Joyce also wanted to watch the treatment. But she understood some space must exist between masters. As a senior elder, her position may be grand within her bubble, but she knew that the world wasn't in her hands.
While most would be surprised by finding a master of such caliber in this region, she found it very logical. People like him will be in places where people like her are not. Their choices were more related to danger aversion than how special a place is.
Furthermore, she knew how to be grateful. She also understood the Aravyz boy by now and had confidence that he would by no means lose contact with such an enigma. For her, at least, the potential to save someone else special to her was more important than knowing what little trick this master used to gain such a lifespan.
While this elder was weirdly successful, it was all within her expectations of reality.
'Everything has its price. If not, he wouldn't be hiding in such a place. He would be ruling us all, directly or not.' she concluded.
Moving Eloise was done swiftly. With the involvement of such a high-level character, the staff avoided the predicted long and arduous preparations.
Eloise's in-depth recovery treatment started quickly. And in a few hours, she was out of immediate danger. However, waking up could take weeks or months, depending on the intensity and depth of the following therapy. The good news was that she wouldn't die in their hands, so most signed in relief.
---
While Eloise's treatment was happening, Ginn led an important meeting.
"The room seal is on," a black woman with deep purple eyes said. She stood high. Her purple hair was long, almost reaching the floor.
"Dinna, sorry to burden you like that. We're so late." Yukk responded.
At Yukk Green's side were Manuella Track and Max Bluebear, both doctors. And they were the last three to arrive for the meeting today.
"No worries," she said, smiling slightly. "I can't practice with the artifact that often, so how could I be disappointed to use it twice on the same day? Worth the sleep loss tonight."
"The last three finally arrived!" Matt yelled.
"Manu, was there some problem with the wounded?" A very tanned young man asked. His shoulder wide, his hair short, his face muscular, and his body strong. While one of his eyes was green, the other was white, and a light scar passed through it.
"They are alright. The wait was because the department was too busy. Eloise moved rooms. But anyway, they are more than happy to avoid the famous Deniz's Hellish training." Manu replied. She had a white overcoat on her shoulders and black hair in a knot.
"Ha, your infamy is spreading far and wide," at Deniz's side, a pale white young man, looking to be in his middle 20, joked in a mocking tone. His hair was dark red and very short, and a line of freckles was around the height of his eyes.
"Shut up, Doug!"
The room was quite lively despite the meeting going for two hours.
Here, the newcomers joined a group of nine people at a large round table.
"We're missing only three people. It has been a long time since so many of us met together. It has been what? Five years? For us, the last five years have been quite busy." Ginn commented after seeing the cheerful group.
They all found a place to sit, chit-chatting in the process.
Ginn clapped once they all sat down, bringing their attention to him.
"Let's continue our discussion. Anne, you begin. Inform us about Brian and the others," He looked to a black-haired young woman. Her face was round, her eyes black, and her skin white-pale.
"My brother reported that his journey with Silver has come to a successful end, and they joined Emma on their way back. They should arrive in around three weeks."
"Since they succeed... Mirana, how about the new material?"
"It may have taken a full year. But while you were at Aurora, we achieved a successful synthesis. On my side, everything is ready for the upgrades." She responded after raising her head from a resting position. Her green eyes looked very tired, and her wavy green hair was a mess, but she didn't seem to care.
"Talking about Aurora, Matt, you should inform everyone of your last achievement."
"I made a breakthrough! My high energy level technique is a success. It can level down a whole small city! The new brat even pissed his pants after the layered arrays nearly failed to suppress my power. " He laughed loudly.
The person sold out opened his eyes widely, stretching the big birthmark on his left eye and throwing the pen in his hand toward Matt.
Despite it flying like a dart, Matt grabbed the pen effortlessly.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"Hey!" The teenage boy yelled as he lowered his head and used his hand to hide in shame. He was the same teenager who got Leo the isolation room key earlier.
"Are you going to yell it to everyone in the city next? Shut up, Matt. No one cares about the extra info." Yuri intervened.
Although he said nothing else, a big smile was on Matt's face as he kept an expression full of pride.
"This is a wake-up call. We need to increase our attention when dealing with anything dangerous and take bigger measures due to our new power level. We got to the point of causing serious damage to people and things around us. Matt was the first that nearly blew half a city. But who says one of us won't succeed next? In this accident, the rebound crippled two array overseers, and they were only connected partially to it. Another eight of our people got seriously hurt. And Matt now is doing his best to traumatize our youngest one." Ginn took a heavy stance.
He then raised his hand and massaged the side of his head like he had some headache. "Matt may need full-time babysitting too."
"Hey! I'm not the..."
"You're the kid playing with fire! I'm serious here, Matt. You need to be careful! Your breakthrough may make our plans much easier. You may hold the most destructive sequence between us. However, we need to be responsible. We aren't kids anymore. We're killing machines! I felt required to mention this before the main topic since I've caught a few of you taking similar risks too. Trying anything is a mistake if success will cause more damage than failure!"
