As he lay weakly in bed, John wondered who might have poisoned him. Unfortunately, the list of those who might have poisoned him was far too long to parse. He did have a list of those he absolutely trusted, but beyond that number he couldn’t be certain. The world still revolved around power- personal power and political power. John had both, and thus if he could be removed opportunities would open up for many people.

  As for actual expectations of plots, John actually didn’t have any strong suspicions. Otherwise, things probably wouldn’t have gotten to the point where he was poisoned. He generally preferred to fend off trouble before that point.

  It was possible that he had missed something due to his emotional state. He was still emotionally devastated after Astrid’s death, and learning of the reincarnation of Matayal into Aldara didn’t make that any easier. No, it only complicated things further. He could have easily missed some signs… or whoever did it might have simply been a good liar. The chance of actual foreign agents infiltrating the continent all the way to the core were minimal- it would be easier for someone local to do the work.

  John wished he had caught them in the banquet hall, but nobody had displayed any signs while he was there. Nor did anyone seem to have remnants on them. He had intentionally shown signs of discomfort at the end, but nobody had reacted in a particularly suspicious manner. Now he’d not appeared for a few days, and he was hoping someone might make a move.

  He did have people looking into how poison had gotten to him to begin with- subtly. It wouldn’t be too big of an issue if they were noticed, since he wasn’t trying to hide what had happened from any conspirator. It was simply that being too open would send them running, and the only prevention for that would be locking down Lunson entirely.

  Perhaps his poisoner was already gone, having slipped out just at the end of the feast- but there were still quite a number of people around. It wouldn’t be odd to have a full month of victory celebrations after such a war. Humans did love their parties.

  John made an uncomfortable face. They were taking far too long to try to sneak in and finish him off. All that, and he’d already gone and relaxed security.

  At least he got to rest, though. It was a shame that it took such an extreme situation for him to finally get a break, and he really would have preferred to manage it a different way. But wallowing around in his own rooms for a few days was fine. Except for how empty they felt.

  Couldn’t someone just come try to kill him?

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait much longer. He already sensed a disciple approaching with his next meal. John had placed himself at a reclined position on one of the couches by the time she knocked on the door. “Come in.”

  “Your meal, sect head,” the woman bowed. “The chefs have prepared a meal that is especially nutritious to aid your recovery.” She emphasized particular words in a way that John thought was rather unsubtle, but she did have to get her point across.

  John already knew it was poisoned, but he was relieved that she properly passed the message along. He really didn’t want to have to investigate internal issues. The fact that it had been properly flagged before it got to him would make their next investigations much easier. John took a bite of the bison burger. As he had been the one to popularize the dish- though he couldn’t really claim to have invented meat and cheese on a bun even in this world- it was still one of his favorite comfort foods. It was too bad the poison was bitter. John decided that whoever was poisoning things wasn’t very good at it, because it was so obvious.

  “Good job,” John said. “Make sure to ask the chefs where they got the ingredients.”

  The disciple nodded. “They have already anticipated that you would wish to know. I am sure they will be prepared to answer you in a short time.”

  John wondered if he could turn off his bitter receptors. Probably not quickly, and not as conveniently as he would like. Rather than attempt that, he made sure to analyze the meal for other poisons. There was no reason there should be just one obvious one, was there?

  It was a huge disappointment. They really were just that bad at poisoning people. Whoever this was could have learned a lot from the Glorious Veil sect. If they had still existed.

  John ate everything and gave himself slight indigestion. He mostly monitored the situation while making certain that his body was properly taking care of it. He also thought about what sort of light element advanced body tempering he should do, because it only seemed correct to have one of everything. He was still considering polarization of some sort. Even non-light cultivators tried to use the sun and similar light sources to their advantage.

  Finally, the time came and John didn’t have to wait any longer. He didn’t know if he could have managed a few more days. Slipping past all of the conveniently placed guards, flowing with the wind, came an intruder. Strangely, John’s balcony door had been left open. What a blunder.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  He had to admit his target was pretty stealthy for a cultivator that trained neither light nor darkness. His current senses were better than before as his cultivation had increased, but he was going to have to interview the guards as to whether or not they noticed anything. She was within the level of subtle they were supposed to let pass, but he still had to know.

  John had to admit her assassination method was actually pretty good. She didn’t even touch him. She was only using a small amount of spiritual energy, so she wouldn’t leave any major traces. What she did was slowly draw both oxygen and carbon dioxide out of the area around him, letting other gasses flow in. It was ingenious. He wouldn’t even try to breathe hard because he wouldn’t have too high of carbon dioxide levels inside of him. If he was asleep, he might just not wake up.

