Archaeological Remains Research Division

"Doctor?" Pondered Jack out loud. "Doctor of what?"

Dr Seon snorted. "I'll have you know that I graduated top of my class from university." He said with pride. "Only the publicly recognised top scholars have the opportunity to join the Church's archaeological remains research division."

"I'm not one to belittle education." Said Jack. "But correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't it defeat the purpose if and when your organisation willingly sacrifices a publicly recognised top scholar like they did with you?"

"This…" Dr Seon was left without any words to respond to Jack's allegations. In truth, he himself was feeling severely wronged by his peers. "This is different." He said after some careful thought.

"Fine." Jack shrugged. "It's not my place to question your career choices."

After that, Jack turned to look back at Dr Seon's clothes and began rummaging through them once more. He picked up each piece of attire and shook it heftily before putting it back down. Dr Seon looked at Jack quizzically, completely unsure as to what he was trying to achieve.

Finally, a small wooden totem fell out from one of the silk shirts and landed on the floor softly. Jack smiled and picked it up to examine it. It was a cylindrical shaped totem no bigger than two fingers with the shape of an old man wielding a hammer. Jack recognised the figure from some of the books he'd read on the Church's history; it was Tonius: Divine of construction and machines, innovation and practical development.

Dr Seon recognised it, too, but he had never seen the totem before so he was extremely surprised to discover that it had been hidden there, between his clothes. If someone told him that it was supposed to be a part of his disguise as a disgraced noble and not something intentionally planted on him by Dr Cyan, then he wouldn't believe them.

"What's that?" He couldn't help but ask Jack.

Jack smiled mysteriously, pocketed the totem and replied. "Nothing that interests you, Seon." He said, purposely omitting the man's title.

He had suspected that the scientist wouldn't have perused the contents of his knapsack in detail and that it could contain some concealed piece of evidence. He was happy to find out that he was right.

"What are you going to do now?" Sighed Dr Seon, understanding that Jack wasn't his ally. "Kill me?"

"No." Jack shook his head. "Killing you would be a waste of time and effort."

"Then what?"

"Before that, you need to understand something." Jack moved back to crouch in front of Dr Seon. "In life, there are some things that have been done, some that could be done, some that should be done, and things that can never come to pass. You have come into my home, my city, and spread a deadly virus that has killed dozens of people; innocent civilians who have never wronged nor harmed you or your organisation."

"They forced me to do it!" Protested Dr Seon. "It wasn't my fault! If I hadn't done it, someone else would've!"

"And I would be standing before them today if that had been the case." Nodded Jack. "But it was no one else who did it. It was you." He poked Dr Seon in the chest with his finger.

"It's not my fault!" Panic started to appear within the scientist's eyes because he could sense that something truly bad was about to befall him.

"It is, like it or not." Whispered Jack. "And so, you must pay the price. Worry not, I shall not kill you." His voice turned heavy. "But I will take away your cultivation."

"Please… You don't have to do this…" Tears began streaming down Dr Seon's face.

Although he hadn't arduously cultivated, he was still in the Foundation realm. If Jack took that away from him, then he would never be able to live his life freely; he would forever be the slave of the Church even if he survived this ordeal and managed to get back to their ranks.

"I know." Jack's expression turned warm. "But I want to."

Before Dr Seon could protest or plead any more, Jack struck out nine times with his fingers; each of which accurately landed on the yintang, renzhong, juque, zhongwan, xaiwan, yinjiao, qihai, guanyuan, and zhongji acupoints almost simultaneously. These were the nine main acupuncture points on the body and they followed a straight line from the forehead, to the space directly below the dantian.

The moment Jack had finished, Dr Seon felt all of the qi within his meridians retreat into his dantian. He tried to will it to obey his commands, but the qi acted as if it had a mind of its own, rushing into his dantian with the force of a thousand stampeding horses. Then, once all of the qi had entered his dantian, it began revolving inside it like a tornado. With each cycle it would become more and more compact and increasingly destructive. Finally, after a few revolutions, Dr Seon's dantian couldn't take the stress any longer, cracked apart, and the qi rushed out into the air, returning to the world.

The pain of having his dantian destroyed by such a violent method caused Dr Seon to begin spasming. He felt as if every bone in his body had been broken and all of his internal organs had been set on fire. Blood started to pour from each one of his seven orifices on his head.

"You… You said… you would spare me." He glared at Jack.

"And you will live." Nodded Jack. "The pain is to teach you a lesson in karma."

With that, Jack took out a knife and an empty vial from within the storage ring that he'd received from his father during his eleventh birthday party. With a quick flick of his wrist, he cut Dr Seon on the arm and carefully collected a blood sample.

Once he was content with the amount he'd collected, Jack closed the vial and sent it back into his storage ring alongside the knife. He rose to his feet, patted his hands a few times, and headed to the door to leave.

Dr Seon, despite feeling completely bereft of any physical and mental strength, glared at Jack full of hate and rancour. He'd originally intended to tell Jack about the formations and how to deactivate them, but now he just wanted to watch the look of miserable wretchedness on Jack's face when he died a painful and ignoble death due to them.

Much to Dr Seon's regret, he would never get to see such a sight.

