Monti pointed at the book in his hand, his expressionless face as still as a placid lake. "I will be leaving Cardo City soon. Teaching Lord Mundun is merely a small favor for a friend, so I'm afraid I cannot help you with what you wish to ask."
Li Xi said regretfully, "That is truly a pity. I hope there will be a chance to meet again in the future."
Monti's face showed no hint of a smile. He nodded, ending the brief conversation.
Li Xi was not saddened by the refusal; instead, he felt a little pleased. He walked out of the Lord's Mansion, turned into a side street, and said,
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
*Bang*
A shadow clone appeared.
"You know what to do, right?"
"I do."
After the shadow clone agreed, it moved its hands. *Bang*, it used the Transformation Technique, changing into a hunched old man and squatting opposite the Lord's Mansion, having a clear view of the main entrance.
Li Xi's true body clapped his hands and went home to prepare. He hadn't expected that a simple polite refusal would reveal a clue from the past.
His master and Andy had died in the chaos caused by Lilith, the Succubus Queen. In a fit of anger, Li Xi had intended to raze the Assassin's Alliance, but so far, he had only captured two: Catherol and Kalia. The rest had vanished without a trace.
Li Xi's mission to find clues about the Assassin's Alliance remained on the top of all task boards, but no one had provided any leads for a long time. These people had seemingly evaporated.
Li Xi had certainly not given up looking, but he was currently busy with the Konoha Merchant Group and didn't have the time.
Unexpectedly, this time when he went to the Lord's Mansion, he smelled a familiar scent – the scent of traditional Chinese medicine from the bar's basement. He had searched all the apothecary shops in Cardo City back then without success, but now he found it in the Lord's Mansion.
Initially, this scent had appeared on young Mundun, but it was very faint. He was certainly not the one, which was why Li Xi had asked young Mundun to lead him on a tour of the Lord's Mansion, essentially to search for that familiar scent. Unfortunately, he hadn't found it. Then, he smelled it again on this newly appeared teacher, Monti, and the scent was even stronger. Su Dan Novel Network
Li Xi could now conclude that this person was either very closely connected to the people of the Assassin's Alliance, or he was a member of the Assassin's Alliance himself.
What's more, Li Xi suspected that this Monti was actually the previous Lord Gadoro in disguise.
When Li Xi first arrived in this world, in Mido's memories, there was such an event. The exact age of the previous Lord Gadoro was unknown. Every time rumors spread that the Lord was about to die, Gadoro was still alive. If Gadoro truly was old but not dead, then things would be simple.
He had joined the Assassin's Alliance and then cooperated with the vampires. They must have negotiated some terms. As long as it was successful, Gadoro would be granted vampire status, thus obtaining an immortal lifespan. Before that, Gadoro could only maintain his life with medication, which was why he carried a strong medicinal scent. He had lived in such an environment for so long that he had become accustomed to it, but Li Xi, with a sense of smell almost as good as a dog's, had noticed it, and now he couldn't escape.
"Ess, my love, I need to go do something. Can you cast a Blessing of the Divine for me?"
A Blessing of the Divine, in Li Xi's opinion, was a two-day short-term buff that could enhance the blessed person's strength by a few points in all aspects. It was like adding two to three points of attack to someone with a hundred attack power. It seemed useless, but if one person could receive ten levels of Blessing of the Divine, it could increase Li Xi's strength by twenty percent, which was not insignificant.
Of course, Ess could only cast one Blessing of the Divine herself. The remaining nine needed to be applied for at other temples. If it were an ordinary person, they could at most apply for two or three, perhaps four or five at most. Gathering all ten was extremely rare. But was Li Xi an ordinary person now?
"Is it dangerous?" Ess asked worriedly.
Li Xi hugged Ess. "Nothing in this world can stop me. Don't worry."
As the sun began to set, the old man at the entrance of the Lord's Mansion finally watched the young lord's tutor, Monti, leave the mansion and return to his lodging at the inn.
The shadow clone old man jumped directly onto the rooftop and turned into a piece of broken wood, lying there to carefully listen for any sounds below. However, Monti only made normal walking sounds and nothing else.
He had expected to monitor for a few more days, but just past midnight, a shadowy figure couldn't help but push open the window and cautiously flew out.
With two large, dark bat wings on his back, combined with his aura, it was clear that this Monti was a Level Four vampire.
Monti took advantage of the darkness, flying high into the sky, ensuring that no one below could see him, and then began to fly into the distance.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
*Bang*
A shadow clone had just appeared when the old man shattered it, transmitting the message to other clones in Cardo City.
Meanwhile, Li Xi, who had spent the afternoon visiting ten temples to gather the ten levels of Blessing of the Divine, was embracing Ess and enjoying their precious time. He opened his eyes.
"Are you leaving?"
Sensing a slight change in Li Xi's heartbeat at that moment, Ess spoke worriedly. She hadn't been asleep either.
"Don't worry, they are just a few stragglers. I'll give you a big surprise when I return."
After a kiss and farewell, Li Xi pursued Monti's direction, quickly locking onto his target. His Dragon Eye vertical pupils and the two-tomoe Sharingan acted like a clairvoyant, allowing him to clearly see Monti from a thousand meters away in the darkness.
The shadow clones within Cardo City all disbanded, returning their power to Li Xi's true body.
Monti skillfully navigated his way ahead, as cautious and careful as an experienced thief.
