"Palace Master, the person from the 'Fiery Manor' has come with some kind of objective, but he has not shown any intention to harm me" Wu Guang said while relaying everything that happened until now in full.

Zhen Gan had already sealed both Lord Liao's and Yi Ma's cultivation with a pair of special shackles, and so he asked Wu Guang for details as to know how to deal with Yi Ma. Lord Liao would be captured and questioned without doubt, but for Yi Ma, the situation was a bit different.

The 'Fiery Monk' Yi Ma was a name that Zhen Gan had heard before, and in fact, the Sect had a few dealings with the Fiery Manor before. So although he had acted against him before, he was hesitant as to imprison or kill him. Wu Guang understood that the situation was a bit thorny, but truthfully he also had no real grudge against Yi Ma. So after explaining everything, he also added via qi transmission

"Palace Master, I think the best would be to question and find out what's the objective of the 'Fiery Monk' in coming here. Lord Liao, he and the two demon brothers had not shared much, but they did let out that the treasures here did not interest them"

"I think that we should go outside and consult about the matter with Head Elder Di. As well as call for my brother. After we deal with all this and send this Liao fellow to the Sect, we shall return and explore this treasure cave"

"Elder Di is here?"

"Indeed, he is guarding upstairs"

"We should also try to pry out of Yi Ma any information about this cave. I did not think that my father or even my family had such riches! Even if we don't consider the boulders with qi shards, there should be several hundred different resources, ores, and ingots here"

"Yes, you are right. If this is part of your inheritance, then you are now a very rich master hahaha"

"Palace Master jests... If not for all the help and Master appearing here to rescue me, I would be most probably dead without even a chance of getting anything"

"Don't worry, our sect will not covet your family treasures. In any case, this will wait. Go ahead and inform Elder Di. I will bring them up shortly, so make sure he is prepared as to avoid any incidents"

"Understood"

Wu Guang indeed had nothing else to do here for the moment, and so he quickly moved towards the stairs and started ascending.

Using his full speed as he knew there were no dangers on the stairs, it took Wu Guang only a pair of minutes to ascend this four hundred or so feet worth of stairs.

As he appeared in the small cave at the top, he was met with the corpse of someone in a black cloak. He already knew from Zhen Gan that they had killed someone here and that Elder Di should be investigating who was it. Speaking of the latter, Elder Di was also present in the cave. Obviously with cultivation like Elder Di had already noticed Wu Guang's arrival, but as he knew who was it, he did not rush to react.

Wu Guang quickly relayed what had happened and explained that Zhen Gan was about to start ascending the stairs with his prisoners.

Hearing this, Elder Di activated a dozen of luminous stones to brightly illuminate the cave, which until now only had a slight amount of light coming from Wu Guang's luminous stone he was given by Yi Ma before, and that he still held in his hand.

A thing to note was that as the small cave was illuminated, Wu Guang saw a person near Elder Di. This person was no one other than Chun Zemin. The latter was badly beaten up and restrained with a special qi sealing chain. Noticing Wu Guang's gaze, Elder Di explained that Chun Zemin was already captured when they arrived. And even though Elder Di tried to question him, he had refused to speak at all.

"Elder Di, Palace Master told me that we will be calling for Head Enforcer Zhen Mang. Shouldn't Elder do it now?" Wu Guang did not want to question Elder Di's actions, but he still decided to ask. After all, the quicker Zhen Mang arrived, the quicker this would be solved.

One could say that Wu Guang simply did not want to spend hours on a matter that he could not influence at all. He also had a strange feeling of unease, and albeit it could be unfounded, Wu Guang still wanted for all this to end and return to his cultivation.

"Young friend Wu Guang's worry is unfounded as I already have sent him a glyph. Speaking of which, he should be arriving in a few moments as well"

"Oh, I see. Please excuse me then"

"Do not think about it, you are very right to question"

Lord Liao's and Yi Ma's cultivation had been sealed, and so they were forced to ascend the stairs as simple mortals. Zhen Gan also did not want to take any risks and so they arrived at the upper cave only after half an hour.

Zhen Mang had arrived a few minutes before and asked Wu Guang to explain everything he knew, so when his brother and the two captives appeared, he had already reached his conclusions.

Questioning Chun Zemin and Lord Liao here was impossible, and they also had to assume the existence of mind blocks like on the smaller fry they had captured before.

Thus after a quick catching up and sharing his view on Yi Ma's situation, Zhen Mang and twelve enforcers that had arrived with him took both Black Eagle members and set off towards the Sect.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Initially, Zhen Gan intended to accompany them, but in the end, he stayed to solve the issue with Yi Ma.

