"Ahem."
Kaizen coughed, before he spoke.
"We are deep enough in the forest. Please investigate his origins."
Phil, the guard who knocked out the assassin, didn't say anything but inwardly mocked Kaizen.
Are you putting up an act now? You can go back to spectating that voyeuristic group, I won't say anything.
Kaizen was feeling quite helpless as well. He had a rough idea what Phil was thinking, but he couldn't quite refute him either.
He had promised Alice not to expose her. And now, judging from his recent rampage of questionable hero antics, it looked like he was the one who wanted to spectate the forest weirdos, not her.
Even though he inwardly disdained his new young master, Phil still replied dutifully.
"There's no need to investigate. The ones who wear masks to assassinate others are mostly from Flowing Dagger Pavilion.
"Before every mission, they poison their own assassins to force a do or die mental state so no one holds back during the job.
"If the job succeeds, they get the antidote. If it fails, they just drop dead like common weeds. Brutal strategy but effective, I suppose.
"They are not informed who employs them. That part is handled by an entirely different department. Which means torturing him will not reveal anything useful about who wants you dead."
Kaizen simply made an 'oh' sound, before falling back into silence.
Phil had to bite the bullet and speak.
"Your highness the fifth prince, you can head back towards your activity, I'll handle the rest of the procedures."
Kaizen nodded with utmost seriousness.
"Alright, if you insist so much, I'll leave the professional matters to you."
Right right, you absolutely don't want to go back, but you have to because I am insisting, right?
Phil ruthlessly exposed Kaizen but kept his head down, checking the assassin for any important clues.
Soon, he reached Alice's location. With absolute control over his body and Qi, he made sure not even a twig had a reason to snitch. Then he stepped into the Concealment formation.
Alice resisted to taunt this mighty fifth prince, and only shot him a glance. The recording stone had already been set up to record the entire circus taking place below.
Kaizen watched the tumbling figures in their birthday suits and then politely evicted the scene from his eyeballs.
He began recovering his Qi while paying attention if any monster entered the Concealment formation.
Approximately an hour later, the group below was finally done. In that duration, Kaizen only killed one unfortunate monster which unknowingly entered the formation.
[Killed an unranked purple tailed boa.]
[Experience gained 7000.]
[Spare experience: 56000.]
"Thank you for your help, let's cooperate again if there's a chance."
Alice shook his hand and smiled, while Kaizen only replied with a 'sure'.
All the important parts of the monsters he killed had already been given to Alice, who'll sell them and give them his part of revenue later at a place they decided to meet.
After he watched her leave, Kaizen once again resumed his activity of hunting monsters.
He didn't regret teaming up with her. Her Concealment formation had allowed him to recover his Qi twice, saving him two return trips to the city.
That alone was worth the social damage of Steve and his wooden suitcase of emotional warfare.
He absolutely couldn't rest in the forest itself, which was teeming with monsters and ghosts. Without Qi, all he had were his raw attributes after all.
Raw attributes had little use in front of Qi, which the ranked monsters could use as well. It was like trying to block a fireball with your bare hands.
Flora and Fauna could practice the five domains, and they also carried the potential to awaken special abilities, just like Humans.
But since most monsters were born with about as much intelligence as a decorative rock, it seemed that the heavens had opened up another path for them.
They could level up till rank four purely through ingesting treasures.
After a tier advancement from rank three to rank four, their intelligence would undergo a great boost, allowing them to practice the five domains.
At that point, no matter what domain they chose, they would resume from rank four, and wouldn't have to start from rank 1.
However, there was a problem. Monsters who took this path often had lower capability, be it in terms of combat or creation, compared to monsters who practiced the five domains from the beginning.
Monster clans like dragon, phoenix, centaurs, mermaids and few others had intelligence on par with humans from birth, allowing them to comprehend the intricacies behind the five domains and practice them from rank 1 itself.
They did not take the ingestion shortcut. Their potential was too valuable to casually throw into the furnace of convenience.
Regardless of species, all monsters received the skill to transform into humans when breaking through from rank three to rank four.
After about ten minutes, Kaizen had found and killed two monsters. One was unranked. The other was rank one.
[Spare experience: 81000.]
I can finally buy the blueprint for Simple arm brace.
A second later, information about that blueprint entered his mind, while his spare experience dwindled down to 11000.
After going over the blueprint, he thought.
Good thing there's no rare material needed. I can practice this without ripping my hair out over ingredients I cannot pronounce.
With the profit I'll receive from selling these monster parts, I won't need to tap into the funds provided by Adrian for a while.
Kaizen stood silently in front of the corpse of the monster for nearly a minute before he decided his next action.
He wouldn't go back immediately to practice his blueprint, but kill a few more monsters till his Qi depleted, saving just enough for the return journey.
Kaizen's goal was those draconic evolutions!
Nearly half an hour later, after killing a few monsters, Kaizen gazed at his spare experience.
[Spare experience: 49000.]
Good. I can afford both evolutions now.
Since there would still be 16000 experience left after buying the evolutions, he asked the system to distribute them between his two classes.
[Artifact Refiner - Level 4 - 21300/33750]
[Cultivator - Level 2 - 7200/15000]
[Spare experience: 33000.]
Carrying all the important parts of monsters in a bag lunged over his shoulder, he thought.
I obviously can't evolve here in the forest, I have no idea what would happen. Time to go back, book a room for myself, and get those draconic evolutions!
His pace quickened in excitement.
Finally, privacy, power, and evolutionary eyeball upgrades.
Truly the holy trinity.