Alex was called over by the leader the next day.

“You were right,” he said the moment he entered the room. “We found Alchemist Han dead and buried in the corner of the garden. If we hadn’t searched for it explicitly, we would have never found his corpse.”

Alex gave a grim look and said nothing. This proved that someone was out there waiting to kill him, and they were going as far as they could to try and figure out more about him.

But why?

“Sect leader Qiu messages me earlier. Senior Qiu Jianhong will be here at any moment to take you to the Sunborn Sanctuary. You are not to leave or meet with anyone until then.”

Alex nodded. “I understand,” he said. He was still not sure if he could trust the council members at all, but at the very least, not all of them would be trying to kill him. With their strength, he would be safe there than anywhere else.

“What about the event? Will we be canceling that?” Alex asked.

“We have to, don’t we?” the leader asked. He didn’t feel good about ending something so important to the association, but he didn’t feel like he had any other choice at all. Especially with Alex’s life on the line.

“Very well, let’s end it,” Alex said. “We can stop this for a few years at least and see if it all blows over. Hopefully, by then I will have found my father and a way out of this continent.”

The leader was disappointed to hear that Alex still wanted to leave this continent. But there wasn’t anything he could say, so he kept quiet.

Alex talked with the leader for a few more minutes and by then the old man had arrived.

Both Alex and the leader went out to greet the senior from the council, and Alex got onto his boat before flying away.

“Tsk. Whatever did you do to get a target on your head?” the senior couldn’t help but ask.

“Who knows,” Alex said. “I don’t remember offending anybody— well, that’s not true.” He sighed when he remembered the Huang family and his oath against them.

“It must have been the Huang family if anyone,” Alex said. “They are the only ones that could possibly have any resentment against me.”

“No, its not them,” the old man said.

“Huh? How do you know?” Alex asked.

“After learning about your conflict, once he was done cultivating, brother Huang returned to his family to give them a piece of his mind. The current family head has changed as well and they have been ordered to not create any more conflict. I doubt it’s any of them honestly.”

Alex gave a thoughtful look. “I didn’t hear about this,” he said.

“They’ve been keeping this under wraps for now. This sort of information is devastating for them, especially in the hands of their rivals in the business, so they will hide the change until the family has stabilized a bit more,” the seniors said.

“I see,” Alex said.

“Besides, I don’t think the Huang family has nearly enough money to commission people from the Dark Phoenix to assassinate you. Their family isn’t as rich as they hope to be,” Qiu Jianhong said.

“So it is someone rich,” Alex asked.

“Yes,” the old man said.

Alex nodded. The old man didn’t know about the additional information that Alex had, so he didn’t realize that Alex’s suspects had gone from 20 to 18. Maybe even 17 if the Flowerhall Sect truly wasn’t part of it.

‘Someone rich and with connections,’ Alex thought. It could be any of the 17 if he was to ignore the other 3.

‘I’ll have to research a bit more,’ Alex thought.

The two soon reached another city where the teleportation formation had been ready for them.

They got on top of the formation and at the next moment, they were both in the Sunborn Sanctuary. They flew over to the palace where Alex hadn’t been for nearly half a year.

He met up with the elders that were there who told him that he would be safe in the palace. Alex wouldn’t have doubted that, but he knew a few pieces of information that were keeping him from fully believing in them all.

He retreated back to the room he had before so he could make some pills. They let him do what he wanted, but also requested some other pills for their cultivation. They had used up quite a lot of them and were only now realizing just how good they were.

Alex agreed to their requests and retreated to his room where he rested for a while, and then began his long alchemy session.

* * * * * * *

A woman wearing a dull robe with a hooded face walked through the morning crowd to go somewhere.

There was a small bee flying in front of her, and while most people would’ve swatted such a bug away, she showed no reaction to it.

In fact, she even looked at it from time to time to see if it was still there.

She went where the bee did, following it through the crowd. Finally, she arrived at a carriage station where people got onto large carriages to go to a different city.

The bee went through an open door in the carriage and the woman walked into it as well. She climbed up the carriage and found herself an empty seat.

As for the bee, it was nowhere to be found at all. She tried searching for it with just her eyes, but it wasn’t visible.

There were a dozen or so people in the carriage and they either rested or talked to other people. Not a single one seemed to be paying attention to her at all.

The carriage started moving. It left the city to go to the next one.

Five minutes passed and the woman saw nothing. No signs or anything. She was starting to believe that she had done something wrong when a middle-aged man in front of her dropped something to the ground.

Before she could see what it was, she smelled something… weird and immediately stopped breathing. The people around her noticed it as well, but they were very late. Before they could realize it, they were unconscious.

“No need to hold your breath, this smoke only makes non-saints unconscious. You are fine,” the middle-aged man said. He crushed the small grass that was burning on the carriage floor and tossed it out the window.

“We have 10 minutes,” he said.

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“That was the plan, yes,” the man in front of her said. “But things have changed a little.”

“What has changed?” the woman asked.

“For one, the importance of the target has changed,” the man said. “He is now worth a lot more than he previously did.”

“What?” the girl said in an angry tone while keeping her voice barely above a whisper. “Why would his worth change? He was already valued very high to begin with.”

“Yes, I won’t deny that, but his value had increased even more,” the man said. “After all, either he or someone around him has managed to take out 2 of the assassins we sent after him. Do you know what that means?”

The woman’s eyes went wide. “I thought all 7 of your members were supposed to be some of the best assassins. How could 2 of you have died?” she asked.

“They did,” the man said. “The Faceless Assassin was supposed to have contacted us 3 days ago, but there is a rumor in the Flowerhall sect that not everyone who entered the orchard this time around managed to come out. We suspect that he died in there.”

“What? We ordered you not to do anything until way later,” the woman said.

“We weren’t doing anything but gathering information. However, Faceless still died, which means he was likely caught and had to fight back,” he said. “As for the other one, Jade hasn’t been in contact since we put him on the task nearly 3 months ago. Considering him anything other than dead would be a mistake at this point.”

“So…” the woman asked.

“So, the price is going to have to increase again,” the man said. “There are only 5 of us remaining, so both we and the target are worth more now. That is… if you still wish to continue.”

The woman thought for a bit and shook her head. The loss would be too great at this point to go back on the assassination attempt.

“No, keep at it,” she said. “But the actual assassination has to happen in the Sanctum itself. Anywhere else would cause too many questions to be asked.”

“Speaking of which,” the man said. “The council members have taken him away. We don’t know if we will ever see him again or not.”

“What? No way!” the woman practically shouted this time around. Fortunately, no one woke up.

“The target is inside the Sunborn Sanctuary and… I don’t suppose you want us to sneak in to kill him?” he asked.

“No,” the woman said.

“Then unless he comes out, it will be hard,” the man said. “Also, since the old foggies are involved, we are going to have to go underground to not get caught. We will come out when the sanctum opens but until then… you better hope the target will be there too.”

The woman thought very hard for a minute or so before saying, “Don’t worry about him. I’ll find a way to get him there.”

She had a plan in her mind for that.

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