Chapter 435: Scapegoats.
The spying array is usually used to gain the identity of the guests. Wealthy guests are secretly tagged and then attacked by the people from the Milton family after the auction.
This is a method that the Milton family used to gain another source of income. As long as they don't kill too many guests, no one will suspect them of foul play.
This person had been watching the guests and had recognized Arthur when he removed his mask to drink his beverage. So he informed the family, and they began moving into action.
Arthur has become somewhat famous among the people of the 5 sects and the 25 families now. Most of his fame is because of the inheritance he recently acquired and the bloodbath that ensued because of it.
There have been many stories and rumors circulating about the importance and value of his inheritance. The rumors have stoked public interest in his inheritance.
This particular heist is another consequence of the greed of others for that inheritance. The Milton family wants the inheritance, but they don't want to take action directly.
It is already bad enough that they spy on their guests. If word gets out about that and the fact that they attacked a disciple of the Blood Skull sect and took his inheritance, they will surely be destroyed.
They are not concerned much about revenge from the guests that they spied on. They are more concerned about revenge from the Blood Skull sect and the action of the other sects to recover the inheritance from them.
These two reasons are why they didn't decide to go up to Arthur and persuade him, either by force or with benefits, to share the inheritance with them. They want to keep the matter that they gained the inheritance a secret from everyone.
So they began to orchestrate a scheme. On the surface it will look like the auction was attacked by bandits and everyone participating in it was attacked too. This is why they are recruiting the robbers.
They themselves will attack Arthur and subdue him. But they want these robbers to take the blame for it. That's why they won't retaliate against the robbers for attacking the Milton family.
They will even let the robbers escape so that they will take the blame for the attack on Arthur. So while the person had sworn that the Milton family won't come after the robbers, he didn't tell them that the five sects might come after them.
This trickery made him chuckle to himself as he continued to watch Arthur. "What fools. They will die like the vermin of the cultivation world that they are, used and discarded to the wolves."
The woman nearby said, "They might not die if the Blood Skull sect doesn't know that Arthur came here and if his death remains a secret."
The man nodded and said, "That's true."
Then he shook his head and said in amusement, "But I don't know what I want the most. Either for the Blood Skull sect to know and to hunt down these folks who dare to offend our family and hope to get away with it, or that the Blood Skull sect doesn't know and everything tides over as some random attack at an auction."
The lady said, "I prefer the latter because only in that case will it be certain that we don't turn into daring fools that dare to attack the people of the Blood Skull sect and hope to get away with it."
The man became solemn after hearing what she said. He said, "Right. It is better to hope that all of these turn out to be some random attack."
He didn't like what she said and how she said it, but he had to admit that what she said was the truth.
Loose cultivators can be considered the vermin of the cultivation world. They rarely have complete techniques. So they are lacking in cultivation spells and techniques.
This means that even if they become lucky enough to acquire high cultivation, they will still be weaker than their peers. Sometimes, they will even be weaker than those with lesser cultivation from the families.
This situation puts loose cultivators at the very bottom of the hierarchy. This is mostly the case even if they are talented.
On top of the loose cultivators are the cultivation families like the Milton families. Most cultivation families have ancestors that are from sects, have people in sects, and are supported by the sects, so they have a complete inheritance of techniques up to the peak of the third mortal coil.
Some families even have techniques that can help them to cultivate up to the fourth mortal coil. The main thing that they lack is an environment with a high concentration of mana to cultivate in.
The availability of mana doesn't just affect cultivation speed, it also affects if cultivators will cultivate either the energy refining path or the body refining path or both.
It is obvious that anyone who wants to cultivate the energy-refining path in an environment with poor mana concentration is making a mistake because their speed of cultivation will be very slow.
But the more hidden and more important repercussion of poor mana concentration means that people won't be able to cultivate the two paths at the same time and will never be able to combine the advantages of both of them.
Everyone that is not a member of one of the five sects usually only cultivates body refining. They do this because of the lacking mana and because body refining can be sped up by consuming the flesh of animals and nutritional plants.
It is a smart decision for them to concentrate on body refining and neglect the path of energy refining. But this decision means they rely mostly on the power of their bodies and don't use spells.
So they are lacking an entire section of power that can be gained from spells such as flight spells and energy shield spells.