“Since you are already here, I could rent you rooms on the third floor. Unfortunately there are only two left – capital has become too busy with the tournament.” Old man sighed, but his lively eyes showed how much he appreciated the good business during such times.

“That won’t be a problem, our master will have the best room possible while I and my brother will stay in the second one.” Nick smiled in return.

“Good. Is there anything else you would like? This is the place where you can buy the most accurate and up to date information in the capital.” Nazir obviously wanted to milk his new customers as much as possible.

“We don’t lack funds.” Nick put a small sack of gold on the table, “But to avoid any misunderstandings, it would be proper if we agree on prices.”

“Of course!” The old man nodded, “Ten gold for each room per night and you’ll pay for the next month in advance. The information about most notable participants I’ll gladly present you as a welcoming gift. After all, this is the best inn in our capital and we must take care of our guests appropriately.”

‘The hell? This is a robbery in a broad daylight!’

Nick was inwardly shocked, but out loud said, “That is fine as well, it’s not that expensive if our master’s room has a nice view on the castle and the river. In addition, from your friend in Berin we understood that the emperor from time to time goes in a kind of retreat. Do you know when he will have the next one?” He decided to test out waters as soon as possible.

“This is no secret. Everyone knows how much the emperor loves Qi cultivation and frequently goes in closed door training, it is the key to his immortality after all. He recently came out to enjoy the upcoming tournament and personally reward the participants and probably will have the next training session soon after that.” Nazir shrugged.

‘I still haven’t had the time to read the report on emperor, this seems to be a public knowledge in Nestri empire that the emperor goes into frequent retreats. But to have one every month – it looks like this brother of the grand elder is in much worse condition.’ Nick pondered after getting the most important piece of news.

“May I ask, are you planning to participate in the tournament as well? Your master apparently can’t since he is already a Qi master, but may be you will?” Nazir smiled, “There are many opportunities to earn extra gold during the competition even if someone is already rich. You can never have too much gold, you know.”

‘Damn! I haven’t read the information on the tournament either!’ Nick wanted to kick himself. Theoretically he could’ve found few minutes of spare time to read the documents old man gave him in Berin, but every single time he chose to practice his Qi instead.

“My brother and I are considering to fool around there to our master’s enjoyment. He likes to gamble from time to time, especially when it is sparring between us both.” Nick thought of random things and immediately shared them.

“Oh, in that case our friendship could become much closer.” Old man looked at Clayton while still smiling.

“Let’s not talk about it for now.” Nick interrupted him, “We had a long trip and would like to rest, could you please ask someone to show my master to his room? Also, could you recommend a good tailor shop nearby? These simple traveler clothes don’t suit my master at all.”

Since someone took them for moneybags, Nick gladly allowed it. Soon Clayton could have his ‘deserved rest’ and Nick went out to relieve Steven from his boring duty and share the good news. Clayton, on the other hand, ordered a ton of food and started to study the reports on the emperor and the upcoming tournament. They still had few sacks and chests of gold and didn’t intend to be frugal.

Some color finally returned to Steven’s face when he heard Nick whispering ‘safe for at least fifteen days’. Even though he hadn’t seen his wife for a whole month, hearing she is fine for now was a big relief.

When it finally was their turn to sign up, Nick didn’t allow Steven to do so, but only registered himself as ‘Dash from the Lion mercenaries’.

His reasoning was simple – if one day Conny found out that Nick let Steven take part in a competition where he could die from accident, Nick would immediately have an ‘accident’ himself. Therefore Steven had no choice but to reluctantly accept the ban. Still, he would have a lot of work to do – there was a ton of investigation and planning needed if they were to smuggle few girls out of the castle, thus he wouldn’t be bored at all.

Also, Nick chose the random name ‘Lion mercenaries’ just in case they had to use their ‘Southern mercenary group’s’ name in the future and it would remain ‘clean’.

While he was waiting, Clayton didn’t waste time as well. When the two youths returned, he quickly gave a short report on his findings while all three of them had their best meal in months.

Emperor Osman, also called ‘Immortal emperor’, was the ruler of the Nestri empire as long as anyone could remember. He loved the Qi practice and that was told to be the reason for his eternal life span. His second passion was fighting, or rather watching others fight, therefore there were regular tournaments organized in capital.

Despite being quite cruel, he still recognized young talents and the Mercenary competition that was held at this time was a bi-annual event where he chose the strongest youths to groom for his army or castle's forces. That was why all the participants had to be only Qi practitioners under the age of twenty five. There were regular tournaments for Qi masters as well, but those often involved fights to the death and to entice participants, had extremely generous prizes while the current tournament mostly promised bright future for the young talents.

