This was not a small shock anymore that Nick was in. The first question was alright, but the second?

‘Wait, the diamond! It’s probably a special one! F*ck! I have to be more careful with things I don’t recognize.’ He was kicking himself inwardly.

“Alright.” After gathering his thoughts for a minute, he took out few more stones and passed over, “I promised their mother to find out the whereabouts of her children. She was about to storm the city before I stopped her. Regarding the second question … well, I killed him.”

Now it was time for Salma to be astonished. This kid didn’t seem to lie. But to kill king Black? It was more than unbelievable.

Nick had few reasons to reply honestly. First, it was highly likely that this old woman as an experienced Qi master could tell if he was lying, similar to the king Alexander; second, judging by how she loved the diamond, most likely she had a bad relationship with king Black and his death could bring in few bonus points in the current situation; and the third, a rank six beast crazily attacking the city could turn out badly for her as well, therefore these were additional bonus points he could score.

“Hahaha!” Suddenly Salma started to laugh, “You have guts, kid! I like it! Good, I’ll tell you since you helped me to return my first diamond. At this very moment cubs are being escorted to the capital in a specially processed wagon that won’t allow the flame wolf to sense them. It’s a bit greenish in color and will smell like alchemist’s workshop. Right, they left Rolum four or five hours ago. There are around ten, may be fifteen Qi masters guarding them and if you want those cubs, I wouldn’t advise you to go against them without sufficient force on your side. In fact, most likely they will turn out useless – even if they were born as rank three beasts, while in captivity the possibility for them to increase their rank is minuscule, and to reach rank six is absolutely impossible.”

“There is only one route to capital, correct?” Nick asked.

“Indeed. You still want to go after those cubs?” Salma was surprised.

“I’m not suicidal.” Nick shook his head, “But the reason for me being in the rush I think you already have thought of.”

“Mhm. The tribute. That bastard made a slave of someone he shouldn’t have.” She said and then sighed, “I hope you’ll make it on time otherwise in the capital it will be basically impossible to achieve anything, even if the person you are recommended to is who I think it is, and even if you spend all the king Black's wealth.”

“Thank you.” Nick smiled in return. Looked like his gamble paid off.

They sat in a silence for a while. Nick had achieved everything he came for. The news that servant will bring unlikely will be a good and the chances of emperor’s tribute passing Rolum were slim to nothing, therefore he had to get up the cliff as soon as possible, inform the wolf and then get down again to immediately depart together with his friends. The next few hours will be very exhausting and the next few days even more.

When the servant brought the expected result, madam Salma sighed and said, “Maybe you can intercept the tribute in Sutana – it’s a small village where the direct road from Anula converges with the one from Rolum and continues to capital. I have a man there, his name is Yakub. Tell him you come from me, may be he’ll help with some information.”

Nick stood up and slightly bowed towards the old thief.

“Thank you. May I ask you to help me by preparing the horses – I want to leave in a couple of hours. Before that I have to do something first though.”

“You want to inform the mother?” Salma calmly asked.

“I promised.” Nick shrugged and smiled back.

Salma simply nodded and escorted him out.

Just before leaving Nick turned back and asked, “Madam Salma, I would like to ask a question from one Qi practitioner to another. No, as a beginner I would like to ask for an advice from an incredible Qi master. You see, I have always loved to run and mostly train my leg speed. Even many Qi masters can not keep up with my speed for short periods of time. But after seeing you, I think I’ve gotten an inspiration and want to train my hand speed as well. Do you think it is possible to be fast in every aspect?”

But right at that moment madam Salma who was standing in the doorway disappeared and Nick felt someone poking the back of his head.

“Who told you that only my hands are fast? You can’t be fast only with your legs or your hands – you have been looking at this in a wrong way from the beginning! Hahaha, are you self-taught or something?” She laughed.

Nick turned around and blushed, “Actually, I am.”

“Good kid!” She pinched his cheek like a loving grandmother, “But to achieve something, you’ll have to train all the time and in everything you do. Picking up spoon on the table is practice and putting it back also should be one. Keep infusing Qi in everything you touch, feel every object. Now go, horses will be ready when you’ll come back.”

Nick nodded and quickly ran off, but the old madam was standing in the doorway deep in thoughts, or may be just reminiscing of old days.

Nick didn’t think he might get followed, but didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks, therefore immediately darted in one alley, then another and then hid and wore his dark coat while sprinkling stealth powder over it. Then carefully proceeded towards the cliff wall and started scaling it.

