CH64: The Fool’s Initiation

***

CH64: The Fool's Initiation

I was in a bind.

A Shadowmancer, Cryomancer and an Archer.

They were all ranged fighters which were a bad match for my short-ranged melee style.

And they knew it.

The three of them worked together to keep me away and slowly grind me down.

I had a lot of stamina and endurance so it would be difficult to do. It was more likely that they'd run out of mana before I ran out of stamina, but...

Navia asked me to put on a show. This meant I couldn't let this end up as a fight of attrition. I had to end this quickly and convincingly.

Since being an operative in my previous life, I've always hated opponents who worked from range. The difference between then and now was that I had my guns to help me manage the problem.

In retrospect, I should've gotten a gun before coming for the initiation today. But because of how precious Mischief Points seemed, I decided to hold off buying anything until I understood what I lacked and what I needed to improve on.

A limitation of the {Vault of Knowledge} was that I couldn't exactly buy something from it unless I was in the control room in the Fool's Sanctuary. Well, anything physical at least.

I had to prepare everything I needed beforehand.

Well, since showing off was important on this occasion, I decided to show a bit of my hand. Not much, just the bit that was needed.

I took out a glass vial from my inner chest pocket and smashed it on the floor between myself and the shadowmancer.

The lady was taken aback and tried to move back since it released a green smoke, thinking it was poison. Unfortunately for her, the smoke spread too fast and covered her.

I wasn't too affected by my improvised smoke bomb as I could sense the lady's mana source.

I took out a second glass vial and threw its content on her.

Seems the lady didn't realise what I did. Anyway, she dropped to the floor unconscious.

Suddenly, I sensed the temperature around me drop. I shot out of the smoke without a moment's hesitation. It was a good thing too as ice bolts shot into the green smoke.

The cold about them caused the smoke to cool and stopped its advance.

The Cryomancer may have stopped the spread of the smoke, but I had achieved my aim with the smoke bomb. I had already closed the distance between myself and my targets.

When I shot out of the smoke, I dashed past the Cryomancer, to the lady's shock.

I could've attacked her if I wanted too, but I consider the archer a greater nuisance.

Expectedly, an arrow came flying for my face.

It was a good thing I had experience with arrows. Part of my personal training involved dodging arrows from Ramla throughout the time she spent learning archery.

I got a good sense of an arrow's flight path and their surrounding space.

I managed to dodge the arrow at the last moment with a tilt of head. There was less than a millimetre between my mask and the arrow when it flew past.

The Archer pulled back while notching an another arrow. He was hasty and didn't manage to aim well. Well, the short distance between us made up the difficulty in dodging to rival his previous arrows.

Just then, Ice bolts came shooting at me. I felt the mana in them so I wasn't surprised by their arrival.

I rolled on my feet to dodge the Ice bolts from behind me. Not only did I dodge the bolts, I also used my cane to adjust the trajectory of a few of the bolts.

Two bolts hit the arrow from the Archer, blasting it away while another three hit the ground at the Archer's foot and froze him in place.

I was on him quickly before he and his ally could remedy the situation.

I gave a good cane strike to the head, knocking him unconscious.

I was pretty happy with the strike as it allowed me to release all the negative air piled up in my chest.

Now with a depressurised mind, I turned on my foot without stopping for a moment and shot at the remaining Cryomancer.

The lady had good situational awareness. She adapted to the situation and shot a few Ice lances in front of herself, creating a wall to stop my rapid advance.

It was no use however, as I dextrously turned on my feet and dodged out of the way of the wall. I continued my advance for her without losing speed.

She was just a step from my range, so I pushed on my toes and shot forward with a thrust of my cane.

My cane made for the centre of her chest. The attack would create an opening if it hit.

Suddenly, my cane froze in space.

I was surprised at the Cryomancer's ingenious use of her Pangea.

The ice bolt/lances formed by freezing the surrounding moisture rapidly. This time, she didn't completely freeze the moisture into ice bolts. She instead used the process to freeze the region of space my cane thrust into.

She effectively made a defensive technique on the fly by taking advantage of the process involved in producing her Pangea.

I didn't know if she knew she could do this in advance, she just did it on a fly or it was an accident, but the old man and teacher in me wanted to applaud the lady for her ingenuity.

It's not everyday I see the natives of Arun use their Pangea in a manner out of the norm.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the time to be appreciating someone.

