More Trouble

Around a year had passed since Shui's big sisters left Cyrus. During this time, Shui encountered no major challenge that he needed to overcome, so he wondered when he would get the oppurtunity to get out of this trial. If his heart was indomitable he might be able to easily destroy this trial world, but that wasn't the case so he needed an oppurtunity to push himself to the limit and prove in the trail that his heart was strong enough.

With the World Assimilation Art, Shui's cultivation speed was about the same as he had in real life. He was now at the sixth level in the Mortal Realm and close to three-star saint body, but still no progress in his soul cultivation. His soul was strong enough to compare with when he was at the peak of nebula one-star, but without inspiration he had no chance of reaching that astral state. He was even running out of ways to temper his soul since it was now so strong that he could draw high-level inscriptions mentally. All he had left was attempting and failing at inscription interaction and the occasional arrays he would make with the materials he bought with the money of his night-time victims. Most of them were just poor chaps so he never got close to the amount of money he usually made off of one artifact, therefore he didn't have enough funds to build a collection of talismans.

He passed the required amount of human and lunar essence to make it to the next stage of the World Assimilation Art, but was still lacking in solar essence.

"Once I make it to the Connection Stage I'll need to start searching for other types of essence. I guess I'll become a worker again and fight evolved beasts."

Shui thought about his future while searching for prey under the moonlight. Since absorbing essence from Mortal Realm fledglings only gave a tiny boost to his cultivation, he mainly only hunted for his revenge.

Not long after Shui began his search, he spotted the perfect prey. It wasn't hard to find out so Shui had already memorised all of the low level employees under the Wright family. He only went after the ones who were better off dead, but there was still plenty for him to go around. Usually after he confirmed his target, he would creep up on them and strike without giving them time to react, but this time, he kept watch from afar.

'So they've finally made their move.'

Since he had slaughtered a lot of their people, Shui expected that the Wright family would start sending personnel to take care of him, and they were finally here. There were about five peak Mortal Realm cultivators following his target, as well as a Soul Realm warrior looking over the trap. All of them were well hidden, but not enough to escape from his heightened senses, strong soul and instinctual detection ability that he gained from absorbing a lot of human essence.

Furthermore, even the one in the Soul Realm couldn't detect him since he was focusing on the inscription symbol of 'Conceal'. The main difference between having a strong soul and having soul cultivation was only in the amount of applications. For abilities that only required him to have a strong soul, he didn't necessarily need soul cultivation to support them.

'Now then, I can probably kill that guy from here with 'Lightning', but what would make them the most upset?'

Shui tapped his bottom lip for a few seconds before he thought up a better idea. On that night, the Wright family was disappointed by the fact that the Hand of Death didn't fall for their trap, but this was the first time they laid this trap so they believed they could just try again next time. At the very least, maybe the Hand of Death would get scared and stop targetting their people.

However, when they checked for the personnel that were sent for the trap, other than the one in the Soul Realm, and the bait, they were all dead. Someway somehow, news of this was spread in the town the next day and the Wright family was even more determined to catch the Hand of Death.

While this news was going around, Shui was pleasantly humming in the library of Nikolai's mansion. Since he got a bit of extra funds the night before, he bought a storybook to read. Since the Primordial Library didn't have much of these types of books, they were the only kind of books he could expect not to have read before.

"Senior brother." said a cute girl with a pink ribbon on her blonde head and frills at the end of her blouse and skirt.

"Yes, junior sister."

Their relationship was rocky at first, but as Shui continued to teach Emily about arrays every once in a while, she started to admire him and call him 'senior brother' as a sign of respect and affection. Since he never had a little sister, Shui actually welcomed this form of address. Especially now that she stopped seeing him as an enemy, she was truly a sweet little sister in front of him.

"Master's calling for you."

"Hmm, okay I'll be right there."

Shui put down his book and went to Nikolai's office. Although their relationship wasn't the best, Shui and Nikolai were able to speak to each other without too much of an awkward atmosphere. After knocking the door, he was permitted in.

"Master, did you need me for something?"

"Yes, I need you to deliver this to the martial academy. Ask for Head Martial Instructor Riley."

Nikolai handed a small space expansion bag to Shui before sending him away. This was the first time he was sent to deliver something to the academy, but Shui was used to Nikolai sending him to go on errands. Although he didn't teach him, Nikolai tried to treat Shui like a normal disciple so he would pay him in spirit gems after tasks like this. Since both parties agreed to this way of doing things there were no problems.

After receiving the package, Shui went straight to the martial academy. It had been a long time since he was last here, but he didn't feel any nostalgia as he went past the gates. It was all the same as he remembered, except for how he was treated. The last time he was here, he was either irrelevant or an object of contempt, but now that he came back in his light blue silk coat, he was looked at with either reverance or envy.

However, none of these gazes had ever bothered him. It didn't take long for Shui to reach the area populated by the core students. Even here, he was looked at with the same two types of gazes, but the ones of envy were much more common. Shui planned to quickly hand the package to who he needed to and leave, but he accidentally got involved in something troublesome.

Shui heard a loud clamour among the students so he took a look and found a certain boy being beaten by a gang of students. Even though the boy being beaten was Tin, who had proved himself to be talented enough to become a core student, Shui didn't intend to interfere. After all, he wasn't his guardian or anything, Tin had to be able to take care of himself. However, just as he was about to go back to his task, one of the boys spotted him.

"Hey, it's you! Did you come here to save your friend?"

The boy whose arm Shui bit a year ago, pointed at him with fury in his eyes. Even so, Shui turned his back to him. Shui didn't know how he became a student in this part of the academy and he didn't care much either.

"Wait! Where do you think you're going?!"

Without noticing that he was one level below Shui, or the status that was proven by his silk coat, the boy ran to Shui and tried to grab him. Although it would be simple to dodge this attempt and get away, the very thought of backing down like that didn't agree with him. Shui didn't even turn around but with a shift of his upper body he evaded the hand thrown at him, and then landed a kick on the boy.

"Ahhh!"

It would be good if things ended there, but Shui knew that he wasn't so lucky. Almost immediately after he kiicked the boy, he was surrounded. The core students that surrounded him were all in the late Mortal Realm but Shui only sighed and held his head.

'This is definitely going to mean trouble.'