Storm

Theron pressed his hand against a familiar dirty mirror. With a flash, he appeared within a room of stone. It looked no different from the way he had left it. However, he hadn't come here for this.

He left his room, walking down the long corridors to the common area.

"I would like to take a look at any newly available missions, please," Theron spoke in his gentle voice to the man behind the counter.

The old man gave Theron an additional look, surprised to see him back so soon. Now that he thought about it, Theron wasn't particularly injured after returning, which didn't make much sense.

Of course, he didn't know that Theron spent much of his newly acquired funds on healing himself. If he came back with the wound Merchant Greycoat had left on his back, he would never hear the end of it from Teacher Fern, not to mention potentially exposing himself.

The old man nodded and pulled out a jade, sliding it forward.

He had seen youths like Theron before—workaholics that insisted on grinding themselves to an early grave. It wasn't his place to say much.

This time, though, he had misunderstood Theron. Originally, the young Water Mancer hadn't had any intention of returning for at least two months, but the oddities surrounding the Sect had caught his attention.

If he was correct, there might already be new missions related to this matter.

The last time Theron had checked the missions was before he left Thistle Brook to kill Merchant Greycoat. As expected, he found something that caught his eye quickly.

[3 Star Bronze Mission - Kill Yonowai Thistle]

[Reward]

[> 22,000 Bronzes]

With the title, there was a flash of an image and a brief description of the target's cultivation. This Yonowai was in the Eighth Resonance.

His cultivation might as well have been the last thing Theron cared about.

The first thing that jumped out was his last name. It wasn't that the Daggers of the Night never targeted nobles, but it was very rare.

The second was the reward. It was surprisingly low considering the risk. The only explanation was that there was a good opportunity in the near future that lowered the difficulty.

The reward was set based on a coordination between the client and the association. If the client was doing some of the legwork as well, then the price could be negotiated down.

Well, this was just speculation on Theron's part from observing the descriptions of thousands of missions in his short tenure.

The third was probably the most shocking even still, and that was the fact he recognized this person.

Theron's memory was excellent, and he forced himself to have an attention to detail most wouldn't. He knew that he was walking a fine line of life and death just by being associated with this assassin's guild, so he had no other choice.

For exactly that reason, he was certain that this Yonowai was one of the two who entered the teahouse with Sawyer earlier today.

Theron forced himself to look around for longer, checking through the other missions one by one.

"I will take this mission," Theron spoke as he pulled back his perception. The Yonowai mission had been toggled to the top of the memory jade, so the old man knew exactly which one he was referring to.

Not saying much, the old man pulled the memory jade back and slid Theron a new one.

"Your badge."

Theron complied and handed his identification over.

Missions couldn't be accepted casually. There were penalties for failing, and in the most egregious cases, there was a death penalty. This latter case would only happen if you failed three missions in a row, though.

[3 Star Bronze Mission - Kill Yonowai Thistle]

[Reward]

[> 22,000 Bronzes]

[Details]

[> The target is in the Eighth Resonance, specializing in Wood Mancy. His strongest abilities are his restraint skill, [Thorny Fields], and his defensive skill, [Thistled Bark]. The weakness of the latter is that it restricts movement speed a great deal, which is why it is such a good pairing with [Thorny Fields]. If you can find a way to limit or eliminate [Thorny Fields] entirely, using a speed advantage to win should not be a problem. Fire Mancers are the best option.]

[> The intricacies of [Thistled Bark] allow it to…]

[> [Thorny Fields] is…]

[> The target will be inebriated every Friday evening at the Purple Scale Teahouse of Thistle Brook City for the next month. These nights will be the best times to act.]

The wave of information came in torrents, but once again, it wasn't the information itself that shocked Theron so much.

This detailed breakdown of [Thorny Fields] and [Thistled Bark]… was there anyone but another Thistle who could give such detailed information?

This is why I joined this association…

In the empire, the best information network on the surface was Nightingale Pavilion. Not only did they sell treasures and techniques, but they were a strong information center as well.

But how could the Nightingale Pavilion ever provide any information that would be detrimental to the nobles and the Imperial Clan?

Daggers in the Night was different.

Over the years, how many tidbits of information exactly like this had the association accumulated?

If on the surface Nightingale Pavilion was the best information network, then in the dark it was this very assassin's guild.

Even with all this information, it's still ranked as a three-star.

Three-star missions were the highest rank per given level. The Merchant Greycoat mission was a four-star difficulty, but this was because of the number of times it had failed. This fourth star was reserved for missions that had been taken up and failed at least ten times.

For a new mission, three-star was the absolute highest.

Now that Theron had the information he wanted, though, he had no intention of completing the mission. The risk was too high.

What he had really wanted was the chance to see the information on the other side…

That and now he had an extra piece to the puzzle.

The Sect had suddenly sent so many disciples here, and now one of them was a target for assassination?

There was definitely a storm brewing.