98 Nothing Makes Sense

Migawari Puchi went over every detail, small and large, of his interactions with the mysterious Kitamura Bolo, including the approximate number of keystones left in his possession which numbered in the thousands. He expounded on how kind and generous he appeared which led to him being tricked.

In truth, many of the nearby sect servants and outer sect disciples nodded along with Migawari Puchi's words as they also had a good impression of the mysterious do-gooder that had given them such a charitable opportunity to obtain cultivation resources for a mere few days of borrowing their keystone.

Of course, now some worried that they were deceived, and their tribulation keystones were stolen forever.

If that were the case, they would regret their actions tremendously.

The keystones would generate sect credits gradually, and while a few days or weeks would not amount to anything worth mentioning, the amount gained in a lifetime was incomparable.

Letting someone borrow a goose for a few days in exchange for a dozen eggs was a fantastic deal, but if they ran off with the geese, then this was a loss none of them were willing to pay!

Kaitou Daiki glanced over at a nearby vice elder who had just closed a book after flipping through thousands of pages.

The vice elder nodded to confirm that what Migawari Puchi said regarding Kitamura Bolo checked out. He should be an ordinary disciple of the sect that had joined a week ago as an outer sect disciple.

Kaitou Daiki's expression iced over at this news.

This Kitamura Bolo must have prepared everything long before entering the sect which meant that he had an inside source feeding him information regarding the sect's affairs. Even Migawari Puchi should just be a patsy.

To have accumulated all these resources for his little trick, such a young disciple must have some sort of influential background.

Kitamura Bolo had not technically done anything wrong by the sect's standards, so normally, Kaitou Daiki would lack an acceptable reason to seize him and his possessions.

It was for this reason that he planned on framing the outer sect disciple as a collaborator with the Rusty Robber so that he could forcefully confiscate the tribulation keystones from him.

Once he could recover the keystones and lock up this troublesome boy who caused him stress, he would refocus on the unrelated Rusty Robber without distraction or worry.

On the other hand, those servants, outer sect and inner sect disciples who had heard Migawari Puchi's confession now assumed that this Kitamura Bolo was some sort of mastermind deeply connected with the Rusty Robber.

Those who took advantage of Migawari Puchi's shop and rented out their keystones for some cheap advantage began to whisper and worry over the matter. Many threw angry glares in Migawari Puchi's direction for deceiving them, causing him to sweat even more than before.

Only the elders, vice elders and their disciples reacted differently to this news.

"Master, it can't be him. It really can't. I met him and there's no way he could have done this," Hirose Hide sent an urgent whisper to Fourth Elder Ariyoshi Miji.

At first, she was stunned when she heard Kitamura Bolo's name leave the servant's mouth. Then, worries erupted from her heart regarding the boy's reputation and safety as she shared her concerns with her master.

Besides, Kitamura Bolo had entered the Dragon's Basin more than three days ago. Even now, he was one of the few disciples that were not forced to convene because he was considered to be in isolated seclusion.

Unless the sect entered a state of life-or-death, these disciples would not be forced out of their seclusion.

But now, the boy had slanderous crimes piled on top of him out of nowhere.

How could she tolerate such a thing?

After meeting him, she was wholly satisfied with the disguised Kenja's appearance, character and talent. Especially after witnessing the aftermath of his amazing feats that he had accomplished over the past three days inside the Dragon's Basin, Hirose Hide had already taken this junior brother Kitamura Bolo as her own person.

Once she invested some time and effort into him, he would fall for her charms and follow her obediently in the future. After combining their efforts, her cultivation would leap upwards, and she could lean on the dependable genius for easy benefits and security.

He was a great alternative to the elusive Hideaki Akiyoshi who was difficult-to-read and stronger than her, making him riskier to manage.

Ariyoshi Miji had frowned in confusion even before Hirose Hide sent him the message.

Kitamura Bolo was the outstanding disciple that overcame several sect records and received many acknowledgments from the wills of the pillars.

Why would his name pop up in the middle of this mess?

His eyes met the gaze of his Second and Sixth Brother. Their expressions were equally bewildered.

They all noticed the problem with Migawari Puchi's testimony. The real Kitamura Bolo should not have left the Dragon's Basin, so who was this other Kitamura Bolo?

"Kkkhhaaaaaa…"

The sound of snoring was heard from beside them, causing the three elders to twitch in annoyance.

Second Elder Inazuma's remaining eye was closed as his scar-filled face nodded up and down with his breathing.

