Before I check to see how much money I’ve made from all the arbitrage, I notice something very strange going on with the rats in the city.

To be specific… not my rats.

To the left of me is an injured man. On top of him is a healing rat.

But, it’s not mine.

I’m repeating it in my head, just to make sure I’m seeing this correctly. There are healing rats… and they aren’t mine.

Granted, the healing from this rat appears to be significantly slower and is only able to get minor to moderate injuries, but this means someone else is copying what I’m doing.

Seriously, what is going on?

One of my rats runs around and also heals another person in the distance. The wounds visibly heal from both of them, though at different timings.

Leaning over to someone in the crowd that seems to just be relaxing, I try to get their thoughts on the issue.

“Hey, I'm sorry to bother you, but I have a quick question.”

Before I can ask the question, the gruff looking man looks me up and down and barks out an answer.

“Ah. Foreigner. You wanna head in that direction, if you want to get involved with the political side. We don't usually deal with that out here.”

He points at the road heading toward the mountain, like that would explain anything.

“Uhhh. Actually, I was just shopping here and was hoping you could tell me if rats healing people laying on the streets was normal to see for areas around sects?”

He pauses… then coughs out a laugh.

A few people look at him briefly before continuing. He doesn’t appear to be anyone important, so they move on.

For his part, he shifts to face me more directly and looks at me closer.

“Hahaha, sorry about that. We usually get a lot of foreigners here, who don’t know where to go for their ‘fancy’ meetings. And I suppose that is a pretty good question.”

He seems to think on it a bit before giving a slow and cautious answer.

“It seems to be something pretty recent, but a lot of us assume that it might be one of the bigwigs in the sect trying to finally clean up the city a bit. To be specific, by helping more local people, everyone is more tolerable of when certain undesirables disappear.

“Nobody liked when the drug groups that came in a long time ago, but no one was able to do anything about it. Quite a few people are happy that something is being done about it.”

He leans in conspiratorially, clearly enjoying spreading this gossip. His whispers add names to my ear.

“There are talks that the Ascending Myriad Monsters group and the Eight Winds Alchemical Research society have teamed up to make these rats, on the request of the sect. Such groups have always been a sore point for the Alchemical Research society, ever since one of their recipes was perverted by those same drug groups. It does make one wonder, though, how they got the Myriad Monsters group involved…”

Wow. It's easy to forget that I’m not the only one doing stuff around here. Though, this is just gossip, I wonder what the truth is.

With my question answered, so many new ones have now come up.

I finished by engaging in some more light talk with the man before politely moving on.

He did seem to be filled with gossip, as I heard a lot of some of the things I had already seen about groups and people in the area. Of course, I reacted with surprise and other actions as would be appropriate, as I would do with any merchant.

Before I left, I gave him a 2 Big Coppers as thanks for the information. While not a terribly large amount of money, it's still just under half of what a person would normally make during a work day.

The man didn't look too unsatisfied, either.

Now that I'm away from the man and have blended back into the crowds, I use my scan to verify that I am generally hidden in the crowd from both special abilities, cultivator senses, and just normal, regular people.

I changed my scan away from the marketing style scanning, back to an information based one. I do all of this so that I can have enough leeway to be able to do a regular information scan.

Without a doubt, what's really going on will be hidden Is being kept as a secret. I'm sure the details of something like this will require me to take this very slowly and carefully.

Learning from my earlier mistakes with my scan, I've built in a probing style method into my scan. When there's something I don't know, I'll send out the slightest feeler for information towards it. This doesn't even qualify as actually getting information, but it's more just probing towards the existence of something.

To give an example, if I would have done that with finding out how to get my cultivation methods, I would have immediately discovered how bad of an idea it would have been to even attempt the lowest possible version of the scan.

With that said, it appears that this is a pretty well-kept secret. Finding out what truly is going on would be far too much for my scan, even at lower levels. If spread out in time, I simply wouldn't have time to do that and everything else that I need to do to succeed in this world.

However, I can instead just see if there's truth to the rumors that are going around. It will still cause some pain, but I can discover the rest with time.

I immediately activate the scan according to these parameters, causing the pain filled effects, as detailed.

What I find is that the two groups mentioned, the Ascending myriad monsters group and the eight winds alchemical research society, are actually the ones that are fielding the rats. The Research Society differs actually from the Alchemy Group.

The Alchemy group was created to make money and in some ways exploit people, while the research group is meant to help people and also expand the realm of alchemy.

Unfortunately, no other data can be corroborated, though.

So, intentions, other groups involved, or even how they do it can’t be discovered. Just the fact that those groups are actually the ones doing it.

The good thing is that the only things they are doing are actually healing people. In a sense, they are actually helping by giving me a front against the dangerous groups. The only issue is, but they are most definitely looking for who the original person to do this is. The question will be whether they’re looking to recruit or something else.

Thankfully, I get the feeling that the relationship that I would have with them would be a lot friendlier than what happened with the alchemy group. It will also be harder for them to gather information on me, so I may have more time than I expected. All the previous things I thought about will also still be giving me some protection on this. Like, I know I’ve been running around this whole time, appearing as if I’m busy.

In addition, unlike the alchemy group, I’ve had no dealings with them and they haven’t shown up in any of my previous scans.

My scan also lets me know that it’s well known that the two groups, the alchemy group and the research group, have issues with each other, because of their differing goals and areas of operation.

Of course, as soon as I think that, the subtlest spiritual sense I have felt yet washes over the area I’m in. No one other than I seems to notice it, not even the nearby cultivators.

A testament to how skilled its user is.

I resist the urge to look straight at the person as it continues to go over every person. It stops on me for me for a moment longer than everyone else but then continues on.

It’s only when it returns to me, and only me, that I’d give them a sharp look. It’s a person completely covered from head to toe and black cloth, somewhat similar to me, but even their eyes are covered.

As a glare at them, i can see the shivers run down their back. Just as they use their sense on me, I’m now using my scan on them and I lower everything but my protection to make sure I do this thoroughly.

This person is actually somewhat well known, but they hide their identity well. They are known as the Probing Air Master.

This is because, despite only being in the Qi condensation level, that are able to hide their spiritual sense to where she can gather decent information over a very large period, but at a level that not even core formation experts can discover.

Her services are very valued for information gathering. Which means someone really wanted to know what was going on with the merchant situation.

What did cause more pain to discover is who she really is.

Her name is Wei, having no family name. She’s desperately trying to gather enough coin to get materials to ascend to the foundation establishment stage, since they only have an above average spiritual root. Once they reach that level, they will be in a secure position. They will continue cultivating, but they’ve said that multiple times to people in their inner circle.

What is the surprising part is they are an outer court member of the sect I’m trying to join. They aren’t doing this as part of their normal duties, but as an outside activity.

I’m consistently shocked by how much I can learn about a person using this scan. Nonetheless, there are still many things I can’t get access to… which would take far too much energy to be worth it.

This makes things tougher, though. Since she’s part of the sect, I’ll have to step carefully.

Contrary to my thoughts, Wei is still frozen in place, as I have not stopped staring at her.

As I continue to think to myself, I am brought out of my thoughts when she slowly raises her hands up in submission.

She points to a nearby alleyway, as if to talk for a moment.

…

…

… Why does this seem so familiar?