Life Giver

In the academy Guardship's barracks were a few special isolation rooms, they were used to contain suspects for short periods of time during their interrogation and/or trial periods.

Within isolation room 3 was a rather short person with a unique appearance, his skin was green but not a bright green, more of a sickly green like the leaves of a dying plant. His body shape was similar to a humans but much shorter and quite thin.

He was wearing an odd piece of dull grey clothing to cover his body that clearly didn't fit him, this clothing was in fact provided by the Guardship for him to wear after his former clothing was found to contain various hidden pockets, storing poisons.

He was currently sitting at a metal table, nervously tapping his fingers as he glanced at the silver metallic walls around him.

These walls were specially designed to block any Qi energy passing through them, albeit only from one side allowing people outside of the room to monitor inside of it using their Qi fields.

Suddenly the short green man stood up out of frustration and with a surprising amount of force he slammed his hand against the table, knocking it flying towards one of the silver wall as he shouted angrily.

"HURRY UP GOD DAMN IT! DON'T KEEP ME IN THIS GOD DAMN ROOM!"

Although the table seemed too fragile to be able to withstand his wrath, as soon as it collided with the silver wall it simply made a quiet "Ding" sound before it fell onto the floor completely undamaged.

After a moment of angrily glaring at the surrounding walls as if someone was standing behind them, the short green man realised the futility of his actions and with bloodshot eyes he sat down powerlessly.

The reason he was so anxious and angry was not only because of his guilt but also because of the isolation this special room caused.

Most cultivators at his level would constantly be monitoring their surroundings with their Qi fields, but because of the Qi energy resistant walls in this room, his observation abilities were drastically reduced.

It was like forcing someone to wear a blindfold while tying their hands behind their back, it created an subconscious anxiety of not being able to control himself or be free.

On the other side of one of the silver walls were three people, Instructor Redfire, Master Bluefire in her more humanlike form wearing a pretty blue dress and another man wearing a guards uniform.

"Hmph, what a baby. How the hell did he make it to Qi Grade 5? Let alone become such an accomplished Alchemist." Master Bluefire said coldly as she glanced at the man dressed in a guards uniform.

This man was the Commander of the academy Guardship, Commander Blackearth.

He was thinking about this situation quite seriously, he was a Grade 5 Qi warrior himself but this was the first occasion in his time at the academy that there had been such a serious criminal case involving a high level cultivator.

This was an attempted murder by a Qi Grade 5 cultivator after all, not only that but it was by a relatively recognisable figure in the Ellaris Alchemists society.

And just after the criminal case was introduced to him, Master Bluefire, a very influential person in the academy, showed up to pressure him for answers.

Commander Blackearth was not having a good day but he still had to tip toe around Master Bluefire, he was well aware of her infamy.

"This man is a Grade 4 alchemist working for GreenField Experimental labs, however that was done under an alias. His real name is Elea En, from a Dryad sub-race, he is a notorious criminal that was last known to be working from the coastal cities, no where near Ellaris." Commander Blackearth explained calmly.

"We got lucky, the inner Guardship caught him with an illegal poison as he was leaving the city. When they heard about what happened here, the investigators there connected the dots from the items he had with him."

Commander Blackearth pulled out a small black vial as he continued.

"This vial contains the same poison used on your student. You can check it with your Alchemists if you need to, the inner Guardship have already closed the attempted murder investigation to focus on his other charges. They will be taking Elea En at the end of the day, after we have finished our interrogation."

Instructor Redfire was surprised that the inner Guardship would close the case so quickly.

"That quickly?" he questioned.

Commander Blackearth was surprised when he heard this too but after he read the arrest report on Elea En, he wasn't surprised in the least.

"He was hauling over a dozen illegal Grade 5 poisons, the seriousness and implications of those items are a hell of a lot more important than attempted murder of a Grade 1 student. No offence intended." Commander Blackearth explained.

In the view of the Inner Guardship, following up on the illegal poisons was more important because they could threaten the lives of various higher level cultivators. One Qi Grade 1 student was far less important than the lives of Guard commanders for example.

"Where the hell would he get so many high grade poisons... Commander can we see the arrest report?" Instructor Redfire said.

Commander Blackearth nodded "Master Bluefire can, she has the clearance."

Commander Blackearth then quickly left the room the get the report.

Instructor Redfire looked at Bluefire but he didn't say anything as he saw the deeply cold look on her face, he was well aware that his sister was thinking deeply about this series of events.

Eventually, she finished reflecting on the details and spoke seriously but also in slight relief.

"This man shouldn't be related to Casmir in any meaningful capacity, he was likely caught in the crossfire between two parties. There are only two parties I can think of that would want to harm Casmir, the first would never have failed and would in fact have targeted us first."

Master Bluefire and Instructor Redfire knew that this party was related to Casmir's father.

"But the second... well apparently that fool, Arthur Feniss, whom Casmir knocked out was more stupid than I thought.." Master Bluefire said with an ounce of pity.

Arthur Feniss was the 'young master' of the large Feniss Farming Initiative that enraged Casmir with his attempt to 'buy' Rose. His importance to the Feniss Farming initiatives was clear by the fact he was assigned a guard in secret and Master Bluefire was clear that he was the only 'enemy' that warranted an attempt on Casmir's life.

An arrogant young man who's pride had been tarnished and illicit dealings had been exposed by someone, they wouldn't stop at murder.

"Redfire, forget about Casmir's safety for now, I'll take care of it personally. Someone is making a play for the Feniss Farming initiative and is using that Arthur idiot to do so. I need you to keep an eye on that organisations inner power distributions... You should start as soon as we leave.. and make sure to wear that armour I made for you."

Redfire wanted to question her about it further but he knew that this wasn't the right time.

Shortly after, Commander Blackearth returned with the arrest report and the details in this report only confirmed Master Bluefire's suspicions.

She had carefully examined this case from every angle and her conclusion was clear, there was no way Arthur Feniss and Elea En would cross paths by accident.

Someone had deliberately exploited Arthur's arrogance and stupidity by connecting them together somehow and persuading him to hire Elea En to assassinate Casmir.

Then they must have set up Elea En to be found when he tried to leave after poisoning Casmir, this was obvious because in the arrest report a poison expert just happened to pass by as Elea En left Ellaris and noticed the faint unique smell of a poison on his body.

Elea En had then given up his employer under the Inner Guardship's interrogation, Master Bluefire was well aware of the inner Guardship's expertise in this area, they would not have failed to extract information against such a weak willed individual.

However clearly Arthur Feniss had not been implicated, this information had clearly been supressed most likely to be used as blackmail by an unknown party.

As for what they wanted, Master Bluefire didn't know at the moment which was why she sent Redfire to monitor the Feniss Farming Initiative. This organisation had a surprising amount of power in Ellaris and had at least two people on the Ellaris city council, although these two seats were small compared to the total of 36 seats, it might only be the beginning.

As for how Master Bluefire could figure out this plot, not only was she an experienced refiner that held sway in the academy because of her ability to virtually print money with the objects she could refine.

She was also a former commander of the Ellaris inner Guard, specifically the equipment master, one of five positions just below the Commander of the entire Ellaris Guardship. Although criminal investigation was not her primary role, as a Commander of the Guardship she had been involved in a number of high profile cases.

After a short conversation with Commander Blackearth, Bluefire and Redfire left the Guardship barracks, Bluefire held no further interest in Elea En after the plot had been unravelled by her.

As for punishing him? Something told Bluefire that Elea En wouldn't have a pleasant life from now on, he wouldn't be silenced as he was a key piece of blackmail material but he definitely wouldn't be treated well.