Aracha took a futon out of her ring and dragged it to the Second Elder. After positioning it behind him, she pulled out a long cane with a balled up cloth at the end.

Carefully placing the soft end to the Second Elder's forehead, she put her full weight and strength against the cane, causing Inazuma to fall backwards onto the futon. Then, she skillfully pulled out a blanket and covered him with it.

This Second Elder of hers spent all his time on his spiritual tools, disregarding his cultivation, food and even sleep.

Because of his high cultivation, he could rely on the world's Qi for sustenance and energy, forgoing a human's living necessities for months at a time. But even though mortals addressed cultivators as immortals, they were not truly immortal.

Their body would build up a natural fatigue over time if they continued abstaining for too long. This weariness would affect one's mind and hinder one's pace in cultivation, so cultivators would rarely abstain from sleep and food completely for too long.

Unfortunately, Second Elder Inazuma was too absentminded and passionate to care for these trivialities. He would continue to work on his hobby for months without rest until his body collapsed on its own.

At that time, Aracha would tuck him in herself.

The elders normally celebrated whenever this mad scientist finally fell asleep as they worried for his health and his cultivation. At least his body would not allow him to work until he became a dried-up husk.

Even though the timing was inappropriate, they did not stop Aracha from her duties, nor did they wake him up. The Second Elder usually brought about problems more than solutions, so letting him sleep was probably a good thing.

"Little Second Brother has such good ideas. You should follow his example, disciple. I'm bored too, so I'm going to sleep as well."

Snail had a free spirit, so he acted on his impulses the moment they arose. Seeing the Second Elder take a nap made him want to nap as well.

Kenja could feel the sticky sensation disappear from his earlobe.

"Stop playing around, Snail. Things are getting serious, so don't disappear just because you're bored."

Kenja's actions had caused the sect to gather their full forces and hunt him down. Although he hated to admit it, he was nervous. And crazy as it sounded, Snail's presence helped settle his nerves as the mollusk should be able to protect him if the status deteriorated.

"Kkkkhhhaaaaaa…hhhoooohhhoooohhoooo…" resonated in Kenja's ear.

Kenja ground his teeth in agitation.

Even his snoring was annoyingly obnoxious!

Sakura consoled Kenja by patting his side in understanding.

In the end, Kenja along with the three elders exhaled sighs of defeat as they no longer bothered with their fallen teammate.

"First Brother, this Kitamura Bolo has been in the Dragon's Basin for the past three days. He could not have done any of this."

It was not Ariyoshi Miji alone who had sent a private whisper to the First Elder; the Third and Sixth Elder as well as Vice Elder Shirou and his disciple Hideaki Akiyoshi sent him similar whispers providing additional insight into the illustrious Kitamura Bolo.

Kaitou Daiki frowned at this news.

Even though he was in seclusion and was not alerted to the obvious changes in the sect, he was aware of the recent feats that a disciple had accomplished since all the caves received an influx of qi whenever one had surpassed a legacy stored in the Dragon's Basin.

Additionally, Hideaki Akiyoshi had briefly mentioned something about a Qi Flourishing disciple breaking records in his report of the sect's recent activities, but Kaitou Daiki cared very little about a weak disciple.

Cultivating one's body was like climbing a mountain with no peak in sight, that got steeper with every step. It was endless, and it only grew difficult the further one climbed.

Out of a hundred Qi Flourishing disciples, no more than ten would advance to the Foundation Establishment stage before they reached the end of their lifespans. And for every hundred of those, not even one might reach the Core Crystallization stage.

So no matter how talented a young disciple might seem, it was extremely unlikely that they would amount to anything substantial in the future. For this reason, many elders would not pay extra attention to the weaker or younger saplings.

Thus, Kaitou Daiki never cared to ask for the disciple's name or for his background.

"Is Junior Disciple Kitamura still within the basin?" First Elder asked the nearby vice elders.

Before the vice elders could answer, Hirose Hide replied with a cute smile while tucking her hair behind her ear, "First Uncle, I can confirm that junior brother has yet to leave. I have guarded the exit for the past three days, and I assigned someone to watch over it before coming here. He should still be inside."

Shimizu Mizutani curiously eyed her rival Hirose Hide who spoke in an oddly sweet manner.

Disregarding the lost cause Aoi Rin, Hirose Hide and Shimizu Mizutani were the two leading females of the sect's younger generation.

They competed in cultivation, in skill, in beauty and even in love.