Thankfully Yi Ma did not put on any airs and after being promised that he would be freed, explained everything.

It turned out that Wu Heng had another identity, which was of a prospector. He was very renowned, and after his title was revealed it turned out that Elder Di also heard of him.

Around Wu Guang's birth, Wu Heng stopped traveling and returned to his family manor, breaking ties with his previous clients and hiding his identity as the 'Divine Stone Listener'. He had fulfilled all his obligations and the powers he had sold maps and discoveries were pleased, so he successfully disappeared.

But 4 years ago there were several big earthquakes across the plane, and some of the previously hidden resource mines started appearing. At the same time, a few active ones had to be closed off because of flooding. In such a situation the powers from the Fiery Island that fully depended on their mines and deposits tried to find the 'Divine Stone Listener'. They remembered that he had mentioned the matter about the hidden mines before, but as they were hidden, their locations were of no value for the powers. And so they did not buy the maps at that time.

Similar situations happened to other islands, but the 'Fiery Manor' was the first to remember Wu Heng's maps. Or at least that was what Yi Ma thought when he set off with a mission to either obtain the services of the 'Divine Stone Listener', or at least buy off the maps of the Fiery Island mines he had done before.

Wu Heng had successfully hidden his identity, but still, some clues could be found and Yi Ma arrived at Coastal Hill City two years ago. Regretfully he discovered that he was late and that Wu Heng was found by someone else and his entire family exterminated. But as none of his maps surfaced, Yi Ma decided to covertly infiltrate the organization that did it and search for them.

Yi Ma infiltrated the Underhill group and remained there for two years.

At first, he thought that it was only the Underhill group, but recently he found out that the Eagle Kingdom was involved. Yi Ma doubted the involvement of such power for a long time as the 'Divine Stone Listener' had only worked on the weaker three islands. But then he found out other Black Eagles' actions in preparation for an invasion. And so, everything clicked together.

He still decided to accomplish his mission, but at the same time he wanted to hinder and if possible kill off the people behind all this and find whatever he could to help his 'Fiery Manor' be ready for war.

Seeing that he was loyal, he was allowed to help them a bit in the Port District. From there, he learned about Wu Guang's bloodline key, and that lead to everything that happened today.

He also shared what he knew of a few of Lord Liao's actions as he was one of the two helpers during his operation involving the escapees from the 'Inverted Tower'. But except for a few noteworthy criminals' names and possible locations, nothing was useful.

"Why would the 'Ghostflame Sect' appear here today?" Elder Di asked as Yi Ma finished with his explanation.

"I don't really know. But they did not expect to see me and did not know much about Lord Liao"

"Mmm..."

"Ehem. As promised, you are free to go" Zhen Gan unsealed the shackles on Yi Ma's hands.

"..."

"Anything else?"

"I... I wonder if young master Wu Guang would be interested in selling those maps to me" After a brief hesitation Yi Ma spoke up.

Seeing that Wu Guang did not answer, Elder Di interjected

"Young friend Wu Guang has to come up with what he learned today. If such maps are discovered and he agrees to sell them, we will contact you. Will you stay in the Port District?"

"Yes"

"Good. Now please leave"

"Understood. I will inform my manor about what happened here and what I learned about the Eagle Kingdom preparations. I sincerely hope that the powers on each of the three islands can cooperate to meet this threat"

"Mmm"

After saying these words, Yi Ma started moving towards Coastal Hill City. As for Wu Guang, he had grown silent mainly because he was thinking about Wu Heng, "his" father. He wasn't feeling emotional, but even so, he still was a bit off after learning about the other identity Wu Heng had and the fact that he had broken off from it to rear his child. The original Wu Guang's memories occupied just 14 years of the almost nine hundred total years of his mixed memories, but still...

"Do you think he spoke the truth?" Zhen Gan asked Elder Di after a few minutes had passed.

"It does seem so, in any case, we don't lose anything by letting him go. If we need to, we can simply kick him off the island.

"Elder Di, Palace Master Zhen" Wu Guang spoke up

"Yes?" Both of the elders turned towards him

"I would like to explore the lower cave, would you accompany me?"

"I will stay here and guard, Head Elder please go" Zhen Gan was not really interested in treasures and he knew that someone would need to remain and guard.

"Ok, let's go and see what treasures are down there" As for Elder Di, it appeared that he was very interested in seeing the riches in the cave. His perpetual smile grew even wider and he practically bounced down the stairs alongside Wu Guang.