Karni and Siduo were currently resting in the Tie family's backyard. They were letting Tie Tiao catch a little break as they've just started training him in wielding the two daggers.
Karni took a bit of a break and decided to mention something that has been on his mind for some time now. He hadn't yet found the chance to speak with Siduo about it.
"Hey, I wanna tell you something. It's about the incident from a month ago."
Siduo glanced at him for a second. "You really wanna open up that whole can of worms again?"
"Yes. Though it's not really about us, but the guy who attacked us."
"What. Was he secretly some good guy, just misguided? You know I won't change my stance about this right?" Siduo gave him a side eye.
"I mean, he probably wasn't an actual good guy, though he was misguided. But no. That wouldn't make any sense, and I wouldn't ask that of you. It's just that a certain new piece of info got me thinking about it."
"Well spill it out already."
"The railgun. It was a 4-star Soul Tool."
"Yeah, what about i- … Wait, do you think there's someone else?"
Karni nodded. "Yeah. I learned from his mother that he was apparently in the crowd of some soul masters. The police were also guessing that he didn't do it voluntarily. Think about it."
Siduo sighed. "How does a normal human get such a weapon if he ain't in the military. Right?" She understood what this meant, and it wasn't actually good news.
"Yeah. Which makes me think there was some sort of reason behind everything. Guy looked hysterical. But does it make sense to rob a restaurant of all places for money?"
Siduo nodded. "I haven't even been thinking about it. Kinda just wanted to forget about everything."
She was silent for a bit. "You wanna make this right, right?"
Karni nodded. "You don't have to help if you don't want to."
Siduo shook her head. "Don't worry about it. Besides, I want to help you get some peace of mind. I know you also want to help that lady, just, well, there is one problem in all this."
Karni looked at her, not quite sure what she meant.
"We're still just Soul Grandmasters. What if there are stronger people than us behind it? Seeing as they can get a 4-star Railgun, there's a high possibility of there being at least a Soul Ancestor involved. Likely someone stronger, if they can afford to give it to a normal human. Even if I have a lot of combat experience from my past life, I can't surpass the physical limits of this body even if I wanted to."
Karni hadn't thought of that before, but she was right. He was getting too caught up in everything. Can they even help?
Siduo could see his thought process. "Well, don't worry about it too much. We can do some non-dangerous investigating on our own. We can ask the grandma for example, or ask the restaurant owner discreetly. Shouldn't be dangerous. We can ask the teachers for help as well."
Karni stared for a while. "Thanks. For caring so much."
Siduo felt embarrassed for a second. "Of course. We're friends after all."
"Well then, how about we get back to training?"
Siduo stood up. "Sure."
Tie Tiao noticed this. "Eh? The break is already over? I'm still sore."
"Good." Karni said. "We're upping the difficulty now. I'll be giving you some heavier hits now."
Tie Tiao just sighed and resigned himself to his fate.
Karni split his martial soul into two Drumsticks and began beating them against each other as one would normal drumsticks to set a rhythm.
His Stacks began increasing greatly. It would be incorrect to even consider them Stacks as he did before and value them on the same level.
Since he had the test against Xu Sanshi in Tang Sect Hall, he understood that more than actual force, his Stacks were resonating within his Bo Staff. He wasn't quite sure what exactly was resonating, whether those be shockwaves, actual sound or something else, but he could tell it was connected to vibration of forces in some way. Hitting them against each other had, so far, been the most effective way to go about this.
The other way to go about it was to let it make vibrations by hitting a foreign object of other's weapons. But spinning it against the ground like before was simply a waste now that he knew more information.
He dashed, his two halves of the bo staff now emitting a low humming sound. Tie Tiao put up his two new shiny daggers and clung against them.
For now, their training was based on learning to wield the weapon itself. Hence, Tie Tiao wasn't allowed to dodge. They were using the dynamic surroundings of the backyard to put Tie Tiao in all kinds of uncomfortable situations from which he had to fight.
On the stones above the pond, in the trees, on the rope, so on and so forth. Karni went through a similar ordeal while he was trained back in Siduo's house, to get efficient movement of his body.
Though Karni wasn't the one actually teaching, he was just helping train, the actual plan of training was made by Siduo who had much more combat experience than he did.
The only reason Karni usually kept up with Siduo anyway, was because of his predictive powers, but should the two have combat without the use of any martial souls, Karni would lose ten out of ten times.
At the end of the day, Siduo went and visited Hu Fuya as well. It was the only time they could actually test her abilities fully.