Sure the move stopped my cane's advance, it didn't mean I lost my window of opportunity.

The Cryomancer unconsciously relaxed when she saw her move stop my thrust. This momentary lapse in concentration ended up costing her.

I pulled back my hand.

Since the cane was locked in place, this allowed me to pull out my hidden blade from its sheath.

I swiped down, causing a vicious slash along the lady's torso.

I could see the shock and horror in her eyes as she dropped to the floor.

I flicked my sword a little. The blade was so sharp that it didn't have any blood on it.

I stoically turned to the last member in the group.

The broker.

The guy seemed not to have made a move, but in reality, he was the most dangerous amongst the group.

I took the part of my cane frozen in place and sheathed the sword before slowly walking to him.

The man looked at me coldly.

"You have good agents. It's a pity they're a bit stupid. Revealing how they carried out their favourite hits in a place filled with Assassins? They are just asking for death. They inadvertently revealed the nature of their Pangea and their traits." I stopped a few metres away from him.

I stood like an old gentleman, resting my weight on my cane.

"You on the other hand, were wiser. You didn't mention exactly how you carried out your hits. You even gave the illusion that you used 'words' to kill your targets. Considering how good of an orator you are, it's no surprise these naive assassins believed you. However, I know your weapon of choice."

"Is that so?" The man raised an eyebrow. He smiled. "And what is my weapon of choice?"

"Poison!" I said confidently. "Others may not notice it, but you can't evade my senses."

He kept a stoic demeanour, neither confirming nor denying my accusation.

"Not going to say anything? Well, there's no need for that anyways. We'll know soon enough, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"The poison is odourless and colourless. You planted it on your agent's bodies. I've already ingested quite a few amounts of it while fighting your people."

"In that case, your death is assured." He suddenly grinned. He turned to Boogeyman, "Commander, I believe the result is clear. It would be a shame to lose such a good agent." He said 'magnanimously'.

Boogeyman didn't say anything and instead kept his eyes on me.

"I'm dying? You seem to be misunderstanding something." I said. "I knew about your use of poison before we were initiated, so why didn't I take precautions against it? Why am I speaking to you like this? It's not to ask you for the antidote if that's what you're thinking."

"Then-"

"I allowed myself to be poisoned to analyse your poison. Heartburning vine, Purple blood flower, Crystal lily, Icicle milk, Amandala fruit... I'll only mention these ingredients out of respect for the alchemist who created the recipe."

The man's face dropped with every ingredient I mentioned.

"I was intrigued when I deduced both the Heartburning vine and the Purple blood flower in the nature of the poison I detected from you. The Heartburning vine contains fire-type essence while the Purple blood flower contains water-type essence. It would be difficult to use essence from both plants in alchemy unless it was concocted by a high ranking alchemist. I doubt you have that. So, I thought you used both alchemy and herbology. But from the effects I'm feeling, it's unlikely.

"I thought crystal lily and the Amandala fruit were used to stabilise the conflict from the two main ingredient or work with the other three main ingredient to stabilise the conflict of the two, but it doesn't explain the presence of the icicle milk. There's only one explanation...

"Grafting."

The broker's eyes widened.

"Shut the fork up!"

"Looks like my deduction was right." I smiled. "I won't press further. It wouldn't be fair to the genius who came up with this to reveal the fruit of his labour. Besides, the poison should be acting up right about now."

"Good. I was going to give you the antidote before, but now, Just Die!" the man shouted viciously.

"Oh... you seem to be misunderstanding something. I didn't mean your poison. I meant mine."

"What are-"

He didn't finish speaking when the effects started like I expected. His poison attacked the heart in many ways so I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine (poison).

He clenched his heart as he went into cardiac arrest. He slowly went to the ground. His eyes were on me as he dropped. I could see the shock in them.

They seem to be asking, 'How?'

I walked up to him.

"Your mistake was to play with poison in front of me. You are far too young and inexperienced to do so. Perhaps when you have at least a Master-grade poison, we'll talk."

These were the words I left with the man as he dropped unconscious.

He won't die as the poison wasn't fatal. Just that, I'm sure he doesn't feel that way.

By the way, I didn't lie to him. With the blessings from Jormungandr, attacking me with poisons below the Master-grade (Champion-equivalent) wouldn't kill me. At least not fast enough that I wouldn't be able to analyse the poison and come up with an antidote and a stopgap measure.

