Fabrication
Getting Shu to work for him turned out to be a superb idea on Edrick's part, he had not expected that the inner disciple would be so easy to convince, but the young man just could not get enough of Yaling, it seemed like giving him access to a pretty girl that wanted nothing more but some attention from the opposite sex was all that was needed to get him to accomplish tasks he certainly would have found questionable in the past.
For example, Shu did not wonder why Edrick asked him to forge the fact that Yi and Li had indeed exited the grounds of the sect as they should have, or why Anoteros wanted him to spread the word of the murderous sasquatch's death, the inner disciple wasn't even aware that the real beast that had slaughtered many was Edrick himself.
Currently, Anoteros was sitting atop a large rock protruding from the forest ground, surrounded by blood, though, not a trace of flesh was to be seen, all else that was present was the full skeleton of a mountain sasquatch that he had ambushed and killed, the skeleton bore the traces of what looked like a vicious conflict, one of its legs was partly severed, several of the ribs were cracked or broken, and its neck in particular had suffered lethal damage.
The beast bore many other injuries, however, such as marks left by arrows, or strikes from a thin blade… Anyone looking at these bones would believe that the sasquatch had fallen after a lengthy fight, and Edrick himself was covered in bruises and cuts, looking like he had been dragged through the forest and the trees.
Everything was a sham, however, a big fraud.
Most of the people who had seen the sasquatch and lived to tell the tale had been left somewhat traumatised by the encounter, and they certainly wouldn't be able to tell that the bare bones did not quite correspond to the stature of the creature that had attacked them, if they even showed up to look at the remains.
Naturally, Anoteros had feasted upon that sasquatch, and because of this, his face was covered in blood, even now, he could be seen picking the bones one by one and scraping out the marrow within them, the only deception he had done was to place white hair in between his teeth and over his clothing, he had been claiming that the sasquatch had turned from black fur to white fur after all, so he needed to be consistent and not show up with brown fur instead.
Indeed, he was planning on basically mixing this fabricated story with the real fact of his confrontation with the sasquatch lord, making it public that he had collected a bloodline as a result of devouring the beast, he was a man of noble descent after all, there was no harm in revealing that he indeed was a big deal and possessed good stuff.
In fact, as a direct descendant of a great clan, only good publicity could come from having a bloodline, he would keep the fact that he had a physique under wraps for a while longer, however, so as to avoid making the timing between those two great events too close to one another, he wanted to attract admiration and respect, not suspicion.
A branch cracked as someone approached.
"I see that you are alright, Edrick… Is this…?" it was none other than Yin, who was not as much of an unexpected visitor as she might believe herself.
"Indeed, the wanted sasquatch- I finally managed to get it, and well… As you can see, it seems like my technique wanted something from this guy, I ate everything before the corpse could even get cold! But I feel that I gained something from this" he replied with a chuckle, waving at the bones, who were incredibly clean, having been deprived of absolutely everything Edrick could feast upon, usually, he would crush and eat the bones too, but he needed some sort of proof.
"But what are you doing here?" he then asked.
Yin sighed, putting both hands against her hips.
"Hui said that you left for longer than usual, she got worried, so she went to fetch me… I told her that finding someone in the forest was easier said than done- But turns out I just had to follow the stench of blood, you left a rather long trail of combat in your wake, you know?" she replied with a shake of her head.
Edrick laughed slightly, Hui was usually a terrible actress, but it seemed like she was pretty convincing for this one time, he would reward her later.
"Well, as you can see, I just got caught in a little bit of snafu over there… Even with one leg nearly severed off, blood loss, and a mountain of other injuries from our previous clashes, that sasquatch was a problem until the end… I am certain he would have been for a worthy opponent for you, Yin"
"Perhaps… But this one was your prey, and anyway, you seemed to be the only one that could track this guy down"
"Heh, I'll let you in on a little fun fact, my Mountain Sasquatch Body technique was resonating with this guy the whole time... That was the only reason I was able to find out its whereabouts so consistently" Yin stepped closer, walking where there was no blood covering the ground.
"Are you severely injured?" she asked, seemingly not questioning his explanation.
"I don't think so, I feel full of power after eating this creature, in fact, I just got the wind knocked out of me after that fight" he rose from the stone, acting like he was hurt, moving to collect the bones into a bag he carried on his back.
Pulling some of the white fur stuck in between his teeth, he spoke up again :
"There was a bounty for this sasquatch, wasn't there? A pretty hefty one if I remember correctly" Edrick hadn't checked it in a long while, so he had no clue if it had increased or decreased since then.
"It is still up, and I think the city lord even said that he would invite the one who slayed the creature for dinner at his residence, I don't know if they'll accept this proof, though" Yin helped Anoteros, who was feigning injury with such talent that he probably should have considered an acting career in his previous life.
Luring people into death traps and ambushes required a certain amount of proficiency in that craft after all!
"Dinner with the city lord, huh?" just as he said this, the system popped up in his vision.
*I just so happen to have some quests that relate to this!*
'Do you? You can tell me about them, but I definitely will be doing them after the tournament, I'll focus on completing the quests I have for Oie and the sect once that matter is out of the way…'