Once the two of them reached home, Bartos and Lilia wondered why Kate's clothes were dirtier than usual but Shui's smile and Kate's attitude brushed the question out of their minds. With Kate back to normal, Shui took the oppurtunity he felt and broke through to the sixth level in the Mortal Realm. When he told Kate the next day, she immediately locked herself in her room and said she was entering seclusion. For Shui, cultivation in the Mortal Realm got easier as his level got higher since only the quantity of the energy he had changed, even when moving from early to middle Mortal Realm. Even if there was more energy to work with, by becoming familiar with the process he could now easily progress to the next level since he had comprehended enough to reach the ninth level of the Mortal Realm.
Besides Kate, Shui didn't tell anyone that he broke through. Even though everyone knew he was talented, he believed it would be best if he simply allowed his aura to vaguely show that he was in the middle Mortal Realm.
Since getting his personal forge, Shui made many more artifacts but most of them were wasted in his storage since Bartos and Yur told him to only sell the best ones. Even so, Shui forged an item to be sold every week. He wouldn't always go to Cyrus with Yur for the sale, but he tried to go every other week. Since the spar with Kate, she had gotten less clingy so she didn't ask him to bring her to Cyrus, luckily.
One time while he was at an auction with Yur, a staff member entered their VIP room.
"Pardon me, the Matriarch of the Glaize clan would like to speak to the creator of the harmony series."
This news caused Shui and Yur to look at each other in shock and intrigue. After a glance, they had reached a mutual understanding and Yur turned towards the staff member.
"Did they specifically ask for the creator of the harmony series?"
"Yes sir."
"Hmm, tell them to come after the auction."
"Understood."
Shortly after in another room, a well-developed woman shouted after hearing the words from the staff member. This woman would be quite the catch under normal standards, but the other three in the room made her look ordinary in comparison.
"How dare he expect us to go to him?! I'd like to see what kind of arrogant bastard he is. He just knows a few tricks and thinks he can act like this!"
"Bria, calm down. You're being disgraceful."
"That's right, that's right. That's why you can't get married."
The ones that replied were identical twins who stood at the sides of the Matriarch. By standing behind the seated sensual body of Kaitlyn, the two ladies acted as perfect complements to her beauty and elegance. It would have been a perfect scene if Kaitlyn displayed her bare face, but even masked she gave off a mysterious splendour. Though they had the same face and wore the same blue robes, the two had polar opposite personalities and unlike Bria, they looked outstanding even near Kaitlyn.
"That's besides the point!"
"We accept, you may leave."
"Yes ma'am."
After telling the staff member to leave, Kaitlyn was faced by Bria's confused gaze.
"But, but why Mistress? Is this really that important?"
"In a sense. I'm mostly just curious."
"Curious?"
"Yes, I'm interested in knowing what sort of talent is hiding in the Heaven clan."
As she announced her interest, a rare smile appeared on her face under the mask. Unfortunately, none but her knew that.
While they waited for the Glaize clan, Yur donned a cloak while Shui wore a mask for the purpose of disguise. Even if the Glaize clan knew the items were from the Heaven clan, they should not know who exactly made the harmony series, and Shui planned on keeping it that way. With the money he had accumulated, Shui began buying resources necessary for him to reach two-star saint body and for him to advance his inscription ability. The cloak was one of the few remaining that he had bought to test low-level inscriptions. After low-level, there were also mid-level and high-level inscriptions but those were currently out of his reach.
The difference between basic inscriptions and low-level inscriptions was the fact that low-level inscriptions required him to imagine the symbol's effect while he was drawing it. This made it necessary for him to get a better brush so he made one out of mutated flora bark and the hair of boar evolved beast. Even so, the better equipment didn't stop him from failing repeatedly even when he was doing it on special paper. If it wasn't for his soul cultivation, there would be no way for him to do low-level inscriptions. The cloak was one of his few success and it had been inscribed with the symbol meaning 'Confuse' and the image he used with it gave the cloak the ability to muddle the senses of anyone trying to perceive the wearer.
Since he was already good at controlling his aura, the blank mask Shui used was only inscribed with 'Conceal'. Shui stood behind the chair that Yur was seated on and prepped his mind.
When the four from the Glaize clan arrived, they were all apprenhensive of Yur. Due to how the two had positioned themselves, they thought he was the forge master behind the harmony series. However, they could sense neither his cultivation nor his age. Even Yur's gender was a mystery to them. As for Shui who was by his side, they were once again shocked by the fact that they received a similar lack of information that could be gathered about him. If it wasn't for their lack of malicious intent, they would have immediately reached for their weapons.
"Mistress..."
Bria looked towards Kaitlyn but the reply was Kaitlyn shaking her head. Even Kaitlyn couldn't see through these two. Once she realised this, Bria quickly changed her mindset; the two of them had the right to be arrogant.
"So, for what purpose have you asked to meet me?"
His voice told them that he was a young male, so they now knew at least that. Only when Yur spoke did Bria remember their goal and was about to respond when Kaitlyn laid her hand on her shoulder. This action was enough for Bria to understand her intent and so she stepped to the side along with the twins.
"My apologies for not being able to show my face. This one has come with a request for the prestigious forge master."
"I see. You may continue."
Bria was internally aggravated by the scene before her, but Kaitlyn showed no awkwardness or dissatisfaction. She felt no shame in being humble, especially when she was the one asking for help. To her it was small price to pay for her plan to succeed.
"I would like to commission a supreme special-rank artifact from you. Specifically, a pair of earrings for the twins."
"Go on."
"You will be provided with the materials and in the case of success you will be paid at least 100 gold and possibly more based on the quality. Furthermore, I will not hold you accountable in the case of failure."
Her terms were standard for custom artifact commissions so Yur thought it wouldn't be a bad deal, however he wasn't sure if Shui would be okay with forging something for the Glaize clan so he waited for his response. A short second afterwards, Shui tapped on his back once as confirmation.
"Hmm, fine. Let the twins come closer."
After his confirmation, Kaitlyn turned towards the twins who nodded before stepping towards Yur. While one, Dia, maintained an expressionless face, the other, Diana, openly showed her excitement. Though Yur was the one who proceeded to hold each of their hands, Shui was the one who memorised their auras. To forge a proper custom artifact, it was essential for the forge master to understand the person who he was forging for so all famous forge masters were good at reading people. From the attributes of their cultivation method to their base personalities, all of this information could be found from their auras and so a master of controlling aura like Shui, was also an expect at reading a person based on their aura.
After a few seconds, Shui tapped three times on Yur's back as a signal to let them go. Shui then wrote down the materials he would need and secretly passed the note to Yur, who then handed the note to Kaitlyn.
"Do you have the materials with you?"
"Thankfully, yes."
Kaitlyn presented a small bag which Shui took. The bag was an artifact similar to his sachel so he knew that though it looked small it had enough space to hold the required resources.
"You may come again in one month."
Those from the Glaize clan retreated after these words and so only Yur and Shui were left in the room. Once they were sure they were alone, Yur sighed.
"Whew, that was the Matriarch of the Glaize clan huh? If it wasn't for this cloak I would have been exposed."
"It would still have been fine. It's not like she would kill us anyway. We might have gotten kidnapped though."
"I can't believe you can so that so casually. You're a weird kid aren't you."
"Let's hurry up and leave so I can focus on this."