I looked at the unconscious woman in front of me with a grimace.

I hurt! Sure, I didn't break any of my bones, but slamming into a wall after a kick that overwhelmed my arrays was very painful indeed. At least I had managed to drop Minx in time to avoid losing her.

What should I do with her though?

That woman had been far more unreasonable than her friend. And her power to ignore qi techniques affecting her with sheer rage? It made no sense, and was honestly so stupid I hadn't even thought about the possibility. Live and learn I guess.

Now, I had to deal with the aftermath. The mayor did not have his aura overseeing the town constantly, probably doing something very similar to myself with it. And with my more successful employees having earned themselves a house next to my own, so no one should have been near enough to hear our scuffle.

Which meant I now had a third realm cultivator no one needed lying on my floor. What should I do with her? I could do the same I did with Velgo with her, but I did not want someone that unpredictable working for me. That could only backfire horribly. No, any serious organisation needed to be completely legitimate until they were powerful enough to ignore pesky stuff like that. So, what to do? A heavenly oath not to talk about the fight, not to attack me or mine again. Added onto that she’d have to keep my secrets.

How did I get her to agree to that though? Cultivators hated swearing heavenly oaths, and doing so to someone you viewed as your enemy?

Wasn't going to happen now that she knew I defeated her friend and let him leave. Well, perhaps she would. If not I would need to take some more extreme measures.

“What do you want to do with her mistress?” Velgo asked as he joined me.

I'm not sure yet. I'm going to offer her to swear the same oath as I did to her friend,” I answered. “If not, I’ll have to think about it.”

“Not like me then?” he asked.

“No. I was in a bad state of mind at the time, I would have offered you the deal as I did to her friend otherwise,” I said. “Sorry about that.”

“Don't worry. You are the best thing that happened to me, to most of us,” he answered. “We’d be nothing but average cultivators without your guidance. Honestly, you should found a clan or sect, you’d rise to power in no time.”

“Nah. I‘d never join either,” I said, conveniently ignoring the fact that I said nothing about either joining or founding anything.

“If you say so,” he answered doubtfully.

“I am just fine where I am, don't worry. With Targo going out and increasing the knowledge about us, we’re going to be ready to expand into the city in no time,” I explained.

“You plan to expand into the city, why not now?” he asked.

“We’re not ready,” I intoned.

"We're not ready? How do you know that? Have you ever been to the city?" He asked.

"The old man told me about it," I said.

"Old man? What old man?" he asked, perplexed.

"The old man owning the shop in the middle of the town," I answered. "He's old and knows lots of stuff."

"I don't know of any old men that own a shop in the middle of the town," he stated. "And I have lived here for years. Did you ever send anyone there?"

"I did not. Which is strange, I do not shop since I got someone for that,” I said.

I flared my qi, and called several wooden splinters in my hands. I filled all of them with the memory of the conversation, and stabbed them into several different parts of my body.

“We’ll talk about it later, at a better time,” I said. “For now we have a prisoner to secure. She should wake up in a few minutes, so get some robe, and I’ll secure her.”

“Good idea. We don't someone like that raging around in here,” he said. “And get someone to fetch me a replacement chair. How good is our light cultivator with Illusion by now? What was her name again?”

“Luxa. She’s decent, why do you need her?” he asked.

“I am going to suppress her aura with mine. The two of you just need to stand behind me menacingly, while Luxa hides the damage of the fight and I pet Minx,” I explained.

“So another one of your strange ideas, I’ll take care of it,” he said. “She’ll need some help with the illusions though, she’s still practicing what you told her.”

“That’s no problem,” I said.

Strange ideas. What a joke. No, I did what I did to have a psychological edge. Being tied up and floating in the middle of a room you just trashed, missing your most important sense would intimidate anyone.

Well, I should clean up a little. I called all the debris lying around into the air with a thought, making sure my still jittery pet stayed in my arms. After that I just floated the stuff out of my office, it could be dealt with later.

Soon enough, Velgo returned with the small woman. Luxa. Right. She came here as a second realm cultivator already, only lacking qi to break into the third realm. But getting qi was the big thing of the second realm. Like a baby version of the third realm now that I thought about it. There was a lot more to these realms than I gave the cultivators credit for. They were modular, but organized in a way that allowed the smoothest progression. It still required dedication of course, but not as much as it would if it were organized differently.

Our timing was impeccable as only minutes after everything was finished, our guest woke. She was tied up, and floating in the middle of the room. The room that looked just like it had when she came in here earlier. With the exception of me stopping any qi from nearing her, and my aura was forcefully suppressing her own. Which I could only to because she had exhausted her qi.

We fought for a while, but resistance was futile.

"Why am I still alive? You want to gloat?" She barked.

