When the old lady first met Ken she knew he was more mature and calculative than most of his peers. She had seen people like him who bordered the psychopath spectrum and most of them came to be powerful cultivators.
Many cultivation clans have studied many powerful cultivators or generations for clues on what made genius cultivators and most found that the body was the key. This led to the business of breeding and extensive studies about different physiques.
But a very rare few went beyond that and asked "What if all of us had an equal beginning?" They found the answer in mindset.
Most people in the world are emotional and get easily swayed by the emotion-inducing speech or act which more or less makes them a sheep. And if there is prey there will be a predator.
The natural predator doesn't think about feelings or morality as the only thing he cares about is if you are a prey or a predator and if it thinks you are prey it will hunt you down these are psychopaths but the problem with psychopaths is instead of being led only by instinct.
In the world of cultivators both emotional and psychopathic people don't make it far because of another very minute group and these are the people that sit in the border of psychopaths and emotions.
If the emotional people are the sheep and the psychopaths the bear the borderline group can be symbolized by crows.
As they are smarter than most and take advantage of the conflict between the two to thrive. These people usually stick to the predators and this became the weakness of the psychopaths as normal people could see the borderline group of people and assume the predator is coming.
But as this happens both don't go after the crows because they lead the predators to the prey and indicate the predator is here for the prey.
Mostly the aftermath was always the weakening of both sides as the crows swoop in the prize and as both sides accumulate more hatred for each other the more the crows will benefit.
The old lady knew that the crow might not always win and might end up the prey if it wasn't careful about not only the wolf but also the sheep.
The old lady liked Ken because she knew he was one of the few crows like her but after seeing his life and thinking it became more apparent he was more like a snake than a crow, unlike the crows who make themselves known for both sides.
The snakes hide in the grass waiting and following the crow to the battlefield and hunting all of them unnoticed by them all.
The old lady was looking for a crow in the batch and had already found some which she led into the neutral path but what she didn't expect was to find someone like him.
She was delighted because if she played her cards right he could be her ticket out of the mess they were in.
The old lady knew that ken was in the net she put for the baby crows but these baby snakes bit one of the old traps that were used and forgotten by her in the form of an incomplete sutra. She knew he must have had some variant of yin-yang physique which made him more alluring.
If it wasn't for the mess she would have loved to nurture him by their die and fix the sutra but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Ken was already cultivating the sutra but after observing him she knew he planned to set up the heavenly Dao foundation establishment. She didn't have high hopes for this but it was good as instead of starting from the beginning by scattering his cultivation If she called that person he could help Ken make changes while breaking through the foundation establishment stage.
As she concluded her next course of action she saw the groups In front of her were clueless at the beginning so she suggested an idea.
"Have you thought about the possibility that it might not be a group?"
All of the elders went silent some out of respect and others of curiosity. The elders knew what she was suggesting and they all thought about it before no one voiced it out loud because it was very unlikely that a kid as skilled as the group leaders wouldn't catch their eye.
But if he or she didn't show her strength and was in hiding till now it meant he or she is smart and calculative on top of his or her skill.
Rumo figured out she was most likely thinking about Ken. He was furious but held it in because other elders knew about him and if his peak. They would conspire to eliminate him to keep the power balance.
it might seem like there are only three factions but it was every peak for themselves as all of them held their trump cards the shadow garden was no exception but Ken was more because no teenager hadn't fooled the elders as long as him. And they knew he wasn't a trump card now but he was quickly becoming one and the one who had him will win.
The old lady watched his facial expression on Rumo and sent him a secret voice transmission "If you want I can take him because he has become a huge liability for you and your peak and from what I hear your senior brother is still in punishment for the last general acceptance.
If you make a fuss here. Even the peak master can't protect you."
Rumo didn't have any choice and he knew It and he was sent here specifically by the peak master because the last general acceptance hurt the peak and he had to make up for the deficit and until now was going more than expected and he didn't want to let ken go so
Rumo replied "I am not going to give him to you for free. I just might give him to one of the other ancestors."
The old lady expected it so she said "I am not that heartless. In exchange for him, I will give you the token your peak master needs to free your senior."
Rumo immediately agreed so the old lady spoke to the group
"You don't have to be surprised the kid won't be staying long in the sect so you shouldn't worry and be careful what you say."
All of the elders immediately knew the drifting moon was a person and he was under the old lady so they couldn't do anything about it.
The elders knew this wasn't their business but it didn't mean they were going to let this go so easily as they knew the kid must be pretty extraordinary if was eyed by her.
A woman like her might be powerful and cunning but she had many rivals some of which are other ancestors of the sect and if they informed them for a reward the ancestors wouldn't sit quietly.
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As all this was going on Ken had no clue and it wasn't his fault. As they say
"No matter the ingredient an older wine is always better."
Ken waited for his first job to come and the chef made the drop late into the night. Ken searched for intruders and found spies from the Nexus Mountains and the vast rift with their shabby concealment but he knew the dark moon must have already heard about him so they must have sent a person.
After searching for a while Ken found her and she was surprisingly Bessie. Ken became vigilant as he knew she was a very good one maybe even better than him but he had learned from his last encounter and the advantages a complete scripture provided so was prepared for it.
Ken didn't go retrieve the note instead he prepared a distraction in the form of an explosion in one of the back alleys close to the dead drop.
The distraction was a success as it gave Ken a window to quickly swap the papers. Ken didn't look back and run as he quickly read the note and burned it as he guessed they must have a way to trace the paper.
Ken even used gloves just in case it was transferred to him. As Ken put some distance the spies caught up to the paper but found it burning with a set of gloves.
Ken moved around until he was sure the coast was clear and went back to the barbershop to rest and plan for his upcoming job.
Ken figured they might track the waiter and the chef down but this was too quick even for them so they must think the waiter's job was to pass it to the chef and the chef was the real messenger so he planned to make the waiter the decoy and make the waiter copy the content discreetly to give it to him. As they try to figure out how I get the message from the chef Ken will receive it through the waiter at the restaurant in the form of fortune cookies.