Kaden continued his studies for the next few months. The amount of books he now had access to was much greater than the previous one. He assumed most of the lower grade stuff he had had access to was just basics despite everything. Now on the greater level one was probably expected to specialize. Indeed, there was too much to learn and most of it Kaden only had some curiosity for, but not too much interest beyond that.
Therefore Kaden decided to concentrate on the matters that was useful to him. That is to increase his fighting strength. The rest could come later, if he had the time.
Kaden did still have some ore from the volcano remnant that he had not been able to use before. The red ore. Kaden was able to identify it as base material for Core Steel. It was very good at conducting fire mana. It was also something that he could use at his level. That is to say ‘could’ use.
It was slightly stronger material than Titanite that he was using in his armor. While Kaden could still work with it, he felt he did not have anything he should use it for yet. Why waste the material on things that didn’t benefit him much?
Kaden wanted to save it for a bit. He wanted to master the crafting methods for the battle armor at the very least. His current gear was acceptable so he could easily make do until then.
Despite not using the Core Steel yet, he did refine the ores and got himself some bars to use in the future.
Studying was not all that Kaden did, though.
-----
Sidon was pouring himself a drink after a hard day’s work at his personal office. Truly, managing the arena took some effort. They had just got some extra beasts and had held a special event.
While it was very busy, it had brought in lots of money. There had been many fighters that wanted to fight those beasts. Towards the end they had even pitted the beasts against each other. That is, the weakest of the new ones. Sidon wanted to keep the stronger ones for a bit longer.
Then he heard a sound and quickly turned around. He saw someone sitting in the corner.
“Took long enough”, Kaden said. “Those beasts of yours are losers. I’m not really sure why people bother watching these games of yours.”
At this point Sidon recognized Kaden despite his greatly altered appearance.
“Kaden?” Sidon said and put down his cup.
“What? Surprised?” Kaden replied.
“You look…”, Sidon started and then spent a moment choosing his next words. “You look like a freak. Are you sure you are still human?”
“Whatever I am doesn’t really matter”, Kaden continued talking and started walking around in the room with his talons makin sounds against the wooden floor. “I am strong and thats what matters. Yet, as it happens I have ran into problems.”
“You look like a problem”, Sidon said and drank a bit from his cup.
“No, I look at a problem”, Kaden corrected Sidon. “That is you. You talk too much. It is too late by now, but do you realize just how much problems your loose tongue has brought to me?”
“Huh?” Sidon didn’t really understand.
“I have had people poke into things no one else should know”, Kaden continued. “Military was perfectly fine with me telling roughly where I came from and how. Well, I have had some people look into things much deeper than that. Then I have had assassins come after me and a lot of other problems.”
For a moment Kaden was silent.
“I don’t like that”, he continued. “You need to shut up. Perhaps you haven’t said everything you know and I’d like it to stay that way.”
“Oh, I think I know now”, Sidon said raising his hand a bit and drank some more. “I got paid quite well after I answered some questions. I had no reason not to? Freak like you probably does attract attention. I don’t think you should be surprised that people are asking questions. You coming here probably means you still have something to hide, yes?”
“I know very well and thats why I want to minimize the amount of people talking”, Kaden said. “Now, how would you shut up?”
“Bargaining, eh?” Sidon said and drank rest of his drink. He turned around to pour some more. “I guess you are pretty well off these days. You have reached Formation stage and that should pay pretty well so I guess…”
*SHUNK*
Cold piercing burst of pain came from Sidon’s back. Some kind of energy flooded in and tore his insides apart. He screamed.
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“Nah, not bargaining, that is not my style”, Kaden whispered to Sidon’s ear as he twisted Vengeance in Sidon’s back and held onto Sidon firmly. “I can only be sure you don’t talk, if you are dead. You are an obstacle. Scream as much as you want.” Kaden pulled out a little piece of metal from his pocket. Its was a formation holder. “This here blocks all sound.”
Kaden watched the green energy from Vengeance go into Sidon and attempt to attach onto something. Sidon was stronger than the weakling back at Celadon he had last killed, but Vengeance was almost like hooked in and slowly weakening struggles from Sidon was unable to even get away from Kaden. That previous weakling had died quickly, but Sidon was still alive. He glowed slightly with that pallid green glow.
“It should be done soon”, Kaden observed calmly.
Sidon’s screamin soon became more and more quiet until he finally stopped completely. Around at this point Kaden pulled out Vengeance and along with it came mass of mana tangled within the tendrils of vengeance mana. It was brighter and larger amount than the random weakling, but still not entire soul like with Serin. In fact, it was only a small portion. Kaden had not expect it to happen the same way as with Serin. He guessed those with more involvement with his vengeance would be affected more. Sidon was merely an obstacle.
