Six months had passed and everyone in the capital had began knowing about Merlin. Whenever he passed by a stall, the vendor would great him enthuthiastically and offer great discount to him. The guards at the gate had become immune to him teleporting to their location unexpectedly that it became a norm. The guild had become quite friendly to him and Nicklaus broke his badass cold character involuntarily.
One day, he came to pick a bounty when he noticed a fat middle aged man shouting at his favourite receptionist, Clara, the girl he talked to the first time. He walked over as the others slowly slinked away.
"Is there a problem, Clara?" he asked. Clara was quite relieved and happy to see him.
"Merlin, this is Mr. Euron Straind. He is a well known Noble in the capital," she introduced the man.
"Never heard of him," Nicklaus answered in his 'usual' deep rumbling voice. Clara's cheeks turned red in embarrassment but the man was quite thick skinned.
"I am sure a busy man like you would not have heard of me. I am here to put a bounty on a deserter from my house," Euron Straind said.
"Mr. Straind says the man is his stepson. He stole a Martial Art book that belonged to the family for centuries and he is afraid the boy is going to sell it to his enemies," Clara said.
"A rich boy's rebellion, huh? Well, good luck," Nicklaus said.
"Mr. Merlin, wait," Euron Straind said, hurriedly. Nicklaus looked at him impatiently. "I am not gonna lie to you. I was looking for you in hopes that you would be the one to look for him." Nicklaus looked at Clara and she nodded.
"Not interested," he said and started walking away.
"Please, I am on my last leg here," Euron Straind begged but Nicklaus ignored him as he looked at the bounties. Clara shook her head at Euron Straind's useless efforts.
"Merlin, he is willing to pay three hundred thousand crystals," she said. Nicklaus turned to look at the fat man, a warm smile on his face.
"You just tell me the direction he went, the clothes and shoes he was wearing and the horse he took if he did," Nicklaus said. Euron Straind was surprised by his change in attitude but quickly recovered.
"He went southwest of here, had sports robes and in with millitary boots. He had on a storage ring and he took his favourite horse, a Draconic horse about four hundred kilograms," he answered.
"How does he look like?"
"He is about one metre sixty eight centimetres tall, dark hair, brown eyes, square jaws..."
"Dude, do you have a picture of him?" Nicklaus asked in exasperation. Euron Straind was confused for a second before he gave him the boy's drawing. Nicklaus nodded the looked at Clara.
"Can you lend me the guild's Snow Shoe leopard?" he asked her. She nodded and gave him papers to sign as she went and told the caretakers about it. Once he had filled in everything and paid the deposit, he got out of the building with Euron Straind and saw a large brown furred leopard laying in the pavement. When she saw Nicklaus, she jumped up happily as she kicked his fingers.
"Good to see you too, girl. I need you help once again," Nicklaus said then turned to the man. "Do you have any of his belongings on you?" Euron Straind nodded and from his storage ring removed a white robe. Nicklaus took it and let the Snow Shoe Leopard smell it.
"They are the best trackers in the guild so if he has not left the kingdom by now means we can track him in one or two days."
"If he has left the kingdom then I will add a million and a half crystals for you to get him and bring back the martial art safely without leaving anyone with any copy he might or you might make." Nicklaus looked at him sharply but still nodded. The leopard growled a little and he knew she had the scent. He got onto her back and she took off in a slow trot. She was a Level five beast and she had quite the enlarged intelligence so she knew her speed might knock off the person in her back. But even her trot was like a horse's gallop.
They got out of the capital and she picked up speed a little. Nicklaus was still holding on fine due to his strength and adaptability so he urged her to go faster. They went on for three hours before she stopped at a harbour. Nicklaus got off and went to vendor as she walked next to him.
"Have you seen this boy?" Nicklaus asked the vendor. He looked at the picture for a few moments then nodded.
"He was in town two days ago, meeting with his friends. But they got onto a small ship and sailed off in the Eastern direction," the vendor said. Nicklaus scowled at this and looked at the sea, his thoughts turning. He turned to look at the leopard.
"Can you swim, girl?" he asked her but she shook her head as she sat on he hunches. Nicklaus growled as he looked at the sea once again then back at the vendor. "That was quite the amount of information you gave, almost as if you rehearsed it. But you couldn't lie to me, could you?" The vendor's face paled as he heard Nicklaus's tone.
"I swear to the divines that is the truth," the vendor swore. Nicklaus nodded his head as he came closer to the vendor. His height and his dressing was already intimidating enough, the vendor was now shaking.
"You alright, Malkiah?" someone asked. Nicklaus turned around and saw a young man looking at them. The youngman saw the drawing in Nicklaus's hand and his eyes widened in recognition. He looked at Nicklaus as he started backing away before he turned and ran off.
Nicklaus sighed and nodded at the leopard. She sprinted after the fleeing young man and two minutes later, she was dragging him back by his neck. He did not even dare to struggle for only one bite was enough to end him. Nicklaus looked at the vendor who was sweating profusely.
"You know, I think I was born to be a detective. Everyone I ask question first always seems to be involved with my targets. Mr. Vendor, I will give you one last chance, do you know where this boy is?" he asked. The vendor nodded. "Where is he?"
"He went to the Annual Intersect Competition. He boarded a ship so he might be halfway there," the boy whose neck was in the line said. Nicklaus sighed tiredly.
"It's never easy, huh. Where is this competition at?" he asked the boy.
"It is being held in North Aurora kingdom at the biggest sect they have called Pious Piety Sect. It is an all woman sect," the boy said. Nicklaus patted the leopard's head and she let him go. He turned to the vendor.
