The Plan

After Shui phased through the walls of the mansion and left, Iris could feel the air get lighter. Just in case, she sent out another burst of nature energy, but this time there was no opposition. As she breathed a sigh of relief, she noticed that her back was wet with cold sweat.

'Tch, to think I was so scared by that brat.'

She bit her lip until it bled due to the frustration she felt. Despite how hard she worked, and how much she sacrificed, she was still no match for a child who was several years her junior. As the dark red liquid dripped from her lip, her lust for power grew tremendously, but she still remembered his second warning.

'Assassins, hmm? Very well, I'll make sure to appreciate this opportunity.'

Once he left the mansion that Iris was in, Shui sent a telepathic message to Alia. Although there wasn't a strong bond between them like the one he had with Lily or Cin, they had grown familiar enough for the telepathy to stretch across a sizeable distance.

"I've finished up my business."

"So quickly? You can stay longer, you know."

"I've already left. I'll be heading back to the inn now, will you meet me there or are you gonna continue whatever you're doing?"

As a spirit with expertise in both arrays and runes, there was a chance that she could still infiltrate the inn without his help, but it would be better if she didn't have to.

"Hmm, I guess I'll meet up with you."

At the time, Alia had men crying on the floor because of her, but she felt reasonably satisfied so she decided to go back to the inn and secure her spot to sleep.

When Shui reached in front of the Myriad Flower Pavilion, the sun was about to set so there weren't as many people in the vicinity. After Alia discreetly flew to his shoulder, the two of them went into the inn and then to their room. Shui made sure to hide his presence in case someone connected to Alicia was looking for him, which was a good idea since there were indeed such people.

Although Alicia didn't seem to think anything of it, how could her brother simply accept that she was alone with another man in the same room? He had to investigate, so he gave an order to keep an eye out for him. However, Shui passed through their webs without touching a single one.

Once he entered his suite in the inn, Shui looked back on the day so far. He was reunited with both Emily and Iris, and although he was only glad to meet one of them, this day would certainly be one to remember. As he sorted through his memories, Shui clenched his fists as passionate emotions filled his chest. He felt both the urge to protect his loved ones as well a desire for vengeance. Normally he would either suppress these emotions, or allow them to simmer down, but this time he decided to make them useful.

He went to the forging room that was opposite to the room he drew his array in. It was a dimly lit room, but one that was well protected and reinforced with arrays and inscriptions. Additionally, there was a sound isolation array, which was a higher level of the sound dampening array that Shui was used to. As he scanned through the forge, checking the tools and testing the hammer, he eventually stopped on the main attraction.

The furnace seemed to be working, but based on the array written to substitute for real flames, the temperature wouldn't be high enough for the materials he was thinking of using.

"Hoh? Are you planning on forging an artifact?" asked Alia who flew into the room.

"That's right," Shui answered without moving his sight from the furnace.

"Interesting. How about you leave you the fire control to me then?"

Shui looked up in surprise in response to Alia's offer. She was a fire spirit so he had no doubts regarding her abilities, rather, he should have been begging for her assistance.

"Of course, I would be grateful, but are you sure?"

"Yeah. It's not the first time I've formed a pair with a forge master. Besides, this is the first time I've seen you forge seriously so I want to watch it from a front-row seat."

"I'll be counting on you then."

Shui nodded in agreement and then thought about the rest of the details. Although he wanted a weapon that could bear his full power, that would require archaic-rank at minimum so he thought it was better to start with something a rank below that.

Once he decided to make a tesora-rank artifact, he had to think about the materials and its purpose. For a moment, the orb he got in the Spirit Nest came to mind, but that was still an object to research rather than work with.

As he kept thinking about it, Shui realized that the artifact would be more useful in the hands of someone else and determined that the recipient of this gift would be Emily. She focused on the path of arrays rather than energy cultivation, but that didn't mean the artifact couldn't be useful to her. Once he decided to make an artifact for Emily, he quickly chose what type of weapon it would be and selected materials that would be suitable. So that she could also use it to improve her array techniques, Shui planned to implement the Five Element Theory to make the artifact.

After all of that was settled, Shui sat cross-legged and ran a simulation of the forging process in his mind. This wouldn't be necessary if he was just practicing, but if he wanted to maximise his forging ability then he needed to have a clear image of the process beforehand.

'I'm ready.'

Tools, check. Materials, check. Simulation, done. With everything in order, the time to begin was nigh. However, at that very moment, Shui sensed a change in the map he got from the fox assassin. With great reluctance, he pulled it out and saw that there was another map on the back of the parchment. He instantly recognised that it was a map of the city and then memorised the location pointed out on the map before it faded.

"..."

"..."

He and Alia were aware of the appointment Shui had with the fox assassin, but they both couldn't help letting out a sigh.

"I guess I have to go."

Although it was quite the rude interruption, he also felt at fault for not taking the time into consideration. Occupants of the inn could still leave at a late time like this, but he didn't want to go through the trouble of having to hide and go down to the ground floor, so he chose to phase through the window with Soul Synchronisation and leave directly from his floor.

A few minutes later, Shui landed on the same building as the assassin with a fox mask. Both of their presences were concealed, but they could still detect each other.

"I'm here. What's the plan?"

He was feeling a little impatient so he hoped that she could wrap this up quickly.

"I'm glad you could make it. The plan I have in mind is..."