The weekend was mostly spent training all day and getting some delicious food from the Tie family. When Siduo wasn't with Hu Fuya, she spent a lot of time with Tie Kexin. It was a nice weekend retreat for everyone. Since they would eventually be business partners, the two decided that they'll visit once a month, even when the exchange with Green Tiger Town was over.
… … …
The training was over and there was a bit of whispering going around the place. Karni and Siduo were whispering as well.
The duel between Ma Fai and Tie Tiao was going on for quite a while. Longer than usual. Ma Fai was moving sloppily and clearly had many bruises, while Tie Tiao was performing much more sharply than usual. He also had a set of normal daggers right now. He wanted to keep the other ones a secret, while still practising at wielding them.
There was clear frustration on Ma Fai's face. Despite expectations, Tie Tiao didn't have much of a happy face either. If anything, it was that of confusion and dissatisfaction.
While Tie Tiao clearly grew, Ma Fai's performance was clearly troubled by his own bruises, not Tie Tiao's actions.
Tie Tiao finally exerted to make a move after Ma Fai showed an unusually clear opening. Ma Fai made a mistake
He realised it too late, his face contorted in anger. The fire suddenly grew bigger and Tie Tiao clearly flinched, but he couldn't do anything. His martial soul was suppressed.
The fire was dark purple and red. Ma Fai had bloodshot eyes. But before he could attack, a flash went by Karni, and a leg kicked Ma Fai into the head full force, knocking him out cold. Siduo stood atop. The boy was unconscious.
"Thanks." Said the teacher beside her, who was also about to intervene. Teacher Ye was caught by surprise like everyone else. She could've gotten there, but Tie Tiao would've likely been injured. She wasn't an agility system.
Siduo seemed to have expected this. Karni remembered that she did seem knowledgeable about Ma Fai's situation during the weekend.
"You okay?" Siduo looked at Tie Tiao after nodding to the teacher.
"Yeah." He was out of breath. His mind flashed back to the accident that caused his sister's miserable state. But this time, Ma Fai was actually intending to attack. It… scared him.
Karni helped Tie Tiao up from the ground. "We'll think of something to prevent this when you have your duel. " He whispered to him. "Sisi will."
This calmed him down a bit. He couldn't lose confidence at such a point. He's very likely to face a version of this. He knew what he was going into from the start. What he should do is take this and use it as preparation for the actual duel.
"Alright class, move on. It's over. Tie Tiao, can you please take Ma Fai to the infirmary?" Teacher Ye asked.
Tie Tiao made a weird face, but nodded.
"The rest of you are dismissed. Karni, Siduo, you two stay behind for a bit."
Everyone dispersed. Karni and Siduo approached the teacher. "Are you two sure that everything will be okay with those two?"
Siduo nodded. "I can make him win. Tie Tiao doesn't want to actually hurt him, he just wants Ma Fai to admit a few things and apologise for a few things. As long as Tie Tiao wins, it should be okay."
"Are you sure he can win though? The martial soul suppression will be quite extreme."
"I'm confident." Siduo had determined eyes.
Teacher Ye sighed. "If you say so." Then she turned. "He should be here any minute."
Karni and Siduo turned towards the direction Teacher Ye was looking at. Mo Qing soon showed himself, though something caught them off guard.
"You going somewhere, master?" Karni asked.
Mo Qing had a big suitcase for travel. Though Karni and Siduo didn't quite understand why. Couldn't he just use the storage ring if he wanted to travel a bit?
Mo Qing laughed a bit. "Yes. In fact, this suitcase has most of my furniture and studies in it. The smaller storage devices that could store all of that are far too expensive. So I bought this suitcase real quick. Didn't have the time to make my own either."
Now Karni and Siduo were confused. So he was going somewhere? He packed his whole house and projects? Was he moving?
"Don't look at me like that. Yes, I'm moving. Quite far actually. But we'll still keep in touch."
Now the kids looked sad. "Where are you going?"
"Shrek City."
"Eh!?"
"I got a promotion, I was offered the position of the Vice-President of the Shrek Branch of the Mecha Mechanic Association, and I accepted."
The two of them were filled with wonder. No wonder he is moving. Shrek City was quite a good quarter of a day's travel away.
"Didn't think you were so talented. Can a 8-star Mecha Mechanic become a Vice-President in Shrek?" Siduo wondered aloud.
"How rude you are, my heartless student. No, no, one can't. Truthfully, I have recently advanced in my skills. If I were a Titled Douluo, I might have perhaps already become considered a 9-star Mecha Mechanic, but I'm not. I'm at a bottleneck. The association is investing in me."
"Wow, we have a smart teacher, eh, Sisi."
Siduo rolled her eyes. "As long as you remain our teacher, I don't have complaints."