There was another passion emperor had – he loved young beautiful women and it was said that his harem consisted of tens of thousands of them, but they never left the castle therefore no one knew the exact number. There was no more useful information in the report they had, but the old man has scribbled few barely visible words on it: “Immortality? Or technique? Females – alive?”. He obviously took quite a risk there, but Nick did ask for his own opinions and rewarded generously for those as well.

Even if the information in report was mostly superficial, it still confirmed their assumptions and the fact that the emperor will go in seclusion only after the competition relieved the huge pressure they had, at least for now. It was clear that the girls were already inside the castle, but the problem was how could they get in and then out, obviously.

Castle was well guarded and on an island as well, in addition, they had no idea about the layout or patrols inside. It was clear they would have to approach this situation step by step.

The second part of Clayton’s report was on the competition and it was the clearest demonstration of the emperor’s love for cruelty.

During the latter stages of competition, the participants would fight using wooden weapons. Sometimes that would result in few broken bones, but there was nothing directly dangerous since the emperor wanted to protect the ‘good seeds’.

The ‘fun’ part was during the earlier elimination rounds, when participants used real weapons and it made these rounds to have an actual ‘elimination’ element. Thus at least three quarters of the participants were expected to die, but despite that the fame and future prospects gathered youths from all over the empire time and time again.

The top eight finalists would get invited to the castle for further training and this was were the trio saw some hope on how to solve their problem. If Nick could get inside the castle, with his nimbleness and stealth skills he might be able to find the girls quickly enough.

Thus they decided on their respective tasks. Nick would mostly concentrate on the competition while Steven and Clayton would organize and prepare their escape routes. They had to check possible paths off the castle island, out of the city and then to some harbor town or city from where they could leave the continent. Also, there had to be several alternative plans to choose from in case of unexpected surprises.

The trio discussed, but in the end decided against asking help from Nazir. There were too many risks involved and it was unlikely he could help them to get inside the castle which was the main problem. May be he could provide information regarding layouts and may be patrols, but Nick was confident in quickly assessing those himself as soon as he got the appropriate access.

The tournament was planned to start four days later and it was plenty of time for Nick to get back to his prime condition. He decided to not waste any moment and to not research the other participants for now, since there were notable only around twenty people and it was statistically unlikely for him to meet any of them in preliminaries.

While rushing from Rolum to the capital he had some time to think and after considering madam Salma’s advise, he started to follow it and used Qi manipulation in every single one of his actions. Thus, for example, while performing one of his three, or rather, four Qi techniques, he still tried to infuse Qi in his hand or palm if he was going to pick up something. It was hard from mental perspective and not that difficult regarding Qi usage – the amount of Qi he had was almost comparable to some weaker Qi masters and his ability to manipulate it was even better. It did help that he started to practice similar way of doing things back in Aurora few years back, but this time there were more nuances involved and the process required more concentration.

The first two days he was mostly practicing alone and his friends came to exchange new information only during dinner when all of them brainstormed by making break in and escape plans.

It was the evening of the third day when Steven rushed in to their room while almost out of breath, “Come, fast! We accidentally spotted three people from the Holy Order! One of them even has the hooded robe you told us about – it’s definitely one of the elders!”

Both Clayton and Steven wanted to save the girls as soon as possible, therefore they spent as little time for sleep as possible. But after learning the threat that Holy Order presented not only for the Sun kingdom, but for the whole Mainland continent, they knew where their priorities lied and approved Nick’s actions when encountering them earlier with Scarlet.

And now, when they spotted this threat again, they followed them to discover that the Holy Order had a residence here, in Olava. Of course, it was no big surprise for them now since they knew that the former grand elder was emperor’s brother, it even helped them to take this situation more seriously.

It was already dark and both youths covered themselves in dark cloaks while Nick sprinkled them with his stealth powder.

The Holy Order’s residence was on the opposite side of the river, in approximately fifteen minutes walking distance from the Riverside inn. It was two storeys high and looked quite luxurious with large windows and beautiful front doors. Clayton was standing nearby, hidden in the shadows.

“We saw only three of them, one was in the hooded robe, just like you described.” When Nick arrived, Clayton repeated what Steven said earlier, “I noticed only a couple of servants through the windows, but nothing more. Any suggestions what should we do?”

Nick thought for a while and then said, “If this was an open space like that settlement near the desert, you would be most suitable for infiltration. But since it’s in the city, I’ll check it out. If any of the robed people leave, follow them and may be kill in the dark if you can without being noticed. I’ll be back before sunrise.”