Meeting of four #4

Among the group of them, the Sound Clan leader was the most talented and most likely to achieve that and among the people that died during the attack on the bases, the last captive had the most qi and vitality within his body so he was at the stage where he was at the peak of the Unrestrained Realm but was unable to find a way to break through before being captured.

Ki believed that those with the potential to enter the Mystic Realm within the next couple of years would probably be the Sound Clan leader and although she had not met him, the leader of the Spirit Flame Mercenaries.

If his talent is as high as rumoured and his martial arts are of a very high grade then his chances of joining the Sound Clan leader as a Mystic Realm martial artist and reuniting with her would happen within a couple of years so long as things are handled carefully.

Not only would Ki gain an ally with potential to become someone with strength within the top ten or twenty martial artists in the Central Lands but she would gain a pair of them if the information and rumours from her previous life were correct.

If they truly did have a coincidental encounter one night when the Sound Clan leader had been plotted against then it was very important for her to quickly find out so she could stop some events from happening.

After the Spirit Flame Mercenaries made trouble for the Sound Clan and the connected family, they disbanded or disappeared never to be heard of again.

If she did not find out the truth and gain evidence to support it, she may be too late to confirm it so she ordered it to be carried out along with everything else that was being discussed.

Ki got up from her seat and walked towards the door. "This is finished for now, I will go back to training in seclusion until the Sound Clans matters are settled. If anything important or worrying happens, you may interrupt me to get my opinion."

Isaac sighed after she left. "Once again the young miss has come back with big gains and is leaving everything else to us to manage."

Rashida turned to him and snorted. "Do not act like you don't enjoy it. You weren't there so you do not know how hard the young miss has worked and how dangerous it was for all of us that followed her this time. If it weren't for her strength and her strategies, we may have died many times over. Honestly… I never want to be on her bad side after seeing her during this trip."

Marilyn opened her eyes and stared at Rashida curiously. "Has she really grown that much? Come on tell me the details."

Rashida sighed. "First of all, I cannot tell you because we have to keep our mouths closed over what exactly happened. Second… Trusting an information group with such crucial information about what we were doing would be silly, the young miss would probably be angry if I did. So sorry but even if you are loyal to her for life, it is best not to tell you, who is able to leak that information out so casually. Not that I am suspecting you to ever betray her though.. Third… Her swordsmanship and hidden or throwing weapon skills have reached a whole new level in each difficult battle. I cannot imagine how well she had grown after she finishes her secluded training."

Marilyn sighed. "It was not all that long ago that she was just a small thing and challenged me to get me to become her loyal follower. Even then she was someone difficult to read or to clash swords with.. now that she has grown, I can hardly recognise her from that time as she keeps taking large steps forward ahead of us all. Still.. I will try to find the time to test her abilities and of course do some of my own training so that I will not be too far left behind. I wish she brought me on this task, you got to have all of the fun."

Isaac sat back calmly and crossed his arms while looking as if he was deep in thought. "If my predictions are correct, there will always be many chances for each of you to grow and catch up enough to being able to help her in the future but do not put too high hopes on being able to ever defeat her. She is not the type of person to allow herself to show weakness and slack off in her training to allow others to catch up to her. If her luck is good, she may even find a way to further increase that gap so if you have any wishes to fight side by side or support her from the side or back… do not let an opportunity slip by so easily. Use every resource and chance you can get but remember to not overextend your hand and cause trouble for your master."

He got up and left the room leaving the two women inside.

Rashida snorted. "The smart guy may be right but what he said is pretty obvious at this time. For us blood and evil flame qi art users, we need to find our training resources carefully and practice extra hard to match our abilities to our current strength. Anyways, I gained a lot this time so I will need to also go into seclusion to train further."

She had gained a large quantity and quality of blood so had more than enough training resources to last her a very long time and increase her qi and temper her body so she could not wait to begin training.

As she was leaving Marilyn sighed and started walking out. "Whatever.. my qi arts not only can use blood as nourishment but also many other things so I am not in that much of rush to do so. Still… could have brought back some bodies or something useful for me for me to burn."

She looked at her hand which had an evil looking flame qi coming out and wrapping itself around her hand. "Sigh..it is always so hungry.. what a troublesome qi art."

The nature of her flame was to devour or burn everything and only leave the small pieces of ash that remain or were discarded by the evil flame so she wished that she had come along to the bases to help the attack.

However Ki needed her in her position to keep things stable and handle any troubles that may come unexpectedly, using her rare flame qi arts within the bases would also create further evidence to leave behind resulting in flame qi martial artists being suspected by the Blood Sect too.

She also left many of the bodies behind rather than risking bringing them with her to make more puppets or be used for to feed Marilyn's flame qi because the motives of the attack would change from a rescue or a disruption of the sects heirs tasks but instead have additional suspected motives involved that included required the use of dead bodies for sacrificial arts or something else.

Although this could be used to trigger a conflict between the Blood Sect and the Devil Sect, Ki did not wish to overplay the hand that she had been dealt.

If she continues to make use of this incident to cause further conflict someone would become suspicious about the overall evidence and all her efforts would go to waste.

Although she was ambitious and wished to rid the Central Lands of those who continued to cause many problems everywhere they go to better protect her family and secure a long future for them, she could not make such a large move when she was not ready to deal with the repercussions of that failure or the damage caused from two large influences going to war.

Many innocent people would be caught up in a battle between them and much destruction and death would follow.