Trouble Brews Desperation

"A Space Ring?" Spark repeated, somewhat unsure of its meaning.

He was ignorant of many things and somewhat hesitated to bring it up, before ultimately deciding to just take on the character of the ignorant young boy once again. Sadly, he was somewhat used to it already and it was better than to stay ignorant. It reminded him of an adage from Earth.

'He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes— and he who never asks, remains a fool for life.'

So Spark dropped his ego wistfully and asked Alesso in a straight-forward manner.

"What kind of item is it exactly?"

Already half-expecting Alesso to furrow his brows and and twist his face, he waited for an answer.

But contradicting his expectation, the burly man just laughed and patiently explained:

"It's a rare thing, really. The Space Ring is a wonderful Item capable of storing inanimate goods. The simplest explanation would be to call it a cordoned-off space fabricated inside an accesoir, usually made out of the compatible mineral, the Space Stone."

Somewhat irritated, Alesso added:

"Of course the fabrication of such a thing is impossible for a Artisan himself. It needs the close cooperation of a Space-Element Cultivator and god knows, they are an uncommon bunch..."

"So... this is the only item which I could think of, since it created a bit of trouble some weeks back."

"Thank you for the detailed explanation," Spark said with a gentle smile first before asking in depth, "What exactly was the trouble that came up?"

Alesso lampooned when he recounted it, "A foolish customer of mine wanted me to sell it to him when he got wind of the thing. I haven't even put it up for sale since I was studying it at that moment!"

"I told the mongrel that the thing doesn't even work properly, but he wouldn't accept No for an answer, telling me I'm a greedy miser... Goddamn it, I should've just bashed his head in then and there!"

The Giant stood up and gripped his fist, his eyes blurring into frightening red.

The underlying tone in his voice betrayed that this was no mere threat. Spark had a vague feeling that this customer almost spelled his doom that day.

A bash from this man was no different then a death certificate!

"... Did he bother you again?"

The burly mean shook his head in anger, "No... that was the only time he did. Lucky for him!"

"That's weird indeed... so what was this person's identity?"

Alesso smacked his tigh with his flat palm, trying to remember the name of the customer.

"Ah... what was it again... some merchant from down the street, ahh silver right, he wore silver garments!"

"...Silver Hawk, was it?"

'Silver garments? This seems somehow feels familiar... Wait, isn't he the one who I saw after reincarnating. The one who accompanied the Golden Glutton and the City Lord?'

Alesso's eyes widened and veins popped frightengly on his temples, as he made a possibly connection.

"You don't think... he has something to do with the kidnapping of my daughter, do you?"

The towering, dark blonde man had a harrowing expression contorting his face when he said this.

Spark tried his best to not be intimidated and counter posed with another question.

"Do you feel like the worth of the item would give him the motive to do so?"

The enraged man looked at the gaunt boy in front of him with creased brows, his eyes coruscating in deep wrath.

"Do you really think..."

"That there is such an item in the world?"

"An item that would have enough worth to kidnap my daughter over?"

His towering figure overshadowed Spark by three heads, as he looked down with pulsating eyes.

Spark decided to raise his voice.

"There's no damn way!"

"But not everybody shares that sentiment! Some evils will do the most frightening things for a penny and a buck."

The shop owner was peeved when he heard that perspective. He was just a step from flying off the handle and rampaging through the busy scrummage in front of the shop to kick down the door of the Silver Hawk and question him with a barrage of unforgiving fists.

But then a soft touch from his side got ahold of him and brought him back from the brink of insanity.

"Dear, we need to be strategic now... Laurel is safe! You need not to worry anymore."

As if quenched by icy water, the firm, broad man took a deep breath and calmed himself a bit.

'Dear god! This girl, Laurel is a fucking superhero to defy this menace of a man. Why the hell did Joey receive 'Calculated Fury'? I found a man, who would need that blessing as soon as possible.'

Not voicing his inner sentiment out loud, out of fear of being squashed into bloody mush with a sharp slap, Théo composed himself and tried to make rhyme of the situation.

"We have reason to assume that the perpetrator must have deep connections to the Inspecting Office, and also have some other shady dealings, as he would have been involved in smuggling, kidnapping and even slave-trading."

"Sl-Slave—?" The quenched coal started blistering up again when he heard Spark mention that term,l.

"WITH MY DAUGHTER?"

'Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. Corale, do something!' Spark turned his glance towards the wife to mediate and was met by an unsuspected view.