He paused for a moment.
"I don't want to hear the same excuse again: Oh, I didn't think it would work. More than half of you're guilty of using such an excuse before. Carefulness is essential. The last thing I would want is to attend the funeral of our people because of such avoidable accidents."
He then paused again, taking a deep breath.
"The babysitting wasn't a joke. We must implement a system so we can avoid trivial mistakes. Matt is only our biggest priority right now. I give this assignment to Dinna, Emma, and Doug. The three of you can draft a plan, then request a meeting so we can all revise it."
"Alright," Dinna and Doug responded.
"Having taken that out of the way, let's approach our main topic. Is it time to reveal our fangs? The volcano sect factions are pressuring us from all sides, forcing us to choose which ranks we'll join. Because we hid too well, they're all too sure we're only a simple bunch of talented country bumpkins. We planned to stay low for a few more years. But, unfortunately, after Eloise's poisoning, the pressure from them became suffocating. It's no secret that joining them was never an option, but they don't know. We need to decide how we shall reveal our conviction. Considering the risks, we shall aim to achieve a consensus. First, Yuri will report the situation."
With a small stone in his hand, Yuri began to report:
"Since Ginn's marriage, the stress due to Volcano Sect has been growing. Everything was within control until the accident with Eloise. Since that attack, the direct repression has been increasing. But it's the indirect pressure that became a big problem. Accidents, fires, assaults, robberies, and others became common occurrences.
We must deal with the new horizons idiots, the unknown group of assassins, and the self-centered volcano people.
But they crushed our public business. The only transactions we kept were the ones with the Clearsky Auction House. The enemy destroyed the whole facade we put up, and they all talk like it's due to regular competition or bad luck.
The Green and Highpeak department put together a full report on all cases. In a few of them, we found trails. But we stopped the further investigation due to Eloise's state and since we, the < Dragons >, weren't together.
Investors have retreated, shops closed, factories stopped, and personnel moved. We did everything to minimize our losses. Yet, rumors are spreading around. Every random dog inside New Horizons calls Ginn a useless leader.
Every faction's contact coming from Volcano Sect became colder, and their offers were much cheaper. We killed more than fifty assassins only in the last month, from which more than a dozen were from the unknown group.
In the last year, among our people, 235 died, most of them from low-pay jobs. Around one thousand asked to be fired. Of the deaths, 23 were from our direct ranks, and four were direct subordinates of one of us.
Money isn't an issue since our core business is hidden, but in the public eye, we should be in the far red. Doing anything with our faction name has never been so difficult, not even when we started from nothing.
The only good news is that Leo, or Dyn as we knew, solved Eloise's poisoning. And we have a new trail that may confirm the unknown group's involvement with someone from Volcano."
Yuri stopped and motioned toward Anne.
"From Eloise's room, we retrieved a dead woman that Leo Moon killed. After the initial autopsy, we found that she suffered from some of the common characteristics encountered in the assassins from the unknown group. However, she was from Volcano Sect and had contact with the elders. Her death is a secret, as everyone inside vowed to keep their mouth shut, and by side effect, we got the best chance so far to catch a rat." Anne Highpeak explained.
"Who are the suspects?" Doug asked.
"We suspect the traitor is one of the Elders sent here by the sect."
"Does her family wants to kill her?" Matt asked.
"If the betrayer came here, it was by luck. Eloise's relationship with her close family members is great, and her father is the sect master. Deniz, you're next." Ginn commented.
"The whole faction structure has changed drastically in the last few months. Now, our public image finally resembles a faction. The members left are going through a harsher training regime, and the daily rules are now strict. With my insistence, we closed all the vulnerable locations, limiting our area of influence. That was our only option since the enemies aimed at everyone connected to us.
We must fight back, or the shadow in our subordinate's hearts will never disappear. We've been preyed upon, causing our unity to crumble. If we must lose, then we must do it while fighting for something!" by the end, Deniz's emotion went uncontrollable.
Silence filled the room. Their situation had never been as complicated.
"Manu, you also had something to inform us, right?" Ginn asked.
"There were two types of attack, some that kill and some that cripple. Most of our monetary loss is due to supporting those who can't work anymore. Treatment was always our choice in the past, but that changed. By the time the number of victims reached thousands, giving treatment to all became impossible. Our department can't give everyone the miracle they want. We even received dissatisfaction because we still treat people with higher cultivation. Not everyone understands that treating a cultivator is much cheaper. Or that our department is overworked, but I also know that ours isn't the only one." she replied while re-knotting her black hair.
"The last one, Dinna."
"I need more money, a lot of it. Making arrays is a hole that has no end. What a surprise! If this continues, those groups will suppress us into nonexistence. Many have come to me to propose opening more points with arrays. But I swore every single time. And I want to throw the next dumbass that proposes that inside a special array." She sighed.
"Our faction may be rich, but we don't have infinite resources. If this continues, I see no future but to hide forever!"