Of course there was always the possibility that he was currently doing something, so Minos stood in place for an entire hour, until the sun had set and the day had already come to close.
But still no Venix. However night had already come, hence Minos decided to go home and try again in the morning.
…
The next day, after finishing his chores, Minos wasted no time and went right to Venix's house, but just like yesterday, the hut was still empty.
At this point it didn't take a genius to realize something was off. Minos walked inside the house and properly inspected it this time.
With Minos's photographic memory, he compared the room he had caught a glimpse of the first time with what he was looking at now.
Everything inside seemed normal however. The only thing that could be slightly off was Venix's bed.
It was slightly off center, which naturally wouldn't catch anyone else's attention, but Minos noticed the difference immediately.
He pushed the bed out of the way before checking the wooden floorboards underneath. It didn't take long to find a piece of wood that wasn't properly secured to the floor.
Tossing that piece of wood to the side, a small cavity was revealed underneath, with a bronze box lying inside. Opening the box, Minos found a note, written by Venix.
'Minos, if you're reading this, it means you've found the note I left behind. It also means that I have yet to come back to the sect. I originally had no plans of leaving given our deal, but something critical came up, so I had to go.'
'If I'm not back in another month, I'm probably dead. If that's the case, then I'm sorry, but you'll have to find someone else to do your business with.'
"Damn." Minos couldn't help but mumble under his breath. But Venix was always shrouded in mystery, and Minos didn't doubt that he meant critical when he said so.
Minos's brain went into overdrive, and he kept recalling everything he had seen and experienced when he interacted with Venix.
'Venix's family was exterminated by an unknown force, one may originally think it was some sort of blood feud, but what if that was never the reason?' The thoughts kept advancing in Minos's head.
'What other reason would someone exterminate an entire family? Wealth? No, money means little to cultivators, and any power that could destroy the Elfon family was clearly more powerful than them, and by extent, more wealthy.'
'Treasures, Techniques, Inheritances? All possible. Could it be that the Elfon family had something that the opposing forces wanted, something that could give the person who acquired it a lot of power?' Minos's thoughts got clearer as different theories collided.
'If it was a treasure, then Venix himself should have long been dead. As the only surviving member and former younger patriarch of the Elfon family, it makes sense the treasure would be on him, and his enemies should have realized that too, yet he's still alive and well.'
'If it's a technique, then it should be a similar story. They should have captured him and tortured it out of him. However, by that logic, they should have done the same thing if it was an inheritance, torturing the location out of him, but they didn't.' Minos himself was slightly confused at this point, until a new thought suddenly popped in his mind.
'What if Venix himself didn't even know the location of the inheritance, in fact what if the inheritance had yet to appear at that point in time, hence torturing Venix would naturally lead to nothing.' Minos's eyes shined as he came to that conclusion, feeling like he was close to the truth.
'That's likely what Venix meant when he said 'critical' in the note he left me. The inheritance had likely come forth, and he had gone to claim it.'
'But what was the key to it all? A map…? No, if it was something so obvious, the enemies should have found it a long time ago. It had to be something discrete, something they couldn't find, only then would it make sense to leave him alive so that he could lead them straight to the inheritance.'
Minos began recalling everything Venix was wearing at the time, trying to see if anything stood out, until finally his thoughts converged on one thing.