Secret Intelligence Scrolls

"The problem is that Lingling is still too young. I've done some investigating over the years myself, and what I found is that whatever can produce this kind of special soul mark is no ordinary creature. I didn't dare dig any further — because I started running into interference. The kind that put me in genuine danger."

Leng Qing's expression was grave as she spoke to Mo Fan.

Mo Fan was taken aback. *Leng Qing is a Deputy Chief Adjudicator — all that power and authority behind her — and even she can't crack this case?*

Then whatever could produce a dark-red soul was something truly terrifying. And from what Leng Qing had just said, one thing was clear: Lingling's father must have been an extraordinarily powerful hunter.

"So all this investigating Lingling's been doing..." Mo Fan said. "She's been throwing herself into hunting Demon-Beasts across the city, taking one bounty after another — all of it just to piece together scattered scraps of information?"

"That's right. My position is rather conspicuous. The moment I push too hard, certain forces lurking in the shadows will move against me. Lingling working independently — gathering clues from different Demon-Beast incidents — might actually be more effective. Once I get involved, things change. Evidence gets scrubbed. Anything relevant disappears without a trace."

Mo Fan frowned. He had a nagging sense that something far larger was buried beneath all of this.

But what worried him most, in the end, was Lingling's safety. If even Leng Qing admitted that following this trail could draw out forces hiding in the dark, wasn't Lingling — who was actively digging into those very forces — headed straight for a collision?

"Lingling isn't as fragile as you think. Let her handle it — even if we tried to stop her, she wouldn't listen anyway... She's only gotten as far as the dark-red soul at this point. It won't cause too much trouble yet."

Leng Qing's tone was casual, almost detached.

"Senior Leng Qing, it sounds like you actually know quite a bit more about all of this than you're letting on," Mo Fan said, studying her.

"And what if I do? Acting rashly before you're strong enough is just throwing your life away."

Leng Qing said nothing more on the subject. Mo Fan, on the other hand, found his curiosity thoroughly ignited.

He immediately set about researching Lingling's father. The discovery stopped him cold: Lingling's father, Qin Zhan, had been a Hunter King.

The only time Mo Fan had ever witnessed someone of Hunter King caliber was during the Scaled-Skin Demoness incident. He still hadn't forgotten the sight of that enormous cyan beast crashing down from above the stadium — that Hunter King had been genuinely awe-inspiring, radiating a presence so overwhelming it practically came with its own thunderous battle anthem.

For a Hunter King to have died under such murky, unexplained circumstances — what kind of nightmare hunt had he walked into?

The deeper Mo Fan dug, the drier the well ran. As only an Advanced Hunter, the Hunters' Alliance's publicly accessible records for his rank were limited.

He went to Professor Qiu Yuhua next, hoping to get some clarity on the question of soul marks.

A dark-red mark was utterly unique. If the mystery behind it could be cracked, it would almost certainly yield a powerful lead.

Unfortunately, even the seemingly all-knowing Professor Qiu arched an eyebrow at the mention of it, genuinely puzzled: a soul could actually be dark-red?

After all that running around and coming up empty, Mo Fan had no choice but to sell off the Battle-General-class Spirit Essence.

Keeping it wasn't going to produce any clues. Better to convert it to cash — he still hadn't secured a Contract Beast, and by all accounts, maintaining one was where the real money went.

The Vampire Spirit Essence fetched an excellent price — twenty-five million, straight off. A handsome sum.

Combined with what he'd received for the Armored-Shell Giant Lizard's carcass, Mo Fan now had roughly forty million on hand. A Contract Beast capable of truly holding its own typically ran upward of fifty million, but Mo Fan didn't have the luxury of waiting — strength was something you built as early as possible.

He picked what felt like an auspicious day. Mo Fan had always believed he was cut from protagonist cloth — the kind of person other people could spend loose change and somehow stumble home with a black dragon egg, an ancient phoenix egg, or a primordial world-devouring beast cub. Surely his own luck couldn't be that much worse.

"Zhao Manyan, what's going on over there? It looks like people are trading scrolls — don't tell me you sell Star Chart Books here?"

Mo Fan had been at the Zhao Clan's auction house when he noticed something unusual.

An auction was, by nature, an exclusive affair. Guest lists stayed short and lots were priced in the tens of millions without anyone flinching. It was never going to look like a street market.

But the hall at the back of the building was another story entirely. People streamed in and out in a constant flow, the noise and energy buzzing with life.

"Oh, those aren't scrolls for sale — that's the lottery section," Zhao Manyan said.

"The lottery? Don't mess with me — those are Mages in there, actually buying things."

"Here's how it works," Zhao Manyan explained. "Most officially posted bounties have solid sourcing behind them. Whoever files the bounty has to put up a formal guarantee and a commission with the Hunters' Alliance — it ensures that hunters who go after the target don't end up chasing thin air. But a lot of what people actually pick up while working out in the field is just rumors — half-formed leads that can't be verified. Information like that can't be filed as a proper bounty. So instead, people write it down in those scrolls and sell them at a set price."

"Seriously? People actually buy that?"

*Just random bits of gossip and hearsay,* Mo Fan thought. *The kind of thing you share over drinks, not package up and sell. Are Mages really so flush they don't know what to do with their money?*

"Brother, we live in the information age," Zhao Manyan said, casting a calm glance at the crowd flowing through the back hall. "Hunters don't just need to fight well — what they need is intelligence. Accurate, wide-ranging intelligence. And as you can see for yourself, there's quite a line of people who want it."

"It really is like buying lottery tickets, like you said. If the information checks out, you've hit the jackpot — saved yourself a fortune in verified intel and bounty registration fees. If it's fake or already outdated, you've just wasted your afternoon."

"Every Mage has a little spending money lying around, and everyone loves the idea of striking it lucky," Zhao Manyan said. "One Secret Intelligence Scroll doesn't cost much — you can grab a handful at once. Even if none of them have what you're after, you've at least learned something new. And if you're lucky enough to pick up two scrolls that point to the same lead, the reliability of that information shoots up dramatically. Moving first on it can pay out enormously — Spirit Seed Fragments, Spirit Seed traces, hunting grounds swarming with rare Demon-Beasts, zones with dense elemental energy that could be hiding rare natural treasures..."