The Shadow Beast Prison Elephant's words made the already uncomfortable atmosphere in the conference room even more tense.
The other nine Dons and their Shadow Beasts all looked at the two people at the door.
Purple Ape saw the Shadow Beast called Prison Elephant whisper something into the tenth Don's ear. The latter nodded slightly, then smiled at everyone. "Haha, sorry. His little trick suddenly failed, so he got nervous and overreacted. Let's continue."
He strode to the last empty seat at the oval conference table and sat down. Prison Elephant stood behind him with a sullen face, but his eyes remained alert, suspiciously observing the nine Dons present and the nine Shadow Beasts standing guard.
"You all know these Shadow Beasts are like those Hunters—they've got strange abilities." The tenth Don took out a cigar and lit it, crossing his legs with a laugh. "I'm not very good at understanding this professional stuff. What about you? Do you know why he's nervous?" He exhaled smoke and glanced sharply at the other nine Shadow Beasts.
"You have problems with your own men and come asking us?"
"Don't be too arrogant, Claudius. You haven't even warmed that seat yet. Start showing off your power now and it might not end well for you."
Some of the other nine Dons were sarcastic.
Claudius took off his sunglasses, held his cigar, and pointed at the Don who'd just made the snide comment. "I'm sorry, have I even seen the little Shadow Beast behind you? Looks a bit unfamiliar!"
The other party was a tall, thin, bald old man. When he heard this, he narrowed his eyes and sneered. "Boy, how many times have you actually seen the Ten Shadow Beasts? Shadow Beasts come and go. How many have you really seen? What's this one behind you called, the one you brought from your gang—Prison Elephant? Hehehe. Can't wait, can you? Already renamed your personal bodyguard according to Shadow Beast standards?"
Purple Ape looked at the so-called Shadow Beast behind the tall, thin, bald Don.
A small person indeed. Wearing a purple knitted hat and sunglasses. Judging from the profile and figure, probably a woman.
The little Shadow Beast showed no reaction to Claudius's provocation.
The tall, thin, bald Don's eye twitched slightly. He suddenly clenched his fists and placed them on the table. "Okay, enough useless talk. I flew all the way across several continents. I don't want to waste my time on trivial nonsense. Claudius, you said you had clues about that thing. We spoke for you and gave you the opportunity to fill the tenth Don's vacancy. That's how you reached the sky. You haven't forgotten, have you?"
Claudius smiled slightly. "Not a clue. I've found it. Right now, it's in my hands."
The bald Don's body trembled. Bloodshot eyes burst forth. He said urgently, "Then why don't you take it out quickly?"
What was so urgent about this?
Purple Ape felt strange. The Ten Dons, standing at the top of the underground world—this was it?
During this past week, Liam and the others had trained step by step. All three could say they'd gained something.
Liam's aura capacity increased the slowest, followed by Shizuku. Kurapika's baseline aura was the least among the three, so his increased the most.
Liam's current total aura was almost 24,000.
Shizuku had just barely been raised to 20,000.
Kurapika had been training for a little over half a year now. He had good natural talent. Even with the complex Nen ability of the dolphin bookshelf, he'd still managed to refine his total aura capacity to about 10,000—this was just in his normal state. Once he entered Scarlet Eyes rage mode, depending on the intensity of his emotional upheaval, his aura would double to anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000.
In other words, in cases of extreme anger, Kurapika's total aura would directly exceed Liam's.
Had to admit, bloodline advantages were awesome.
Just like those even more unreasonable Chimera Ants. Their natural aura was far beyond normal levels. There were tens of thousands of Ants with Nen running everywhere. The three Royal Guards were estimated to have hundreds of thousands to a million each. The Ant King hadn't trained a single day, was invincible immediately after birth, with total aura ranging from two to three million...
As for Liam himself, his aura improvement had slowed down. The "Flying Thunder God Nen Ball" he wanted to develop had hit a bottleneck. He'd never been able to find the inspiration to swap positions with the Nen ball.
Perhaps this was the normal state of developing Nen abilities.
In the past, the several Nen abilities Liam had developed were either derivatives of the Manipulation system he was already proficient in, or they were just pure Nen attacks. The only one with a slightly special mechanism was "Buy Now, Pay Later," and that mechanism wasn't even at the same difficulty level as "spatial exchange."
