Chapter 50: Stolen Scrolls And Confused Young Masters
Kage pondered what manner of robbery he wanted to commit with these kids. He didn’t want to be some ordinary thief who stole food and supplies—he could get those himself if he needed them that badly.
No, his brand of thievery had to make more sense. It had to make more impact.
Kage sat at their bonfire and watched as all of them slept like logs, even having the audacity to doze in a forest teeming with predators.
For a moment, he couldn’t help but marvel at how absurd it was. This part of the world seemed peaceful, but in the future, three separate Impure outbreaks would devastate civilizations across the continents. Then there was the Ocean King that emerged in the seas of Tianlong, making any crossing to another continent a death sentence.
The entire continent plunged into severe scarcity, and things took a truly apocalyptic turn. It was the older generations—Transcendents, Supremes, Immortals—who stood at the forefront of this apocalyptic war.
His generation was just collateral. Rank 4 Purists, Rank 5, Rank 6—they all died either from terrain shifts during the war or encounters with high-Rank Impures.
This was the root of it. In a world that constantly emphasized how destructive it was, crafting a test based on harmony felt utterly absurd.
Kage chuckled.
’Well, I’ll give them what they want.’
Kage rose and began. First, he searched them and removed their scrolls. A group foolish enough to sleep simultaneously, not leaving one or two people on watch, clearly loved their rest.
Young master brats who could sleep on water.
After plundering all their pouches of scrolls and tokens, Kage took about two gourds of water, then arranged stones pointing west, giving them at least a sense of direction.
He didn’t strip them completely—at least he left them with a few resources. Besides, they’d most likely notice the absence of their scrolls when they reached the point where they needed to unseal them.
The sharpest among them would notice and try to track him using the clues he’d left.
’That said... I don’t have all day. I need to figure out how to unseal these scrolls myself.’
Kage’s hunch was that this was the first task—unsealing the scroll would give you the remaining answers and directions to the foothills of Harmony Mountain.
He left them to their fate and pressed on, traveling through the night and into morning.
By late morning, Kage was exhausted. The forest felt alive—birds singing melodious songs with absolutely no meaning. He’d have preferred silence, but he couldn’t have it.
After staggering along with a sweat-slicked face, Kage finally stumbled upon a tidal cave. He wasted no time and immediately lunged into it, collapsing onto the damp ground where he lay for a while. He was sleepy but didn’t have the nerve to close his eyes.
He just lay there, panting. Every moment of his life reminded him how pathetic his predicament was. And honestly, he hated it.
[The Wolf of the North is not disappointed in you. He says he should have expected this villainy from you, but he also says maybe you’re right this time—those lads were too reckless.]
***
Meanwhile, a group of examinees had dismantled their camp and continued walking. Eight in total, they navigated their path with keen observation.
They’d left mid-morning, and now it was a few hours later. A boy with a shaved head and six black dots tattooed on his scalp suddenly felt something off about the weight of his body.
His eyes widened. He patted his clothes, his torso, everywhere—and realized.
"It’s gone."
The other examinees ahead of him stopped. A girl with platinum blonde hair falling to her waist asked with an irritated expression.
"What’s wrong, monk? What’s gone?"
The boy slowly raised horrified eyes to meet the others. His voice trembled.
"My sealed scroll and token."
All of them immediately shot him a disappointed look.
"Ah, Monk Shen, you should’ve kept it safer. Didn’t the instructor who brought you warn you that losing it means failure?"
A boy with sun-darkened skin and messy sand-brown hair spoke in a mild scolding tone.
Shen looked down, confused, trying to retrace in his head where he could have lost it.
Another voice hesitantly emerged from the group.
"Uhm, guys... my scroll is gone too."
They turned to the hollow-cheeked boy with messy black hair falling over his eyes.
The boy who’d been scolding frowned and patted his torso for his own scroll. His eyes widened the moment he felt nothing.
The platinum blonde girl too. All of them. None could find their tokens and scrolls.
They stared at each other with shocked, terrified expressions.
The platinum blonde girl spoke, her frown tight.
"This can only mean one thing."
Shen looked at her, knowing it too.
"We’ve been robbed."
All of them suddenly erupted into muttering, checking and rechecking their clothes.
"This can’t be happening."
"Who would do this?"
"Why would anyone want our scrolls?"
"I can’t go back home—my father will have my head on a pike!"
The platinum blonde girl yelled, her crystalline blue eyes blazing.
"Stop! Everyone keep it together, dammit!"
Their voices lowered, all eyes turning to her.
She spoke again, calmer this time.
"Stop panicking. It won’t help us now. When did we last know we had them?"
Shen responded with a measured tone.
"I still had mine the night before we went to sleep."
The sun-darkened boy added:
"That’s right! I remember slipping mine into my shirt while we were gathering wood. It was still there at night."
The girl looked between them.
"Shen, last night. Marcus, last night. I’m certain I had mine last night too."
She glanced at the rest of them, already concluding that everyone had last seen their tokens and scrolls the previous night. Then she turned to the hollow-cheeked boy.
"You... what’s your name again? You were on watch last night, weren’t you? Did you notice anyone?"
The boy shook his head with absolute certainty.
"I didn’t sleep until very early in the morning when I couldn’t hold it anymore. I never saw anyone approach."
The girl gave him a skeptical look, then fell into thought.
Shen took a step closer.
"Miss Yuki, I think we should return to our former campsite and search the area for clues."
The group backtracked to their camp—another hour’s walk. They reached the dismantled site and began combing the area.
The platinum blonde girl with crystalline blue eyes—Yuki—found something as she searched. She crouched before it, her expression darkening.
Meanwhile, Marcus spoke up again.
"My water gourd is missing too."
The others frantically checked for their makeshift gourds, each sighing with relief when they found theirs intact.
A strikingly beautiful young woman with raven-black hair tied in a bun spoke in grim realization.
"My gourd is gone too."
Yuki glanced at her, piecing together conclusions internally. Then she addressed the group.
"At first, I thought maybe this was part of the exam. But no—we weren’t informed of anything like this. Whoever stole our gourds is also an examinee like us."
Her gaze dropped to the ground beside her. Stones arranged in an arrow pointed in a specific direction.
"...and they want us to head west."