There was actually very little blood and yet Sidon was completely pale with his blood veins visible on his skin. Kaden was pretty sure Vengeance didn’t drink blood, but that it simply coagulated during the process so it didn’t leak out. That was useful.
Another thing Kaden had noticed while he had examined Vengeance at greater detail was that while he held it he got feelings of how things should be done. There was also some amount of what Kaden could only describe as ‘pull’, but nothing he could really use for directions. He was pretty sure the blade was trying to direct him towards his targets and give him imaginery and ideas what to do to them. It was, after all, a focus of vengeance.
Kaden put away Vengeance. The wounds it caused were relatively unusual. While this sounds like disadvantage, it wouldn’t link directly to him easily. Nothing he did to Sidon was something anyone knew him capable of. Secondly, Vengeance messed up bodies. It was hard to say what exactly had pierced in and what had done the damage. Third, it was difficult to use vengeance mana to tie back to its user. It would dissipate quickly once the targets were corpses. Why would vengeance remain once vengeance was carried out? Sidon wasn’t even a major target so amount would be small to begin with. With proper disposal, that Kaden had plans for, it would be extremely difficult to say just how Sidon died. Its not like vengeance mana left always similar wounds. There were as many ways for it to kill as there were ways to carry out vengeance.
There was nothing identifiable.
Spatial bag proved very useful to transport a body unseen. For a moment Kaden had considered eating Sidon, but then decided not to. Perhaps just a whim. Maybe it was because Kaden was very familiar with Sidon? Was it somehow different, if you knew a person well?
“Whatever”, Kaden though and decided to ignore the matter.
Kaden had been very stealthy when he entered Sidon’s place. No one had seen him go in nor see him leave. It was quite useful to know the entire place throughout. He had lived there for a while.
Eventually Kaden tossed Sidon’s corpse in the sewer. It would eventually float out of the city to the slums, but by that time it would be bloated and difficult to identify. He had tested this already a while ago. It would also be likely that some lower beasts like rats might be able to gnaw on the body a bit once it softened and rotted a bit. Until then body of a Formation stage magic cultivator might be too tough.
As for law enforcement. Deaths and murders were pretty common. Perhaps Sidon might draw slightly more attention, but everyone should know Sidon had his enemies. He was not exactly clean as far as his busines went or, like he liked to say, ‘barely legal’. Still, Kaden expected him to be forgotten relatively soon.
Kaden assumed, if he spaced out whatever killings he might be doing, no one should easily notice anything, even if the victims were all related to him somehow. It probably wasn’t even something he could choose to space out or not. Sidon was an easy target.
Erral. Kaden wanted to kill Erral.
The man was a higher ranked military officer who was now, according to Kaden’s information, staying in the city recruiting and training new soldiers for his group. Erral’s home was at the fourth layer where his wife and daughter lived.
There was very little Kaden could do. Erral was never in the open. In fact, Kaden assumed he wouldn’t even be able to beat Erral in a fair fight. Then again, he wasn’t planning on fair fight, but he still doubted his chances.
Kaden needed to get stronger. Luckily he had felt he was almost like reaching some limit. He expected this to be mid stage High Beast. He wasn’t far from it. His mana system was purifying his core extremely well and he could sense his cultivation grow. The mana system was good. He just needed a bit of time and he would take that step forward soon enough.
----
Some weeks passed until there was some news about Sidon. Only reason Kaden even heard about it was because he had been paying attention. Of course, there was some already by the time Sidon disapeared and some assumed he was dead already by then, but the actual body was only found much later in the slums.
It had been picked clean by then of anything usable and had been tossed in a trash pile.
General assumption was that Sidon’s enemies finally got to him. It was true, of course, but Kaden was not the one people generally would think of.
“Well, that liability is taken care now”, Kaden thought to himself as he continued his studies. “I wish I had been able to do it before he talked anything at all, but it can’t be helped.”
Kaden was very careful about information about himself. He had always laced anything about himself with lies and misinformation. He really didn’t need someone like Sidon messing around. Should certain truths about him spread, it would be a disaster. His core. His relation to Anuu, a phoenix.
That last one specifically was a headache to Kaden. While he was proud of his general appearance, it was still something someone might think of ‘doesn’t that look a bit like a phoenix?’. In the future once he evolved again, like he assumed would happen, it would likely become even more noticeable. Luckily people generally did not know much about phoenixes. Descriptions of them were rare and images even more so. Those who were able to know such details would likely not even look at Kaden’s direction, but perhaps later once he was stronger.
Kaden decided that such problems were something he could only work to fix once they came up. One problem at a time. One was now handled. At least one more needed fixing. Erral. Yet he had no idea how to do that.
Kaden only hoped that as time passed while he solved that, Erral would not escape him.