Although many Nen abilities had the effect of "I think, therefore I am"—even very absurd abilities could be realized as long as you firmly believed in them—the problem was that Liam couldn't seem to reach "I think spatial exchange, so what's so difficult about this?" So he got stuck here.
Bored and frustrated, Liam remembered the Ten Dons meeting that Purple Ape had noted last time. So he picked his moment and logged in for a walk to see what was going on.
If his guess was correct, the last one who came in—Claudius, who'd supposedly filled the tenth Don's vacancy—was the gangster who'd sent the wedding invitation to that rich guy Marko Met, who Melody had been consulting for. However, it wasn't Claudius himself getting married, but the young master of his gang. The one who collected human organs and had Scarlet Eyes on hand was probably the young master, not the Claudius in front of him.
This Prison Elephant who'd followed Claudius in...
Why did he think something was wrong in the room as soon as he walked in?
Liam's presence was indeed "wrong," so it was inevitable he'd be especially suspicious.
Since the other Ten Dons also said Claudius, who'd just arrived as the tenth Don, hadn't seen all ten Shadow Beasts, then there should be no reason for Prison Elephant, following Claudius, to realize something was wrong just because he saw someone present with the same build and appearance as before...
Purple Ape's eyes focused. He quietly observed the group while they talked and argued with each other.
The Ten Dons were really just ordinary old men. The aura on each of them was sparse and ordinary. A wisp of aura above their heads thinly dissipated like white smoke.
The Shadow Beasts probably had nothing to hide from each other, so they didn't conceal anything. The aura above their heads gathered together and never dispersed. The aura on their bodies was larger than ordinary people's. They didn't maintain the "professional quality" of Ten at all times, but the aura on their bodies wasn't very loose either, which reflected their decent skill level among "amateur Hunters."
Purple Ape took a second look at the small Shadow Beast and felt the woman's profile looked somewhat familiar. Wearing a knitted hat and toad sunglasses—deliberately hiding her face?
His wandering eyes met the eyes of Prison Elephant behind Claudius opposite him.
Prison Elephant's Nen ability was Manipulation-type.
However, what he manipulated wasn't a person, but a closed space that could be locked, making it an inescapable prison. After the seal succeeded, every ounce of aura in this prison would be absorbed by the prison and fed back to him, the god guarding the prison. This way, the imprisoned person would only become weaker and weaker, while he became stronger and stronger.
But when he came in, he'd wanted to use this ability to ensure his boss's safety, only to find the ability failed to activate...
In this room, there were Nen users from other Manipulation systems who'd already used their Manipulation abilities.
Prison Elephant said nothing more. At least now he knew there were other Manipulators in this room, but the other party didn't know he knew.
Damn it. Could it be that his control of Purple Ape had been discovered?
Purple Ape-Liam looked away and thought to himself. His fingernails behind his back quietly scratched his skin. A trace of blood came out, wrapped in a bubble-like aura along his fingertips.
Flying Star Bubbles floated quietly to the ground...
The Ten Dons at the conference table were still arguing. At one end of the table, the Don with sparse white hair coughed, and everyone fell silent. The white-haired old man looked at Claudius with cloudy eyes and said in a hoarse voice, "Four years ago, Alpha Edward committed suicide publicly in Heavens Arena. Everyone's been guessing and searching for evidence he'd found True Martial King's treasure. Tell me, Claudius. What do you have on your hands?"
The aura in the Shadow Beast standing behind the old man suddenly tightened. You could visually see his aura had become much harder.
The atmosphere in the conference room grew more serious.
Everyone looked at Claudius.
"For four years, no one's discovered any treasures Edward might have hidden. Not even a clue..."
"Claudius, you'd better not be playing tricks on us, or you'll bear the consequences!"
"Don't be so scary," Claudius crushed the end of his cigar and waved to Prison Elephant behind him, smiling at everyone. "Otherwise, I might not share the map I found from Edward. Hehehe..."
Prison Elephant took something from his coat and operated the conference room projector a few times. Suddenly lights appeared on the screen, and a picture materialized before everyone.
But only a corner of it.
"What is this?" The tall, thin, bald Don couldn't help asking. "Claudius, don't play games!"
"It can't be fake, right?"
"We've been searching for four years with no results, but you found it?"
"Haha, maybe you only found this corner. It's a broken picture!"
The projector screen turned, and a photo of a statue appeared.
A black jade Buddha statue. The lifelike facial features of True Martial King Wangu Hui Guo Rou. His face showing compassion, holding a ritual implement, seeming to save evil spirits.
