The Next day.
The first young master entered the core area of the puppet organization where the high-level members forge their puppets as well as the weapons for their special exclusive customers.
Currently, the core area is completely shut off, n.o.body is working there. The furnaces that take a lot of time to reach a certain heat which a.s.sists the artisans to enhance their fire elemental energy and to save their energy as well, were still burning.
And in the middle of all the furnaces, there is one large furnace which is made of high-level stones that were cut and sculpted with a lot of effort.
The effort that was placed into the building furnace lasted for years.
He walked towards that furnace and took out his puppets. He is a good artisan and he is skilled in both puppet making and weapon making. All the puppets he had were self-made. Since his puppets took a lot of damage from the last battle, he managed to get permission to repair them himself and since he is still the core disciple of the organization, he managed to get access to the main furnace.
He touched the only part of the core mechanism which is protruded outwards. This is a crystal place on which he placed his arm and to connect with the spirit of the mechanism which controls the furnace.
The spirit will create a temporary bond with him and the furnace and with his fire elemental affinity he would be able to control the high-level flames of the furnace to melt the metal.
With the utmost familiarity, he started forging the puppets and the weapons that he usually installs on the puppets.
"Prash" is a.s.sisting him as he moved different tools and metals from different places. But in the pretense of that, he is also placing several formation flags which are specially made by Sam in different places.
When the young master is finally done, he activated the formation and the young master and Kiran immediately got down to their job.
After an hour, they are done and both of them completely came out of the workshop after removing any traces of the formation they had placed. The formation only has one job, to create an illusion that the furnace is properly working and Prash and Young master are still forging their equipment while they didn"t.
Everything went smoothly, way smoother than they expected. By the time they returned it was already evening.
Young master went to a bar as he started drinking wildly showing his troubled state of mind and he even forced "Prash" to accompany him in the drinking. Both of them wanted to get intoxicated with all the alcohol and didn"t bother taking care of it with their spiritual energy and slept on the table.
This prompted the bar to call for his servants and Arkiv the newest servant came and diligently picked them up before taking them back to the residence and in that drunken stupor, the young master gave a huge tip of Arkiv in a spatial ring.
Arkiv took that spatial ring with glee and went back to his residence. He placed the spatial ring on a table and after a flash shadow, it was gone from there. The shadow ran past the city and the forests and finally appeared in front of Sam with the ring.
Sam opened the ring and took out the core mechanism of the furnace. The furnace is at most as big as the dimensional drifter when it was completely closed.
But it is responsible for heating some of the toughest and most heat-resistant metals he has ever seen. He was really intrigued by the capabilities of the person who made it. He used observation ability and checked on how well it was made.
After observing the intricate formations for a while, he put it away and went back to business.
"Next step of the plan will be executed tomorrow morning."
That is the only order he gave to the three subordinates that are inside the city.
While Sam and his team are highly productive, it was not the same for the puppet organization, because that morning the whole organization was thrown into an uproar because of the news they got.
The Thunder Phoenix skeleton which managed to bridge some cordial relationships between them and their subordinate organizations were lost and the guards and elders who were standing guard there returned to the news that morning as soon as Young master went to the furnace.
The Branch leaders immediately led a team to investigate thoroughly. But there are not many traces left there. The skeleton was stolen cleanly without any signs of battle, between guards and the thieves. They couldn"t even feel many presences there.
After half a day of investigation, they didn"t have any results. They could only keep the guards and elders in house arrest so that they would be able to answer the questions in interrogation and give any clues they could have possibly noticed involuntarily.
Even though it is highly unlikely since they don"t even know how they lost their consciousness, it is highly impossible for them to notice something like this.
But they still held them there as they are indirectly responsible for the loss because of their carelessness and they wouldn"t just be able to shift everything away.
The branch leaders don"t know whether this is also part of the scheme of Dayus or this is the work of Sam who their G.o.d warned against.
This commotion is also the reason why the Young master managed to get access to the furnace easily.
He didn"t have any resistance and any strict surveillance placed on for the rest of the day.
After that day is over, the first young master proceeded with the next step of the plan.
He directly went to the Two branch leaders to meet them privately and said.
"I think, I might have a lead to meet Dayus and he is also the one responsible for the skeleton theft."
The two branch leaders were shocked by his revelation and asked.
"How are you sure?"
He silently gave them a spatial ring.
"This is something I stole from my subordinate Prash. He is the traitor of the organization. Yesterday, he accompanied me to the core area and while he was helping me, I saw him slipping towards a corner where another furnace is and throwing in some items.
He thought I didn"t notice as I was involved in the forging operation, but I saw it and took these things out.
He joined hands with Dayus and his team and he is the one that led him to me. He is the one that is responsible for fooling me and keeping the distractions away from Dayus and even the Thunder Phoenix skeleton was also part of their problem as it is beneficial for Dayus who is a lightning elemental user. At first, they should have stolen it right after we started the journey, but their trap backfired and activated early making the youngster unconscious and their plan was revealed. So, they threw the blame at Sam and proceeded with the rest. Now, he returned and stole it away. I think you can interrogate Prash and could get some information.
I tried to get some information out of Prash yesterday by making him drunk. But I was not that successful so, I cannot do anything anymore. But from the evidence, Prash as a soul sealing curse placed on him. If we extract his memories from the soul, whether he is alive or dead, they would all be scrambled and we would get nothing."
"How do you know that?"
"There is a formation plan used for that Soul sealing curse. I saw it in the evidence I gave you. "
The two branch leaders went through the spatial, inside there are a bunch of secret scrolls used for information transmission, a bunch of recording devices with videos of Prash and Dayus discussing plans as well as some other evidence including the formation scrolls and inscribed plates that a.s.sist in soul sealing.
When they went through all the information, they were even more shocked.
Because, according to the info, the guards and elders specifically guarded the thunder phoenix skeleton on the night it was stolen were also a part of the plan.
The two branch leaders looked at the first young master and said.
"This is extremely valuable information. You made a great contribution to the organization. Good job."
"No, please don"t say that. This is not even a fraction of the harm I brought the organization."
"Don"t beat yourself over it, no one can do anything with the traitors deep inside the organization like this. We will deal with this matter."
"Thank you. I have another favor that I want to ask of you."
"Do tell."
"I would like to resign my position of the core disciple and return to a normal disciple status and if possible I would like to be transferred to a different branch. I cannot stay in the first branch anymore. I couldn"t take the guilt bearing on me."
The two branch leaders were stunned and said after exchanging a glance. "We will talk about this after the investigation."
The first young master nodded and left.