The Patriarch looked at Theron for a long while.
"… Are you asking for this poor reward just so you can know about the methods of my Luminescent Moon Sect?"
Theron smiled. "If you want to look at it like that, you can. If you feel bad, you can use more detail. I won’t mind."
The Patriarch chuckled. "Maybe if this was a matter related to me alone, I might oblige. But since this is a matter of the Sect, I cannot be so willful. All I can tell you to feed your curiosity is that the control of Bloomstone and its methods of use in cultivation are a large part of the strength of our Sect.
"In this case, this method that Beifong stole is a unique method of strengthening your Golden Resonance Tribulation."
"Strengthening?" Theron asked.
"Isn’t it hard enough?"
The Patriarch laughed again. "For some people. For geniuses, sometimes it isn’t nearly hard enough. Maybe one day you’ll reach a point in cultivation where you realize that it isn’t that you cannot take more, but rather that the Heavens do not care to give you more."
And yet, he couldn’t quite explain why that was.
What secrets could this possibly be related to?
The Patriarch didn’t seem eager to interrupt Theron’s thoughts and just let him think for a long while until he finally spoke again.
"Are you sure about the Immortal Jellyfish?"
Theron looked up. "I am."
"Alright. Give me a moment."
The Patriarch vanished. Theron thought he might have to wait hours, but he didn’t expect that it wouldn’t even be ten seconds before the Patriarch returned, tossing a spatial ring over.
"There is your reward and your request. I’ve also put something extra in there for you to take a look at. If you don’t like it, go ahead and sell it. It won’t offend me."
"Thank you," Theron bowed lightly, then turned to leave. He could feel when he wasn’t welcome anymore, though the two old men would hardly kick him out so harshly.
The two watched him leave without saying a word.
"What do you think? Still feel that same way?" The Patriarch turned to the old man with a grin.
"I can’t trust that brat as far as I can throw him."
"You know, that saying doesn’t work when you can pick up mountains."
"His ego is just that heavy."
"That’s not his real face, and you know it."
"That child’s arrogance is probably the only thing about that face that is real."
The Patriarch fell into silence, this time not refuting. It was the old man that spoke again.
"Did he really return everything?"
The Patriarch shook his head. "It doesn’t really matter. The main point was to confirm how much Beifong took. It’s also hard to tell what was kept by the boy and what Beifong hid elsewhere. That child has always been cautious; I doubt he kept everything on his person all the time." ℟äNȎ𝐁Εș
"Then why didn’t you question the boy more?"
"First of all, I am not you. I don’t bully children because of my own mistakes. Second, like I said, it doesn’t matter. The booklet left behind was indeed in Beifong’s writing—everything from the strokes to the Mana was him, and as expected, Beifong purposely left mistakes. Even if the jades are in River’s possession, and he made a copy of the method, it would be useless to him."
"But you told him the truth about the Tribulations. Why not lie? I can’t stand how stupid you are sometimes."
The Patriarch grinned. "What can I say, I like talents. What if he could figure it out? Wouldn’t that be amazing?"
"You couldn’t even figure it out with the full, intact, and blemishless Forbidden method, how is he going to?"
"Isn’t that what would make it interesting?"
"That stupidity of yours is why your Sect has become the laughing stock of the world."
"I wouldn’t talk if I were you. Your Daggers of the Night is just conveniently in the back pocket of a little Nightingale Clan. Throwing stones in glass houses and all that."
The old man snorted and the Patriarch laughed.
"What did you give him?" the old man asked.
"I just know you have a streak of doing unnecessary things."
"Nothing much. I just want to test him a bit, so I gave him a Ninth Silver Resonance Black Limbo Tortoise Beast Core."
The old man’s hand shook and his teacup shattered.
"What the hell did you just say?"
The old man’s eyes turned red and he looked at the Patriarch as though he might murder him.
The Patriarch grinned. "I gave him a Ninth—."
"I heard you, dammit! Why the hell would you do that?!"
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"I told you already, it’s for a little test."
"Fuck your test! What if he actually sells it?!"
"Wouldn’t that be interesting?" The Patriarch blinked.
The old man almost fainted.
The Black Limbo Tortoise wasn’t just any normal Mancer Beast. It was the Spirit Beast of the Black Clan, maybe the only example of powerful combat Water Mancers in the entire world.
Well, to say that they were combatants was a stretch of the truth. In reality… they were more like tanks, tanks that could make even Earth Mancers bow in inferiority.
This was barely the tip of the iceberg. If Theron actually attempted to sell it, things would only end one way.
If he tried to fuse with it, things would only end in one way just the same.
Whether by exploding or success.
It simply didn’t matter if he succeeded, because it was impossible that the Black Clan would let any other Water Mancer have an Echo of their Spirit Beast. They would hunt him down to the ends of the earth.
And yet, even after all that, it still wasn’t enough to paint the picture of what this old bastard had done.
The Black Limbo Tortoise was a Mancer Beast. But it wasn’t an Imbued Beast, it wasn’t even a Manaborn Beast. It was a level above.
It was a Runebound Beast.
A Manaborn Echo was already rare enough that the old man didn’t dare to casually speak of his.
But this Patriarch of the Luminescent Moon Sect had just handed Theron something ?!