With his plan to slap an Eternal Mark on the senior assassin and follow him back to Eight thwarted by his own hand, Asher simply stood there, wondering what was a good plan B. He did still have his mark on the younger assassin, so maybe not all was lost just yet.

Shrugging to himself, Asher absorbed the glowing sphere of shards, taking a look at his new notifications.

Distortion - lvl 22

Distortion - lvl 23

Comprehend - lvl 23

Sever the Thread - Lvl 3

Shards: 74,389

Damn, looks like the cell leaders were either given a serious stipend from Eight to work with, or this guy took a lot of different jobs. I'm not sure I want to know how many innocent people he had to kill to earn so many shards.

Almost just as surprising was the fact that Distortion had leveled up not just once, but two times, despite having already been evolved. From what Asher had gathered, skills became far more difficult to level after evolving them. The fact that it had leveled up twice from that one battle meant it had probably been close to leveling already, and that he truly had used the skill extensively during the fight.

Perhaps using the second-tier effect of the skill to deliver the killing blow played a part in that as well.

While he pondered that, a sudden idea crossed his mind as to how he could potentially salvage his ruined plan to use the senior assassin as bait. Deciding it was worth a shot at the very least, Asher crouched down and laid a hand on the fallen assassin. Even if he was dead, there was still a chance someone might bring his body back to Eight for the man to examine. With that in mind, Asher went to place an Eternal Mark on the man's body.

And violently heaved when he tried to place a sliver of himself into the corpse and found his skill had nothing more to give.

Eternal Mark - Lvl 16

Falling back onto his rear, Asher gasped for breath as he dismissed the notification, shuddering at the unpleasant sensation of his skill failing. It had felt like he'd tried to force himself to burp, only instead for someone to punch him in the throat.

"Well that sucked," he muttered, rubbing his stomach as he did a quick mental check of his different marks.

Brian and Samantha were situated within their cabin, no doubt sleeping based on the late hour. Rosh was tucked away in the tavern he was staying at, thankfully staying out of trouble by the looks of things. Kree was also within the separate tavern Asher had already paid for a week's lodging and meals for, having earned some well deserved rest after coming through for him with the location of the Guild's safehouse. Draken was unsurprisingly within his own manor, doing whatever one did while running the largest gang in the city. And the terrified assassin he'd marked earlier was currently hiding in some sort of bunker beneath his feet. Other than the thin line he himself had cut against the assassin's throat, each of the six people he'd marked were healthy and hale.

Not wanting to give up on his plan with the cell leader's corpse, Asher only hesitated a moment before dismissing the mark he'd placed on Draken. He already felt a tad bad about marking the man without him knowing and probably wouldn't have done so in the first place if he hadn't been caught off guard, so it made the most sense to remove that one. He wasn't exactly friends with the gang leader, but he respected Draken and felt like the man was something of a kindred spirit.

Now that he had an opening, Asher placed his hand on the dead assassin once more, this time successfully imbuing the body with his Eternal Mark. With any luck plan A would still work, just with a little bit of a twist.

Getting to his feet, Asher looked around the room, trusting in Secret Seeker to help him find his target. Sure enough, he felt his eyes unmistakably drawn to a thin rug, and a quick investigation led to the discovery of a hidden trapdoor underneath.

The Guild really likes their hidden basements, don't they?

Asher could sense the other assassin he'd tailed here hiding out within the bunker, so he put that on hold for a moment as he investigated the rest of the cell.

Other than the main room and the bunker, there really wasn't all that much to see. Unlike the safe house hidden within the second ring of the city, the cell was actually located all the way back within the first ring. The small, nondescript building was tucked away between a number of different workshops, and Asher bet they banked on the sheer amount of noise and commotion of the first ring during the day to keep everyone around them distracted.

There was a small storeroom filled primarily with food, a second room filled largely with cleaning supplies, and lastly, an actual office. Asher didn't have any doubts as to who the office belonged to, and he quickly got to work rooting around for anything of particular interest.

It didn't take long for him to spot the dossier sitting on top of the assassin's desk.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Picking up the papers, Asher blinked as he found himself staring at the blank-faced sketch of Crush. Reading through it in an instant with Incorporate and Comprehend, his eyes widened as he realized Eight had ordered the man he'd just killed to make an example out of Crush.

Why would Eight go after Draken? I thought Draken said he and the Guild pretty much had a silent agreement not to mess with one another.

Asher had only spoken with Crush briefly on a few occasions, but it was hard not to like the man. He was quiet and largely minded his own business, but he was surprisingly insightful and loyal to a fault. He knew he'd heard Draken mention off-handedly that Crush was basically his right hand, which meant Eight had to be trying to send a message.

Does this have something to do with why Eight tried to kill me as well?

Shaking his head, Asher tucked the dossier into his Personal Rift, making a mental note to hand it over to Draken when he was done here. He had no idea what the fallout of this was going to be, but with any luck, it would help turn Draken even more against the Guild and encourage him to take more of an active stand against their presence in the city.

