23 Next step

After that visit, the Lea family members started to visit the other families as well, gifting new ideas, new methods, offering solutions and also helping with a few tasks that were hard to accomplish for the families by themselves. They left with praises and thanks, baskets full of gifts and servants as well to help them deal with their house chores.

Another thing they received was attacks. Surprisingly, all of the visits had one or two incidents. Either a fight, or an accident in which something fell from a high place and nearly hit them and the like. Each time, the Lea family members brushed these things off and didn't put them in their eyes. After Lufti's visit, they prioritized Lina's safety and as long as she was besides one of her brothers her safety was guaranteed as no family will openly attack them and the people inside the families that were willing to attack them, were few and had nearly no resources to do so. That's why these tactics of provoking small accidents here and there or involving the Lea family in internal disputes were fruitless.

After visiting all the families, Lufti, Leroux and Leon sat down to talk about the things that happened. They were worried, because there were different things that could've been avoided. What if next time they didn't use numbers but a really dangerous move? Poison, hidden weapons, framing or scheming at a higher level.

They were also aware that while the servants and gifts they received where out of goodwill, some servants could be part of the internal powers inside the families that were against their visits. If these servants were spies, their own house wasn't safe anymore. Once more, their main worry was Lina, as they would be able to come out unscathed due to living in the forest with their guard up for 18 years but Lina was innocent and didn't know how evil people could be due to their greed.

They had never experienced human greed themselves, but they trusted and believed their master and she had told them many times about what humans were capable of. Some were fairy tales, while others were real stories. From siblings fighting to death, to a man murdering his father and mother in order to have political advantage in life.

That is why, the Lea family decided what the next step should be: create an intelligence network. This was not going to be easy, in order to get the information needed, they need trusted people because if the information they received was faulty or false, then the purpose of this network was completely useless.

The only people that came to mind, were the ones their master had prepared. She had instructed these men and women with the ability to do many things that normal people couldn't. They also had higher strengh and stamina compared to the normal citizens of Kyus, and while they were part of the Lea family, they haven't been instructed to do anything yet.

That was when Leon came up with something fairly simple yet amazing: What if more problems arise inside the families and we can't help them in time? Let us send some of our family members as guests of these families so they can be our proxy when it comes to help and come out with new methods. In exchange, we simply desire to meet up with them twice or thrice a week to see the progress and if we can help as well.

The families had no reason to refuse this, as if they did it would've been weird. They were given troves of treasures in human shape just for free. If these people were nearly as cabable as those three youngsters then they would try to rope them into their families. Even if they wanted a good relationship with the Lea family, if these guests decided to marry someone of become the adopted son or daughter of one of the influential members the Lea family couldn't do anything about it.

Leon was 100% sure of these people's loyalty. His master had handpicked them all and treated them with utmost respect and courtesy. They had pledged loyalty to the Lea family as well since the moment they showed their faces in the gate in front of all the big families. They knew that even if they were simple 'members' of the Lea family, Leon would reward them in the long run for their efforts and they could not deny they felt admirations towards Leon, Leroux and Lufti. They had all studied the same and undergone the same training but despite all this, they were surpassed by younger people than themselves. This was simply amazing and they were aware of this.

Once they were called in, Leon gave them the choice to decided which family to go by themselves but they denied this option. They decided to introduce their best capabilities in order to be sent to the families they could help the best and also shared their connections for Leon to make a better choice. Faced with such loyalty and dedication he decided to throw a feast before deciding their new 'families' and took time to chat with them all and get to know them better.

They were a total of 7 women and 5 men in this group and while only 9 of them were going to be family guests, the remaining 3 were going to act as close friends of those 9. This was going to make information flow easier and was also going to speed up the messages. The relationship between them would be that of siblings, cousins or friends and that was going to be the door needed for them to communicate casually and often.

Leo came out with the idea to use small paper messages. The paper was going to be produced with a rare type of tree that was only found in the forest. Once this paper was burnt, it produced a silvery green flame that extinguished. Only after this was extinguished would they be able to burn this paper. They had other ways to find out if the message was true, like dipping it in parmaham oil, which was the oil extracted from a seed similar to the sunflower. Once dipped, the paper could be burn once more in order to produce that short lived green flame again.

These meassures were in order for them to verify the messages and not even once these members thought they were going to be sloppy or betray the Lea family. Leon also didn't think that way, but they all knew the rules their master had taught them; never underestimate your opponent. The rule number two was; you're imperfect and can fail like anyone else.