"Since you wasted my time, I am going to take your map as compensation," he said, did that, got in the leopard's back and they were off. Using the map, he started calculating the direction to take to reach the place.
"That's quite far," he said and stopped her. He got off and started stroking her chin. "Sorry girl but I need to be there myself. You need to go back to the guild." She kicked his fingers before she ran off towards Graceland Capital.
"An Intersect Competition huh? I bet I can get quite the amount of skills there. Hehehe, can't wait to get there," he said and took off to the skies.
Being a King Level expert means be is quite fast. In fact, he himself was a lot faster than them. It may take a King Level expert half a day to fly to North Aurora kingdom but it took him a quarter of a day and another hour of locating where Pious Piety was. When he did, he put his bounty hunter clothes into his storage ring, wore some new robes and went to register himself.
He found a huge queue there so he had to wait like everyone else. He found it strange that those in groups could register before them but he got to know since he and the ones in the queue were rogue cultivators, they were given priority second. Another half a day passed before he was registered. He wrote his real name in and was given a badge number. He got into Pious Piety sect and the first thing he saw was temptresses everywhere. They were wearing quite revealing clothes and he as a healthy and hormonal teenager was no different from the rest of the boys as they gawked at him. One of them passed in front of him, seductively and he almost followed her.
"Keep it together or you will end up all drained by the morning," he said to himself and tried his best to stay in mission. He looked for his target till midnight where he found him talking to three of his friends, each had a girl on their laps.
During his search, he came to know that Pious Piety was a sect that strongly practised dual cultivation. Other sects could not attack them because they had a backer in the form of a Saint Level expert, an empress and a disciple of the sect. She had destroyed sects that were targeting her sect even before she became a Saint Level expert or an Empress of one of the strongest Empire there is. She had been Empress for four hundred years, giving the sect enough time to produce more experts as its backbone.
Thinking back to any tactic he could use, only Will Smith in his role of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air came to mind. Steeling himself into a shameless character, he went towards one of the girls there, specifically the girl on his target's lap. Everyone at the table looked at him as he ogred at the girl.
"Are you tired, sweetheart?" he asked her. The girl looked at him weirdly.
"Why would I be tired?" she asked him in disdain.
"Because you have been running in my mind all day long," he answered, stunning the girl into silence and everyone else on the table. "How about we spend some time and sleep over?"
"As you can see, I am busy," she said and stopped giving him heed. Nicklaus nodded at this.
"So later then?" he asked but she just ignored him. Seeing this, he shamelessly turned to the girl next to him. "I think I have seen your picture somewhere before, miss." The girl looked at him dismissively not wanting to hear him out. "That's right, it's in the dictionary next to the word Kablam." The girl was stunned at first before she chuckled as she blushed.
"You're cute," she said, looking at him coyly. He went next to her and took her hand gently.
"How about you put your hands around a real man," he told her in a deep voice, making her blush. The boy she was sitting on his lap watched as his girl got up ready to leave with this trash and he lashed out. He got up, fists cocked for a fight.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he asked Nicklaus as he grit his teeth.
"Miss, is this abbrassive turd of a man bothering you?" he asked her. She nodded, wanting to see what he would do. Nicklaus pretended to punch him and the boy guarded his face but Nicklaus kicked him in his jewels, making him fall in his knees. The rest of the boys got up ready to beat him up but he shook his head. "Miss, as you can see, my gender is quite shameless, they even want to gang up on me. I am sorry you have to see our nature." Everyone there wanted to beat him up. He was the one who was shameless between all of them there.
"It's okay," she said, trying her best not to laugh at this boy. Nicklaus nodded as the boy he kicked got up.
"I'm gonna kill you, you trash!" he said but one of his friends held him back.
"Go before we all beat you up," his target said through clenched teeth. Nicklaus sighed then turned to the girl. He took he hard delicately as he rubbed the back of it with his left hand.
"We shall meet again, señorita," he said, kissed her knuckles then went away to a table as she looked at him with a blush.
"What a queer boy," one of the girls said.
"Cute too. Too bad he is trash, he can't cultivate," another said as they sat down.
Nicklaus was sitting at a table eating his fruits as he watched his target. The boy was just enjoying himself together with his friends and the girls. He was waiting for him so that he can follow him to his room and ask himwhere he kept the martial art and possibly ask him how he got there so fast. But that night he was not supposed to be lucky for a young master and his friends decided to give him trouble.
"Look at this," he said as he approached Nicklaus. "The trash is sitting in his own. What's the matter, girls not into you?"
"Maybe it's because it smells of trash here," one of his friends said and they started laughing.
"Who brought this garbage here?"
"Maybe they threw it out to this corner," They all laughed again as they were joined by other spectators. Nicklaus got up and glared at them.
"What are you going to do, trash?" the young master asked him. Nicklaus started sizing him up and down as he thought if a way to get out of there without starting a feud with them. His mind clicked to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air once again. Everyone saw as his facial expression changed and he started crying. For some reason, they all thought this script was wrong. Nicklaus started walking away before he stopped and looked at then.
"Why you'll insulting me?" he hicupped in between sobs. "I was just minding my business, eating some fruits. Why did you'll just come at me?" he asked and walked away. Everyone there suddenly glared at the four friends who were perplexed at how this script derailed from the normal one. Even the girls started shunning them. But two people were watching this in amusement.
"He was away for six months and he came back being shameless," Sophia said as Felix just laughed.
"He is always full of entertainment," Felix laughed.