Unfortunately, the rest of Leonard's office proved rather boring. Other than a shocking number of snacks hidden around the room, there really wasn't all that much of interest for him. Sure, there were files on each of the members of this cell of the Guild, which he promptly Incorporated and finally learned that the assassin's name he'd marked and tailed here was Jennifer, but that didn't exactly help him.

He was mildly surprised to learn that her origin element was Wheat of all things, and he decided he'd have to ask her about that in the event they ever had another face-to-face conversation.

He did, however, manage to find three simple bracelets tucked away in a small compartment at the bottom of Leonard's desk, each one inlaid with a small white gem. Immediately, he recognized them as being identical to the one Jennifer had been wearing, and his Identify confirmed his suspicions.

[Bracelet of Observation] - Allows the wearer the use of the Awareness skill (tier 1)

Snagging those for his own purposes, Asher decided to wait on testing the enchanted items until he was in a safer location.

Just as he was about to give up on the rest of the office and head back to the main room, Asher felt his eyes pull ever so slightly back toward Leonard's desk, despite having gone through all the drawers. Curious, Asher trusted in his skill as he ran his hands all over the desk, trying to find some sort of hidden latch or anything. But despite his best efforts, as far as he could tell, it was a totally normal wooden desk.

Secret Seeker - Lvl 17

Frowning at the fact that Secret Seeker was telling him there was something there, Asher shrugged and pulled out his mithral dagger. He had an actual axe now in his Personal Rift, courtesy of the Guild's safehouse, but he didn't want to risk damaging whatever was hidden inside the desk.

It took him a couple of minutes to carefully chip away at the wood, but eventually he managed to find the secret compartment.

Along with the thin vial of glowing blue powder hidden within.

Magadrine powder, he realized, immediately recognizing the powder that had killed him. His eyes widened as he gingerly picked up the vial and examined it, turning it this way and that as he admired the almost gentle blue glow. Unsurprisingly, his Identify just informed him it was [Unknown Powder], and Asher swore he'd work on getting that skill evolved next in the hopes it would become more useful.

He had no idea why one of Eight's own men was hiding some of his most famous poison, but whatever the case, it was his now. Shoving it inside his Personal Rift, Asher finally headed back out into the main room.

At this point, Asher had two paths available to him. He could either head down into the bunker and try to interrogate Jennifer some more, or walk away for now and hope that Eight collected Leonard's body to examine. There was always the chance that Jennifer ran off to one of the other cells to ask for help, but Asher wasn't in any position for another fight right now. While the gashes on his leg weren't too deep and had already started to heal, he was absolutely spent from using his skills so many times in a row. He knew from research and his own experience that the more he practiced the longer he'd be able to utilize his skills before running out of juice, but for now, he was at his limit.

His current stamina was already leaps and bounds ahead of where it had been when he first came to this world. Back then, he used to grow fatigued just using Astral Dip a couple of times in a row. Now, he was capable of running through tunnel after tunnel of distorted space and slipping into the astral repeatedly for a couple of minutes before he needed a breather.

After pondering his options for a moment, he decided to call it a night for now and keep his hopes pinned on plan A. Leonard had proven to be a far more dangerous opponent than he'd expected, and if the other cell leaders were just as deadly, he wanted to be at the top of his game for when he faced them.

It was a shame Leonard hadn't had any files on the other Guild cells or the senior assassin's leading them, but a small part of Asher realized he actually enjoyed not knowing everything his enemies were capable of. Though it would be nice at the very least to know what elements he was up against. Each one had enough possible skills tied to it that there would still be plenty of unknown to deal with.

The mere thought of fighting the other senior assassins and their mysterious elemental combinations made Asher's hands twitch eagerly in the direction of his daggers, and he sighed.

I've really got to get this whole battle-addiction thing under control. I wasn't supposed to kill him!

What was done was done. As annoyed as Asher was with himself, he tried to wash his hands of the original plan A and just focus on what came next. There wasn't any point in beating himself up over it, he'd just have to try harder to rein himself in the next time.

Nodding to himself, Asher went to leave the Guild building before realizing he should at least pretend to look for another secret room like the one within the safehouse. Rampaging around the room, he ignored the throbbing in his leg as he shoved furniture over and made a general mess of the place, even going so far as to loudly grumble to himself and bang his rusty dagger against the walls in a few places in the event that Jennifer had some way of hearing him. Once he was satisfied that the room looked properly trashed, he focused on the Eternal Mark he had on Rosh and activated Recall. Rosh was the closest person to Draken at the moment, and Asher wanted to warn the gang leader about Eight's hit on Crush before it was too late.

Naturally it was only after he'd dismissed the mark that he'd left on Draken that he needed to get to him.

As the world twisted around him and he suddenly found himself standing over a sleeping Rosh, who was smiling and clutching his new necklace in his sleep, Asher couldn't help but grin.

Now he just had to make sure his leg healed up enough that he didn't bleed all over Draken's fancy manor.

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