Both of them had pursued the affections of the First Elder's disciple Hideaki Akiyoshi who led the sect's younger generation of males, but to limited success. And now, Hirose Hide displayed a strong interest towards a different man in such a blatant fashion.

Was this a ploy to relax her guard? Or perhaps she wanted to invoke feelings of jealousy within Hideaki Akiyoshi?

Even if this Kitamura Bolo was a spectacular prospect, he was a bit young and too weak for one of their stature.

Shimizu Mizutani did not believe that Hirose Hide would truly give up on their shared target.

Kaitou Daiki glanced at the vice elders who nodded their heads to confirm Hirose Hide's stories.

"He is one of the eight in seclusion that did not respond to us, Honorable First Elder."

They were aware of Kitamura Bolo inside the Dragon's Basin, but the whole point of seclusion was that they would not be easily bothered by external disturbances.

This was true for the fifty-six other disciples secluded in their dwellings, but the caves had a method of communication that minimized distraction while probing the occupant's current status. With this method, they confirmed that forty-nine of the disciples were present and in a good state of mind.

The remaining eight did not respond to their probe, and Kitamura Bolo was one of these eight.

Thus, while they said he should still be within the Dragon's Basin, they could not easily verify that fact with their eyes.

Kaitou Daiki fell into contemplation.

He did not believe that the person inside the Dragon's Basin was the same person that used Migawari Puchi to obtain all those tribulation keystones, but it was too much of a coincidence for them to have the same name.

There must be a link.

At the least, the person he was after had intentionally used Kitamura Bolo's name for some reason.

Perhaps, the mastermind had waited for the opportunity when a new disciple prematurely entered the Dragon's Basin to run this scheme so that he could use them as a fall guy without being found out.

But too many things did not add up.

Based on the reports he had heard until now, Kitamura Bolo had not entered the Dragon's Basin until the rental shop had been running for some time.

Also, the Rusty Robber conveniently served as a smokescreen for the shop, so his timing was also fishy.

Perhaps, it was possible for this mysterious disciple to have waited for a distraction like the Rusty Robber, but there was no way he could have known Kitamura Bolo would enter the Dragon's Basin ahead of time…unless he had known about Kitamura Bolo beforehand.

Kaitou Daiki's brows furrowed in frustration.

The recent events seemed inextricably linked in some complex, unexplainable network, but everything was too messy to capture a pattern. Some things looked like part of a plan, and other parts seemed like fortunate coincidences where all the stars aligned to grant the perpetrator the greatest advantage.

For one, the Rusty Robber incident could not have been accomplished with a single person at the Qi Flourishing stage. There had to be at least one accomplice with a high cultivation to fool all the merchants at the bazaar while the boy served as a distraction. Moreover, the boy purposely hid his cave number, so the professional merchants did not pry into his identity lest they lose a rich customer.

As for Migawari Puchi's rental shop, it began shortly after the bazaar was being investigated. If they were in cahoots with the Rusty Robber, the opportune time to open the store would be a few hours before the bazaar was robbed, not after. This would have given them more time to operate without incident as any curious eyes would be redirected to the thefts.

Finally, if the person used Kitamura Bolo as a random alias, then was Kitamura Bolo entering the Dragon's Basin an unplanned coincidence? Unlikely…

If it was an intentionally targeted alias, then how did he know Kitamura Bolo's future plans? Were they accomplices?

No, that would not make sense either. All eyes were now on Kitamura Bolo who was still in the Dragon's Basin.

Kenja smiled in satisfaction at his handiwork.

Truthfully, not everything had gone as he had planned, especially Snail's kleptomaniacal antics, nor the fact that his performance inside the Dragon's Basin would cause such a huge ruckus, but he had intentionally taken Kitamura Bolo's name as his alias.

He had to use a real disciple's name to avoid being caught.

Kenja's true identity was not a member of the sect, nor did he want to involve his other identity, Hirai Hikaru, in something this high profile immediately after joining the sect.

Kenja wanted to attract as little attention onto his female persona as possible.

Since he neither knew the names listed in the sect's roster, nor which of them were easily recognized, Kenja decided upon one of the few disciples he knew existed in the sect that few should know about, Kitamura Bolo. Since Kitamura Bolo came from the newest batch of disciples, very few were aware of his appearance.

Most importantly, even if Kitamura Bolo had learned that someone with the same name as him established this shop, he was a new disciple who had no prior knowledge pertaining to all the disciples in the sect. In other words, he could only assume it was a different disciple with the same name and not someone using his name to commit fraud.

