Blake met with the Trading Guild’s newest recruits on the landing platform of the Silk Fans’ compound. They stood at the far edge, closest to the outer gate, with a few Core Formation guards standing behind them.

  Stone Moon and Blake gazed upon the crowd of recruits. “The goal,” Stone Moon said softly, “is to create a team to take multiple customers on multiple expeditions. You’re looking for candidates with practiced social skills and the ability to hunt monsters—to protect our clients if need be. All thirty of these potential recruits have shown an aptitude for tracking monsters.”

  Two days ago, Blake would’ve said that the clients didn’t need protection. After all, he was only a Foundation stage three (two yesterday morning) cultivator, and they were Core Formation. But with the way Lord Tomskar fought…Blake was almost certain he could’ve beaten the man with ease.

  And what if they’d gotten themselves into a bad situation just by not knowing the landscape?

  “And you think I’m suited for the task?” Blake whispered back to Stone Moon.

  But he knew exactly why they wanted him to pick: it was plausible deniability. If one of the recruits messed up, the Silk Fans could blame Blake instead of taking responsibility themselves.

  He was going to use that to his advantage and pick the ones best suited to work with him.

  Stone Moon replied, “We need recruits who will respond well to your instructions. And you know the lay of the land better than we do.”

  Blake nodded, then turned to face the line of potential recruits. There were about thirty of them, and he had to narrow it down to four. Most of them were young boys, anywhere from sixteen years old to eighteen, but there were a few young girls among them as well. Most of them had Foundation-tier rank seals, but a few still had Body Tempering seals.

  If what Stone Moon had said was true, then all the good monster hunters had already been snapped up by guilds and sects looking to get in on the business. Blake was left with the scraps.

  “Raise your hand if you’re from the ground,” Blake replied, pacing back and forth in front of the line.

  Only ten of them raised their hands, and they were all Body Tempering except one. Most of them were probably former Green Bears, because there was no way they wouldn’t have gotten involved with another sect by now.

  “Everyone else can go,” Blake said.

  “Are you sure?” Stone Moon whispered. “Mr. Blake, these are the weakest among them.”

  “You said it yourself,” Blake replied. “We need people who know the land.”

  He also needed the most downtrodden among them if he was going to make any headway, but he kept that to himself.

  He needed four recruits. Stone Moon or the other cultivators would probably make them fight amongst themselves, but that would only show him who was the most powerful.

  However, he’d talked with Ethbin about this beforehand. He was going to leverage the ring’s immense senses, even if it meant that Ethbin would have to recharge for a week afterward. He snapped his fingers, signalling that he needed Ethbin’s help without speaking or having to concentrate to send a thought over.

  “You will be handling Jarls,” Blake told the potential recruits. “I want you to imagine that I’m one of them.”

  The recruits all glanced hesitantly at each other.

  “What will you do if I tell you to bring me directly to a spiker alone?” Blake asked. “I want its claws. I want the rush of killing something stronger than any of the beasts I’ve ever fought back home.”

  “Is it stronger than any of the beasts back home, sir?” a young boy asked. Blake didn’t correct his word choice, even if ‘sir’ probably wasn’t right. “Shell has weak auras and a low concentration of mana, making it harder for our monsters to cultivate on their own.”

  Blake had wondered the same thing, but he gave the boy the same explanation Ethbin gave him: “They’ve hunted all their own monsters to extinction. There used to be much more powerful monsters on their planets, and greater, more adventurous Nords—and Umber-kin before them—hunted them. They cleared out the strongest, making safe cities and emptying the wilds. And in doing so, they stole all the crucibles for their future generations.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Stone Moon raised his eyebrows at the commentary, but he didn’t say anything.

  Blake was probably pushing it, but he didn’t need any of his recruits thinking he revered the Nords. If they were smart, they’d read the room and tell him what he wanted to hear. Ethbin would sense if they actually believed it.

  One of the recruits raised his hand. He said, “If one of our clients asked to see a spiker, I would refuse! It would be unwise and threaten his life. I would suggest that we hunt a lesser monster.”