When Jack reached the door, he paused for a moment and then waved his hand a few times and made a series of quick inscriptions which he sent into several spots on the relevant array formations. In less than twenty seconds he was able to deactivate each and every one of them and walk out of the room unimpeded.

Dr Seon took in a breath of cold air. Even he himself would need at least a whole minute to deactivate those formations; and he was the one who put them in place originally!

"Damn you!" He said through gritted teeth. "Damn you to the Abyss!"

"Believe me," Spoke the voice of Jack, now already out of sight. "they don't want me back there."

--

Jack arrived at the Hare manor only to find that Ichabod had left it alongside Leah and a large number of guards. Apparently, they were busy combing the streets of Groamburk in search of whomever tried to take advantage of the tragedy the city was living in order to try to assassinate Adras. Their main suspects were, of course, the Calles and Retrona families.

Jack sighed because he knew their efforts would be in vain and proceeded to look for his teachers.

He found Erik and Jadelere sitting within Jadelere's study. The former was staring at a chess set – the remnants of an unfinished match with Jack – and the latter was staring into a glass of wine, as was his usual pastime.

Both of his teachers reacted to his arrival by sulking. They were unhappy and disappointed that he'd left them behind at the guard; but after a few exchanges they recovered their usual demeanours. Both of them were intelligent individuals, and they knew that acting overtly as a team would raise questions. Therefore, they quickly went back to their usual selves after berating Jack a bit on the importance of acting responsibly and inquired as to what he had discovered.

Jack didn't hesitate to share his findings with them. In fact, there was something in Dr Seon's explanation that had left Jack puzzled and he knew that only Erik and Jadelere would be able to supply the answers to his doubts.

"Are you certain that's what he said?" Asked Erik full of worry a few moments after Jack finished with his summary of the events at the Brink of Dawn. "Are you positive he said he worked archaeological remains research division of the Church?"

"I take it you're familiar with them."

"Aye." Sighed Erik as he exchanged a furtive glance with Jadelere that didn't pass unnoticed. "We both are."

"Aye." Acknowledged Jadelere. He then sighed and drank the entirety of his glass in one swig. "And if they're involved, then this is bigger than any of us could have possibly imagined."

"Explain yourselves." Jack crossed his arms over his chest and commanded them.

The two teachers eyed each other trying to see who would speak up. After a moment, it was Erik who finally caved in. "I take it Jadelere told you the story of how we developed a certain degree of enmity between us."

"Aye." Nodded Jack. "You fornicated with his wife; but I don't see what that has to do with the matter."

Erik sniffed loudly and gave Jadelere a glare which was anything but kind. Jadelere lowered his head in shame. "I assure you, young master Hare," He said without letting his eyes leave Jadelere. "that this imp of a man has never been married; nor have I, for that matter."

Jack sat up in astonishment. He had never asked for Erik's version of events because he felt it wasn't his place to pry into the other's matters. However, this revelation was astonishing; and if Erik brought it up now, then it meant it was extremely relevant to their current predicament. "What truly happened, then?" He asked.

Erik finally stopped glaring at Jadelere and turned to face Jack. "As you know, we both coincided as students at the prestigious Imperial Academic University in Tambor. We were both students who got there thanks to being awarded scholarships and we got along brilliantly. We also performed admirably in theoretical and practical tests alike."

"Yes, yes, you've mentioned this before."

"Well, young master Hare," Said Erik, ignoring the other's impatience. "we were both top of our promotion; literally neck to neck with our grades. And one day we were called to the headmaster's office where we were introduced to a man claiming to belong to the same division that this Dr Seon purportedly belonged to, saying that he wanted to recruit one of us into his organisation.

"He explained that the archaeological remains research division focuses on investigating preternatural events stemming from the tombs of former great martial artists. In other words, they discover, record, and spread the contents and inheritances of the great tombs of deceased masters of martial arts." Continued Erik. "The value of such activities is obviously great. The profits derived from this division cannot easily be imagined without being familiar with their inner workings; but one thing's for sure, it's gargantuan."

"How did you know that he was speaking the truth?"

"There were always rumours, Jack." Jadelere chided in. "Whispers, gossip, and other whatnots, within the scholarly community of the existence of that division."

"That's hardly enough evidence."

"Aye, we were sceptical, too." Nodded Jadelere. "At first. But then we began to see the evidence of it: excavations, piles of research tomes, more money than you can even imagine, so on and so forth."

"You began to see it?"

"What Jadelere is trying to imply, young master Hare, is that we were seduced by the recruiter, a man calling himself Dr Murf, into taking part of the selection process." Explained Erik. "And we successfully got to the latter stages of the entire process, meaning we even got to visit a few of their sites spread across the Empire. And let me assure you, young master Hare, that what we saw was truly impressive."

"I see." Jack nodded as he placed his hand beneath his chin. "And why didn't you join?"

"That's my fault." Shyly replied Jadelere. "We both got to the final test, and only one of us was going to be given the chance to go into their ranks. And… well… I drugged Erik to sabotage him and i accidentally drugged myself by accident. We both made complete fools of ourselves… They rejected us and we both got expelled from University."

Jack couldn't help but laugh out loud.