All this gave Kenja the greatest chance of preventing anyone from seeing through his lie until he was done.

Best of all, he would cause problems for his eternal enemy, the chubby and annoying Kitamura Bolo who swung his belly wherever he pleased and bullied the poor commoners at his whims.

With the unplanned and unexplainable Rusty Robber nonsense thrown into the mix, the entire sect was chasing its own tail because of this Kitamura Bolo.

Next to him, he could hear Shizuka and Yoshie whispering to each other.

"Do you think it's him, Zukie? That Bolo?"

"It has to be. Who else has such an odd name? I can't believe that useless oaf got in and someone like elder brother was rejected. The heavens are truly blind."

Yoshie nodded in agreement.

"But it l-looks like he's in trouble now."

"Serves him right! He always troubled us and elder brother, so this is just the karma he sowed."

Kenja secretly beamed at Shizuka whose thoughts aligned perfectly with his own. She was like his protégé, always knowing what he was thinking and reacting as he would.

It was unlikely for Kitamura Bolo to suffer too much once they realized that he was uninvolved in everything. But if the elders punished Kitamura Bolo out of anger or, at the least, imprisoned him for a while, then Kenja would be content.

After some time, Kaitou Daiki commanded the vice elders, "Summon one of the pillars."

Logically speaking, Kaitou Daiki deduced that it should be unlikely for there to be a connection amongst all three points—the Rusty Robber, the patsy Migawari Puchi and the real Kitamura Bolo that should still be in the Dragon's Basin—but his intuition was telling him otherwise.

He decided he needed more information to sift through while the vice elders continued to take roll of all the gathered disciples. Because of the huge number of disciples but only a handful of vice elders, they had yet to finish accounting for everyone.

One of the vice elders took initiative and jumped on his sword before soaring two dozen meters up the central pillar. He stopped in front of a cave and began forming seals with his hand. Upon forming the final seal, blue qi gathered at his fingertip with which he wrote several symbols onto the cave door.

With this, he requested the appearance of the pillar's will that was originally birthed from this cave.

After being relocated to the Dragon's Basin, the pillars retained an invisible connection to their birthplace through the water pathways under the sect. In this way, it was possible for the elders and vice elders to communicate with them without traveling to the Dragon's Basin.

Kaitou Daiki could inquire one of the pillars about Kitamura Bolo without disturbing his practice.

And because this specific will had bestowed his acknowledgment upon the vice elder, the pillar should be more receptive to his summons.

The vice elder floated solemnly in front of the door, awaiting a response.

A response did not come.

The vice elder smiled nervously back at the elders and vice elders, embarrassed. For there to be no response, it was equivalent to the pillar completely ignoring him.

Kaitou Daiki's eyes narrowed, but he did not rebuke the vice elder for wasting their time. He merely glanced at a another vice elder.

The second vice elder soared upwards and around to the pillar's second face, stopping in front of a different cave and repeating the same process.

A response still did not come.

Kaitou Daiki's face darkened. An electric current visibly surged across his bald head, making the vice elders and the twins recoil backwards.

Kenja, on the other hand, leaned forward in amazement. He could only remark at how cool it looked to have yellow sparks surge across one's skin.

Was this also something gained from learning a lightning-based breathing technique?

"All of you, go try," barked Kaitou Daiki.

The pillars were spirits birthed from rocks. They received soul wisps from the past elders. In this way, the spirits gained the personality and memories of the now-deceased former elders.

As a result, the wills had some seniority over the present elders based on their history, but they were also lower in status than the present elders. This placed the Six Elders in an uncomfortable situation as they could command the pillars as they wished, but they had to retain a deferential attitude when facing them.

It was like hiring one's father as an employee for one's business. It was an unbearable situation for both parties.

For the First Elder who disliked being undermined, he hated dealing with these ancient rocks that would use their legacies to lord over his head. And their snobbish attitudes often made things difficult for him, like right now for example, when he wanted to ask about Kitamura Bolo.

The two pillars had intentionally ignored the first two summon requests.

Eight more vice elders leapt onto their swords and flew to different caves before repeating a summon request.

Nothing happened.

This time, the four non-snoring elders wore baffled expressions.

One or two ignoring their summons was not unexpected, but there was no way all the pillars would ignore them.

The First, Third, Fourth and Sixth Elders flew to their respective caves and repeated the same summoning process.

Kenja could see the First Elder's cave illicit no response.

Seconds later, the other three elders returned with solemn expressions. It was clear none of them had received a response.

"Something's happened at the Dragon's Basin!"