The woman ripped her eyes open in horror, with a maddening, bloodshot shimmer hinting at grim intentions.

'Oh no...'

Gathering all his courage he angrily shouted out:

"CALM YOURSELVES DAMNIT!"

When he saw both of the figures in front of him casting their gaze onto him, he felt his heart miss a beat.

'What a scary couple...'

With haste, he tried to salvage the situation, as to not be beaten to death by either one of them...

"Laurel was saved by us already! There's nothing going to happen to her... For now we need to stop the impeding danger! He might try to do something soon... so we can't be careless and startle the snake, or lose anymore time."

Spark let out a deep sigh after he spat out all these phrases in quick succession. The two figures in front of him seemed to have calmed somewhat, too.

"Do you think you could defeat the Silver Hawk in a one vs one?"

Alesso, still seething with contained anger, coldly spat out:

"What puny Silver Hawk! No matter who it is, I'd rip him into bloody pieces if they were behind this nasty scheme."

Spark let out an awkward chuckle.

"Well, that's... reassuring to hear."

"Whoever the culprit may be, we need to set a trap... They shouldn't be aware of you at all when they come to cause trouble."

"So this is my plan..."

...

Some time later, the door of 'The Fantissimo' opened up and young Spark ambled out, wiping pearls of sweat off his paling face.

'These two are no joke... So intense.'

Spark sighed and uttered in all honesty, "I'm beyong glad they are on our side... Otherwise..."

He shuddered at the mere thought and felt that, perhaps, the father of Laurel might be even more frightening than Celas. And the Mad Dog's persona already left a deep psychological scar on him.

'Why is this planet full of psychopaths... God, no... Grand Dao, please protect this humble sheep from the terrible dangers he will have to face...'

Spark lampooned half-jokingly.

But what he knew was that he couldn't keep staying at the mercy of these insane people. He had to grow stronger, and very quickly at that.

He assumed that the perpetrator would lose no more time and strike when dusk settles. It's impossible for him not to have heard about Celas' death, when practically the whole slum knew about it already.

Spark also suspected, that he might have even went to check the dilapidated building already and is already aware of 'The Shelter.'

Some people knew that Joey had slaughtered Celas after all, and some escaped ruffians who know of the hidden connection to the Inner City must have surely told him all the details they are privy to.

What great luck to find such menacing companions in the face of threat.

The man behind the scenes was surely anxiously waiting for the right time to strike, so Spark had put his plans into motion, too.

He rented a private carriage to quickly ride him to the East Gate for the price of 40 coppers and he exited through the City Gate by foot. When he glanced at the guard of the gate, he somehow had a weird hunch as to how he earned his blue eye.

'Poor fellow must have tasted the 'bash' of the blonde-haired menace for carelessly letting his daughter sneak out into the Outskirts... No wonder he is in such a foul mood.'

Sympathizing with the victim of undeserved, well... not undeserved but rather overly brutish violence, he arrived back in the Outskirts. His trip had taken no more than three hours, and the day was still young. Knowing that the rest was pretty much out of his hands he decided to shortly drop into tavern to give everyone a quick rundown of the situation, before attending to different matters at his home.

He pulled at the door handle and swinged the door open to and was faced with relieved expressions on the familiar figures.

"Everything went smooth?"

Joey glanced at Spark, taking a relieved breather.

Spark remembered the vibrant meeting he had not too long ago and shuddered indiscernibly before hesitantly nodding.

"Yes—Yes, you could say so. All smooth sailing."

'If you ignore the heartattacks and the decline of my mental health.' he lampooned silently.

"That's great... where is Laurel's father?"

Spark twitched and said, "He'll come here discretely as to not startle the snake. We theorized who the culprit might be and decided the best course of action is to set a trap."

"What? You already have an idea who the hidden connection could be?"

Spark was silent for a bit before nodding, "Yes. It might be the Silver Hawk Merchant."

Jessie and Joey's face contorted into a slight frown when they heard about the assumption. It seems that they heard about him.

"That lecherous merchant?"

Joey pondered in a voice, soaked in disdain.

I heard that he and the Golden Bull only recently expanded their industries to Monsoon City."

Jessie also shaked her head before commenting:

"Spark... You may not know of them but they do not have the best reputation in the outskirts... A really bad one, even. And that's not all..."

With that said, she fell into suspence.

"What's more... Is that the Silver Hawk has already reached the 5th Stage of the Qi Realm."