  Well, he would have woken up from her presence, but some theoretical him with worse senses might not have. John let his spiritual energy slowly appear to fade… before suddenly grabbing the woman. He forced his own spiritual energy to replace hers. He wasn’t overly gentle, merely enough that she would survive the process. He did have energy suppressing shackles ready, but they worked better when the target was already weak.

  “Zelma Mozdar. I thought you were wiser than this.” She struggled to speak, but couldn’t with his hand clenching her windpipe. “You were a bit incurious though. I feel like you could have paid more attention to my thoughts on body tempering. Now, tell me who you were working with.”

  He let air pass once more.

  “I was working alone,” she said firmly.

  John sighed. “You really think I’m that stupid?” As he spoke, he was searching through her storage bag. She had some restrictions meant to prevent that sort of thing, but she was only an Ascending Soul Phase cultivator. John was amazed that he could even think that phrase, but that was how things had turned out. He’d gotten far more than his portion of luck… and survived long enough to experience a significant amount of tragedy.

  She didn’t have containers of poison, but John still felt traces of the various poisons inside the bag. It wasn’t something that would stand up in court, but that wasn’t really necessary. If he wanted to bring a case against her, he didn’t need to prove that she poisoned him and tried to suffocate him. One was sufficient. Or he could skip the trial and go straight to an execution, and literally nobody would blink.

  After it was clear she wasn’t going to easily give anything up, John knocked her out and had her sent to the dungeons. Then he prepared himself mentally for a long flight. He needed to beat out any communications that might be sent by co-conspirators to her clan. If they knew he was coming they could destroy evidence. What he had to do would be far easier if he had some physical evidence. Even if he could just go around killing people, it was a bad look given the morals he’d been trying to observe and he also needed to know who to kill.

  -----

  John set down atop Zolvolj for a short break. The volcano was conveniently located about halfway between Astrein and the Glass Hills, where the Mozdar clan was located. Not too many people hung out on top of the volcano at any given moment. Even if they did, the chances that they would immediately rush to report about it were pretty minimal. If he visited the Milanovic clan, it would be a different thing entirely. His presence there would be noted, and those on the periphery might have sufficient association to pass on information.

  They did have ways to communicate faster than John could fly. That was his fault, and he had to deal with the consequences.

  -----

  Flying over the Glass Hills was a thrilling task. Lightning was a common occurrence, and if he was the only thing to pass through, he could easily be struck by lightning. Unless he was less conductive than air.

  John had trained with lightning before, but he found no value in doing so at the moment. Thus, he just focused on adjusting the area around him. He didn’t need to block lightning if it simply never got near him to begin with. He was already using air element to fly, but he added a bit more of that mixed with earth. And some other elements, because as it turned out all spiritual energy had value for any task. He recognized that long in the past, but it was even more clear to him upon reaching the Exalted Soul Phase.

  Lightning still struck around him, but it didn’t react to him in any meaningful way. At most, it would slightly deflect around his position, not enough to give him away if anyone happened to be staring directly at the lightning. Even if they did see something, it would just be a blurry section of sky. Full invisibility was more work than John needed to undergo at the moment, but he could get close enough with a tenth of the effort.

  -----

  Observing the Mozdar clan, John was fairly certain he could have killed everyone there. By himself, of course. Obviously he could have everyone killed. That was fairly easy. It was almost certainly the wrong answer, as it was unlikely the entire clan was involved with treachery. Obviously some of those from this world would still do it, but John both didn’t want to kill a bunch of innocent children or worry about them growing up planning to extract vengeance on him. Taking down a select portion of the clan would be the best way to go.

  It wasn’t going to just be Zelma herself, but he would figure out the details once he had more information.

  Once he found it. He was having a little bit of trouble with that. Not because he couldn’t find their records, but because they were organized like garbage. Obviously he didn’t expect them to have a section labeled ‘criminal conspiracies’ or ‘treason’, but he at least expected their finances to be bundled together. But they weren’t.

  It was a good thing he could read in the dark. And if someone came in during the day, maybe he would snatch them and make them help him look for stuff. He was fairly certain there weren’t any more secret records- he’d searched a couple dozen meters beneath the ground for secret tunnels and such- but he was thinking he might have to do things the violent way. Which was easy, but likely wouldn’t be as effective.