killing a City Lord would surely give him a ton of experience. Of course, this was an outdated map and not an original one, the castle was surely different from the map in his hands as according to the seller, the castle had recently gone through a massive renovation. But still, this map may help them get a general idea about the things and size of the castle.

This was better than going in blind, something was better than nothing. As Lin Fang and Heavenly Dagger looked at this map, Lin Fang explained where he wanted to look and which places they would search first. Since the map was different from the real deal, they could only make rough estimates and not go into too much of detail.

After he was done with the explaining, Lin Fang felt that they weren't prepared enough, they didn't know the number of enemies, their strength, the location of the stone but what else could he do. He would surely not be foolish enough to place his fate in the CIty Lord's hands until there was nothing else he could do. Besides, the City Lord's token was surely a great item which could fetch him a lot of money so he didn't want to give it up either. To win, they would need unbelievable skills and an amazing amount of luck.

He had originally planned on giving up the token but when he went online to look up information on it, he realized that it was one of the items with the highest demands in the market with people paying astronomical sums to get there hands on one.

The chances of the two of them dying were quite high but if they survived their gains would be unbelievable. Lin Fang looked at the time and thinking that the CIty Lord should be about to leave, the two of them walked out to get into positions. They sat down on the benches next to the wall and kept a close eye on the front entrance of the Castle.

Sure enough, after a short while, a short entourage of three walked out of the castle. Some of the people sitting around looked closely at the group but seeing them look so normal, they continued what they were doing originally, many people were interested in what went on in the castle, this wasn't anything abnormal. Only Lin Fang's eyes flashed with a weird light as he looked at this team.

His plan was off to a shaky start, he didn't expect the City Lord to take only two people with him but there was nothing he could do about it. It was all or nothing. Now was the best chance to get the stone, he didn't know if the City Lord would leave the castle again in a short while.

The sun had already set as the crowd thinned, Lin Fang had chosen the time for the meeting perfectly when everyone was just going to sleep. Since this was a small city, there was no nightlife over here and most people went to bed early.

He and Heavenly Dagger waited patiently for the everyone to leave. For the meeting with the City Lord, he had chosen a far-off location outside the city thus it would take them a while to return giving him and Heavenly Dagger a lot of room to maneuver.

They watched as the last store closed and the shop owner left before standing up. Lin Fang glanced at Heavenly Dagger and nodded his head, the signal was sent and the grant theft had begun.