Spark's mouth twitched as he thought

'Now that spells trouble...'

...

After revealing more of the details he had coordinated with Alesso and Corale, he stepped out and made his way to his residence.

Joey would stay vigilant not let the kids wander about. He shared his assumption that the mastermind would probably only show up in the cover of the night, but also reminded that this was just a guess of his.

Spark was just dead-weight in such an altercation, so he paced back and prepared himself mentally for the endeavour he had set out to do.

Alesso and Corale must have left the Inner City too, by now, and were hovering around The Shelter without revealing their figures, keeping watch in the shadowy corners of the outskirts.

Entering the March's, he limited himself to small talk with his parents before excusing himself to his room to take a breather on his bed.

Seeing the dozen books on the nightstand, he picked up the most unassuming one and glanced at its cover before starting to browse through the contents.

'The Clearing Cloud Circulation Arts.'

The textbook was not too thick and lengthy, at most it had fifty to sixty pages describing the method of circulating Spiritual Energy correctly, a special method to break through and tips to clean out the physical body of its filth more efficiently.

Spark had to cross-read through another book called 'The Anatomy of the Cultivator' to truly understand some processes and their correspondent body parts.

As he had not awakened yet, most described meridians and nodes of the body were still clogged up and useless for now, and therefore he could only make use of the most primal techniques which were inscribed.

...For now.

After he finished skimming through the Cultivation Art which left him speechless and ignorant in many regards, he picked up another textbook, this time an encyclopedia.

'Alchemic, Information on the most Heavenly Pills.'

It turned out to be an anthology of various Pills that roamed around not only the Zoenig Empire, but the entire planet. Insanely wondrous Pills and Concoctions were inscribed, leaving Spark in pure disbelief. After browsing through some pages, he finally found the item he was looking for.

[Bone Marrowing Pill]

[The Bone Marrowing Pill is a Body-Enhancing, supplementary creation by the ancient Pill Master Yu Zhi, who is the forefather of the concept of Frame-Altering Pill effects... This pill has a long history with many additions and complementions made to the recipe throughout the years. It's said that the original Bone Marrowing Pill, was a Pill of utmost value, miraculously changing Meridian-structures along with Bone-Settings and Muscle-Allocation to mould the body into a state that is perfect for Cultivation and Energy Circulation.

Tragically, the recipe for the original version has long been lost and replaced, due to the extinction of certain ingredients and a long chain of verbal succession. Nowadays the Pill's effectiveness varies, depending on the used recipe and the concocting Alchemist, but usually provides reconstruction of the body and the meridians to a certain degree.

It's only effective before the Element Awakening Realm, and can be consumed by the Body Foundation Stage before the breakthrough. But experienced Alchemist advise to take precaution and consume the pill in the earlier or rather middle stages of the Body Foundation Realm to garantuee a harmless and smooth digestion.]

Spark let out a stuffy breath after he read through the paragraph. What he was about to do, was not advised by either Joey, nor the experts of the book. According to his own thoughts, he must have truly gone insane.

But what was he supposed to do? Hidden force lingered in the dark, sneaking around in the vicinity, perhaps plotting dark schemes right at the moment. And perhaps, they even knew about the existence of the Bone Marrowing Pill.

...So Spark felt that it was better to eat it now, than to cry and regret his indecisiveness when it was snatched away later!

It might be a paranoid thought, but Spark wanted to act prudently.

...Well, somewhat prudently at least. He still didn't know what pain and sorrow expected him.

Spark gave voice to a light chuckle.

"Yeah... what's the big deal anyways? Just eat the thing and endure. Can't be worse than a Ghost Pepper can it?"

'On second thought... maybe it can...'

[Some time later]

Beneath a gargantuan beech-like tree, with dense green foliage covering the turquoise sky above, Spark found place under its plentiful shade

Sometimes, five pointed leafs would break off to swirl and twirl around the air with a gust of refreshing wind, creating a tranquil, placid atmosphere.

The leafs swayed vivaciously and Spark sat quietly next to it all, serenely witnessing all its causes and effects.

The place he chose for his endeavour were the Pluvial Grasslands, covered in mounds and lonesome deciduous trees.

A wide expanse of green with various flora, and a vernal atmosphere.

A good distance into these Greenlands, Spark sat in a surreptitious corner of the expanse and meditated.

By now, he was mentally prepared. A longsword and a short dagger lying orderly next to him, he opened up a leather pouch and removed a small wooden box.

"Well... here goes nothing!"