The Martial Unity

Area Crina was an area at the center of the Shadow Isles and as well as the name of an intelligence organization in that area established by the Crina Foundation. An organization set up by a wealthy businesswoman who had made it her life's goal to find the Silent Shadow. She set up a cooperative and charitable intelligence agency that cooperated and partnered with Martial Artists who also sought the Silent Shadow.

Apparently, most assassins that came to the Shadow Isles partnered with Area Crina to find the Silent Shadow.

No one why Chairwoman Crina cared so much to find the Martial Master, but she in a sense led the collective effort in the Shadow Isles to find the Silent Shadow.

Rui found this to be incredibly strange. Nonetheless, it was the truth. She was probably the reason that so many Martial Artists veered towards hunting for the Silent Shadow.

It took him quite a lot of time, but he finally reached the end of the totality of the investigative report and meta-analysis provided by the Beggar's Sect.

It gave him a good idea of what not to do.

In fact, he had come up with several rules.

First, he needed to forget about finding the Silent Shadow. It was hopeless. He was not arrogant enough to think that his individual efforts were enough to outmatch countless assassins, the Beggar's Sect, and Area Crina.

Second, he needed to get a good understanding of what it was that the Silent Shadow sought from her pupils. He was certain that she had some criteria, and it most likely wasn't just a matter of being a powerful assassin.

According to the Beggar's Sect, many particularly powerful assassins of even the Senior Realm had arrived at the Silent Isles nearly a decade ago and had yet to find the Martial Master.

If it was simply a matter of being powerful, then one would expect the top assassins in the Shadow Isles to be skimmed off as pupils regularly, but no such thing occurred.

He highly doubted it was a matter of age, experience, or any other specific performance parameter based on the data that he had just gone through.

There were many excellent Martial Seniors, Squires, and Apprentices across the Shadow Isles who had spent a long time searching for the Silent Shadow.

Yet not even the best of them that had spent a long time had been accepted.

That indicated a fundamental disconnect to Rui. According to his evaluation, the probability was not low that, as opposed to them being inadequate, there was a fundamental criterion that they had failed to satisfy.

Something that all of these elite assassins were failing to get right. At least, as far as the Silent Shadow was concerned.

His mind went back to his earlier hypothesis.

Assassins assassinated. They were specialists who were entirely dedicated to eliminating their targets.

Perhaps, true assassins ought to resort to their craft to solve their problems. Perhaps a true assassin ought to eliminate all the hurdles that impeded their path, rather than take a different path. Perhaps true assassins ought to accomplish their goals by eliminating those whose elimination would allow for their goals to be fulfilled.

"Professor, what was the Silent Shadow like when she was an active assassin?" Rui asked.

"That's going to charge you."

"Just put it on the tab."

"She was insane." The professor casually remarked without looking up from his work. "It was as though she was a thoughtless killing machine that could do nothing but kill. That did nothing but kill. That would always kill no matter what, who, when, where, or why."

He paused for a moment, recollecting. "There was once where she had caused a client some problems by killing too much, causing the client to suffer hostility from many powerful parties. Do you know how the Silent Shadow compensated for this problem?"

"...Did she kill everybody who had a problem with her overstepping?"

"Indeed. She even once tried to kill a Martial Sage who tried to pressure her into refraining from killing." The professor replied.

"I'm surprised she's still alive," Rui remarked.

"What is an even greater mystery is why she retired after two centuries acting as an assassin." The professor noted. "It doesn't make sense based on our profile on the Martial Master."

Rui narrowed his eyes. Regardless of why she retired, the professor's words about her modus operandi while she was active lent credence to his theory. An assassin who solved every single problem through assassinations probably would not approve of assassins not using their crafts to solve every problem.

However, the issue was that even if he did stumble onto something resembling the truth, how was it useful to him?

How could he possibly use assassinations to get closer to being accepted as a pupil by Master Reina Cara?

He highly doubted mass indiscriminate assassinations were effective. Based on what he heard, the Silent Shadow didn't kill if she didn't need to. That meant every killing needed to be purposeful.

In this case, full of the purpose of increasing the probability that he would be selected as a pupil.

Otherwise, the many assassins accepting commissions from the Derschek Region would all be worthy. But they weren't, those assassinations simply gave them the funds they needed for basic purposes.

They were not directly tied to being accepted by the Silent Shadow.

If his hypothesis was right, he needed to assassinate them with the direct purpose of finding the Silent Shadow or being accepted by her as a consequence of the assassinations.

'Maybe I should just assassinate all the assassins who seek to be her pupil.' Rui mused.

This way, there would only be one candidate for her to accept as her pupil. If she wanted to accept pupils, and she clearly did, then he would be guaranteed a spot.

'No, even better.' Rui smiled as an amusing thought entered his mind. 'Maybe I should kill everybody in the Shadow Isles. The last person standing will be the only person in the Shadow Isles I cannot kill; the Silent Shadow.'