Mo Qing's mouth twitched. "Well, I trust my niece when it comes to teaching the two of you in regards to becoming good Soul Masters. As for your engineering progress, we will be exchanging pictures and plans, I'll send the details later. For now there is one final thing I want to ask the two of you. Since I'm leaving, you can ask for a wish if you want to, as long as it's not too outrageous. Though you two have to promise to get along in my absence."
Karni and Siduo looked at each other. They were a bit embarrassed. Siduo quickly changed the topic to his promise. "I want some extra blueprints for a few technologies, if you could provide as many different ones as you can. Specifically those of energy, inner casings and vehicles."
Mo Qing nodded. "Quick to the point. No humbleness in view of your future, Siduo. That's my students alright. So tell me what it is that you want to research." He turned to Karni at the last sentence.
"I want as much different prosthetic research and mechanical fusions with a human. They can be research papers as well." Karni answered quickly.
Mo Qing thought for a bit. "You've also lost that sense of humbleness. I suppose it's good for you. Alright. It should be doable. It falls into the Battle Armour territory as well as Mecha."
Then he stopped and realised something.
"Hayay. Just what are two planning, to build a whole Mecha at your age? I purposefully let you off that topic so you get solid foundations."
"This is just personal research, teacher."
Mo Qing waved. "Fine, as long as you promise not to progress too much into battle armour and mecha direction yet. I want to supervise those fields personally."
"We promise."
"Okay, I'll send everything in a week's time. Including our schedule for information exchange on your progress."
Mo Qing looked a bit relieved as well.
"I think I can leave without worry. You two have found your own passions of research as well. Now then, are you willing to escort me to the train station?"
"Of course." Both nodded.
They took their teachers to the train station and began waiting for one which led to Shrek City. The platform was noticeably crowded. The direction to Shrek City was clearly popular. Most people didn't even stop in between, going directly to Shrek City much like Mo Qing. A show of just how influential the city itself was.
The train arrived and Karni and Siduo were both feeling a bit weird at the moment. This teacher has taught them everything in regards to engineering for so long. They were close to a breakthrough in their professions themselves, but now he was leaving.
"The both of you behave and don't give Ye'er too much trouble. Work hard for the future."
The two were feeling like they even wanted to cry a little, though they managed to hold back.
"I'll see you two in Shrek City soon enough. If you can't make it here in four years, you can't be my student anymore." Mo Qing winked.
Karni and Siduo both sighed. To the end, this man spoke rudely while pretending to be nice. But it was a promise. Yes. They will follow him there someday. If they can't, then no one from their academy can. Someday, they will join the legendary academy and see their teacher again.
"Alright children. Shrek is waiting for me." Mo Qing boarded the train and left, but not before giving his niece one final hug and petting the two children on the head. The both of them felt a bit conflicted about that, but they let it happen. It was goodbye for the foreseeable future.
They returned to the school, their dormitories. It was earlier than usual, as they would usually train with Tie Tiao around this time, but schedules change as they come.
Karni knocked on Siduo's door and it soon opened up. Karni could still feel two energies still lingering on her body.
"You sure went training fast."
"I didn't expect you to come looking for me so fast either."
"You sure it's safe?"
Siduo glared for a bit.
"I know, I know, it's not like I can compare with you when it comes to such knowledge. I just came to say I'll go visit Grandma Ying right now."
"Right. You don't have to tell me everything you know?" Siduo wondered.
"I know. It's just that I want to ask some things about her son, so I thought I'd let you know. Maybe tomorrow or after, we go check on the restaurant?"
Siduo nodded. "Might as well. I'll go make some plans and let Tie Tiao know."
"Thanks. Well then, I'm off."
… … …
Karni entered the now already familiar Holy Tiger Hospital. And as soon as the receptionist noticed him, she showed a relieved look. Karni immediately felt something was weird. He was only gone for a weekend.
"It's good that you're back. I think Grandma Ying can use your company right now."
"What happened?" Karni was immediately alarmed. He wasn't sure what her sickness was, but it might have worsened.
"Don't worry, she's healthy physically, it's just that…" She sighed. "Some policeman came around recently to ask some questions and she's been feeling moody ever since. I'm worried she'll get depressed, it won't do well with her health."
Cops came by? Why? Wasn't the investigation finished? And why didn't the detective contact him if they found something. While he was just a kid, he was a valuable source of information for them as he saw everything first hand. So was Siduo. He'd have imagined they asked him some questions first because of the sensitivity of the incident.
He could only guess it had something to do with the railgun if the police were involved.
"I'll talk with her. Thanks for telling me."