It's the same way I analysed the man's poison.

I realised that the alchemist who came up with the poison found another way to combine two conflicting essence-types. Since alchemy couldn't do it, he/she turned to the source.

They combined the two herbs from the source i.e. grafting.

They grafted the Heartbreak vine and the Purpleblood plant together. The flower which bloomed from the union contained essence from both the vine and the plant. That's why they used the Icicle milk in the refining process. It was to ensure the natural balance of the essence in the flower wasn't affected during the refining.

This was truly a revolutionary method. I can almost guarantee that the process was anything but easy.

Anyway, after figuring how it was made, I easily deduced how it worked. Then, it was just a matter of altering my body functions to inhibit the process. Simple.

As for how I managed to poison the broker, the smoke bomb wasn't just for the three ranged agents. I used the smoke to obstruct everyone's view as I had Gandr sneak up and bite the man.

Yes, I figured what he did, using his Agents as bait, from the onset so I made prior moves to attack him as well.

And so, this little charade was over and my initiation could continue.

**

The brokers murmured amongst themselves after my performance as medics came in to take the unconscious six away.

They were not my contract targets so I decided against killing them. The last thing I wanted was to get on Hel's bad side. Besides, for better or worse, they were my colleagues, even if only in name only. I shouldn't be too heavy-handed.

After confirming Navia was satisfied with my performance, I turned my attention to the most important person in the room.

"Your awareness is commendable." Was all Boogeyman said.

He signalled to the scribe to continue with the Initiation.

It was time to choose, or rather announce my broker. The scribe opened the floor the brokers to try to recruit me.

It looked like I earned a few fans after my performance. Of course, there were also people looking to slap Navia in the face by taking her Agent from under her.

They offered me good incentives, a few even better than what Navia could offer. Their offer would certainly move many normal Agents.

Unfortunately for them, I wasn't a normal agent.

"My professional motto is to do what the other side would do for me. Since my broker is going to be my only broker, I expect to be their only agent as well. So, unfortunately, I won't be accepting any offers from anyone with Agents." I declined their offer.

I was still getting interested gazes though. I quickly realised some brokers were planning on doing something radical.

So, I added,

"There's no point letting go of your agent as well. An exclusive contract is based on a foundation of trust. How can I trust someone who would break a contract with their agent out of nowhere? If you can do it to your previous agent, you can do it to me. With that in mind, there would be no foundation of trust."

This silenced the brokers.

Sure, I may have offended a number of them, but I also gained some allies as well.

This part ended with Navia being officially confirmed as my Broker.

*

The Initiation was finally over.

Navia took me to the resource department to receive my flame.

Boogeyman had already informed the manager so we easily got what we came for. However, the flame wasn't the only thing we got from the manager. There was also a message from Boogeyman.

I don't remember the exact wording anymore. It was something along the line of, 'the flame is far too precious to be from merely defeating some of your fellow agents. If you are taking the flame, you will be obligated to fulfil these contracts.'

There was a list of ten targets on another sheet of paper.

"These include names of people from Blood Coffin, Reaper Clan and contracts Agents are avoiding due to their inconvenience." Navia explained.

"In other words, they'll be challenging and interesting, right?"

"Yes." Navia said with an amused smile.

"Good. I accept then."

And so, I received my first target list after becoming a true member of the House of Death.

While I say that, the mission didn't exactly have a time limit. The manager did mention that it would be best for me to finish the job within two years. The earlier I do, the better the rewards.

What especially excited me was that a target I had set my eyes on previously was on the target list.

*

Navia and I took a stroll through the Azgul Fortress. We didn't buy anything but I got an insight into what the organisation had to offer.

We returned to Landrose through the portals.

I had to prepare. Both my light and shadow lives were on the up. There was no rest for the weary.

After I got home and got some rest, I decided to finally acquire some things from the {Vault of Knowledge}.

But before I entered the {Fool's Sanctuary}, I opened my notifications.

**

[Notice: Initiation into Assassin Guild confirmed. Some changes have been made to blessings to aid your progress. Please check your status to confirm.]

[Notice: Non-sentient Essence lifeform detected in Host's possession. Host is advice to put it in the {Fool's Sanctuary} for upgrades.]

**

(To be continued...)