Venix

The young girl's face went red with anger. Had the deacon not been up on the stage at this moment, she would have taught this bastard a lesson.

Minos grinned slightly as he heard this, stifling back his laugh when he saw the young girls burning eyes glaring at him.

Excusing himself quickly, he kept moving through the crowd. Before finding that someone had set up a gambling stall. Curious, he came closer.

"Everyone come gather round quickly, we have the best gambling odds right here this day only! If you're lucky, you can easily make a year's worth of contributions in a single day, who could say no to that? Will it be Eflar, the crowd favorite, or maybe Pinela, perhaps a dark horse will beat them all!"

Minos looked at the odds scribbled at the wooden sign on top of the stall. Eflar was 1 to 1.01, Pinela was 1 to 1.2, and there were a couple others. One person even had 1 to 10 odds against him.

Minos was a bit curious about the person at the bottom of the chart, hence he asked the man in charge of the stall.

"Senior brother, who is this person, and why are there odds so low?" Minos said as he pointed to the name at the bottom of the wooden sign.

"Oh, little brother's asking the right person. That man is Venix, he used to be a strong competitor, unfortunately he was injured while outside of the sect, so he never managed to break through to the Third Life Lock." The man said while shaking his head in pity, before continuing.

"Venix was originally one of the most talented handyman disciples, he could have broken through the Third Life Lock by 16, but alas… The heavens hate talent!"

"If he was so talented, shouldn't he have been recruited to the outer sect right away? What is he doing here?" Minos asked curiously.

The man seemed to be a little shocked when Minos asked that. He signaled Minos to come closer, making Minos feel a bit strange.

"Kid, don't tell this to anyone else, but from what I've heard, that boy messed with someone he shouldn't have, hence his outer sect qualifications were taken from him. Even worse, some say the injury he got outside of the sect was done by the same person."

After saying that, the man looked around for a bit before confirming no one had heard what he said, before breathing out.

Minos saw the strange way he was acting. His entire sect life was spent in handyman disciple area, and the rare few times he saw inner sect disciples, they completely ignored him, hence he had no concept of their power.

But based on what Minos knew, it was unlikely an inner disciple could pull strings like that, which meant whoever Venix messed with had some real power in the sect.

"Senior brother, which one is Venix?" Minos asked as he looked around the dense crowd, however just a quick scan of his eyes and he seemed to get the answer to his own question.

In the back of the crowd, standing by themselves was a young man in a black robe. His face was shaded by the large cloak that hung over his head. Everyone seemed to be slightly afraid of him, keeping distance.

"Based on the look in your eyes, it seems you've already figured it out. Little brother, take my advice and don't get close to him. It's hard enough for us handyman disciples to survive as is, much less with someone in the sect trying to make our lives miserable."

Minos kept staring at the man in the black robe, seemingly ignoring the stall owner's words. For some reason, Minos's instincts told him this person was very dangerous.

Years of being a beggar had honed Minos's instincts, teaching him exactly who and who not to mess with. This wasn't a feeling he got with either Eflar or Pinela, they lacked the sharp edge this young man had.

"Senior brother, do you by any chance give out loans?" Minos asked. His contribution points had been completely drained on talisman equipment.

"I do, but the interest is 5% weekly. Don't think you can escape either, this stall of mine isn't my work alone."

Minos naturally understood what he meant by that, and he naturally trusted his instincts, but he trusted his intelligence more, hence he wasn't so quick to make any bets.