Rivers of the Night - Chapter 88

Chapter 88: Bloomstone
Theron knew exactly who Kai was. He also knew that it wasn’t necessarily a good thing that this person of all people had found him here.

But he also had the mood of someone who had already expected this. After all… he had been looking for him.

How could Theron sit here with a book that could potentially be a weakness to him for hours on end just waiting for someone to find him if there wasn’t a purpose to it?

Theron’s gaze shifted down to Kai’s uniform.

“Visitors to the Imperial Academy are only allowed on campus three hours from now. You also have to register, and aren’t allowed into this region of the library.”

“Hoho, a real stickler for rules, is that it?” Kai smiled, his gaze a bit venomous. “Do you think it’s easy to sneak into the Imperial Academy? If I’m here, there’s a pretty good reason for it, don’t you think? How high up do you think the person who let me in had to be? Go on and take a wild guess.”

“It’s actually very easy to sneak into the academy. The guards are lax because no one dares to disrespect the crown, or try and sneak into a place that has the highest concentration of Gold Mancers in the entire city.”

Theron slowly stood to his feet as Kai’s eyes narrowed. The latter was quickly realizing that intimidation wasn’t going to work.

“My guess,” Theron said calmly, “is that Sawyer let you in. These days, even if the guards did see you, because there was a Thistle walking beside you, they would have turned a blind eye.”

Kai’s pupils constricted into pinholes.

“You know, fools like Sawyer are very predictable. All I had to do was step out of the Fourth Year Botany Class once in front of him and I knew he’d go running his mouth to you.”

Chi.

Kai froze as a blade ran right into his chest, slipping through a small sliver between his heart and lungs. He tried to retreat, but tendrils of Mana sunk into his body, making him realize that any movement would cause it to explode.

“If you came, then it would certainly mean that you did know about the Verdant Bloomstone. If you didn’t, then I’d just let you live. But to think you’d take such a big risk on a small sliver of a chance. Let me guess, my battle with Thessa is what tipped you off. If I could defeat her so easily, Yonowai would clearly not be a problem for me. And since my soon-to-be marriage with a Vermouth is so public now, you know that I’m in bed with the Thistles as well, so there’s a minor chance I just might be related to Yonowai’s death.

“Either way, this jade is so important to you that even for such a small chance, you would definitely take the risk.”

Kai’s eyes opened wide, but he couldn’t say a word.

“You certainly have a unique vantage point on things. It’s too bad that it’s meaningless.”

The Luminiscent Sect disciple grit his teeth.

“Are you very angry? Maybe you have the right to be. The Thistles have many powerful warriors, but they birthed someone as useless as Sawyer who didn’t understand when he was being used. I guess it is a good thing I didn’t kill him so soon.”

Sawyer’s jealousy was easily manipulated. So long as he knew that Theron had leapfrogged everyone to enter a Fourth Year Class, and he was still trying to ingratiate himself with Kai in hopes of using the Sect to make up for his lost credits, news of this would certainly reach Kai.

Theron had actually planned to sit in this library until dawn for several nights in a row. Who would have thought he would only need to waste two days?

“Luckily, I didn’t waste my time. It seems that you’ll be more useful than I thought.”

Kai’s screams filled the air. Unfortunately, no one would hear him.

…

By the time the sun came up, Kai was no more.

There was one thing Burne was very right about. Water Mancers were quite good at cleaning.

Theron wasn’t much of a talker. The only reason he had said so much was because it was a type of psychological torture tactic. If he wanted the information he got, he had to pressure not just Kai’s body, but his mind as well.

Torture was unsurprisingly not a quiet a part of the tenets of an assassin.

He placed Kai’s body within a spatial device and put it into his pocket before strolling out of the library. The first rays of sunlight had yet to even descend.

‘So that is the story… I didn’t expect the Luminiscent Moon Sect to have such a storied history. Is that why they are so interested in it? Or is it just Sects in general that all have such histories?’

Theron wasn’t sure.

What he did know was that the Luminiscent Moon Sect was far from the strongest Sect in the province. That was the Obsidian Eclipse Sect that formed a trifecta with Daggers of the Night and the Imperial Clan as the strongest powers.

But… if that was the case, why send the princess consort to the Luminiscent Moon Sect instead? Unless they were already confident in controlling the Obsidian Eclipse Sect?

‘Hm… Luminiscent Moon… Obsidian Eclipse… what an interesting dichotomy…’

According to Kai, Yonowai was trying everything to improve his foundation so that he could make a huge push into the Silver Resonance, hopefully positioning himself to be strong enough to fight for Chosen when the time came.

Amongst Outer Disciples, he was easily amongst the top three in strength, and was well on his way to achieving his goals. Thanks to that, he was able to enter what they knew as the Luminiscent Realm.

Deep within it, they found the remnants of an ancestor and barely managed to survive on the way out. The way Kai described it, it still didn’t make sense to him that they managed to keep their lives. It was almost like the ancestor let them leave, or even escorted them out.

However, after coming out, they couldn’t understand the Verdant Bloomstone at all. So, they started looking through historical records, which was where they learned about Bloomstones.

The Bloomstone was a family of jades, of which Verdant was just a single type. The Bloomstone, though, was born beneath the light of the moon, nurtured by it, and grew from it.

According to the history of the Luminiscent Moon Sect, they had created an entire cultivation system reliant on this… and maybe the most shocking method…

Allowed one to use the moon as a substitution or an enhancement to the Echo Pill, giving the user the ability to fuse with Beast Souls far beyond their means.