Immortal Era's Crafting Master 110 Intel Obtained, Lining Pockets

Following this, Kirou gave the destroyed houses another search, this time looking for an item that may have possibly survived the fire. Whether it was a coincidence or not, the first house that Kirou searched just so happened to have belonged to Bandit Warrior Jackson. As Kirou searched the house from top to bottom, he came across a strange material hidden within the ashes of what he a.s.sumed was a weapon case.

Kirou walked outside of the house and held up the object to the sunlight, checking to see if he could identify the material. After scratching his head over it for a few seconds, a spark went off in Kirou's mind, prompting him to retrieve his enchanted steel chain from his inventory. He held the strange material close to his chain, comparing the two, only to realize that his thought was correct, as that strange material was indeed a broken piece of a chain.

From the material it was made from, Kirou noticed that the chain was quite strong, unusually so. If he had to Hazzard a guess, this chain was probably used to prevent whatever it sealed from being used by just anyone. This hypothesis was confirmed when Kirou tried to channel some of his energy into it, only for the broken chain link to remain unchanged while his energy was redirected into the surroundings.

Nodding his head at this find, Kirou went back into the house and searched the previous location to see if there were anymore broken chain links. He eventually came around two more, all three chain links now of different sizes. Seeing this, a smile formed on Kirou's face as he spoke under his breath, "Now that I have a clue, I think it's time I got back to hunting down those prey. I wonder if I'll find them at the next location or if they'll be another clue waiting for me right then."

After saying this, Kirou quickly left the house and went to the entrance of the village, where he quickly summoned out Asura, the badger mole. Upon seeing the two-meter tall creature, Kirou placed the broken chain link shards before the creature and spoke, "Tell me if you can pick up a scent from these, besides the smoke."

Kirou's plan was to make use of Asura's keen senses in aiding him in tracking down those fleeing bandits. While he could have done this himself since he was currently in his Lycan form, Kirou felt that Asura's nose was much better to use. Kirou's expectations weren't betrayed as Asura turned in a random direction a few moments after sniffing those broken chain link shards. Kirou noticed that the direction pointed towards the northeast, an area on the opposite side of the burnt village.

Nodding his head, Kirou gave Asura the order to lead him to it while he hung back a few paces. For now, he'll make his presence scarce, so if the badger mole cub truly did run into those bandits, they won't notice his presence. While this was going on, Kirou thought to himself, 'This direction isn't directly the opposite direction of where the clearing can be found, so the one behind all this definitely had plans to relocate long before my arrival. Now I really regret that I don't have access to my other toys, or I would have had fun destroying them now. Alas, I better not be greedy and just stick to finding them first. Dealing with them can wait until after I deal with Senior Bladesmith's clone. Being greedy never works out well for the individual, regardless of the reason.'

With those thoughts in my, Kirou allowed his body to blend into the shadows as he chased after Asura who was enjoying his run. If it didn't wasn't for the fact that Kirou was doing work now, it would have started playing around with the various earth elements mid-trip. Oh well, the badger mole can always do that next time.

*******

Roughly half an hour later, Kirou was now standing before the entrance of a natural cave system. He could tell as it was similar to the ones that housed both the jellyfish monsters and the lizardmen that he met recently. If it wasn't for the fact that Asura was the one leading the way, Kirou wasn't sure if he would have been able to find this area so soon. Kirou was sure that the bandits were inside, or at the very least had entered this cave as Asura had led him directly to this cave entrance, and he too was able to pick up a similar scent coming from the depths of the cave as well.

After reciting a short spell, sending Asura back to the pet s.p.a.ce since his job was currently done, Kirou checked the entrance, along with the surrounding area to see if the bandits had placed down any traps or lookouts. Not finding anything, Kirou then stepped into the cave entrance. Upon entering the cave, Kirou immediately applied both of his camouflage skills, completely erasing his presence as he silently made his way further in.

Making use of his own keen sense of smell, Kirou traveled the dark path before him while maintaining his vigilance. He wasn't planning on having those bandits get the drop on him when today was just a scouting mission. This went on for roughly another ten or so minutes until Kirou arrived at a large cavern with two other paths.

After making sure that there was no one present, Kirou removed both camouflage skills from his body and got to work. A few moments later, Kirou found the source of the scent that he was following, the remaining pieces of the broken chain. Kirou collected all of them and set them aside in his inventory, now turning his eyes towards the two other paths presented before him.

Instead of looking for the footprints of the bandits on either path, Kirou decided to just search both of them, just in case. Naturally, Kirou wasn't going to do this himself as there was no need for him to do so. After creating two shadow clones, Kirou directed them towards a tunnel each. Understanding his message, the two clones went down a tunnel on their own, after activating their own shadow camouflage.

With the two tunnels now being explored by his clones, Kirou was left alone in the clearing. Kirou found a dark enough corner for himself to sit, where he entered a meditative state, restoring the mp he had just spent in creating those two clones while also being in a position that was hard to spot after entering the clearing from either entrance.

After his mp was restored, Kirou finally decided to check the messages that he's received from the system since his time with Jackson. He had noticed that he's received a few messages the entire time but Kirou wasn't ready to check them just yet as he wanted to get this part of the quest out of the way. Now that he had a bit of free time, however, he should see what the big fuss was about.

When Kirou saw the information related to the u003cRecruit NPCu003e system, there was a peculiar expression on his face. Staring at the information, Kirou thought to himself, 'I think I just stumbled on something very troublesome. I only hope that this doesn't lead to anything annoying in the future.'