"Well. I will offer you the same thing I offered to your friend. If you want to take it or not doesn't matter. For me that is. It very much matters for you," I said.

"What deal? He gets to live, but has to betray his clan? Pah, I swore I would never do that years ago," she spat.

"How'd you get that idea?" I asked perplexed.

"Because he left. The TRAITOR just left us!" she screamed

"I see. Well, you won't believe me whatever I say," I started.

"Damn right I won't believe you! Just kill me already." she said.

"By the heavens, the oath binding the Cultivator Hatsume and me did not involve the betrayal of his clan, and should the Cultivator in front of me swear an oath worded by me I will not kill her either," I said.

Golden light encased me as the heavens responded. I really loved heavenly oaths, they were just so convenient.

The woman looked quite shocked at my action. I waited, continuing to stroke Minx. And waited.

"So? Do you want to swear the oath now, or do you need to be further convinced?" I asked.

"I will have to think about it," she said. "How about you ask in another day."

"How about no. Your qi will have returned at the time, and you'll try and flee," I denied.

The woman clicked her tongue, and fell silent.

"Look Feloga. You're a third realm cultivator. You would probably not survive my convincing. And dying here is the ultimate betrayal," I said

She stiffened, and looked at me, wide eyed.

"Your clan always wants to escalate things. You killed my mother. You demand I work for you. You send a third realm cultivator after me. And another," I have done nothing to escalate our conflict," I reasoned. "Now I have no clue about politics, and will stay away from them, but I could have escalated things very quickly if I wanted to."

"You're threatening to escalate things by killing me and doing what? Working with our enemies, sure we're in a tough spot right now but we'll come out ahead," she said.

Tough spot?

"So the loss of another third realm cultivator and the appearance of cultivator made robes on everyone of your enemies wouldn't destroy you?" I asked with a grin.

She admitted weakness, while she was in a bad spot. No seasoned negotiator then, or only from a position of strength.

Feloga deflated.

"Fine. I will swear an oath to you, if you do not start to sell robes to our enemies," she said

"Good. Now, I already prepared the contents of your oath, here," I said, floating a qi filled stone over towards her head.

"By the heavens, I Feloga of the Waid Clan swear I will not reveal the power of the cultivator Triss, nor will I ever fight her, or her followers in any way. I will do my best to stop my clan from continuing our revenge,” she swore with a golden light enveloping her.

Good enough.

I flicked another one of the numerous pebbles in my office at her, watching as she felt unconscious.

“Say, you don't happen to know of a way to keep a third realm cultivator imprisoned?” I asked.

“You're not going to let her leave?” Velgo asked.

“Of course not. Why do you think I didn't include a secrecy clause? She can go, but not now. Didn't you hear? Her clan is in a tough spot, so I can just wait for them to die out,” I said.

“I don't know how you could do it. She’s a powerful berserker, and a third realm cultivator. These strange arrays you have protecting our houses won't hold anyone above the second realm for long,” he said.

“A pity. Well, I already planned for that. She swore she wouldn't fight me after all,” I said.

“How does that help?” Luxa asked.

“Isn't it obvious? I'm going to build a cage of these force fields, and tell her she’ll be fighting against me if she tries to break them,” I said with a grin.

Both of them looked at me like I was mad.

“That's not a fight!” they exclaimed.

“Of course it is. It’s not a literal fight, but still a fight,” I said. “You can fight someone without ever trading a blow.”

“What other way is there? Exchanging techniques?" Velgo asked.

"Well, that too. There's also a battle of wits, a fight with your spouse, a fight," I started.

"Yes yes, we got it," Velgo said. “So, how long are you gonna keep her here?” He asked.

“Well, that depends really. I'm going to ask the mayor about the city when I get the chance. Then I’ll send someone to scout it out, see if it’d be possible to establish a presence there. We’ll need to get a better name, and a good marketing strategy too, hire some mortals that drive through the city to have our logo on their wagon, the basic stuff,” I said, already lost in dreams of all the scummy business practices I could use.

Bully competitors out of business with cheap prices, spread rumors about them. Hire the mafia. The good stuff.

Well, I’d also have to find a way to protect myself against espionage. My employees wouldn't talk thanks to heavenly oaths, but I’d need to find a way to defend against spying via aura. Or that weird stepping my friend always did. I needed to advance into the fourth realm.

I grimaced. I still had some reservations about the fourth realm, but it did seem I needed to advance if I wanted to be serious about my business. Because it would keep expanding. I sighed, and absentmindedly rubbed my hands.

A sharp pain shot through my fingers, and my aura found a qi-filled splinter inside. Puzzled, I sent my senses inside, only for a memory to replay before my eyes. A memory I definitely did not have anymore.

I would have a talk with an old man first it seemed.