Unfortunately, even though he took a longer route and traversed through forests to obscure his vision with trees, under Li Xi's monstrous eyesight, he looked like a clown entertaining the audience in a circus.
After an hour and a half of his own performance, Monti finally headed straight for his lair, which finally excited Li Xi, who had been enduring the cold wind for over an hour.
Using a Level Four vampire as a scout, there were bound to be many vampires at the lair, certainly big fish.
Deep in the mountains, against a cliff face, a massive castle stood majestically. It was as if a gap had been carved out of the mountain, and a castle had been built there at some unknown time. Monti flew directly into the castle, and Li Xi quietly approached.
Crows cawed, moss grew thick, and coupled with the ancient castle that lacked any trace of light, it had all the elements of a horror movie.
Li Xi did not rashly charge in but observed carefully. Soon, on the castle walls, he saw what looked like sculptures of little imps. These small demons with tiny horns squatting on the castle walls would be mistaken for ordinary statues by normal people, but they were actually magical creatures. Driven by the magic crystals within them, only the wealthy could afford to maintain such things. They could recognize pre-set spells, monitor outsiders, like living cameras.
If they were allies, they would not react. If an intruder appeared, they would sound an alarm and could even attack and hold enemies, with an attack power equivalent to that of a Level Two professional.
If one didn't know, they would easily be discovered. But if one knew, it would be very easy.
Because the monitoring range of these little demons was not like the cameras of his previous life, with a 360-degree, no-blind-spot coverage. The little demons' monitoring range was only in front of their vision; their entire rear was their blind spot.
Having found the blind spot of the little demons' vision, Li Xi did not move. He examined them carefully and soon discovered other magical detection methods.
"As expected of a lair that has been operating for many years, there are traps one after another."
Li Xi did not believe that his own knowledge was enough to uncover all the detection methods. Anyway, he had already figured out his infiltration method, so it didn't matter if he didn't discover any of them.
Li Xi flew directly to the mountaintop and found a rock of roughly the same size. He kicked it down. The half-human-tall rock whistled through the wind as it smashed towards the castle. A little demon statue, squatting and facing upwards, saw the rock, shook the dust off its body, and flew up. It forcefully embraced the rock. The powerful downward force of the rock pressed the little demon down for more than ten meters before it managed to stop the rock. The little demon then carried the rock outside the castle and threw it away, returning to its original position to continue its watch. The entire process was very smooth, indicating that it had done this many times.
Li Xi kicked down a few more rocks. Seven or eight little demons shook their bodies and flew up, catching all the large rocks before once again throwing them outside the castle and returning to their posts as if nothing had happened. Some smaller rocks, less than a fist in size, that were brought down by the larger stones fell inside the castle.
Seeing this, Li Xi's eyes gleamed with a sinister smile. He found a spot he fancied. Chakra flowed into his left brain, and he instantly opened the restriction of the First Gate.
"Open Gate!"
"Open!"
With one hundred percent of his strength under control, Li Xi stomped his foot. The thinnest part of the mountain seemed to trigger a landslide after heavy rain. Large sections of the cliff rolled down like a tide. If there were no interception methods, these rocks would be enough to smash the castle.
All the thousands of statue imps on the castle came to life and flew above the castle. Arranged in a fixed formation, they spread their palms, and their entire bodies emitted a faint blue light. This was the full activation of the energy in their magic crystals, which quickly formed a shield, protecting the castle.
Over thousands of years, landslides had occurred before. The little imps were long accustomed to them. The protective shield they cast together was so strong that even a Level Four expert could not break it, let alone ordinary rocks.
Unfortunately, they did not see a gray rock mixed among the others.
As the mudslide touched the shield, a large amount of mud and sand was blocked and then slowly slid down along the shield to the outside of the castle.
Just as this crisis was about to be easily resolved, a rock, different from the others, struck the shield with a deafening explosion, as if dozens of pounds of TNT had been detonated. The originally tough, faint blue shield shattered instantly. Many nearby little imps were blown away, and a large amount of mud and rocks crashed into the castle through the breach.
A side hall, extending vertically upwards in the Gothic-style castle, was directly smashed and submerged.
Almost simultaneously, a squad of vampires appeared at the scene of the accident. Their auras indicated that it was a Level Four vampire leading a group of low-level vampires, Levels Two and Three.
"My lord, it should be due to the recent heavy rain. The mountain rocks were unstable, which led to the accident."
Another low-level vampire, who had flown back after examining the little imps, reported, "My lord, the magic demon puppet's magic crystal energy was insufficient, which caused the shield to be unstable."
"Then can you tell me why there was such a loud noise?" the Level Four vampire questioned sternly. "This is a critical time for our bloodline. We must be careful about everything. Go and inspect carefully, leaving no stone unturned."
"Yes." The low-level vampires trembled with fear. Their status was essentially that of slaves among vampires. If vampires were not so few in number and if it were not a time of need, they would surely die for their mistakes.
Half of the vampires went to investigate, while the other half remained to clear the mud and sand. Their careful examination made it seem as if there was gold hidden within the pile of rocks.
However, no matter how carefully they searched, they would find nothing, because Li Xi, who had transformed into a rock, had already fled the moment the shield was broken.
At this moment, he was disguised as a demon puppet outside the castle's largest hall, eavesdropping. Inside the hall, hundreds of vampires were holding glasses of red blood, savoring it like fine wine, lost in ecstasy.