Releasing a sigh, Kirou then glanced over the rewards he obtained for unlocking the new system and noticed that he had received another t.i.tle. He looked at the details of the new t.i.tle in the t.i.tle menu of his interface.

t.i.tle: Fledgling Leader

Requisite: Unlock the u003cRecruit Npcu003e system or convince an NPC to join your faction.

Effect: 3% boost to all stats when leading a team in combat against another group.

+1 to all stats (Stats do not stack with the other t.i.tles of the 'Leader' Series)

Kirou raised an eyebrow after reading the contents of the new t.i.tle. Along with this, he also noticed that this t.i.tle had three connected branches which Kirou guessed would be an upgrade to the u003cFledgling Leaderu003e t.i.tle, similarly to how his u003cRuler of the Swamplandu003e t.i.tle was an upgrade to the u003cSwampland Hunteru003e t.i.tle which he also obtained when he defeated the Swampland Crocodile King back then. The only reason he never noticed it immediately back then was that the u003cSwampland Hunteru003e t.i.tle was instantly upgraded to the u003cRuler of the Swamplandu003e t.i.tle, completely overshadowing it on the t.i.tle section of his status.

With him now in possession of two t.i.tles that added to his stats, Kirou decided to take a look status menu after so long.

With the addition of the t.i.tle line for his status, Kirou noticed a slight change with his stats. It seems that the pa.s.sive stat boosts that each t.i.tle gave him were now being reflected on his stats page. In his eyes, Kirou had no idea what to make of it, so he decided to ignore it until he was in a better place to call one of his friends to verify.

With the system messages now out of the way, Kirou turned his eyes towards his quest window. He glanced at the details for the cla.s.s advancement quest, nodding his head slightly before turning his eyes towards the next one, u003cA Bandit's Revengeu003e. Upon looking at this one, Kirou noticed that he already completed the first objective for the quest. He deduced that the system probably counted him finding that shard of the broken chain and tracking its scent to this cave system as him 'picking up their trail'.

Just as Kirou was about to minimize the quest window, he noticed that the second objective of the quest suddenly changed from 'incomplete' to 'complete'.

Pick up the trail for Jackson's former allies- Complete

Track down these bandits back to their new base- Complete

Destroy the new bandit hideout- 0/100%

.....

Seeing this, Kirou figured that one or both of his clones have stumbled upon the new hideout for those bandits. A few seconds later, this thought was confirmed when he received the memories from one of his shadow clones. Kirou allowed himself a few moments to fully digest all the memories that he had received.

*******Flashback*******

The path that this clone took eventually led to the other side of the mountain where there was a path that led to a deep valley. The clone originally had no idea where to go but it had come across a few bandits patrolling the area. The clone stuck to the shadows and carefully followed behind the patrol without making its presence known. A few minutes later, the clone was led back to a well-constructed village that looked more like a well-fortified fortress as opposed to being a simple bandit hideout.

The 'bandit village' had high walls, each with a few ballistae installed on it. Along with those, the clone saw a few bandits patrolling the walls in groups of two, each group having an archer. The back of the village had tall and steep cliffs situated behind it, making it hard for anyone to sneak in through that direction unless that had a death wish. As for the front of the village, a moat was currently being dug out to connect with the river flowing to the west of the village while a drawbridge had already been fully constructed and waiting to be put to use. All in all, the clone could tell that this wasn't a hastily constructed village but one that had been in the works for months, at least.

The clone made no actions in following the guards as they returned to the village. While it was a clone of Kirou, possessing access to all of his skills and weapons, it was also currently under the same weapon restriction as its master, being able to only use just one weapon type. Wires weren't something that could be used to start a fight with this village. Besides that, the clone was also aware that it was only there to scout information, so it quickly circled the village a few times, making note of any off points before backing off. After it returned to the forest under the cover of the shadows, it found a dark spot where its body slowly dissipated, returning to Kirou the memories it had obtained.

*******Flashback End*******

With the information now within his grasp, Kirou had a better idea as to what he was dealing with when it came to these bandits. It seems that it was a very good idea that he had decided to scout the situation ahead of time as it had given him a lot of important information. Even if he was one of those arrogant sons of heaven, at his current strength, Kirou didn't think it was possible for him to launch an attack on that bandit village as is and escape with his life, even if he had access to all of his toys.

Having information ahead of time saved him a bit of time and effort on his part. Whether it be stealing, planning an a.s.sa.s.sination, or dealing with a large group of people, knowing who and what you are dealing with ahead of time allows you to plan accordingly, as the consequences won't be easily resolved. This was a lesson Kirou had long known since his youth and was reinforced upon meeting his b.a.s.t.a.r.d master, so he wasn't going to suffer due to that.

Now that he had the information within his grasp, Kirou decided that it was time to leave. Just as soon as he got up and was ready to leave, another set of memories came trickling into his mind. It took him a few seconds to sort through them and the moment he did, his head shot to the path that this clone had taken.

There was visible excitement on Kirou's face, an indicator of just the kind of treasure he found. He was so excited that he couldn't stop himself from speaking out loud after releasing a hearty laugh, "This group of bandits truly is a blessing in disguise. First, they allow me to obtain the first set of residents for the u003cShadow Palaceu003e and now they've given me such a wonderful present. I don't think even those big guilds have an area similar to this one when it comes to resource harvesting points. It's almost a shame that I'll have to kill those bandits the next time we meet. Almost."

Immediately following those words, Kirou's body instantly sank into the shadows, heading directly for the resource harvest point motherload that his shadow clone had found. He's definitely lining his pockets, er, inventory a bit before he returns to Elderwood Village to finish his quest.