"Then nothing exciting happened until the Athamanas showed up at the beginning of the school year. The rest is all what you know too." Mark shrugged when he reached the end of their story.
"You said Shadow. What is that Shadow?" Kamu asked with a serious look.
"The Shadow!" A voice suddenly spoke from the door, and everyone turned towards him.
"Ah, Biaskoncy." The deputy director of Floating Air Barracks smiled.
"That Biaskoncy?" The chán boy turned towards his friend with a surprised face.
"Did I tell you about another?" Mark raised his eyebrows in question.
"No." She Tao thought for a moment.
"So you also know what that Shadow is. Would you enlighten me too?" The leader of the Immortal Mist interrupted the conversations. "Ajtony?" He glanced at the poison-mixing ghost.
"Hey, don't look at me. I have no idea!" Ajtony raised his hands defensively.
"What do you mean you don't know? I wrote a report on them since they are a spy organization. I've had to throw two of their people out of our ranks in the last hundred years." The current Vietryk of the Immortal Mist grumbled.
"Now I understand why I don't know what it's about!" Ajtony grinned. "Your reports are too dry for me to read." He shrugged.
"She Tao, didn't I tell you not to poke the Mist?! And you sent three of our men here!x Mark joined the argument and turned to his friend with his arms folded in front of him.
"I was curious." The chán boy spread his arms wide, then shrugged. "You said almost nothing about them. I wanted to know how good they were. I apologized for the first one, I told them not to try again. But they still don't listen to me like they do to you." The chán explained.
"Three? I only found two!" Biaskoncy's hands clenched into fists.
"To tell the truth, I sent the third one." Mark admitted, a faint smile on his lips. "I was surprised that the Ishán didn't notice him immediately when he set foot in the center." He glanced at Kamu. "But it seems the rumors were true and you really haven't appeared in the last hundred years." He shrugged.
"You didn't notice?" The Vietryk looked accusingly at his Ishán, but Kamu just shrugged.
"I noticed him immediately when we arrived. I didn't say anything because I thought you knew about him and just let him stay where he was." He waved at the end of his sentence. "But I think this conversation is over here. I've learned everything I was curious about. I'll let you go, because you haven't harmed us so far and I haven't seen the abilities of the Mist from anyone outside except you. I hope it stays that way. I trust that you know what you'll get if you get on my bad side." Kamu looked seriously into Mark's eyes, and the deputy director nodded.
"I'm aware of it, Ishán." He said in a calm voice, then stood up.
"We won't escort you out. You know the way." Kamu smiled and when Mark nodded, they continued. "We'll see you later, Shadows." He bid them farewell and watched the pair leave. "Spies?" Kamu glanced up at Biaskoncy.
"Yes. They got their name from their most famous technique. It's something like the Mist, only the user melts into the darkness. The previous Vietryk experimented with something like this before his death." The current Vietryk told him, and Kamu nodded.
"I understand. Go find their spy." As soon as the Ishán said this, the Vietryk immediately left the room, and Ajtony sat down on the table.
"How much of their story do you think was true?" The sword ghost asked thoughtfully.
"How should I know? I didn't find them that interesting. They won't harm us." Kamu shrugged.
"You're right. Although I'm surprised that you let their spy stay here." Ajtony looked suspiciously at his friend, but at first he only got a questioning look in response.
"You let them be here too. They do their job well anyway, as long as they don't get in our way, they can stay. Then, if there's a chance of trouble, we can always make a new Mist out of nothing, right?" Ishán of the Immortal Mist asked, and his friend laughed.
"You're absolutely right about that!" Ajtony agreed. "Come on, I'll show you what I've been up to lately." He jumped off the table and headed for the door to lead Kamu to his lab.
Meanwhile, Mark and She Tao left the Immortal Mist headquarters and walked silently back to Floating Air Barracks. There, to the office where they usually met when She Tao felt like visiting his best friend for a shogi match or just for a simple chat.
"Promise me you'll never put me through such a summoning circle again. I still have a headache from not knowing where I was." The chán boy pressed his forehead as he threw himself onto the small sofa in the room.
"Believe me, I don't plan on visiting the Mist again." The deputy director of Floating Air Barracks shrugged.
"By the way, if that guy in blue was the Ishán, why did you lie to him? Everything except our meeting was a lie. I have no intention of taking over the world, we were just bored and decided to form a spy organization. We're playing. There was no talk of world domination. It's not that it didn't come in handy that the Grand Leader decided to visit the amcestors and I could take his place, but it's more of an information-gathering convenience than a tactical move. And what's the point of giving Chájna to the Athamans? Not like I have a problem with it, they can take it for all I care, but then I don't understand you either. Aren't you worried that he'll find out?" The Grand Leader of the cháns continued, but Mark just laughed at his words.
"Then let's start at the end. I'm not worried. We're not that interesting to him so that he would come after us. I've worked very hard to make the Shadow uninteresting to the Mist. That's why they don't notice my spies outside of the Ishán, our people have received almost complete Mist training." Mark explained.
"Is that what you mean, by the 'if you don't get in their way, they'll leave you alone' thing?" The chán's boy asked.
"Exactly, A-Tao." Mark chuckled. "As for the Athamanas and the lies. I've thrown our game a bit. It's more exciting if the Ishán knows about us. Today, he was with the Athamanas at the Cup and from what I saw the day before, he's very close to the Athamanas. By mentioning our connection with the Athamanas, I managed to get him to take notice of us. That way, he finds the Shadows interesting enough to know about us, but not enough to look into us." The man sat down on the couch next to She Tao.
"What if we do end up making them angry?" The younger cultivator asked.
"Than we are dead, my dear friend." Mark nodded.
"Hurray." She Tao pressed his palms to his eyes. "All right, you can have the Immortal Mist, I admit I lost." He stuck out his tongue at Mark, which made the man laugh.
"Don't be grumpy A-Tao. I had a positional advantage, I know their system. You knew the Grand Leader's troops better, there were many more of your people among his advisors than mine and if it weren't for you, I wouldn't get anywhere near him." The man chuckled.
"Let's make it a draw. Which organization will we integrate next?" The younger' eyes sparkled.
"South? Or the Razsians?" Mark tilted his head to the side.
"South! The Razsians are almost impossible to meet. So is it like usual?" He held out his hand to his friend.
"Usual." Mark shook his hand. "The one with the most people in leadership positions wins. And if we find out anything interesting, it goes to the Library." Mark grinned.
"I love our game!" She Tao laughed.