ACC Chapter 4 Predator

Lily(POV)

Reality is always in constant flux.

I had read it somewhere on the internet, with its origins being a renowned array master from historical times.

I love having everything within my grasp...well, just information. It allows me to choose the best plans and contingencies possible. Of course, with Mr. Reed being a Nascent Soul already made it implausible for me to know everything about him. But I had thought that almost everything about his personality had been in my grasp.

No, that's arrogant of me. The signs had been there, yet I had ignored them, likening him to the Nascent Souls I had had the pleasure of meeting. They had always radiated confidence or power or some sort of domineering quality. Maybe they simply hid their fragile selves well unlike Mr. Reed.

But today, reality had taught me a lesson. At first, I had thought that maybe he had sensed something dangerous, and that was why his oppressive power was about to be released.

A sigh escaped my lips as I gazed out to Mars. It was millions of miles away, but my vision allowed me to capture every single photon from the planet as if I was just within its orbit, looking upon the ground below.

It was as vibrant as Earth, but I and many others knew that it was just an illusion. Arrays worked tirelessly to create artificial gravity that maintained the seeded atmosphere and the different climates on the planet's surface. It was just a dead rock. Even with our advance in technology, we couldn't quite revive it because it existed outside the sweet spot.

Some had suggested moving it within Earth's orbital path around the Sun but no one had taken that seriously. Constructing a stellar engine wasn't quite as cheap as a simple habitable ring around the star. That was why Earth was still the undisputed king of the star system.

Mumaso Reed, initially a commoner, had risen from the other riffraff to become the man he was today. And not a single person or reporter had managed to discover that he was an introvert! That only meant that someone had deliberately hid or smothered any such intelligence.

My previous plans to entice him needed to be thrown out the window.

The man had already retreated to his chambers in order to recover his wits and had ordered that we not reach the farm before his exit. That was why the ship was simply drifting along.

A sigh escaped my lips while leaving the scenery behind to seat myself behind a table, taking special care to appear as serious and imposing as possible. The next task required me to be in prime mental condition as I was about to contact a Sect.

Before the Federation, the Sects had been in charge of the world, hoarding knowledge among themselves, and adopting stringent conditions for accepting disciples, cutting off many of the common mortals. These organisations had been detested by many, including the clans themselves.

Most historical wars had had the shadows of the Sects behind them, with some wars even bringing such widespread catastrophe, that some places had become so contaminated, only those above Foundation Establishment could trek there.

Even if Mr. Reed hadn't given me instructions to make trouble for them, I would have done it! These people were good at slacking off. Even now, no one had managed to get a hand on their accumulated riches, in spirit stones. Though, the populace had moved away from such a resource to spiritual energy in liquid form. It was easy to collect now that Earth was abundant in spiritual energy, as opposed to mining below the ground.

The screen flickered to life, floating just in front of my desk, breaking me out of my thoughts.

The rude manner in which the person on the other side of the screen was portraying himself almost took me aback, but considering his age, I didn't set forth the verbal barb that had just formed on the tip of my tongue.

The man was old, with greying hair and a light skin tone filled with wrinkles. He could have kept his young appearance, but choosing to present himself like this here was either a negotiation tactic that would induce feelings of respect within the person talking to him, or his core had reached its literal end, having started to enlarge within his dantian, like how a star transitioned to become a red giant.

This was the sort of post reserved for people like him, whose chances of advancing to the Nascent Soul stage had become nonexistent due to exhausting their lifespans.

Whatever the reason, I wasn't going to go easy upon the man after seeing the smoking pipe in his mouth. This was the perfect example of resources being wasted upon the useless trash because of their entitled backgrounds, a trait of the sects and most clans.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He was smoking marijuana, a compound capable of stimulating the brain to the point that information from every sense could be filtered with great efficiency akin to divine sense, except that there was the side effect of inducing euphoria. The compound was mostly useful for those below the Core Formation stage and was so expensive that most powers couldn't procure enough to supply to their juniors.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, fellow daoist?" The man' speech slurred, something he was doing deliberately as there was no way he couldn't control himself being at the peak of Core Formation. No matter how much his strength was degrading, there was no way he couldn't control the medicinal effects of a mere drug.

"I am Lily, contacting you in the capacity of the secretary to Mr. Mumaso Reed."

"Oh, the commoner Nascent Soul. What does he need from our esteemed Pipe Sect?" A smoke ring was projected out of the man's mouth in my direction.