The climb back took over an hour. On the half way, he took out Wakizashi, poked it into the wall and recovered for fifteen minutes while standing on it and holding beast cores. That was the only way to rest on this cliff wall. Wolf saw all of that, but still managed to hold back its anxiousness and continued to wait at the top.

When Nick finally climbed back up, he dropped down while gasping for air and only after few minutes sat up and spoke to the flame wolf.

“At this moment your children are brought to the capital in greenish wagon that smells like alchemists workshop. They are escorted by ten, may be fifteen Qi masters. Probably there is a ton of Qi practitioners as well. And they have left around six, may be seven hours ago.” Nick gave report in one breath and then gasped for air again, “Those are the news I gathered, but I think it might not be as simple as it seems – highly likely it might be a trap. Don’t run off yet, let me recover a bit.”

Clayton and Steven came over and were already nervously standing beside him – the last couple hours were quite an experience even though the wolf didn’t pay any attention to them. They were rather conflicted about the current situation and knew Nick wouldn’t leave them there, but were not certain if it was the correct choice – this was a rank six beast and wolf at that, who knew if it would kill all of them even if Nick brought back the cubs.

“Five years ago before Angel and I escaped, our captors were going to test out a sealing rune formation on him.” Nick started to explain after finally getting his breath back, “Oh right, Angel is the name of the rank six shadow eagle. I named him and he liked it a lot.”

Nick paused while looking wolf in the eyes, “I don’t know how to call you and calling you wolf seems a bit weird, may be you would like it if I gave you a name as well?”

Wolf looked at him in confusion – it couldn’t understand why now of all times he was bringing it up. Then slowly nodded.

“How would you like if I called you ‘Scarlet’? I think it’s a beautiful name and suits you a lot.” Nick smiled.

Looked like the wolf was thinking for a moment and then it nodded again.

“Great!” Nick clapped excitedly, “So, Scarlet, before I and Angel escaped, the bad people were preparing to use that soul trapping rune formation on him. As you know, sometimes humans enslave beasts that way, but your soul is very strong and it shouldn’t be possible. But those guys managed to find some ancient rune formation and they got it from the Nestri emperor. And the payment for that was to organize your capture the same way. It was five years ago and they didn’t have the opportunity to test the formation, because we escaped at the time.”

Nick finally got up, and now could look directly in Scarlet’s eyes, “I don’t believe someone would ‘coincidentally’ capture your children. Most likely there are people waiting for you to attack the city and it is possible they have prepared to capture you at the transporting carriage as well. There is no reason for a force of fifteen Qi masters to escort your two cubs, even if they are rank three from birth.”

“You see, there are too many coincidences.” Nick spread his hands, “Think of it – you should have an amazing intuition!”

While Scarlet sank in deep thoughts, Nick turned to his friends, “Sorry it took so long, the damn wall is over kilometer high!”

Clayton waved him off, “Any news?”

Nick, of course, understood what he meant, “No, but I got us nine good horses. We will be able to leave already tonight and while we’re still on the jungle road we, I mean – I, can recover a bit and on savanna road we can gallop all the way to the Sutana. That’s a village where we can probably get any real information on the girls.”

At this moment Scarlet poked Nick with her nose. The latter got startled for a moment, then smiled widely.

“You want me to help you? There is not much I can help you with in a direct fight. Even if fifteen Qi masters is a lot, I believe it would take you few minutes to neutralize most of them.” Then he scratched his head and continued, “I would suggest for you first to catch up to the wagon and get more detailed information. I suspect there will be several men dressed in dark red, almost black robes – if you see them, know they would be the ones who will try to perform the sealing ritual. Next, if you show yourself, they will definitely try to use paralyzing poison, if fact, that is how they got Angel back then even if he killed off more than hundred attackers and many of those were Qi masters. Also, use your common sense – when you catch up to them, you will notice how they are moving in a slow pace on purpose. You have much more experience than I do and I think you will know how to proceed. After I replenish my strength, we will leave by the same road as well, but even if the kidnappers are going slow, we will catch up not earlier than tomorrow at noon – you know, we can’t be compared to you in speed, especially at night.”

Nick paused for a moment and while seriously looking at her, said, “Scarlet, never forget you are dealing with people, and these are very bad people – they most likely will use evil tactics, like threatening you with the lives of your children or something similar. If you attack, clean up everyone in one swoop, starting from the guys in the dark red robes.”

Then he took few steps closer, patted Scarlet on her leg, “Good luck, lady Scarlet! I hope you get back your children very soon.”

She poked him with her nose on the chest again and then suddenly disappeared between the trees.