  Good, and smart, but he doesn’t believe it, Ethbin replied. Despite his senses, Ethbin couldn't reach inside the recruit’s mind, but he could sense the boy’s heartbeat and mana fluctuations, and he could tell if the boy was lying or not.

  Blake nodded. He wasn’t going to dismiss any of these recruits yet, so they wouldn’t think they knew the right answer.

  A girl raised her hand. She said, “I would suggest that we find something weaker so I could judge the Jarl’s skill, and then I would lead him to the spiker if I thought he was capable of defeating it. If not, I would pretend that there were none in the area.”

  She believes what she’s saying, Ethbin told Blake.

  Most importantly, she clearly knew how to handle a Nord’s ego. He kept her in the back of his mind.

  Most of the recruits answered similarly to the first and second. Only two of them said that they would respect the Jarl’s wishes, and Blake immediately eliminated them in his mind. Of the remaining eight, only five actually believed what they were saying.

  Once Blake had narrowed it down, he dismissed all but the five who believed what they were saying. They were at least willing to go against their Jarls, and do it with a shred of integrity.

  “Are you sure that we should be selecting such rebellious candidates?” Stone Moon asked.

  “You took me, didn’t you?” Blake replied. “It’ll be worse if they let your client do something stupid and get both of them killed—especially for how your guild will look.”

  Stone Moon nodded. “I understand. But we are only looking for four of them at this time.”

  Blake had to eliminate one more from the crowd, and he needed to assuage Stone Moon’s concerns about their rebellious nature, all while advancing their own goals.

  “What would you do if you found out that one of your co-workers was conspiring against the Jarls or the Steerman to purposely injure, kill, or otherwise interfere with the government’s objectives?” Blake asked the five remaining candidates. There were three boys and two girls, and they all glanced around nervously.

  They knew what they were supposed to say, and they couldn’t just admit that they wouldn’t rat out their friends—not in public, at least.

  “I would report them to the Scaleslingers Sect immediately,” one of the girls said with utmost certainty.

  She’s lying. She’s good at hiding it, but she’s lying, Ethbin insisted.

  Blake wanted to grin, but he didn’t.

  All the other recruits gave him a similar answer: something about reporting the infraction to the Scaleslingers. Only one of them was telling the truth, and it was the second girl. Ethbin said, She believes it. She’s not even quivering. No rise in her heartbeat, not even a slight deviation of her mana. She’d rat you out to the regional government without a second thought and without any remorse.

  Blake nodded, then dismissed her. He turned back to Stone Moon and said, “These four.”

  “Very well. This is your team. I will show you to your office.” Stone Moon adjusted the cuffs of his robe and set off across the landing platform. “I will have a few forms for our new recruits to sort out, but you’ll have your recruits shortly.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Blake’s office was a small room just beneath his living quarters. There was only enough room for a single table, but he requested five chairs so he could seat all the recruits. Once they were settled, and once Stone Moon shut the door, he glanced over all of them. “Take a seat, please,” he said.

  The four recruits hesitantly obliged.

  Blake walked over to the door and stuffed a blanket under it. He couldn’t guarantee absolute privacy in this room. The Silk Fans might have placed a listening device, and Blake needed to talk with these recruits in private—true private, which wasn’t anywhere aboard the manaship. But hey, at least he’d made a show of giving them some shelter.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, “we’re going on a test expedition. We don’t have any clients for a day. I’m not concerned if you lot are the strongest or not. I’m looking for a good head on your shoulders and a knowledge of the land. Since you’re all from the ground, I think we have some of that covered.”

  And that way, he could speak to them without having to worry about anyone listening in.

  “For now, get acquainted with each other,” he told them. “You’re going to be spending a lot of time together, and we’re going to need to work well as a team.”

  The four of them sat formally, hands in their laps, all staring at Blake. He swallowed. “Whatever happens, I promise it will all start coming together tomorrow. Until then, sit tight. From this moment on, we’re going to work together. I’ll make sure nothing goes wrong. Got it?”

  He remembered the sensation of warmth that Ethbin would make settle on him. The instructive words that Wind-Eyes gave when training him, the subtle encouragement that Elder Ulfreld had just exuded from the way he moved.

  It was time for Blake to step up. He wasn’t going to get anywhere if he didn’t start acting like a leader.