Designing a vehicle

A few days after Shui woke up in the Heaven clan, Kalos was raging in a room with two other elders. These two elders were the ones he trusted the most besides the elder who faced Nalos and was still recovering from injuries. They were 'equals' who he could have proper discussions with. But at the moment, there was no discussion that could be had.

"After all the money I spent and the work I did, they couldn't kill either of them! Not only that, the assassin I had to BLEED myself to hire, died in the ancestral lands without completing his mission and those bastards have the gall to accuse me of stealing his items!"

As his trusted companions, they were more used to seeing Kalos expressing his anger, but even they rarely saw him in such a bad state.

"But Patriarch, at least the boy's crippled."

One of the elders tried to soothe him with the tiny bit of good news they had, but he was then glared at like he had killed Kalos' father. Kalos' glare eventually weakened in intensity, but his anger barely faded.

"Yes, I guess that's good. But isn't the girl still alive?

"..."

"Could we recover any of the items from the assassins?"

"..."

"And didn't the Glaize clan only find broken pieces of the progenitor's coffin?"

"..."

"I wonder who has everything that's gone missing?"

Unlike those in the Glaize clan who couldn't find anything valuable and just gave up to focus on internal turmoil, Kalos was sure that the progenitor had to have treasures or techniques hidden in his coffin. If it wasn't because he had no clue as to who the other Master that faced the progenitor's spirit was, he would have tried to kidnap Shui even if it meant hastening his plan.

Kalos stomped the ground and caused cracks to appear on it while stopping this line of thought.

"What's their side saying?"

"As long as the conditions are met, they say they can join us in time for the next inter-clan competition."

"...Good."

Kalos was in no way satisfied with the results of his scheme, but he had to postpone on fixing the mistakes that were made.

Kalos' group wasn't the only one upset over the results of this plan. In a secret room only known to Reapers of the Tower of Killers, two of the most influential people in the Tower had a meeting. Though their hearts were burning with rage on the inside, their faces were as blank as the masks they wore which each had a single black knife symbol at the forehead.

"Is it still impossible to find?"

"We can confirm that the imprint hasn't been erased, but we can't pinpoint the location."

"Shall I give the order to start killing until we find the two items?"

"No, this case is connected to powerful patrons in the capital. We can't be reckless."

"Then what? Are we just going to accept this?"

The aura of a peak Master, was directed at the other man but he wasn't affected by it.

"There's no need to worry. Even if we don't make a move ourselves, the killing will happen in a few years time. Those items have little use if they're not exposed. Once they are, we can quickly take them back."

These assassins were long used to the underworld life, so even a serious issue such as this wasn't enough for them release all restraints.

While these forces among others were complaining, Shui was busy designing a certain object. Due to his injuries, he had to focus on production-type tasks and reading. However, that didn't mean he wasn't improving himself. He had found out that the state he was in when he drew the two inscription symbols on his body was called Still Heart, and even if he couldn't enter it once more, by absorbing the energy left in the pseudo-true core his soul was getting stronger.

After some testing, he found out that he could exert enough force to crush a weak beast spirit's head with just his soul and martial intent. It was just a guess based off of the damage left on rocks and trees, but he was confident that it was around that level.

With this level of strength, he was less worried about going outside. He couldn't forget that he was pretending to be crippled and even if he could handle the pain, it still hurt to stand up. Therefore, Shui decided to use his growing knowledge of arrays and his established experience in inscriptions and forging to come up with a custom wheelchair. At first, the wheelchair was just for him to get around during the day so he didn't have to keep sneaking out of the house at night, but as he designed the blueprint for it, the idea to add inscriptions and arrays to it came to mind. It started with just a protection array, then one for concealment, then a switch to activate a 'Light' inscription, then a compartment to store talismans and then he couldn't stop thinking about the weapons and effects he could add to it.

One day, as Shui walked up and down his room while thinking of what to add to his custom wheelchair, Bartos walked in the room with a plate of sandwiches.

"Shui, are you hung...?"

"Uh, lunch? Yeah thanks."

Shui looked at Uncle Bartos and casually walked to him to take the plate and then noticed that he was staring at him with incredulity in his eyes.

"What is it?"

"Your, your legs."

'Ohhh!!!'

When Bartos pointed at his legs, Shui realised that he had been walking when he shouldn't have been able to due to his wounds.

'Oh well, I was planning on telling them this much.'

"Oh yeah, with a bit of practise I became able to walk again. It still hurts a bit but not too badly. I should make a full recovery after I find the herbs I need."

"So so, you can get better?"

"I said so didn't I?"

Shui looked at Bartos with smirk on his face, and Bartos gave a relieved smile in response.

'That's right. This kid always has surprises ready.'

"That's great. We should tell the rest this."

"About that Uncle Bartos. I don't mind if you tell Aunt Lilia and Kate, but I don't want anyone else to know that I can walk."

It didn't even take a minute for Bartos to understand why, and the moment he did there was a flash of intense hate that went through his eyes.

"I understand."

"Thanks. Oh, and can you make this for me?"

Shui reached into his satchel and took out the blueprint he made of his wheelchair. When Bartos took it in his hands, his demeanour instantly changed into that of a serious blacksmith.

"A wheelchair, huh? Is it to perfect the illusion that you're crippled?"

"Yeah. Since no one's tried to kill me in the past few days, I should be fine as long as I don't go anywhere deserted. I'm also planning on adding some special effects to it."

Bartos didn't ask what those special effects were, and Shui didn't announce them. At this moment they weren't speaking as a child and an adult, but as a forge master and an inscriptionist.

"Okay. I should be able to get it done before your birthday."

"Thanks."

While Shui was cheerfully designing his wheelchair, Nathan was in dire straits. Despite the fact that he just woke up, he was being whipped by his mother. She was barely in the early Soul Realm, but that was enough to leave scars on his back.

"You useless child! I even gave you those trash to improve your cultivation, and you still lose to the bastard son of that slut! You better be grateful that those assassins at least crippled him."

The two of them were in a hidden underground room. Nate was well aware that his wife was strict on Nathan, but even he wasn't aware of how harsh she was. Since he was usually very busy, the chance for the whole family to meet was rare and everytime they did meet, Iris made sure that Nathan didn't give any hint of her abuse.

The boy had long become accustomed to this treatment so he could take the whipping without crying or screaming in pain. He remembered how much harder the beating would be if he did such things. He had argued against using the corpses of enslaved cultivators that his mother had secretly bought to cultivate, but unsurprisingly, the whipping that forced him into bed for two days got rid of that rebellious thought.

"Stay here and reflect. I'll come back when it's time to cultivate."

When Iris finally stopped beating him and left the cell-like room, Nathan climbed on the sole furniture inside the room, a hard bed. The red lines on his back felt like they were burning him, but his lips remained tightly shut. This was the real Nathan, the boy who always tried to act high and mighty could only be subservient at home.

Aside from enduring the pain, there was only one other thing Nathan thought of.

'So he's crippled, huh?'

He couldn't say he liked Shui, but there was a bit of admiration that he would never admit. Before the inter-clan competition, he was but an irritating stone on the sidewalk, but now Shui was someone who he wanted to surpass. He felt that if he could surpass him, then he would be closer to the ideal self that he imagined. However, that would no longer be possible. Nathan knew that his mother had a connection to the assassination that took place in the ancestral lands, so he couldn't help but feel guilty as well. He wanted a rematch after that lost battle against Shui, and yet there was no longer a chance for that.

Little did Nathan know, there was a detached entity within him that was laughing at his misfortune.

'It looks like there's still a bit of luck on my side.'