As the police officers escaped beyond the trees, Skymender knocked one more arrow on his bow.
He aimed it at the Chief of Police. "Next time, don't make the same mistake." He mumbled.
He released the arrow.
It flew far, exceeding one hundred feet, and scratched the Chief of Police's arm.
"I had planned to bury it in his arm, but that works as well."
He did not disturb the Informant, who was laying in his bed, and returned to his house.
The next day, a memorial was held for the police officers who had fallen, including the one from the day before.
The Chief of Police had a bandage visible on his arm as he gave a speech to a crowd of concerned individuals.
"Last night, we attempted to raid a gang hideout. Although we were successful in our goal, it cost us the lives of multiple police officers. For this, I sincerely apologize. I should have never taken them without absolute certainty that there would be no deaths."
After he spoke a bit more, and a few more people spoke, the memorial ended. The entire time, the name of Skygod or the mention of assassination did not occur.
Neither was the Informant mentioned. That night, Skymender entered a house through a window.
The Chief of Police was there, waiting for him.
He turned around and looked at Skymender, any arrogance he previously had gone.
"So, I suppose you still want to work together." Skymender said.
The Chief of Police nodded. "How much for assassination insurance for the entire police force."
Skymender smiled a little beneath the mask. "Now we're talking."
He and the Chief of Police had a fairly long conversation, lasting around thirty minutes.
They came to many agreements about future cooperations.
The Chief of Police indeed felt a bit of hatred and anger at Skymender for killing the officers, but instead of pointlessly seeking out revenge, and most likely getting more killed, he decided to make sure that no more would die, even if he had to sacrifice revenge.
For the first time, Skymender realized that the Chief of Police was actually an intelligent individual. Not many could stand accepting defeat in a way that allowed them to gain the most, even at the cost of their pride.
Skymender eventually left. Now, he had the absolute upper hand in all negotiations and deals.
With everything now settled, he decided that it was finally time to purchase the classified materials he now had access to. He had narrowed what he wanted to use first down to three choices. One was a plant that he hoped could be used to enhance his corrosion poison even further.
Another should be able to enhance the mist poison even further.
The final one would not be used in the process of creating a poison, but was known as a neutralizer for a vast amount of poisons. With that one, he had a special plan, one he would need to go to the Imperial Capital for.
Otherwise, it was far too risky.
Skymender made the order, and sent it through the mail. This would naturally be a highly secure and even classified process, as it involved the purchase and transportation of classified materials.
Skymender waited around a month before he finally received the materials he ordered. He had ordered more than one of each, besides the last one. The last material alone cost more than the amount he had spent to purchase multiple of the first material.
Skymender placed all of them in high quality storage containers and got to work.
He first started with using the first material to enhance his corrosion poison. After a few attempts, he finally felt as if he had succeeded. There was only one way to find out. He threw it at the wall of his lab, which he had purchased a while ago, and put his hand on the dripping poison.
It began to corrode his hand immediately.
It felt just as bad as the first time he had done it long ago, which caused Skymender to nearly smile. The pain was bad, but his resistance to pain was beyond human at this point.
Even with the resistance he had built up to the corrosive poison, especially in his hand, he was still harmed just as badly as he had been the first time he had ever put his hand on the corrosion poison.
Once his hand healed, he could repeat the process. It was a bit dangerous, considering he was an assassin and using both of his hands was important, but he would survive.
After around two weeks, when he could hold his second hand steady again, he began to attempt to increase the potency of his mist poison. He was even more excited for this one, as the mist poison was his original poison, the first he ever created.
On his second attempt, he got a whiff of the finished project and smiled. His throat was closing in and a bit of blood seeped from his nose. However, he had essentially built up an immunity before, which meant that it would be unable to kill him unless he was able to increase the potency by at least five times.
He barely had a two times increase in potency after finishing up. It was incredible, but could not harm him.
Building up an immunity to the mist poison was far easier than doing so for the corrosion poison. As he spent another two weeks planning a trip to the Imperial Capital, he built up a near immunity to the improved mist poison.
There was around a month left before the summer ended. He began to make his way to the Imperial Capital once again.
The journey was the standard ten days. He entered through the gates without any trouble at all.
Without stopping, only changing his carriage to a smaller version, he made his way to the Imperial Palace.
Meanwhile, in the Imperial Palace, the Imperial Scholar received word that Skymender had entered the city.
"What are you doing here?" He asked himself.