As soon as the first young master left, the two branch leaders exchanged a glance, before the second branch leader spoke.
"Do you think he is telling the truth?"
"I think so. What about you?"
"I am more inclined in believing him, but we didn't watch over him properly when he was forging in the core area. That is why I couldn't dismiss all of my suspicions on him."
Both of them became silent. It is apparent that they are still suspicious of the first young master. After all, he is the only person that survived an attack that took the lives of around two dozen Astral Plane transcendent cultivators and an Astral Plane Consummate cultivator. This is not something believable.
Granted that they can assume that the other force might have suffered some mutual destruction and retreated and this guy only managed to survive through sheer luck, in their opinion, it is a bit farfetched to think so.
After some silence, the second branch leader said.
"All these years, he was not suspicious at all. If he really had a hand in this, there could only be two options. One he is here is for revenge and hid perfectly with patience and two he was tempted by something to create this destruction. But none of his actions support the second one, except for the fact that he survived that attack.
As for the first one, let us go through the records of his origin and any possible events that could have matched with his arrival here and see if there are any possibilities. If there are no serious anomalies, we will proceed further."
"Okay, but we cannot completely dismiss his claims, we need to interrogate the guards and Prash. I would summon them to the office, while you check the records, based on the results of the records, we can decide on the method of interrogation."
Both agreed and went on with their tasks.
The second branch leader went through the records of the first branch with help of his personal disciples, while the third branch leader invited the two elders, the guards, and Prash to his office.
He asked some random questions regarding the incidents concerning them and as for Prash, he only asked about any possible changes of the young master, which could evoke suspicions of any kind.
While he is asking different questions and making them wait there, the second branch leader came by afternoon and nodded his head indicating there is nothing wrong with the First young master.
He looked through all the information. The first young master is a son of a good blacksmith of the organization, but his father doesn't have any talent in puppet making but has good enough weapon-making skills. His mother is also a weapon smith and he was born in the organization.
All the expertise he gained in puppet making is through sheer hard work. His contributions to the organization are five times more than the remaining two young masters. He was really surprised when he saw all this.
This information was hidden by the first branch leader as he was afraid that the other two branch leaders will poach him. After all, they only compete in who has the best branch, and disciples count as a part of the branch and even the most prestigious one at that.
Now that he saw the records, he can confidently exclude the young master from the suspicions.
The third branch leader looked at the group and his smile turned ten times colder than usual. His attitude changed in a second and he immediately sent them to the cells.
Sent is not too appropriate to use in this context. They were dragged to their cells.
The Branch leaders don't know whether the elders and guards have soul seals, but they didn't want to risk it and lose precious information so the torture began.
Kiran who is disguised as Prash went through the torture. Currently, he is an Astral Plane Transcendence cultivator, but he is posing as an Astral Plane Pre-transcendence cultivator, there is no way he could die from this torture and he wouldn't even break under that pain in way possible.
But it is incredibly annoying and irritating. He also needs to act. Now he understood why said that he would be taking a beating and he also understood why Sam wanted him to learn the expressions of Prash when he was experiencing pain.
He has to act like he was being tortured and struggling. He felt like he was ripped off by accepting this only for a single glass of heavenly wine, he should have gotten another small pitcher.
He didn't say anything to the branch leaders. After all, Sam still didn't give him any orders on how to proceed from the hereafter.
While he is thinking about how long he should be doing this, Sam is looking through the information of various criminals inside the prisons of the Puppet Organization.
A large organization such as this is bound to have enemies and they are bound to be imprisoned as sometimes they are not worth killing and would be saved for executing on a grand occasion and some of them are worth too much to kill just like that.
They could be exchanged for ransom or they might be having a lot of information in their hands which could be helpful. That is not all though, some of them are here because of the personal grudges of some high-level people in the organization without any proper reason.
Sam is going through their profiles. And some of them garnered his attention. Some of them are indeed cold-blooded criminals who have decent cultivation and some of them are of enemy organizations.
He could think of many plans.
After going through all of these things, Sam finally decided on what to do. He contacted the first young master and Arkiv to give the instructions.
The evening, the first young master and Arkiv went to visit 'Prash' in the prison. But they were not allowed to visit him by themselves, they have to visit in the presence of an elder.
The First young master looked at 'Prash' in the cell and said with a trembling voice.
"Why do you have to do this?"
"Do what?"
'Prash' said casually.
"Why do you need to be a traitor? I treated you like my brother and this is how you backstab me? You destroyed the entire first branch."
'Prash' stayed silent and looked away.
The first young master took a deep breath and said in a calm tone.
"Whatever it is the reason you did this, I wouldn't ask again. But I am telling you, it is time for you to let it out and speak. I can at least grant you a painless death like that. But if you insist on it, you would be subjected to more torture.
I bought you some time and there would be no torture exactly until midnight. So, at least by midnight, or even at the midnight, talk."
'Prash' just didn't bother and let him talk. After a few minutes, the first young master and Arkiv left with the Elder.
Kiran who was sitting in the cell suddenly became serious as he meditated. The interrogator didn't come for the rest of the day and he was left alone in the cell. When the next torture session at midnight started for the rest of the inmates, he was the only one left inside.
At that moment, he started taking some deep breaths and after some effort, a quail egg-sized purple crystal came out into his mouth.
This is the Thunder Phoenix divine dimension and Sam sent it to him the day before.
He took out a small device which as soon as he activated gave a very faint and gentle energy wave and after that, it pointed out towards a corner.
He went to that corner and placed the device back in before taking out a noise-canceling formation and activating it and taking out a communication device.
"Hello, Boss. You said to take a beating, there is nothing in our deal regarding the torture."
He said in an extremely low voice.
Sam directly ignored the comment and said.
"There are some small insect puppets inside the divine dimension, there is something I want you to do. Listen carefully…"
With that Sam carefully explained everything that Kiran needs to know and asked.
"Do you understand?"
"Yes, but for my payment…"
"I will give you a bonus after the mission is over, but if you annoy me again I will kick your ass. Check the communication device after every torture session. I will be in touch with that."
With that, the communication was cut off. Kiran threw the communication token back into the divine dimension and took out a crystal tab in which he saw some information regarding his task. He was done studying and he threw it back into the crystal also removed the noise-canceling formation disc and threw it in before swallowing the crystal again.
Due to his disguise ability, people wouldn't be able to see what exactly inside with just normal spiritual energy scanning. They would need to use the observation ability of Sam or some high-level healing ability.
After he was done, he waited for the rest of the inmates to come in. When they were dropped off at their cells. He moved forward and spoke to the inmate in the cell directly opposite to him.
"Hello, Markan. How are you doing?"
Kiran asked in an extremely low tone, but the person opposite to his cell was surprised by Kiran's sudden greeting.
