Unexpected

Yellow wings sect"s temporary base in Maple city.

A flat headed short man angry slapped the newspaper he had been reading against the wooden table.

"Was your nephew's' head kicked in by a donkey?! How can he be tricked so easily?"

"With his strength, how did he even fail to kill that fat pig?"

The man spoke so loudly that his spit flew all over the room, the table, newspaper, and carpet were all covered, some even fell on the lips of the man opposite him.

The other man just stood there and let himself be covered in spit, even though he could easily evade it, he didn't dare to do so.

As the vice leader of the sect, this man's strength was way beyond his, and he could easily slap him into meat and bone paste.

If he irritated him by dodging his spit...

Remembering how he had to mop up the last person to who made this "plague god" angry, Collins' distant uncle subconsciously licked his dry lips.

"Are you ignoring me?!!"

Seeing green veins pulsing on the forehead of the short man, he knew that he was walking around hell's gate right now, and he could die at any moment, so he decisively sold his nephew.

"To tell the truth, Collins found an amazing martial art manual from the body of an expert, and he got internal injuries while trying to switch arts."

"I tried convincing him to dedicate it to you since only great men like you deserve to use great martial arts, but he stronger than me, and he forced me to keep it a secret."

"My plan was to to tell you secretly when he comes back, so that you can get the manual in one go!"

The skinny man spoke very fast out of fear that if he spoke too slowly he would die.

Although he was out of breath when he was done, he felt much better as the flat head elder seemed to mellow down.

"Is the martial art so good? What is it called?"

"I... I .. I don't know."

"What?!!"

The anger came up again.

The reaction made him so scared that he almost knelt down.

"No, I mean, from the way that he was reacting, the martial art should be many times better that the standard sect martial art."

"Be cause it is so precious, he tried his best to hide the details from me!"

"Hmm..."

The short man twirled his mustach as he was fell into thought, he seemed to be very interested in the martial art.

As Collins' uncle awaited his verdict with cold sweat on his forehead, the sound of a door opening broke the silence.

A servant boy walked into the room, quickly walked up the the vice head, and whispered into his ear.

"Sir, Collins has used the communication talisman to send us a message."

"He said that the newspaper people are definitely talking nonsense, and that Garfield is his sworn brother."

"He claimed that the person who turned him in was actually Garfield's wife."

"Collins also advised us that they might be a trap set up near his holding cell, and we should not hurry to rescue."

"And finally, he strongly advises us to make contact with the man named Garfield since he he could be trusted, and he could help us."

Hearing that Collins was still defending the person who tricked him, the elder angrily slapped the table again.

This time, the table was turned into saw dust and a few pieces of wooed.

"This idiot! He was sold, and he still wants to count the money for the person who sold him?"

Collins was his uncle's only backer in the sect, if he died, then he would not be able to keep the wealth he had accumulated in his life.

Seeing that things were going south very quickly, his eyes quickly darted around as he tried to think of a way to save Collins.

After a few moments, he had an idea, and he quickly guided the old man's thoughts.

"Sir, although Collins is not the smartest person, he is definitely not stupid..."

"What are you trying to say?! Do you want to speak for this painter too?!"

Seeing the old man slightly raising his palm as if to slap him, George quickly clarified himself.

"No no no!"

"Then get to the point!"

George secretly let out a sigh of relief after seeing the hand being lowered.

"This painter... What if this painter masters a technique to mess with people's minds?"

"I mean, no matter how dumb a person is, there is no way he would unconditionally trust someone he has known for less than a day!"

"From the way Collins has been acting, especially when compared to his previous overly cautious behavior, it can be seen that something has affected his thinking."

"So, there is a high possibility that this man, Garfield, has a way to brainwash, or affect people's thoughts."

"If we carefully investigate his past, we might find more clues to similar occurrences."

"And if he truly has such means, if we can... If you can obtain it from him, then you can easily crush the imperial court, become the new head of the sect, or even the king of the Green country!"

The more George spoke, the smoother his words became, and at the end he had almost convinced himself that he was speaking facts.

"Hahaha, what nonsense, the sect already has a sect master and I don't have the ambition to become a king. Hahaha!"

The short elder waved his hand, and shook his head again and again, but even a fool could see that he was pleased with such a prospect.

George didn't miss the opportunity to continue flattering.

"It's a pity! It's a pity! In my humble opinion, no one else is more worthy than you, sect master, ah... Slip of the tongue."

The dog licking seemed to work, as the wrinkles on the the man's face were stretched out by the big smile on his face.

The elder still softly rebuked in a kind voice.

"Don't make it a habit to misspeak, or people could get the wrong idea."

Then he turned his attention to the servant boy who had not yet left the room.

"Go and tell those useless fellows to get all the information about that painter names Garfield, I want his information on my desk by dusk!"

"Yes sir!"

...

Garfield actually didn't mind the article about him on the newspaper.

Why?

The article made him very famous, as they come to see him, and he uses this to promote his business.

As for what his sworn brother will think, he is in jail so it didn't really matter.

The most important reason that he did not mind the article is that he got to get in touch with a lot more women.

This brought a new wave of fresh blood to his small pond of fish that was beginning to bore him.

Ever since he started with his new martial art, his libido had increased exponentially, and he had already gotten the widow pregnant.

The only thing he found slightly unsettling, was that he had received a lot of personal questions about his life experience and history.

Not only that, but the people who always came to spectate as while he worked were also being interviewed by a lot of people.

At first he thought that it was probably the newspaper company coming to do a follow up article, but then he realized that there were many waves of such people that seemed to come from different groups.

'It's such a pain to be a celebrity!'

Garfield narcissistically thought, unaware of some malicious gazes coming from the crowd.

It turns out that many people did a background check on.Garfield, and they started noticing some of his abnormalities.

During this day, many tests were done, and different groups of people representing different forces, had a preliminary understanding of the protagonist's halo.

Their current hypothesis was that Garfield had a type of treasure, or a unique martial art skill.

The only reason they had not already arrested Garfield, was because they were wary of other forces, and that they had been affected by his halo.

Andrew was also unaware that by trying to cut off the connection that Garfield was going to make, he had unintentionally exposed Garfield's anomaly.

So was very confused when he saw the progress bar rapidly increasing more than he had expected it to.

Andrew quickly sent a few people to enquire about Garfield's situation, but to his surprise, they came back with black eyes and bloody noses.

After inquiring, he realized that a lot of people were currently monitoring Garfield, and his little family had no room to interfere.

The Harden family might have a lot of influence in the region, but it could at most match the power of a noble at the baron level.

So when different factions of the imperial court, nobles backed by sects, and sects backed by nobles are present, the Harden family becomes small.

After understanding the situation, Andrew was slightly dumbfounded.

"So all it took was to show Garfield's abnormality to the right people and the progress of the task would increase so much?"

Andrew knew that there was more to the situation than just that, and as a protagonist, there might still be a chance for him to escape and even benefit from the situation, but it was very unlikely.

"I have to find a way to keep tabs on the situation!"

...

To be continued