"Ah! Matriarch Lily! Now I remember! You really are a specimen of the female form." The man praised, with his gaze shifting from its previous lackadaisal form to one filled with unrestrained lust, all directed towards me.

Disgust welled up with me, but my outward stoic and calm facade wasn't something that could be broken that easily. To reach where I am today, I had had to deal with cultivators even more brazen and rude than him. Though, if I had been with him physically, I might have roughed him up a bit.

"A pipe, one manufactured by your Sect, capable transporting highly volatile spiritual energy liquids, had a malfunction on one of the runes, causing a leak."

"Oh! And why are you reporting it to us? The problem must have been caused on your end... Like going over the pressure limit, and a myriad of other reasons."

"Mr... Daoist. Let's be frank here, would I contact you if the problem was on our end? The brain is there for a reason... To be used in these kinds of situations. You trying to deny the problem will only escalate the matter into a lawsuit."

"Wha-?" It was a pleasure watching the man's face contort into ugliness. I would have been calmer and more reasonable if I had been speaking within the position of the clan's matriarch since the Sect had as many as three Nascent Souls at the helm.

"Do you possess any evidence, woman?!" His palms caused the floor he was perched upon to vibrate.

An urge to smile almost enveloped me. This was simply too easy. If it had been someone else, probably a younger cultivator, then it wouldn't have been this easy to ruffle them.

"I am going to send you the evidence right now. There are a couple of videos and data. And don't make the mistake of making it vanish as we still have a copy."

"We are a reputable business establishment! We would never do such a thing!"

"I hope so."

"I will relay all that you have said to my superiors, and do trust me on this, fellow Daoist Lily, they will not be happy. Your backer is strong, but is your clan strong enough?"

"You do know that I am recording this conversation, right?"

"So what!? Just because you were lucky enough to escape our notice, allowing your pathetic little upstart of a clan to grow... You think we can't destroy you? So what if you are recording? Even if you take the clip to the authorities, all I will get away with, will be a fine and a slap on the wrist. But if we provided extra attention to your clan, you could be reduced to a mere itinerant cultivator in a matter of days!"

His intense overly excited gaze, his deep wrinkles, his trembling body with every single word that came out of his mouth... I took in everything, even the conversation itself. For a moment, a sliver of hot rage coursed within my veins before becoming something cold and sinister in nature.

Did these creptins have any idea of the things I had done to get me and my clan where we were today? This old coot simply lacked the resources to know how ruthless I could be. This is the outcome of a silver spoon...weak minded trash that didn't have any ounce of common sense.

"Daoist...I, Kimuli Lily didn't rise to this stage easily..." I started, while keeping my voice as calm as possible, infusing all my intent into my gaze, which caused a sliver of my veil to drop, exposing my steely grey-rimmed pupils.

"You have descendants, right? Little toddlers running around every where, the old unmotivated children that simply want to waste resources without putting in any effort in cultivation, or those talented children and grandchildren of yours... What would happen to them if a very vengeful itinerant cultivator descended upon them? I don't think even the three Nascent Souls would be capable of protecting everyone, right?"

By the end, a smile had made its way across my lips, one that I was sure the man saw as a demon's. After all he was currently looking at me with terror.

This is the most powerful move to deal with idiots such as him.

"Now that I have gotten my point across, return to your seat so we can discuss this as respectable adults."

The man sat down, his rage knowhere to be seen, only a fear that I had just planted within him.

"My employer is only asking for one thing from you, an inspection into every pipe of this series that you have ever sold."

"That's impossible! Do you know how many units we have sold? This series was conceptualized over 100 years ago! The funds needed would astronomical!"

"Listen to me here. Imagine this...all those pipes malfunctioning within a small timeframe. Imagine the payout that you are going to have to fork out for all those lawsuits. I suspect that many of your pipes have been sold to really influential organisations or people. What would happen if all came breathing down your necks?"

"But inspecting all..." His voice had gone down, a promising development.

"My boss doesn't care how you spin it to the tabloids, but those inspections must be made. You could even use it as an excuse to increase your reputation. Discuss with those really in charge and get back to us soon."

With that, I closed the screen and too a deep breath to gain control of my emotional state. The murderous aura I was radiating was simply too much. The man had awakened my dormant instincts, the ones I had suppressed after crossing over into the Core Formation stage.

"We can speed up now."

I acknowledged the command that had been passed to me through divine sense.

It looks like Mr. Reed had finally regained himself.