For a moment, the other nine Dons were stunned. Even the white-haired old man with the most calm and majestic demeanor was no exception. He stared straight at the Buddha statue in the projector.
Claudius relit his cigar and smiled. "I don't know—have you ever heard of Kakin's national treasure?"
The old man who'd brought Purple Ape in glanced at Claudius. "I've never heard of such a Ksitigarbha statue among Kakin's national treasure statues. Oh, I remember now—there isn't even a Buddha statue among them."
Claudius bit his cigar and smiled. "That's right, Bratt. Do you think I have the ability to get one of the twenty-nine gods from the Kakin treasury? Haha. You think too highly of me."
The other nine Dons, including Bratt, fell silent and couldn't help looking at the Ksitigarbha statue in the projector.
If it were one of Kakin Kingdom's twenty-nine statues, they'd stay far away. Robbing an authentic national treasure from the Kakin Museum—when the time came to die, there'd be no explanation for all the blood splattered everywhere.
But if it was a Buddha statue besides the twenty-nine statues...
Of course, if this Ksitigarbha statue wasn't a forgery, but real.
Purple Ape looked at the lifelike "True Martial Ksitigarbha" in the projector screen, repeatedly comparing it with the face of the cracked black jade Buddha statue he'd seen countless times.
...That guy Old King really made a bunch of Buddha statues and hid them everywhere in various deep mountains and old forests?
Could it be that every hidden Buddha statue had a Magical Beast race guarding it?
Liam shook his head secretly. If that were the case, things would be easier to handle. Just go check the settlement areas of various Magical Beast groups?
Liam happened to know someone. The Fierce Fox family seemed to live in mountains not far from Hunter Association headquarters...
Purple Ape glanced at Claudius and rubbed another Flying Star Bubble with his fingertips behind his back.
"I think you're crazy. Coming up with something like this—don't you worry about the Kakin people coming after you?"
One of the other Dons couldn't help saying, "Several major gang families in the Azian Continent have long wanted to reach into our territory and cause trouble."
Claudius said, "I won't trouble you to worry about Kakin. I put up this photo of the Ksitigarbha Buddha statue to prove my treasure map is genuine."
"If it's real, why haven't you gone treasure hunting yet?" other Dons said sarcastically.
"If you like questioning so much, then I don't think we need to continue talking." Claudius said coldly. "The reason there are different opinions and everyone's enthusiastic about True Martial King's treasure is because everyone guesses True Martial King hid all the national treasure Buddha statues in the so-called secret treasure, right? Find the Buddha statues, sell them to Kakin, and skyrocket from there. What a beautiful dream."
"The treasure map is genuine, but I don't need it. I've already found a Ksitigarbha statue. Why would I take the risk to explore the secret—" Before Claudius could finish, the white-haired old man interrupted. "Have you already been in contact with the Kakin people? Did you sell the Ksitigarbha statue to them?"
Claudius smiled slightly and was about to speak when the tall, thin, bald Don suddenly shook like chaff. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. He fell onto the conference table with a "bang."
The small Shadow Beast behind him sighed. "Jabbering, dilly-dallying, rambling on. Are you finished?"
The Ten Dons—uh, the nine Dons—looked at her in shock.
The Shadow Beasts immediately entered combat mode. Prison Elephant on the other side of the projector flew toward his boss Claudius.
"Originally I just came here to play, but I didn't expect True Martial King's Buddha statue and treasure. Hahaha. Let me see what the boss says now."
The small Shadow Beast took off her knitted hat, revealing long pink hair. She took off her sunglasses, revealing beautiful, sharp eyes. She raised her hand and pulled out a blood-stained Nen thread from the tall, thin old man's back.
Purple Ape's eyes narrowed. He suddenly understood. Throughout the whole process, Machi had used a thread of Nen wrapped around the tall, thin old man's heart. After losing her patience, she'd directly wrapped his heart with Nen threads. She'd stopped pretending.
"I'm sorry. Except for the guy opposite—named Clau-something—everyone else..." Machi smiled slightly. "Just go to hell."
She stretched out her hand and tugged at the invisible Nen thread.
Puff, puff, puff...
There were nineteen living people left in the conference room. In an instant, ten heads flew high in waves of blood gushing from their necks. There were expressions of shock, confusion, anger on their faces. Some had eyes looking frantically toward both sides.
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