Sharp Claw Agency

"Me? You barely even know me."

"You're right, but… Forget it, I just hope you take my advice to heart in the case you do manage to win." The old man sighed.

"I'll try my best." Minos replied, though he completely agreed with the old man's analysis.

There's a reason why even the strongest clans eventually died out, whereas others with no background at all managed to reach the peak.

Privilege often breeds arrogance and stagnation, causing even the strongest powers to slowly sizzle out into obscurity.

"Alright, we've arrived." The old man said, causing Minos to look forward, seeing another room, though this one much smaller.

"Where are we now?" Minos asked.

"While it's common knowledge that one has to be a Nine-Tailed to participate in the heritance battle, there's another lesser known criteria."

"This room is the Nine-Tailed Emperor's former study, the place where some of his greatest ideas were born, and some may even argue, the heart of the kingdom."

"Go have a seat at his desk, there's a quill and notebook there, just flip it open and write whatever comes to mind." The old man explained.

Nodding, Minos walked up to the desk and had a seat, his eyes looking down curiously at the small notebook.

Flipping it open, he saw dozens of passages, all from all the princes and princesses that had competed for the throne after all these years.

Some wrote small poems, others spoke of their ideals and ambitions, some just wrote casually, as if it was a regular diary.

Everyone clearly took the test differently, though the most common approach seemed to be to write about what one wanted to improve in the kingdom.

Minos had no idea how this 'test' was graded, hence it was impossible to say whether one's input would be accepted or not.

Instead, just like the old man said, it was best to just write whatever came to mind and hope it met the requirements.

Picking up the quill, Minos didn't get to writing right away, instead he looked through all the old passages, which amounted to hundreds.

Interestingly enough however, as Minos flipped through the book, he never seemed to come any closer to the final page, as if despite the notebook's small size, it actually contained infinite space.

Though that wasn't too surprising, after all it was clear by the nature of this test that this notebook was far from normal.

Upon reaching the last passage written by a prince a little over a hundred years ago, Minos finally flipped over to a fresh page, having read through everything.

Thinking for a moment about all the things he read, Minos lifted his quill, the ink immediately absorbing onto the page as the sharp tip came in contact with it.

After only a few seconds, Minos lifted the quill back from the paper, gently placing it aside.

As if sensing Minos's movements, the notebook suddenly began levitating upwards, its actions surprising though not completely unexpected.

Halting abruptly, a light suddenly began shining from it, forming a projection in the air above.

A bit blurry at the beginning, the projection quickly focused, forming the image of a Catman who looked identical to Minos, only with a crown and an imperial robe.

The Catman in question was sitting up on a throne, all around him beast people of all types, not limited to just cat people.

These beast people were all kneeling towards the Catman, a large smile on his face as he looked down at his subjects.

Suddenly, the Catman looked up, his piercing eyes staring at both Minos and the old man, causing the projection to shatter before anything else could be shown.

"Interesting… Is this your ambition?" The old man asked, looking towards Minos's back.

"I suppose so." Minos smiled, turning back towards him.

"Most Nine-Tailed are barely interested in ruling the cat people, too think you'd be so arrogant to want to take over the entire Thousand Forest Continent…"

"Maybe it's time for the beast people to unite." Minos replied, though what he actually wrote didn't actually have much to do with the vision in question.

He wasn't exactly sure why the projection showed what it did, and he wasn't sure he'd ever know, but he might as well play along.

This identity had always been 'fake' in the first place, so why not add the ambition of uniting the Thousand Forest Continent onto it as well?

"Haha, there are few things I dare say are impossible, but that may very well be one of them!" The old man said with a loud laugh, though he didn't look down on Minos's ambitions.

In his opinion, the bigger the ambitions the better, after all, what he feared most was for his beloved kingdom to stagnate and fall apart due to a lack of momentum.

"Anyways, you've passed both tests with flying colors, however the inheritance battle won't begin for another three months, so I'd advise you to use this time to understand your adversaries."

"Beyond that, make sure to return here on the hour, any lateness is an automatic forfeit." The old man warned.

"I'll make sure to be early."

"Good, then let's leave."

Heading back to the exit, before Minos even knew it, the old man had already vanished, leaving him by himself by the open door.

Looking around for a bit, Minos shook his head before walking outside, the familiar sunlight a nice change from the dark interior of the Forbidden Palace.

Tylia and her two guards had been waiting for him the entire time, so after joining them, the questions naturally came.

"So, what happened? Did you pass?" Tylia asked.

"Do you even have to ask?" Minos smiled.

"Hehehe, you're right… Anyways, what should we do now?"

"I'm still not sure who my opponents are, so let's figure that out first." Minos said.

"Talking about your opponents, I've heard that Sharp Claw Agency is selling information, maybe we should go there."

"Sharp Claw Agency? Let's give it a try then."

…

"Is this the place?" Minos asked, looking at a large store with a bunch of newspaper stands in front of it, feeling like Tylia had heard wrong.

"Huh… Not quite what I imagined, but we're already here, let's check it out!" Tylia said, trying to cover for herself.

Walking inside, Minos ignored all the gossip magazines and nonsense articles, finally stopping in front of the old man who worked the front desk.

"I heard you guys sell information about those competing in the upcoming inheritance battle, is that true?" Minos asked.

"Naturally! We've got everything you need, from the Third Princess's secret affair, to the Fifth Prince's dirty gambling addiction, even news about the Twelfth Prince's mystery child."

"... Do you have anything serious?"

"Serious? What could be more serious than this stuff!" The old man said passionately.

"Don't play stupid old man, you know what I mean." Minos suddenly spoke fiercely, the nine-tails hidden behind his back coming into sight via his control.

"Oh! Excuse me, excuse me! I had no idea you were that kind of customer. Please, come right this way." The old man replied, his pupils shrinking as he noticed the tails.

Signaling Tylia and the others, the group walked behind the old man, heading down a few sets of dark stairs and locked doors before finally arriving in a small underground storage room.

"How much do you want to know? We sell three packages, small, medium, and large."

"How much for each?"

"Small is a thousand, medium ten, and large, a hundred thousand."

"A hundred thousand Nux, are you insane!" Tylia shouted, but Minos immediately reached out to silence her.

"That's quite exorbitant, don't you think?"

"Of course not! This is information that has been gathered over decades, not to mention it could spell the difference between victory and defeat. The price is by no means unreasonable." The old man argued.

"Is that so? But biased news isn't really worth much to me."

"B-Biased? What are you talking about! Our Sharp Claw Agency has no affiliations, we're a completely neutral organization!" The old man shouted, seemingly insulted by Minos's implication.

"The Sixth Prince, I'm sure that's a familiar name to you, isn't it?" Minos said with a gentle smile, though his eyes were cold.

"... I've no idea what you're talking about."

"Good, then you won't mind if I spread the news out, Domo Ko."

"How do you know my name!" Domo shouted.